Beatrice's glory might have been sung in grand
though barbarous Latin to the _literati_ of the fourteenth century; or a
poem of new beauty might have fixed the language and opened the
literature of modern Italy; but it could hardly have been the
_Commedia_. That belongs, in its date and its greatness, to the time
when sorrow had become the poet's daily portion and the condition of his
life.

But such greatness had to endure its price and its counterpoise. Dante
was alone--except in his visionary world, solitary and companionless.
The blind Greek had his throng of listeners; the blind Englishman his
home and the voices of his daughters; Shakespeare had his free
associates of the stage; Goethe, his correspondents, a court, and all
Germany to applaud. Not so Dante. The friends of his youth are already
in the region of spirits, and meet him there--Casella, Forese; Guido
Cavalcanti will soon be with them. In this upper world he thinks and
writes as a friendless man--to whom all that he had held dearest was
either lost or imbittered; he thinks and writes for himself.

So comprehensive in interest is the _Commedia_. Any attempt to explain
it, by narrowing that interest to politics, philosophy, the moral life,
or theology itself, must prove inadequate. Theology strikes the
keynote; but history, natural and metaphysical science, poetry, and art,
each in their turn join in the harmony, independent, yet ministering to
the whole. If from the poem itself we could be for a single moment in
doubt of the reality and dominant place of religion in it, the
plain-spoken prose of the _Convito_ would show how he placed "the Divine
Science, full of all peace, and allowing no strife of opinions and
sophisms, for the excellent certainty of its subject, which is God," is
single perfection above all other sciences, "which are, as Solomon
speaks, but queens or concubines or maidens; but she is the 'Dove,' and
the 'perfect one'--'Dove,' because without stain of strife; 'perfect,'
because perfectly she makes us behold the truth, in which our soul
stills itself and is at rest." But the same passage shows likewise how
he viewed all human knowledge and human interests, as holding their due
place in the hierarchy of wisdom, and among the steps of man's
perfection. No account of the _Commedia_ will prove sufficient which
does not keep in view, first of all, the high moral purpose and deep
spirit of faith with which it was written, and then the wide lib