V.S. Lectures, No. 73

THE AENEID IN DANTE’S EYES A lecture delivered to the Society 23rd October 1965 by Barbara Reynolds, M.A., Ph.D.

It has been said that if Virgil had been told about Dante he would not have understood him in the least. This is very likely; but I think that if Dante were to hear what we now make of the Aeneid, or rather, what we no longer make of it, he would be equally perplexed.

What Dante made of the Aeneid can be judged from The Divina Commedia. Artistically, the Aeneid is distributed over Dante's entire work. It is not simply that he based the journey down into Hell on the sixth book of Virgil's epic, but throughout the three cantiche, Inferno, and there are innumerable echoes and reminiscences, some deliberately and significantly placed, others less obtrusive and almost involuntary, suggesting that Dante's mind was permeated with Virgil's poetry.

The importance of the Aeneid for Dante's Commedia cannot be separated from the importance of Virgil. At the risk of repeating what may already be well known to you, I will recall the role which Virgil plays in Dante's poem and the manner in which he is introduced into the action.

Emerging from the dark wood in which he has been lost Dante tries to climb a sunlit mountain, but his way is impeded by three wild animals, a leopard, a lion and a wolf, which frighten him back down the slope. And there, at once, he sees a figure, who seems at first unable to speak through long silence..... chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco. Dante is not certain whether it is a living man or a phantom but he calls to him for help. Miserere di me, gridai a lui, qual che tu sii, od ombra od uomo certo. It is Virgil, who reveals himself not directly by name, but as the son of Mantuan parents, and a poet who lived in Rome in the time of Augustus, who sang of ..... quel giusto figliuol d 'Anchise che venne da Troia poi che il superbo Ilion fu combusto.

Dante's response to this astounding announcement is, I am sure, well known to you: "Are you that Virgil, that source from which there flows so great a stream of speech? 0 light and honour of the other poets, letplead for me t.'ie great love and zeal that have long kept me studying your work. You are my master, you are my author; you alone are he from whom I derived the beautiful style for which I am honoured.' "Or sei tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte che spandi di parlar si largo fiume?" risposi io lui con vergognosa fronte. "O de gli altri poeti onore e lume, vagiiami il lungo studio e il grande amore che m'ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume. Tu sei lo mio maestro e '1 mio autore; - 2 -

tu sei solo colui da cu' io tolsi lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore." I will return later to these words of Dante's, but let us note in passing that the difficulty of the 'bello stile" is still unresolved. We are at the beginning of the Commedia, in Canto I; what use has Dante made so far of the style he has borrowed from Virgil? If these words came at the end of the Commedia, instead of at the beginning, there would be no difficulty.

But this is by way of parenthesis. As you know, Dante accepts Virgil as his guide through Hell and up to the Mountain of Purgatory, to the Garden of Eden, where, at the appearance of Beatrice, Virgil unobtrusively departs, returning to Limbo, to rejoin the company of other poets of antiquity.

Virgil is more than guide; apart from his allegorical significance, which is undergoing new interpretations nowadays, he is also Virgil the poet. As such, within the narrative of the poem, Dante does him great honour. First, in the action preceding the first canto - in the ante-fatto, Beatrice, we learn, has visited Virgil in Limbo, and has persuaded him to go forth to help Dante. She appeals to him as a master of language - "fidandomi nel tuo parlare ones to che onora te e quei che udito l'hanno;" she bids him with his 'parola ornata' help Dante in his predicament. Then when they reach Limbo, Dante relates how Virgil is greeted in stately honour by four fellow poets, Homer, Ovid, Horace and Lucan, a solemn and unforgettable reception-committee who welcome Virgil back after his visit to the world above. Of the character Virgil, the protagonist created and developed by Dante, I will say little, not because I think this aspect unimportant, but because if I once entered on it there would be too much to say. Indeed the human interest of the characterisation of Virgil is one of the most endearing features of the Commedia as a narrative and a work of art.

Although the theme of Virgil develops throughout Inferno, Purgatorio is really the cantica in which Virgil the poet comes into his own. After the initial false start in his encounter with Cato, in which his excess of eloquence and courtesy involves his embari'assment and even in some degree of humiliation, Virgil is the personality, and at moments, especially at two moments, of greater interest to the souls on the mountain than Dante.

The first occurs in Canto VI of Purgatorio when they meet . Like Virgil, Sordello was a Mantuan, and the one word "Mantova", uttered by Virgil, who has not yet revealed his identity, is sufficient to bring Sordello towards him with arms outstretched, saying: "o Mantovano, io son Sordello della tua terra!’ and they embrace each other. Then after three or four such demonstrations of affection Sordello draws back and asks, "who are you?" And Virgil replies "io son Virgilio . Now the amazement of Sordello is great indeed, and when he can bring himself to believe that Virgil really stands before hiu, he stoops and embraces him round the knees and says: "o glory of the Latins, through whom our tongue showed forth its power, 0 eternal honour of the place from which I come, what deserving or what favour shows thee to me?" - 3 -

"0 gloriande’ Latin' disse, 'per cui mostro cio che potea la lingua nostra, o pregio etterno del loco ond'io fui, qual merito o qual grazia mi ti mostra?" Tie fact that Dante is a living man, visiting the world of the dead before his time, is here kept in the background. Virgil now is the centre of attention and of the action.

This is a preparation, a proto-type, of the great scene where Virgil and DR.nte meet Statius. Here the theme of Virgil the poet, to which so many tributaries have converged, swells to a broad stream, and all that Dante under­ stood and felt concerning Virgil is brought into focus. The poet Statius completes his penance on the fourth cornice of Purgatory just as Dante and Virgil pass by. Having spent twelve hundred years on the mountain his soul is now liberated and he follows the travellers in their upward climb, remaining with them until they reach the Garden of Eden and partaking with Dante in the ablutions in the two rivers, Lethe and Eunoe. Questioned by Virgil as to who he is, Statius replies that he lived in the time of Titus and was a poet, though not at first a Christian. His major work he wrote on the history of Thebes, the Thebaid, and then began a second on the story of Achilles, but never finished it. Tie inspiration for both these epics was that divine flame from which more than a thousand poets have drawn light, namely the Aeneid: "A1 mio ardor fuor seme le faville, che mi scaldar, della divina fiamma onde sono allumati piu di mille; dell'Eneida dico, la qual mamma fummi e fummi nutrice poetando."

He says this without realizing that it is Virgil to whom he is speaking. And he continues: if only I could have lived in the world when Virgil did.' Indeed I'd gladly have spent another year on Purgatory, if that could have been m3' fate: E per esser vivuto di la quando visse Virgilio, assentierei un sole piu che non deggio al mio uscir di bando." The comedy of the situation is too much for Dante. Virgil turns to him at once with an expression which commends silence, but Dante's merriment and joy cannot be suppressed; laughter shines in his eyes, which Statius at once perceives and he asks: "Why did your face gleam with mirth just now?" And there stands Dante, caught between Virgil who has signalled to him not to reveal the truth and Statius who requires an explanation. Virgil relents and Dante makes what must be, within the narrative, hismost momentous utterance so far: "This man, who guides me upwards, is Virgil, that very Virgil from whom you drew power to sing of men and gods. Statius was already stooping, before Dante had ceased speaking, to embrace Virgil's feet.

It is not only the Aeneid from which Statius has learnt. Since he is in Purgatory and destined for Paradise, it follows that Statius died repentant and a Christian. Virgil now asks him how he came to be converted and Statius makes his momentous reply. Here Virgil's relationship to Christianity, as Dante and his contemporaries saw it, is made plain. In his fourth eclogue, Virgil fore- - 4 - telling the birth of a wondrous progeny, seemed to his mediaeval readers to be unconsciously foretelling the birth of Christ. Dante imagines that Stitius, reading this eclogue, was brought to the true faith.Powerless to illumine Virgil himself, this poem nevertheless illumined others, asthough Virgil, like a torch bearer in the night, illumined the path of those who came after him, though walking on in darkness himself: "Tu prima m'inviasti verso Parnaso a ber nelle sue grotte, e prima appresso Dio m'alluminasti. Facesti come quei che va di notte, che porta il lume dietro e se non giova, ma dopo se fa le persone dotte."

This is not the last glorification of Virgil but it is the most central, and the most generally significant.

The Aeneid is shown by Dante in the Commedia to be relevant to modern minds and souls. He found it supremely so, which is the main reason why he chose Virgil as his guide. He cannot, of course, guide Dante all the way for he is pre-Christian; but of all the poets of antiquity he is the one who has perceived and has conveyed a vision of the world which is still valid - a vision of world order, divinely established and transmitted by Roman authority.

But Dante had not always shared this vision; he had not always seen the Holy Roman Empire in a lawful line descent from the Empire of ancient Rome. His coming to this realization is perhaps the greatest of many important turning points in his life.

Dante was born a Guelf, a Florentine Guelf; his natural allegiance was therefore to the Florentine Republic rather than to the Emperor. In his early years he had no vision of world monarchy. That came later, after his exile from , during a period of disillusionment, when he had quarrelled with his fellow exiles and been cast off by them on suspicion of treachery. He had mu'3h then to think about. He thought deeply about history and politics and he cane to see that he had been mistaken in his earlier views. Closely associated with his radical change of outlook was a new understanding which came to him of tie Aeneid.

Dante had read the Aeneid when he was a young man in Florence. He tells us so in the Vita Nuova. Commenting in chapter XXV on poetic allegory, Dante justifies the modern habit of rimatori of personifying inanimate things or concepts by referring to the precedent of the ancient poets, of whom he quotes the Aeneid, from the first and from the third book, so we know that when he conpTled the Vita Nuova (about 1294-?) he had at least got as far as Book III.

His interest in Virgil at this period appears to be mainly technical, or artistic. He is concerned with the craft of poetry, and with the new devel­ opments in the vernacular tongues. Later on, his understanding of Virgil deapened until the Aeneid became for him almost a work of revelation. Now, the proper and scholarly thing to do at this point would be to list and interpret all Dante's references to the Aeneid, to Aeneas and to Virgil, and driw a conclusion. But as this is the Dante year, in which we are celebrating the seventh centenary of his birth, a spirit of highdays and holidays has, appropriately, crept into this year's publications and lectures. I decided, - 5- therefore, to do something quite unorthodox, that is, to indulge in the use of imagination. Let us see what happens if we look at the Aeneid pretending we are Dante. The period in his life with which we will identify ourselves is that of his exile. Many things are still mysterious about Dante's life and poetry, but one thing is certain; it is that up to 1302, Dante was on a rising curve of reputation and influence - as a poet and as a man of public affairs, entrusted with highest office in the government of his city. And then came a crisis: a catastrophe; he found himself exiled, dispossessed, homeless, separated from his wife and family, adrift, without means of support. The first years of his exile were strenuous and violent, involving him in negot­ iations, intrigues, conflict, and bitter disappointment. At this period he had no general vision of world order. It is a later moment in his life which is relevant to our purpose, the point at which, having withdrawn from his party, he rethought the whole European situation, - the point at which he saw that the Romans had been destined by God to establish world order and that God's plan was still that the Roman authority, now invested in the Emperor, should be re­ established.

We don't know exactly when this happened. But that it did happen he tells us himself (in the Monarchia) and it is evident that it happened in connection with a re-reading of the Aeneid. Let us then imagine Dante, an exile, as he himself said in the Convivio, a ship without a rudder and without a sail, drifting to strange ports, defeated and discouraged, after high hopes of increasing recognition and success. Withdrawing from intrigue and counter­ action, he seeks consolation and distraction in the life of the mind; he takes down his copy of the Aeneid from his shelf and begins to read: Arma virumque cano..... I must be absolved from quoting throughout in Latin in your presence. In any case it is not so much Virgil's words but their content and extended meanings for Dante which I want to stress. The Aeneid is a story of a man destined for g n a t achievement, but only after long suffering and wandering over land and sea, exposed to great dangers. Since the days when Dante last read these opening lines in Florence, much has happened to him. The story of a man driven from his city by catastrophe, and destined ultimately for great things, now awakens entirely new responses in him, which form a parallel pattern accompanying his reading. There has been forged, by the events of his life, something which did not exist before, a link between himself and Aeneas. ”1 sing of arms and of the man who first from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, came to and Lavinian shores; much buffeted on sea and land by violence from above, through cruel Juno's unforgiving wrath, and much enduring in War also, till he should build a city and bring his gods to Latium; whence came the Latin race, the lords of Alba and the walls of lofty Rome. Ju.io, so cruel and relentless against one so scrupulous! Dante would be able to recognize in this personification the embodiment of his own enemies, and in her merciless persecution of the few, afflicted Trojans a parallel to vindictive measures taken by the Black Guelfs and their agents against the exiled Whites. "So great a task it was, to found the Roman race. Was there then a task for Dante to undertake?

What is Juno resisting? The coming of a king to govern Italy: nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem! - 6 -

What king should govern Italy now ... what is the modern parallel? The Emperor. The seed is perhaps sown at this moment in Dante’s mind.

Carthage, the powerful and warlike colony of the Phoenicians, which will detain Aeneas and almost divert him from his divine purpose, is destined ultimately to be destroyed by Rome. It could well stand, in Dante's mind, for the forces in world politics which deter and divert the re-establishment of world order - for the rise of nations, such as France, for instance, ally and supporter, when it suits her, of the secular power of the Papacy.

The storm which Aeolus, in response to Juno's appeal, produces for the destruction of the Trojans, will be a source of inspiration for Dante the poet when he comes, himself, to describe violent scenes of nature. The shipwreck, with the boat whirling three times round before capsizing and sinking, is to be heard again in the words of Dante’s Ulysses, relating the end of his last voyage. But I am not pursuing literary derivations, at the moment, alluring as they are. It is more relevant to note that Dante, describing his escape from the dark wood, uses the metaphor of shipwreck: E come quei che con lena affannata uscito fuor del pelago alia riva si volge all'acqua perigliosa e guata, cosi 1 'animo mio, ch'ancor fuggiva, si volse a rietro ..." Let us also consider the impact on Dante's emotions of the prayer of Aeneas: 0 fortunate those who died in sight of their fathers and of the walls of Troy." Dante has known battle; twice, as a young man, fighting for Florence; and again as an exile, bitterly, against Florence, though ultimately he refused actually to take up arms against her. "Would that I, says Aeneas, "had fallen by the hand of Diomsdes and so left this grievous life. Dante is no passive reader of these words. That he vividly remembered the Battle of Campaldino, for instance, in which he fought, is shown by Canto V in Purgatorio, in which Buonconte da Montelfeltro who died fighting on the other side, recalls the scene of the battle and the great storm which occurred afterwards, sweeping his body down into the Arno.

In the magnificent description of the calm which follows the storm, in the majesty of Neptune's words, Dante must have seen reflected the change in his own mood after the turbulence of his early years of exile. There _is a future, then; something lasting and valuable may yet be constructed. Aeneas reassures and encourages his companions: the fates point out a haven in Latium and there Troy's realm will rise again. Jove's reassurance to Venus must have sounded a still more solemn note in Dante's new awareness. ...manent immota tuorum fata tibi; cernes urbem et promissa Lavini moenia, sublimemque feres ad sidera caeli magnanimum Aenean; neque me sententia vertit. Aeneas will be raised on high to the starry heaven ....

In the Commedia Aeneas is in Limbo, it is Dante who is raised on high to the starry heaven. - 7 -

In the beginning of Inferno, after Virgil has explained to Dante that to re^ch salvation he must undertake a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, Dante draws back in diffidence. Is he worthy? will others believe him worthy? That Aeneas should undertake such a visit to the world of the dead is acceptable to anyone of understanding, for Aeneas was chosen in high heaven to be the father of Rome and her Empire; that St. Paul should visit Heaven is also understandable fo-’ he drew thence power to exhort to faith which is the foundation of salvation. But I, says Dante, am not Aeneas· I am not Paul: "io non Enea, io non Paolo sono."

Dante, in the story, asserts that he is not Aeneas. Virgil, however, reassures him that, no less than Aeneas and no less than St. Paul, he has been granted the privilege of visiting the world of spirits, in the body; it follows that there must be behind this privilege a mission with which Dante is entrusted. When his journey is complete he will have important truths to communicate to the wo'-ld. He will not, like Aeneas, found a city and a race, but with the help of Virgil he will reach a new understanding of what the achievements of Aeneas still mean to the world; he is not an epic hero; he does nqt identify himself with Ae-ieas but he perceives, I think, a similarity of pattern between the fate of the Tcjjans and the modern situation in which he finds himself. And he sees his own destiny in relation to that of Aeneas. Indeed, only by contact with some such vast and mighty theme could he have felt himself empowered to write a poem such as the Commedia. Many other works contributed to it: the Vulgate, notably, and Lucan, Ovid, Statius, historians, philosophers, theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, A]nertus Magnus, Aristotle though the commentary by Averrhoes ... all this is known. But the motor, the dynamo which powers and transforms it all, or at the vevy least, the first two parts, Inferno and Purgatorio, is the Aeneid.

Once this is admitted, even as a hypothesis, it is remarkable how many things fall into place. I do not menn that we have discovered a cipher or code, or a key to all the allegories. Dante's work is too subtle and complex to admit of any simple, single interpretation. But his acceptance of Aeneas as a key figure of world history, combined with an awareness that he, Dante, has a role to play that is in line with that of Aeneas, explains the growing confidence and power with which he constructs his work.

Once we have seen the Aeneid as, in a sense, the power-house of Dante's Co tamedia, Virgil's work appears even more dynamic than when we study it as a work of art. Dante had begun by studying Virgil as a craftsman; later he used the Aeneid, in the early books of the Convivio, for instance, as a work of reference to ancient customs. He knew it well; he admired it greatly; he had studied it for many years. But he did not at first see the over-all meaning of the work.

Though many things concerning Dante are still unknown, one thing is surely clear. In the beginning of Inferno he represents himself as having gone fundamentally wrong. It is Virgil, and Virgil alone, who can help by reorient­ ate ig him. At the time of writing the Commedia, Virgil has already helped him, but within the narrative, at the beginning of Inferno, Virgil has yet to teach him. So, at this point, we have the bewildered Dante, who is driven back from the sunlit mountain by forces he cannot control, turning to a dim, phantom figure for help. It is a figurevto seems unable to speak, owing to long silence: chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco .... It is some years, perhaps, since he has read the Aeneid. He knows and reveres Virgil as a great artist; he has modelled his own style on his; but the Aeneid - 8- is more than a matter of bello stile. He knows that Aeneas was granted power to visit Avernus because of his great destiny, for he says so to Virgil, in Canto II; but if he had already seen clearly how this is related to modern affairs he would not be in the dark wood and in need of Virgil's further guidance. The words, "Are you then Virgil...” Or sei tu quel Virgilio.... " convey his astonishment at recognizing him there in the valley by the wood; but there is another level of recognition. Virgil, his author, his master, from whom he has derived the beautiful style which has done him so much honour as a poet, a poet who has not yet written the Commedia, but so far only poems of love and philosophy, that Virgil is now revealed to be yet more, a seer from whom Dante has yet a great deal more to learn.

Jove reassuring Venus says: "destiny will not change my counsel. Aeneas will conquer; he will subdue nations; he will found cities, he will impose laws. To the people of Rome, who shall be called after Romulus, Jove sets neither bounds nor periods of Empire: "imperium sine fine dedi." It makes a difference, does it not, whether you admire this half line for its terse gravity, or whether you acknowledge it as revealed truth, or whether indeed, as was no doubt Dante's case, you do both.

Estimating the effect of such utterances on Dante and remembering the significant use he makes of certain key words, I now find myself puzzled, in a new way, by the she-wolf. You will remember that when Dante tries to climb the sun-lit mountain which he sees on escaping from the wood, his way is impeded by three wild beasts, a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf, for which the Italian is lupa. This last creature is the most terrifying of all, and it is against the lupa particularly that Dante cries out for help. And Virgil, in his prophecy of the Wolf-hound, the Veltro, who shall come, foretells how the lupa is to be driven back into Hell, there whence Envy first drove it forth. He develops the same theme of the lupa, in these terms: This animal, on account of which you call out for help Allows no-one to pass, But so hinders men that she kills them; And her nature is so malevolent and evil That she never satisfies her ravening hunger But after her meal is hungrier than before. Many are the animals she mates with And there will be still more, until the Wolf-hound comes, Who will put her to a painful death„

This wolf-hound, continues Virgil, will be the salvation of Italy, "italia, for which Cammilla died, Euryalus and Turnus and Nisus.

Now this is Virgil speaking, referring to the message of the Aeneid, and linking the future of Italy with the predestined order of Rome.

As a result of that intellectual discipline by which language develops, nanely semantic dissociation, the reader of the Commedia obediently dissociates Dante's lujm from the Roman lupa, which suckled Romulus and Remus. But I cannot now believe, having re-read the Aeneid with what I am imagining to have been Dante's response, that he could use the word lupa without having Virgil's - 9 - use of it in mind. In the very passage I have just quoted from Jove's speech to Venus, there is a reference to the tawny hide of the she-wolf which nurtured Romulus: inde lupae fulvo nutricis tegmine laetus Romulus excipiet gentem ...

What Dante must mean and what he expected his readers to understand is that the fount and source of Roman law and order has been corrupted. The she- wolf which nurtured Romulus has degenerated into a ravening monster, impeding a human progress, instead of fostering it.

In Book II we read of the famous treachery of the wooden horse, by which the Greeks gained admittance into Troy, A recent parallel of vital importance mi:;!1: have risen in Dante's mind as he re-read this episode. Florence, like Troy, had been betrayed. Summoned by Pope Boniface VIII as a peaceful negotiator, Charles of Valois, the brother of the King of France, had entered the city, but he came as no peaceful negotiator; he was accompanied by an army, disguised, who routed the White Guelfs, established the Black Guelfs, in power; it was, in fact, a revolution. The dramatic words of Laocoon must have been read with quickened pulse by Dante, who had taken a leading part in the recent events in Florence. If only they had listened to Laocoon, Troy would still be standing.' Daite always suspected Boniface VIII; but the White Guelfs were slow and hesitant; negotiations were delayed. Too late Dante and two others were sent to parley with Boniface. In their absence Charles of Valois and his disguised troops entered Florence. The houses of the White Guelfs were sacked and plundered; many were murdered; others fled.

After the terrible confusion and slaughter, Aeneas tries to persuade his father to accompany him into exile, but Anchises gives way to an old man's despair. The household are in tears; Creusa, the wife of Aeneas, Ascanius, Aeneas himself. And Dante, who has left behind him in Florence his own wife and children, all his household, how did he read this passage? Unmoved? It surely meant more to him when he read it after his exile than when as a young poet he looked to Virgil as a master of style.

A miraculous star appears and convinces Anchises that Aeneas is right and he consents to go. This prodigy must have stirred echoes in Dante's Christian mind. Virgil knew and understood so much, yet the great truth is just beyond him. A Christian reading the Aeneid could see much further into the ultimate purpose of the foundation of Rome. The mention of this miraculous star must have seemed to Dante, like the fourth eclogue, another instance of Virgil's divine inspiration, illumining others but not himself.

As a young poet Dante had learnt style from Virgil. As a mature writer, De.nte surely learnt from the Aeneid the craft of story-telling in which he himself became a master. The construction of the narrative of Book II is superb, particularly the account of the departure of Aeneas, with his father on his back, little lulus by his side, and Creusa following. As they go twisting and turning along side-roads, in the darkness and confusion, Creusa is lost. After an anguished search, Aeneas goes on without her. Dante’s wife di«l not follow him into exile.

As Dante read the words of Creusa, speaking as a spirit to Aeneas, did the possibility of a great mission which he might undertake occur to him? - 10-

"Thus it is willed by the gods," says Creusa's ghost. "You must endure long exile and long wanderings. But ultimately in the west, is fulfilment. Let little lulus accompany you. And Dante's son, Pietro, while still a boy, did join him, in exile.

From now on the Aeneid is the story of a journey. The onward pull of tiie narrative is very strong, like the onward, downward, upward tug of the narrative of the Commedia. More and more, from Book III on, the parallels appear, no longer with Dante's life-situation (those are limited to Books I and II) but with the Commedia. The closest connection between the two works occurs, of course, in Book VI. This is well known and after the exhaustive work by Edward Moore and others on the verbal analogies, it would seem that there are no more discoveries to be made in this connection. And yet I think that too much attention has perhaps been paid to verbal similarities. They exist, certainly, and are interesting as showing how present Virgil's poetry was in Dante's mind. But it is not always by repeating or echoing Virgil's words that Dante reproduces Virgil, or shows that he is affected by him. Much still remains to be discovered by imagining the effect on Dante's creative powers of his visualisation of Virgil's narrative. When he visualised Venus, for instance, addressing and guiding her son Aeneas, when he visualised the Sybil accompanying Aeneas to Avernus, instructing and illuminating him, did he see, in his poet's mind's eye, how these female influences in the progress of Aeneas could be transformed to fit a Christian context in relation to himself? Is it so surprising that in the Commedia we find the Virgin Mary intervening on Da· e 's behalf? and sending St. Lucy, to urge Beatrice to take action to rescue Dante? Re-reading the Aeneid with an increasing awareness of a link between himself and Aeneas, and visualising the role of the Sybil in Book VI, was it then that Dante looked back on his own life and rediscovered Beatrice?

Did Book IV of the Aeneid awaken him to a realization of the wrong turn which love could take? In Canto V of Inferno, the famous canto of Francesca da Rimini, Francesca is described as coming forth from the group of souls where Dido is. And in the words which Dante gives Francesca to speak, he seems to be representing the persuasive justifications for the overpowering influence of love which he himself had previously accepted - the poetry of Guinizelli, for instance, and the noble amour courtois of the Arthurian romances. Was it Book IV of the Aeneid which brought this fundamental matter of love into focus? ille dies primus leti primusque malorum causa fuit. Here is the relationship of cause and effect - which is a fundamental principle of Dante's Inferno with its sequence and gradation of ill-doing. It Ls Virgil who on the mountain of Purgatory shows Dante how to order his loi-e aright", explaining how the rational mind has the power to accept or reject the impulses of instinctive love, which in themselves are not susceptible of praise or blame.

Why is Virgil given the role of explaining this? Why not any of the other guides and mentors whom they meet on the journey? Marco Lombardo, or Statius, for instance?

Surely because in the Aeneid Dante had found what he needed to follow - 11-

through to its conclusion the question of human love. But not to its ultimate Christian conclusion.

When Beatrice appears at the top of the mountain, in the Garden of Eden, Dante is overcome by the sight of her and turns to Virgil, saying, "Not a drop of blood is left in me that does not tremble" ... and then he quotes - it is not easy to explain why - the words of Dido to her sister concerning her growing love for Aeneas: adgnosco veteris vestigia flammae - in Dante's words: "conosco i segni dell'antica fiamma” . Why does he use these words here? It cannot possibly mean that his love for Beatrice was comparable with that of Dido for Aeneas, "that love which was the origin of so many ills and of the death of the Queen at last." Dante's commentators seem content to register the dramatic and poignant effect of these words, Virgil's own words, which Dante quotes, turning to Virgil - and finds Virgil gone; the sense of bereavement is so great that Dante breaks down and weops bitterly, and not all the beauty of Eden can console him. Then follow the reproaches of Beatrice. For what? We don't know. For some falling away from a high purpose, it seems. Was his love for Beatrice defective at some period? Did it err by excess, or, after her death, by sloth?

At the very moment when Beatrice appears, but before Dante recognizes her, a cloud of flowers is cast over and around her by the hands of the angels who sing: Benedictus qui venis, "Blessed art thou that comest", words from St. Matthew's Gospel. And next, the angels sing these words: Manibus o date lilia plenis, the words of Anchises who is foretelling the future of the descendant of Aeneas, and is here referring to the nephew of Augustus, Marcellus, who will die in his young manhood. Why do these words occur here in Purgatorio? - heralding Beatrice? Because she too died young? Because Virgil is about to depart and at this crucial, culminating moment, honour must twice be done to Virgil's great work?

Let us put side by side these two Virgilian lines: Manibus o date lilia plenis and: Adgnosco veteris vestigia flammae. Dante has so placed them. One is sung by the angels, the other is uttered by Dante, at the moment of the appearance of Beatrice. The first belongs to that solemn moment in Book VI when Aeneas is learning from the soul of his father the tr*e nature of his destiny and of the race which shall come after him. This mi.ust have been a profoundly stirring passage for Dante. Here the mission of Rome is made fully manifest. tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (hae tibi erunt artes) pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. and the world-wide, unending authority of Rome is plain:- - 12-

' Here is Augustus Caesar, who shall again set up tha Golden Age in Latium...and shall spread his empire past Garamant and India, to a land that lies beyond the stars, beyond the paths of the year and the sun ..... What boundaries can be set to such a destiny"

et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?

It is impossible, I submit, that Dante could pluck the line: Manibus o date lilia plenis without being mindful of its context; nor could he quote the words of Dido without remembering her fate.

What does, in fact', link these lines together is the fatalistic mood in which they are uttered in the Aeneid. The episode of Marcellus is a tragic moment in the parade of Roman heroes and triumphs. He is the young nephew of Augustus who died at the age of 19. He approaches with mournful face and downcast eyes and Anchises, weeping, relates the tragedy of his deith, the pathos of what might have been. And he concludes: "Give me lilies with full hand; let me scatter purple flowers; let me heap over my offspring's shade at least these gifts and fulfil an unavailing service.

For the pre-Christian death is final and total tragedy. For the Christian, it is the beginning of eternal life. The angels who herald the ar.r-ival of Beatrice, sing first Benedictus qui venis and then: Manibus ο da':e lilia plenis. Beatrice, like Marcellus, had died young and Dante had moc.rned her as though all meaning had gone from his life. But these words of Anchises, uttered here in Purgatorio, in Latin still, represent no unavailing service. They usher in Beatrice who will guide Dante to a deyper vision yet.

On recognizing Beatrice, Dante turns back to Virgil, and in Italian quotes the words of Dido: Conosco i segni dell'antica fiamma and finds Virgil gone. Virgil can teach him no more. Conosco i segni dell'antica fiamma -

The emotion he feels on beholding Beatrice is the same love he felt for her in life; it partakes of the nature of the love which Dido felt for Aeneas, which Dido felt for Sicchaeus, of the same love which is the experience of all human beings, and of all living creatures. It partakes of the nature of instinctive love, which rational love can put in order. Virgil, on the Mountain of Purgatory, has explained to Dante how this can be. But now he has more, much more, to learn concerning love from Beatrice; from her and from other souls in Heaven he will learn how human love is related to divine love, the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

This, then, is the movement of the Commedia; to show where Virgil departs and Beatrice takes over; to show how the wisdom of antiquity was fulfilled and transformed by Christianity. At the top of Mt. Purgatory - 13-

Virgil departs; but the Virgilian theme continues and even gathers force in Paradiso. In Canto VI we have the great panorama of Roman history, uttered by Justinian, who looks back, where Anchises looked forward, and joins the Rocian to the Holy Roman Empire.

In a sense, then, in many senses, the Divina Commedia is a sequel to the Aeneid. In just what sense, remains still to be fully explored. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, when I was a Lecturer in the University of Cambridge, I founded a Dante Club, on the lines of the Virgil Society, which I 'iad long admired. We were even so bold as to offer to arrange affiliated membership with your Society, and I have it on my conscience that this relationship was never fully developed.

That Dante Club seems now to be in abeyance at Cambridge but in the University of Nottingham, where I now teach, it is likely to come to life again quite soon. With the encouragement and advice of your Society, we could perhaps take as one of our main fields of exploration the relationship of the commedia to the Aeneid. As I said, work has been done on the verbal analogies between the two poems, but this limits attention to the literary aspect of the question.

That it is far more than a question of words, even of Virgil's words, I hope to have suggested this afternoon.