Dante Alighieri
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 86
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 edition. Excerpt: ... CANTO XVII. V. 1.--"Like him who came to Clymene," &c. Clymene was the mother of Phaeton by Apollo. The youth had been told by one of his companions that he was not really the son of the god; who, in order to satisfy him, allowed him to drive the chariot of the Sun, with the mischievous results so well known. V. 46.--"As erst Hippolytus from Athens fled." Chased by the false accusations of Phsedra. V. 70-72.--" The place of refuge where thou first may'st dwell Shall be the mighty Lombards courtesy, Who on the Ladder bears the Eagle well." Verona; where Dante was hospitably received, on two different occasions, by the Scaligers, whose escutcheon bore an eagle on a ladder; in Italian, scala. First, in March, 1302, when he was exiled from Florence, he at once took refuge with "the mighty Lombard" at this time, Cangrande was only eleven years old, and his eldest brother, Bartolommeo, governed Verona. The second occasion was from 1314 to 1318; and it was during this sojourn that he wrote his celebrated letter to Cangrande, then in the height of his glory, dedicating the Paradiso to him, as he had already dedicated the other two parts respectively to Uguccione della Faggiola and Moroello Malaspina. In this curious letter he says that he wishes the title-page of his work to be thus: " Here begins the Commedia of Dante Alighieri, Florentine in birth, not in morals." From this time, as long as he was at Verona, he always showed each canto to Cangrande, as it was finished, before any one else saw it: and afterwards, when he went to Ravenna, he sent him the work in packets of six or eight cantos at once, till he came to the twentieth. Then, either because political differences had rather cooled his friendship for Cangrande, or from some other...