The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri (best smutty novels .txt) đ
- Author: Dante Alighieri
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Henry II of England had four sons, all of whom were more or less rebellious against him. They were, Henry, surnamed Curt-Mantle, and called by the Troubadours and novelists of his time âThe Young King,â because he was crowned during his fatherâs life; Richard Coeur-de-Lion, Count of Guienne and Poitou; Geoffroy, Duke of Brittany; and John Lackland. Henry was the only one of these who bore the title of king at the time in question. Bertrand de Born was on terms of intimacy with him, and speaks of him in his poems as lo Reys joves, sometimes lauding, and sometimes reproving him. One of the best of these poems is his Complainte, on the death of Henry, which took place in 1183, from disease, say some accounts, from the bolt of a crossbow say others. He complains that he has lost âthe best king that was ever born of motherâ; and goes on to say, âKing of the courteous, and emperor of the valiant, you would have been Seigneur if you had lived longer; for you bore the name of the Young King, and were the chief and peer of youth. Ay! hauberk and sword, and beautiful buckler, helmet and gonfalon, and purpoint and sark, and joy and love, there is none to maintain them!â See Raynouard, Choix de PoĂ©sies, IV 49.
In the Bible Guiot de Provins, Barbazan, Fabliaux et Contes, II 518, he is spoken of as
âIl jones Rois,
Li proux, li saiges, li cortois.â
In the Cento Novelle Antiche, XVIII, XIX, XXXV, he is called Il Re Giovane; and in Roger de Wendoverâs Flowers of History, AD 1179â ââ 1183, âHenry the Young King.â
It was to him that Bertrand de Born âgave the evil counsels,â embroiling him with his father and his brothers. Therefore, when the commentators challenge us as Pistol does Shallow, âUnder which king, Bezonian? speak or die!â I think we must answer as Shallow does, âUnder King Harry.â â©
See 2 Samuel 17:1, 2:â â
âMoreover, Ahithophel said unto Absalom, let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night. And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only.â
Dryden, in his poem of Absalom and Achitopbel, gives this portrait of the latter:â â
âOf these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixâd in principles and place;
In power unpleasâd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And oâer informâd the tenement of clay.â
Then he puts into the mouth of Achitophel the following description of Absalom:â â
âAuspicious prince, at whose nativity
Some royal planet rulâd the southern sky;
Thy longing countryâs darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire;
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shows the promised land;
Whose dawning day, in every distant age,
Has exercised the sacred prophetâs rage;
The peopleâs prayer, the glad divinerâs theme,
The young menâs vision, and the old menâs dream.â
â©
The Tenth and last âcloister of Malebolge,â where
âJustice infallible
Punishes forgers,â
and falsifiers of all kinds. This Canto is devoted to the alchemists. â©
Geri del Bello was a disreputable member of the Alighieri family, and was murdered by one of the Sacchetti. His death was afterwards avenged by his brother, who in turn slew one of the Sacchetti at the door of his house. â©
Bertrand de Born. â©
Like the ghost of Ajax in the Odyssey, XI:â â
âHe answered me not at all, but went to Erebus amongst the other souls of the dead.â
â©
Dante seems to share the feeling of the Italian vendetta, which required retaliation from some member of the injured family.
âAmong the Italians of this age,â says Napier, Florentine History, I Ch. VII, âand for centuries after, private offence was never forgotten until revenged, and generally involved a succession of mutual injuries; vengeance was not only considered lawful and just, but a positive duty, dishonorable to omit; and, as may be learned from ancient private journals, it was sometimes allowed to sleep for five-and-thirty years, and then suddenly struck a victim who perhaps had not yet seen the light when the original injury was inflicted.â â©
The Val di Chiana, near Arezzo, was in Danteâs time marshy and pestilential. Now, by the effect of drainage, it is one of the most beautiful and fruitful of the Tuscan valleys. The Maremma was and is notoriously unhealthy; see Note 181, and Sardinia would seem to have shared its ill repute. â©
Forgers or falsifiers in a general sense. The âfalse semblauntâ of Gower, Confessio Amantis, II:â â
âOf fals semblaunt if I shall telle,
Above all other it is the welle
Out of the which deceipte floweth.â
They are registered here on earth to be punished hereafter. â©
The plague of Aegina is described by Ovid, Metamorph. VII, Stonestreetâs Tr.:â â
âTheir black dry tongues are swelled, and scarce can move,
And short thick sighs from panting
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