A Key to the Time Allusions in the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Abstract

THE author, having found that different editions of the great poem of Dante assigned different durations of time for the action supposed to be occupied by it, set himself to investigate the matter by a comparison of all the time allusions until the poet ascends from over Jerusalem to the primum mobile. He ingeniously illustrates his argument by a diagram or “dial” in the circumference, of which are the signs of the zodiac, whilst in the centre are four points representing respectively Jerusalem, Purgatory, the Ganges, and Morocco. Dante imagined that, with respect to Jerusalem, the Ganges was the extreme east and Morocco the extreme west. The four important divisions of the day, mezzodi or midday, sera or evening, meszanotte or midnight, and mattino or morning, are represented by lines towards the circumference. At the beginning of the poem Gerusalemme must be placed at the top of the circle, with Mattino over it. Now looking southwards, holding the dial straight before us, it will be found that the sun on the dial follows the same course as the real sun. The lines in the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso which contain the time allusions are given in Italian and in Longfellow's English translation, and the author finds that the whole duration from the beginning of the poem to the final morning in Purgatorio is seven and a half days, i.e. seven days1 from the entrance with Vergil into Hell.

A Key to the Time Allusions in the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.

By Gustave Pradeau. Pp. 32. (London: Methuen and Co., 1902.)