Di sè, sì che poi sempre la disira.* But without any intermediary (i.e. without any Beatrice concludes her long speech and this Canto by showing that the same argument is also true of Man's body. That also was represented in Gen. i, as created by the hand of God. And on this ground, as in itself sufficient, Dante is content to rest not only the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body. "I state (says Dean Plumptre) his argument without discussing it. It will be clear, at least, how remote his belief was from what we have learnt to call the doctrine of Conditional Immortality." E quinci + puoi argomentare ancora 145 Salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore, Volentier torna a ciò che la trastulla." *disira: Compare Conv. iii, 2, ll. 47-59: “L' anima umana, ch' è forma nobilissima di queste che sotto il cielo sono generate, più riceve della natura divina che alcun' altra. E perocchè naturalissimo è in Dio volere essere, . . . l' anima umana esser vuole naturalmente e con tutto desiderio. E perocchè il suo essere dipende da Dio, e per quello si conserva, naturalmente disia e vuole a Dio essere unita per lo suo essere fortificare." + E quinci, etc.: From this principle, that whatever God creates, is eternal, Beatrice tells Dante that he may necessarily infer the resurrection of the human body, if he will merely recollect that human flesh was created by God when He created Adam and Eve. Compare St. Thomas Aquinas (Summ. Theol. pars i, qu. xci, art. 2: "Prima formatio humani corporis non potuit esse per aliquam virtutem creatam, sed immediate a Deo." St. Thomas Aquinas further shows (in passage already quoted, pars i, qu. xcvii, art. 1, at 1. 130) that the flesh of our first parents was incorruptible and immortal, and (in pars iii, qu. xlix, art. 3) that by original sin Man lost that dignity, but afterwards recovered it by the passion of Christ : Satisfactio Christi habet effectum in nobis, inquantum incorporamur ei, ut membra suo capiti. Membra autem oportet capiti conformari. 66 Vostra resurrezion, se tu ripensi Come l' umana carne fêssi allora, Che li primi parenti * intrambo fensi." And hence (i.e. from the principle previously laid down that all that proceeds immediately from God is eternal) thou mayest also deduce argument for your resurrection, if thou consider further how human flesh was formed at that time when the first parents were both created." Et ideo sicut Christus primo quidem habuit gratiam in anima cum passibilitate corporis, et per passionem ad gloriam immortalitatis pervenit; ita et nos, qui sumus membra ejus, per passionem ipsius liberamur quidem a reatu cujuslibet poenae, ita tamen quod primo recipiamus in anima spiritum adoptionis filiorum, quo adscribimur ad haereditatem gloriæ immortalis, adhuc corpus passibile et mortale habentes; postmodum vero configurati passionibus, et morti Christi, in gloriam immortalem perducimur." *primi parenti: Compare Inf. iv, 55:— "Trasseci l'ombra del primo parente." END OF CANTO VII. CANTO VIII. ASCENT TO THE THIRD HEAVEN-SPHERE OF VENUS-THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF VENUS ON EARTH-CHARLES MARTEL, THE TITULAR KING OF HUNGARY*-ROBERT KING OF NAPLES THE REASON OF THE CONSTANT DISSIMILARITY OF SONS FROM THEIR FATHERS. It would seem that, at the conclusion of the long discourse of Beatrice related in the preceding Canto, she and Dante commenced ascending into the Sphere of Venus. Benvenuto divides the present Canto into three parts. In the First Division, from ver. I to ver. 30, Dante relates his Ascent into the Sphere of Venus, and the spirits he saw on arrival there. In the Second Division, from ver. 31 to ver. 84, *Charles Martel of Hungary: This personage must not be confounded with the Charles Martel of history, the powerful Mayor of the Palace and Duke of Austrasia, who in A.D. 732, between Tours and Poictiers, gained that great and decisive victory over the Saracens, which, in the words of Gibbon, "rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran." The name of the famous Charles Martel is so universally known, and that of the character who comes before us in this Canto so much the contrary, that it might have been expected that writers on Dante should at once make this clear to their readers. Yet, with the exception of Mr. Butler, I have not met with a single translator or Commentator who has taken the trouble to warn his readers of the possible trap they might fall into. Dante's interview with the spirit of Charles Martel of Hungary is related. In the Third Division, from ver. 85 to ver. 148, Dante seeks and obtains from Charles Martel an explanation as to why, from a munificent and worthy father, there can descend a niggardly and degenerate son. Division I.—As a preliminary (says Casini) to entering into the Sphere of Venus, Dante, by way of explaining how that name came to be given to the planet, recalls and applies to this particular case all that Beatrice told him in a general way in Par. iv, 61-63.* He begins by showing the fallacy of the pagan opinions as to the supposed influence of that planet. They believed that the beautiful Venus, revolving upon the Epicycle of the Third Sphere, influenced by her rays that foolish love that emanates from carnal appetite. The heathen not only adored Venus, but also Dione and Cupid, her supposed mother and son, who were thought to exercise the same influence; and one of their traditions maintained that Cupid, in the form of Ascanius, crept into the bosom of Dido, who was indisposed to love, and not only eradicated her old love for Sichaeus, but made her burn with love for Æneas. According to the Ptolemaic system, an Epicycle was a small sphere upon which each planet revolved in the direction from West to East, at the same time that it was itself being carried from East to West by * See Par. iv, 61-63, where, speaking of the influences of the Heavens, Beatrice observes : "Questo principio male inteso torse Già tutto il mondo quasi, sì che Giove, the Primum Mobile. (It was also subject to a third and almost insensible advance of one degree in a hundred years from West towards the East, owing to the "Precession of the Equinoxes." See Conv. ii, 6, 11. 136-144. This motion is derived from the slow revolution of the 8th Heaven, that of the Fixed Stars, as appears from Conv. ii, 15, 1. 102 et seq.; and Vita Nuova, ii, 11. 10-12. See Dr. Moore's Studies in Dante, p. 126 note, showing that 3,600 is an absurd blunder for 36,000.) Therefore the Epicycle of the Third Planet, Venus, is also the Third Epicycle. Solea creder lo mondo in suo periclo Che la bella Ciprigna il folle amore *Ciprigna: According to Pietro di Dante the ancients made a distinction between the pure Venus, the wife of Anchises, the goddess of honourable conjugal love, and the impure Venus, the wife of Vulcan, and the mother of Cupid. The latter Venus they believed to have been born in Cyprus, where in fact she had her principal temples, at Idalium and at Paphos. Compare Ovid, Metam. x, 270, 271: "Festa dies Veneri, tota celeberrima Cypro, And Horace Carm. I, iii, 1 :— "Sic te diva potens Cypri," etc. And ibid. Carm. III, xxvi, 9: "O quæ beatam, diva, tenes Cyprum." + epiciclo: "Secondo Tolomeo, i pianeti facevano i loro movimenti in direzione opposta al moto diurno della rispettiva spera, in un circolo particolare, che appellavano epiciclo, o perchè sovrapposto al circolo chiamato eccentrico, sulla circonferenza del quale sempre dovea trovarsi il centro dell' epiciclo; o perchè circolo principale, come quello che doveva rappresentare le apparenze più singolari, dipendenti dal moto proprio dei pianeti. Ciascuno di questi aveva l' epiciclo suo, tranne il Sole: quindi, cominciando la numerazione dalla luna, il terzo epiciclo apparteneva alla stella di Venere" (Antonelli, ap. Tommaséo). Compare Dante's own words about it in Conv. ii, 4, ll. 78-98: "In |