A DANTE CRUX.
[To rag Berme or nse " Sexcrerox."1 SIR,—At this time, when all eyes turn to Italy, the martial inter. pretation of a crux in the Divina Commedia may interest your readers. For Dante is a living force in modern Italy : on the out- break of the war the Austrians recognised his vitality by destroy- ing his statue at Trento, where it commemorated the prophet of Italian Unity rather than the dirino poets. The verse in question begins Canto VII of the In ferno:—
" Pape Satan, papa Satan aleppe."
G. Ventura (L'incomprero verso, etc., Milano, 1888) has interpreted this apparent jargon as Old French t- " Pas mats Satan, pas paix Satan, It
The words ore spoken, of course, by Platte. Guardian of the Circle of the Avaricious and Prodigal, Oh the approach of Virgil and Dante. Virgil addresses him as Maledetto laps. The Roman wolf has already appeared (Inferno, 1) as the symbol of avarice; for to Dante the Papal Court bed filled the measure of rapacity and corruption. But when Dante was writing the Papal Court was seated at Avignon, and Avignon had long before passed under the French sceptre. Thus St. Peter (Paradiso, XXVII, 58) inveighs against Caorsini e Guarchi, beneficed compatriots of the Avignon Popes, John XXII. of Callers, and Clement V. of Gascony, branding them as
"In Testa di pastor lupi rapaci."
Nor does the Paris Court escape Dante's invective. Hugh Civet (Purgaforio, XX, 49) scourges his avaricious descendants, singling out especially Dante's contemporary, Philip IV., the despoiler of the Order of the Tempters (ibid., 82) :—
"0 avarisia, che puoi to pib fame'"
It would therefore seem that Plutua uses Old French as the lan- guage of the Courts peculiarly his own. Virgil understands him in the same way that Ile understands Dante; for the Latin tentage is "the fount whence flows this broad river of speech." In support of this interpretation, the Old French words convey an appropriate meaning. Then as now the epelesiastical greeting was Pax robiscum. On the tongue of the demon Plebes the benediction is inverted into the threat, Pas pair! Pas pair/—I am, Sir, he.,
C. S.
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