LONGFELLOW Papers Presented at the Longfellow Commemorative Conference April 1-3, 1982

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A Dante scholar, Dr. Mathews has published numerous articles on the interest in Dante shown by nineteenth century American writers. He is the recipient of the Harvard Dante Prize, and was awarded a gold medal, by the Italian government. Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Dr. Mathews is presently working on an edition of Longfellow's Journals.

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By the summer of 1824, at the age of 17, Henry W. Longfellow had acquired a reading knowledge of Latin. In December of the same year he expressed the desire to acquire a knowledge of the Italian language. In Paris, late in 1826 or early in 1827, he began to take his first lessons in Italian; and just before the end of 1827 he wrote that he could read the language without much difficulty. Then he went into Italy to begin a stay that lasted for twelve months, during which time he read Italian and was much exposed to the speaking of it. By the time he left, at the end of 1828, he surely must have had a fair working knowledge of the language.

So, by the end of 1828, he was equipped to read both the Latin and Italian writings of Dante in their original language. And as a matter of fact he had already begun by that time to read at least in the Divina Commedia, as will appear presently. It is entirely possible, of course, that even a few years earlier, while still a college student, he had become somewhat acquainted with this work in translation, inasmuch as both Boyd's and Cary's translations were available to him in the Peucinian [literary] Society's library at Bowdoin.

On April 11, 1828, in Rome, his friend George Washington Greene gave him a copy of the Divina Commedia in Italian, in three little pocket-size volumes. (Whether at that time he already had another copy of the work is not known.) Apparently he began to read the work soon thereafter, whether or not he had done so before; for in the chapter "Rome in Mid summer" of Outre-Mer, based upon his experiences of 1828, he wrote:

At midnight, when the crowd is gone, I retire to my chamber, and, poring over the gloomy pages of Dante, or "Bandello's laughing tale," protract my nightly vigil till the morning star is in the sky.

And under the date of December 11, 1828, when he was at Rimini, on his way out of Italy, he recorded in his manuscript Journal of 1827-1829,

Rimini—the very name recalls the melancholy fate
of Francesca di Rimini—
     "Siede la terra dove nata fui
     Su la marina dove'l Po discende
     Per aver pace co' seguaci sui.

Dante—l' Inferno. Canto V.

On the same date, or within two or three days of it, in another notebook, he filled two pages with a comment about one's thoughts upon entering Rimini, three quotations totaling 18 lines from the fifth canto of the Inferno, and a drawing which shows Paolo, Francesca, the murderer with a drawn dagger, and an open book lying on the floor. These two Journal entries of 1828 provide the first, or earliest, examples, out of all Longfellow's writings which are extant, of his quoting any passage from the literary works of Dante.

And just a few days later, on December 17, while in Venice, and somewhat sad at being alone at the Christmas season, and recalling that just a year before he had been happy in the company of Greene, he wrote in a letter to that friend,

You will call to mind those expressive words of Dante in the melancholy little story of Francesca di Rimini

     "nessun maggior dolore
     Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
     Nella miseria."

This is the story, as well as it can now be pieced together, of the beginning of his reading of Dante. At that time Longfellow was twenty-one years old; and his interest in and serious study of Dante was to continue, and to grow, for all the rest of his life, a period of 54 years.

During the years Longfellow was teaching at Bowdoin (1829-1835) his interest in Dante manifested itself in several ways.

As Librarian of the College he acquired for the Library at least one edition of the Divina Commedia, and probably was responsible for the acquisition of a set of Dante's Opere and Arrivabene's Secolo di Dante.

In his inaugural address, in September 1830, he spoke of "the all immortal Dante, the father of Italian song," as the one who gave stability and permanency to the Tuscan dialect by building with it "an edifice whose foundations were as broad and deep as the foundations of the world itself, and whose top pierced the heaven of heavens." He said, further, that

Dante gave life and beauty to the uncouth forms of his native language: conjured into being the shadowy creations of the invisible world, and made them to pass before him like the visible realities of an earthly pageant.

Throughout the Divina Commedia of Dante it is easy to trace the workings of the political and religious character of his age. Whether he leads you to the peaceful shades of Paradise,

and describes the immortal pleasures of the "house not made with hands eternal in the heavens," or enters that broad gate over which is inscribed

"Through me you pass into the city of woe,
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye,"

it is but a transcript of the stirring thoughts which agitated not only his own bosom, but the bosoms of the crowd around him, of his paternal city, of his native province, of all Italy.

These remarks of Longfellow's make it clear that by autumn of 1830 he was acquainted with the Divina Commedia as a whole, and had a good understanding of it. Moreover, this is the first time in his extant writing that he quoted Dante in translation—almost two years after he had first quoted him in Italian; and it is interesting to notice that he chose to use Cary's translation.

In his article on "The Defense of Poetry," written in 1831, and published in the North American Review of January 1832, he mentioned Dante as one who was both a poet and a man of action and strong mind.

In his Syllabus de la Grammaire Italienne, published early in 1832, he quoted again, in Italian, the famous lines 121-123 of Inferno V, and the last 31 lines of the same canto, which he introduced with these words: "C'est le bel episode de Francesca da Rimini, un des plus beaux morceaux de La Divina Commedia du Dante."

A few months later, in the preface to Saggi de' Novellieri Italiani d'Ogni Secolo, 1832, he quoted the phrase "come colui che piange e dice," from Inferno V, 126.

In his article on the "History of the Italian Language and Dialects," published in October 1832, he made comments which revealed his acquaintance with canto XV of Hell, canto XXVI of Purgatory, and with De Vulgari Eloquio (six chapters of which he summarized); and revealed his appreciation of several of Dante's achievements and of his place in literature. Also he quoted from Purgatory XXVI, Inferno V and XXXIII, and four times from De Vulgari Eloquio—twice in English and twice in Latin—17 lines altogether, from four different chapters of the work.

Into his manuscript Journal of 1829-1835, probably between May 1829 and 1831, he wrote, in Italian, from Paradiso XVII, the three lines beginning "Tu proverai . . ."; and on November 29, 1833, quoted Inferno II, 76-78 in Italian, gave Boyd's rendering, and criticized the latter unfavorably.

Then, in his manuscript notebook entitled The Literature of the Dark Ages he once just mentioned Dante, and in a second place he filled a page with a statement about Dante which he dated November 30, 1833. Here he spoke of Viviani's edition of the Commedia, and quoted the two lines from Inferno IV beginning "Onorate l'altissimo poeta," applying them to Dante.

Mr. Longfellow's continuing and growing interest in, and knowledge of, Dante and Dante's writings are shown by records of his acquisition of books, his borrowing of books from the College library, his reading, his teaching, his translating, and reflections in his own writings of his intimate acquaintance with Dante's life and works.

The pocket-size edition of the Commedia received from Greene in 1828 has been mentioned. The set of Dante's Opere Poetiche which Longfellow had rebound with alternating blank leaves he acquired probably as early as 1830, and maybe earlier, while he was in Europe; certainly he was using it early in 1838. In 1833 Greene sent him another "3 volumes of Dante." In 1838 and 1840, respectively, Longfellow wrote to ask Greene to get for him "the Florence edition in 5 large 8vo volumes" and "the Padua edition of Dante in 5 large 8vo "; and in another letter of 1840 he asked his friend to send all he picked up about Dante that was worth sending, particularly Balbo's Vita di Dante. Greene did send that year at least a three-volume Commedia with Tommaseo's comment. In 1843 T. W. Parsons sent Longfellow a copy of The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno; and in 1844 Longfellow obtained a copy of Rossetti's L'Inferno, with comment, and recorded that he read it. So it went through the years; and there are still in the Longfellow House, among the books which belonged to him, well over a hundred volumes of works having to do with Dante.

He also drew upon the resources of the Harvard College Library. For example, late in 1837 he borrowed Cary's Dante, Dante's Divina Commedia, "Prose di Dante," "Poeti Italiani Majori," "Butler's Lives of the Saints," "Muratori Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi," Rossetti," and "Cancellieri."

Bibliographical references in his writings, too, indicate the thoroughness with which he pursued his Dante studies. In the two Dante lectures of 1838, for example, he quoted from Boccaccio's Vita di Dante and Comment, Malaspini's Florentine History, and Dino Compagni's History of Florence; and referred to Missirini's Dell'Amore di Dante, Arrivabene's Commentary, Lani's Annotazioni, Rossetti's Sullo Spirito Antipapale, Flaxman's illustrations of Dante, the Vision of Frate Alberico, the Purgatory of St. Patrick, and the Zatta and the Romanis editions of Dante. Many more such references occur in later years—in his letters and journals, in the Poets and Poetry of Europe, and in his Notes for his translation of the Divine Comedy.

Moreover, there are in the journals and letters of Mr. Longfellow numerous indications that he read often and much in the works of Dante. For example, he read in the Commedia in March and in May, 1838, and in March 1839. In January 1840 he read the entire Inferno. On March 4, 1847, he read canto I of the Inferno; and on the 7th, canto II. On September 8, 1850, he read Dante's "Vita Nova," and marked passages for use in his next Lecture. On August 7, 1853, he and his wife read to themselves a canto or two of Dante's "Paradiso." In February 1862 he was reading the Purgatory with his children. In January 1874 he finished reading the whole poem with Edith.

The records of his teaching at Harvard, where he was Professor from 1837 to 1854, indicate that he read through the entire Commedia, and through at least large portions of it, repeatedly, and from time to time read in other works of Dante, and also in numerous other works related to the study of Dante, He began his first course of lectures on Dante in January 1838, and he chose to give a Dante course at least eleven more times in the following sixteen years.

Near the end of 1837 he wrote to Mary Appleton:

I . . . have no more Lectures till January, when I begin Dante . . . that is the Purgatorio and Paradiso, to please my imagination with sweeter visions than the Inferno; which with all its hor[r]ors I make over to Dr. Bachi forever. . . . I shall however write out, and very soon, . . . a Lecture upon the Faust. . . . There is only one impediment in the way. I was imprudent enough to take up Dante the other day; and he excites me more than any other poet. . . . how can I stop mid way in an Introductory Lecture on Christian Dante to take up Heathen Göthe?

The class lectures on Dante were unwritten, what were called "oral lectures." The Professor read the book into English to his class, with a running commentary and illustration. For his purpose he had a copy of the author rebound with blank sheets alternating with the printed sheets, and the blank pages he gradually filled with notes and with translations of noteworthy lines or passages.

Some of his Journal entries on the subject of the Dante course are interesting. On March 1, 1847, he wrote that he had "this term" two classes in Moliere and one in Dante; "no college work could possibly be pleasanter." — And this term he lectured on the Inferno; for on May 24 he wrote:

Finished the Inferno with my class, and am not sorry. Painful tragedy, called by its author comedy! Full of wonderful pathos, horror, and never ending surprise.

On March 6, 1849, he wrote:

Wonderful poet! What a privilege it is to interpret thee to young hearts!

During the first few years, he dealt mainly with the Purgatorio and somewhat with the Paradiso, and during the later years mainly with the Inferno. But Professor Longfellow did more than go over the text of the poem. He discussed Dante's biography, the backgrounds and sources of Dante's work, Dante's fame, commentaries and critical appraisals of Dante's work, editions and manuscripts, artistic illustrations of Dante's work and portraits of Dante, English translations, and poetic illustrations of Dante.

While he was teaching at Harvard, Longfellow wrote out two lectures, one entitled "[The Age of] Dante—Life of Dante" (published in 1857, slightly revised, as an essay "Dante"), and the other "Divina Commedia"; and an essay "Dante Alighieri" to introduce the selections from Dante's works included in his anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe (published in 1845). This last essay is mainly drawn from the two lectures. It may be noted also that he wrote out a synopsis of the Purgatory, and that the Divina Commedia lecture includes a brief synopsis of the entire Commedia. We may briefly examine the lecture "Divina Commedia," for it is probably a fairly good sample of what Longfellow's college-course lectures on Dante were like.

In it he discusses the character of Dante (presents him as an author who wrote from inspiration; as a writer with delicate feeling, refined imagination, and strong passion; as an austere man of indomitable will, inflexible purpose, and great pride; as an advocate of right in an age of violence); speaks of commentators and illustrators of the Commedia, and of its sources or origins; points out things most worthy of regard in the poem (Dante's power of grasping subtle thought and expressing it distinctly and forcibly in poetic diction; his ability to mirror the age in which he lived, to image realistically and faithfully the principal historic events and persons and characteristics of the time); then gives a synopsis of the narrative of the poem. Next, he presents a number of observations about the work (there are great numbers of souls in Hell and relatively few in Purgatory; the souls in Hell seem more physical than those in Purgatory; the glory of the souls in Heaven is expressed in a great variety of ways; the souls in Hell desire to be remembered on earth, whereas those in Purgatory desire to be remembered and prayed for, and those in Heaven have no cares; there is great variety in the ways in which Beatrice's ever-increasing beauty is expressed, and the ways in which Dante's power over and over again, rises equal to the magnificence of his theme; the Inferno is the most energetic, striking, gross, palpable, and terrific of the three parts of the poem, but not the most beautiful; in the Purgatory and Paradise the poet relies more upon imagination; Dante's style shows rude energy, hearty simplicity, distinctness, hard polish, wonderful power of description and use of figures of speech). Finally, he gives some related passages from the poem to illustrate its beauties (the description of Lucifer seen through the twilight air; the comparison of Antaeus' stooping to the leaning tower of Bologna; the picture of spirits gazing at Dante and Virgil; the comparison of the soul to a little child; the description of the descent of Beatrice and Dante's feelings at her reproach; the descriptions of the motions of the spheres, and of the celestial rose; the manifold and beautiful forms under which Dante represents angels; the beautiful manner in which the approach of morning and evening, and all the changes of the day, are announced; exquisite scenes, like the description of the Earthly Paradise, and of the Empyrean, with its river of light, etc.)

Another manifestation of his interest in and serious study of Dante, and the carefulness with which he read, is his translating of the Commedia.

The earliest identifiable specimens of his translation of bits of this poem are approximately five lines in three quotations (two from the Inferno and one from the Paradiso) in the manuscript lecture on "Dante . . .," which can with reasonable certainty be dated as having been written during the five or six weeks immediately preceding January 15, 1838.

The first considerable number of lines and passages which he translated and which also have a precise terminal date assigned to them are the 71 quotations for the Purgatory, totaling about 350 lines in his own rendition, which he included in his synopsis of the Purgatory, the manuscript of which was finished on March 22, 1838. However, some of the lines translated by him and written into his interleaved copy of Dante seem clearly to antedate the corresponding lines in the 1838 synopsis; therefore it is reasonably certain that he had begun to write bits of original translation into his interleaved Dante before March 22, 1838—probably he had done so about the time that he had begun teaching Dante at Harvard, in January of that same year, but possibly even earlier.

Next in time came the 28 quotations totaling 98 lines translated by Longfellow and included in his lecture "Divina Commedia," the manuscript of which was completed on May 22, 1838; nine of these quotations (totaling 29 lines) are from the Inferno, twelve (totaling 45 lines) are from the Purgatory, and seven (totaling 24 lines) are from the Paradise. April 30, 1839, he sent one translated passage of 33 lines from the beginning of Purgatory XXVIII to R.H. Dana; but his translation of the same passage in the interleaved Dante clearly dates earlier.

Next, chronologically, came the first bits of his translation to be published: five passages (totaling 117 lines) from four cantos of the Purgatory, which appeared in December 1839 in Voices of the Night under the titles of "The Celestial Pilot," "The Terrestrial Paradise," and "Beatrice."

Then, for several weeks in the spring and early summer of 1843 he took up the work of translating with some regularity and continuity, and translated the first sixteen cantos of the Purgatorio. It seems that he was stimulated or urged to do so by Catherine Eliot Norton (the wife of Andrews Norton and mother of Charles), for in a letter postmarked March 9 of that year he wrote to her (who at the time was in New York): "I have been translating some Cantos of Dante for you, since you went away. If there is any merit in the work it is yours." She wrote back on the 17th: "I am delighted at the thought of seeing more of Dante in your language. I wish I had your translation here this moment." And four days later he wrote to her again, saying that with "the Divine Dante"

I begin the morning! I write a few lines every day before breakfast. It is the first thing I do—the morning prayer—the key-note of the day. I am delighted to have you take an interest in it. But do not expect too much;—for I really have but a few moments to devote to it daily; yet daily a stone—small or great is laid on the pile.

Nearly all of the manuscript sheets of the sixteen cantos still exist. One package of them is labelled on the wrapper, in Longfellow's writing, "Ten Cantos of the Purgatorio. The first draft. To be bound." And on the first sheet of the translation (for canto I) he wrote "1843 / Purgatory / Canto I," and also the notation "Only a rough sketch, not to be printed on any account . . . ." After 63 lines he stopped the translation and wrote a note: "Conclusion of this Canto on blank leaves of my Dante." (Here is clear evidence that the long passage of Purgatory I, 64-136 in the interleaved Dante was written into the book by, or before, the time of writing this part of the manuscript, which time seems to have been shortly before March 9, 1843.) After giving five tercets of canto II he wrote another note: "See Voices of the Night p. 99." That book contains, on pages 99-101, lines 13-51 of canto II. Then the translation in the manuscript continues from that point and goes through canto X. Then there are sheets for cantos XI and XII, and at the end of canto XII the manuscript is dated May 10, 1843. Then there follow sheets for canto XIII, and parts of XIV and XV. Lines 64-75 of canto XV are written on the back of a half sheet of paper which contains a part of a letter by Longfellow dated June 15, 1843. Finally, in a letter dated November 24 of the same year, to Ferdinand Freiligrath, he mentioned that he had translated "sixteen Cantos of Dante."

After having completed the first sixteen cantos of Purgatory, apparently in June 1843, he laid the project aside, and did not return to it for nearly ten years. But he did return to it, on February 1, 1853, worked at it during a part of every day (or almost every day) for twenty-nine days, and completed his first draft of the whole cantica on March 1. Journal entries for sixteen days of the twenty-nine give a fairly complete record of his progress, and a few of the entries indicate that he enjoyed the work. But again he laid the work aside for another long period, approximately nine years. There were other things that demanded his time and energies.

Then in July 1861 befell the tragic accident that took the life of Mrs. Longfellow, and cast Mr. Longfellow into the depths of sorrow. It was partly in an attempt to find relief from his despondency that in February 1862 he returned a third time to the translation, and this time there was almost no let-up until the work was completed, revised, and annotated, although it took a little over five years to bring the translation, with notes, to actual publication, in April, May, and June of 1867. During those five years Mr. Longfellow enjoyed having the advice of a few close friends (principally James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton) with whom he often conferred; and their frequent meetings led in October 1865 to the formation of "the Dante Club," which met once a week (except during the summer and fall of 1866) until May 1867 for the sake of discussing Dante—more precisely, to review critically Mr. Longfellow's translation before it should finally go to press for the regular first edition.

The translation is in English blank verse (i.e., unrimed iambic pentameter verses), a form which allows the translator enough freedom to render faithfully the meaning of the original, and yet at the same time allows him to achieve poetic qualities. (Those who choose a form of rimed verse often, for the sake of the rimes, distort the meaning of the original text.) Professor Norton wrote that Mr. Longfellow's translation was, of all the English translations, the most faithful to Dante's meaning. One additional feature of Mr. Longfellow's translation is the fact that he renders Dante's text line by line, an achievement which George Ticknor thought most remarkable. Longfellow referred to this feature in his third Dante Sonnet where he said, "I . . . strive to make my steps keep pace with thine."

It is fitting to observe that the Dante Club meetings were a kind of forerunner of the Dante Society, which was founded in Cambridge early in 1881, and which still exists and has become a national organization. Mr. Longfellow was elected and served as the Society's first president.

In order to show when Mr. Longfellow began to read in Dante, we have previously mentioned his quoting Dante. The frequency of his quoting gives additional evidence of his interest; and the source of the quotations suggests the extent of his reading. Excluding general references, and even references to specific passages (both of which are numerous), I have counted in his writings other than Hyperion, Kavanagh, and the Poems some 173 quotations from the Commedia, 16 from the Vita Nuova, 5 from the Canzonieri, 68 from the Convivio, 4 from the Epistolae, 1 from the Eclogae, 2 from De Monarchia, and 9 from De Vulgari Eloquio. I am not sure that I have counted all of them, but certainly there are more than enough to indicate that he was familiar with all of Dante's known works—and that the Commedia he must have known almost by heart.

Finally, let us notice the echoes of Dante which appear in Mr. Longfellow's Hyperion, Kavanagh, and poems.

In Hyperion there are three passages which echo respectively passages in Paradiso III, Paradiso IX, and Purgatorio XXVIII, as well as a general reference to Dante's heaven, and the mentioning of Dante's name two more times.

In Kavanagh there are two passages which echo, respectively, a passage in Inferno IV and a line in Purgatorio XII.

Of Longfellow's poems there are at least nineteen, dating from 1842 to 1881, which show some kind of influence from Dante.

The title and opening words of the sonnet "Mezzo Cammin" obviously are echoes of the first line of the Inferno.

"The Spanish Student" contains three phrases which echo phrases in Inferno XXVI, Purgatorio XIII, and Purgatorio XXXI.

The sonnet "Dante" by its title indicates the source of its author's inspiration. Moreover, the first lines refer to Dante's journey through Hell, and particularly to Farinata and some of his words to Dante in Inferno X.

The poem "Prometheus" contains a general reference to Dante's suffering as an exile.

In "My Lost Youth" he used as an epigraph a line from Inferno V, and in the poem paraphrased part of the quotation.

"Hiawatha" contains an echo of Paradiso III, 123.

In "Birds of Passage" he used as an epigraph Inferno V, 46-47.

The poem "Hawthorne" contains an echo of Inferno I, 10-12, or Purgatorio XV, 5S-123.

In his six sonnets on translating the Commedia Longfellow often, as one would expect, echoes or papaphrases or alludes to some passage of it, and once he refers to an incident narrated in the Vita Nuova. But even where Longfellow does not definitely borrow from Dante, he is still indebted in a general way for his inspiration. In Sonnet I there is no borrowing from Dante's text but the cathedral of this sonnet (and of the others) is Dante's poem. Entering "here from day to day" (in Sonnet I, written in 1864) refers to Mr. Longfellow's translating a portion of the Inferno each day in March and April 1863. (In 1843, too, for a time, he had translated a part of the Purgatorio each day; and he seems to have done some translating each day in February and part of March in 1553.) Leaving his burden at the minster gate refers to his finding consolation in the translating during the years immediately following his wife's death.

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
   A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
   Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
   Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
   Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
   And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
   The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
   While the eternal ages watch and wait.

The other sonnets do echo specific passages of Dante's work. For example, Sonnet IV:

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
   She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
   From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
   The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
   Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
   As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
   Lethe and Eunoë—the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow—bring at last
   That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

Under the title of Michael Angelo two lines of Paradiso XIII are written as an epigraph; and in the poem there is an echo of Purgatorio XXIV, 20-24, a translation of Paradiso XXIX, 91; mention of Dante, and of the pages of "the great master of the Tuscan tongue"; an echo of Paradiso XVII, 58-59; a reference to Dante's exile and his "song" (the Commedia), to Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, and to the heaven of Venus; a quotation of the phrase "il poema sacro", a reference to Phlegethon, the seventh ledge of Purgatory, the hyprocrites of Hell, and St. Peter's outburst against degenerate Popes in Paradiso XXVII; a translation of three lines from Paradiso XXVII, and an allusion to the Celestial Rose of Paradise which our Tuscan poet saw, with its petals and swarm of bees.

"Monte Cassino" contains a paraphrase of Purgatorio XX, 86-87, and a translation of Inferno XXVIII, 16-17.

"Morituri Salutamus" contains a reference to Dante's journey through Hell and his meeting with Brunetto Latini, and a translation of Inferno XV, 82-87.

"The Cross of Snow" contains an echo of Cacciaguida's words "E venni dal martiro a questa pace" (Paradiso XV, 148).

This same line was used as an epigraph for the poem "President Garfield," many details of which were drawn from Dante's description of the heaven of Mars and his account of Cacciaguida.