Dante and the early astronomers . idian ofJerusalem, which is obviously impossible while one isin Aries and the other in Gemini; and as he refersback to the first passage from the second he cannothave forgotten this.^ 1 Compare Purg. xv. 1-5, where the course the sun still has to runbetween vespers and sunset is described as equal to the space betweenthe third hour and sunrise. 2 The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud, To me revolving with the eternal Twins,Was all apparent made from hill to harbour. Far. xxii. 151-3. {Longfellow). ^ Delia Valle boldly assumes that they were over the same
Dante and the early astronomers . idian ofJerusalem, which is obviously impossible while one isin Aries and the other in Gemini; and as he refersback to the first passage from the second he cannothave forgotten this.^ 1 Compare Purg. xv. 1-5, where the course the sun still has to runbetween vespers and sunset is described as equal to the space betweenthe third hour and sunrise. 2 The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud, To me revolving with the eternal Twins,Was all apparent made from hill to harbour. Far. xxii. 151-3. {Longfellow). ^ Delia Valle boldly assumes that they were over the same meridian, bya poetical licence, although at Uhie same time the sun was in a differentsign. Dante only mentions the latter fact, he thinks, in order to show PARADISE. 399 A book which aims at explaining Dantes Paradisoto young people ^ suggests an original way of reconcil-ing the two passages, for the author gravely assertsthat the sun was at first below Dantes feet in Gemini,but that by the time he looked down again it had Dante. Fig. 50. An impossible interpretation of Par. xxvii. moved a good distance onward, and was then in thesign of Taurus! According to this, a whole month that he was a few degrees north of the sun (Gemini being more northerlythan Aries) ; therefore he could see over the edge, as it were, of the sun-lighted hemisphere of Earth. This is desperately subtle. Tt is, however, the only way in which the passages can be reconciledwith his further assumption, shared by some other commentators, thatDante, in his flight through the spheres, simply ascended without anymovement in longitude except that he was carried round by the dailyrevolution of the spheres. All the planets, therefore, were ranged oneabove the other, in the sign of Gemini, and it was always noon on theearth below his feet, since that was the hour at which he ascended fromthe Earthly Paradise, and his movement was the same as the suns.(Here Delia Valle is inconsistent, however, for he maintains that
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