The Banquet | Page 2

which may have been written and made known
some time before he began work on their Commentary. Death stayed
his hand, and the completion passed into a song that joined the voice of
Dante to the praise in heaven.
H.M.
April 1887.

THE
BANQUET OF DANTE ALIGHIERI
* * * * *

The First Treatise.


CHAPTER I.

As the Philosopher says in the beginning of the first Philosophy, "All
men naturally desire Knowledge." The reason of which may be, that
each thing, impelled by the intuition of its own nature, tends towards its
perfection, hence, forasmuch as Knowledge is the final perfection of
our Soul, in which our ultimate happiness consists, we are all naturally
subject to the desire for it.
Verily, many are deprived of this most noble perfection, by divers
causes within the man and without him, which remove him from the
use of Knowledge.
Within the man there may be two defects or impediments, the one on
the part of the Body, the other on the part of the Soul. On the part of the
Body it is, when the parts are unfitly disposed, so that it can receive
nothing as with the deaf and dumb, and their like. On the part of the
Soul it is, when evil triumphs in it, so that it becomes the follower of
vicious pleasures, through which it is so much deceived, that on
account of them it holds everything in contempt.
Without the man, two causes may in like manner be understood, of
which one comes of necessity, the other of stagnation. The first is the
management of the family and conduct of civil affairs, which fitly
draws to itself the greater number of men, so that they cannot live in
the quietness of speculation. The other is the fault of the place where a
person is born and reared, which will ofttimes be not only without any
School whatever, but may be far distant from studious people. The two
first of these causes--the first of the hindrance from within, and the first
of the hindrance from without--are not deserving of blame, but of
excuse and pardon; the two others, although the one more than the
other, deserve blame and are to be detested.
Hence, he who reflects well, can manifestly see that they are few who
can attain to the enjoyment of Knowledge, though it is desired by all,
and almost innumerable are the fettered ones who live for ever
famished of this food.
Oh, blessed are those few who sit at that table where the Bread of
Angels is eaten, and wretched those who can feed only as the Sheep.

But because each man is naturally friendly to each man, and each friend
grieves for the fault of him whom he loves; they who are fed at that
high table are full of mercy towards those whom they see straying in
one pasture with the creatures who eat grass and acorns.
And forasmuch as Mercy is the Mother of Benevolence, those who
know how, do always liberally offer their good wealth to the true poor,
and are like a living stream, whose water cools the before-named
natural thirst. I, then, who sit not at the blessed table, but having fled
from the pasture of the common herd, lie at the feet of those who sit
there and gather up what falls from them, by the sweetness which I find
in that which I collect little by little, I know the wretched life of those
whom I have left behind me; and moved mercifully for the unhappy
ones, not forgetting myself, I have reserved something which I have
shown to their eyes long ago, and for this I have made them greatly
desirous. Wherefore, now wishing to prepare for them, I mean to make
a common Banquet of this which I have shown to them, and of that
needed bread without which food such as this could not be eaten by
them at their feast; bread fit for such meat, which I know, without it,
would be furnished forth in vain. And therefore I desire that no one
should sit at this Banquet whose members are so unfitly disposed that
he has neither teeth, nor tongue, nor palate: nor any follower of vice;
inasmuch as his stomach is full of venomous and hurtful humours, so
that it will retain no food whatever. But let those come to us,
whosoever they be, who, pressed by the management of civil and
domestic life, have felt this human hunger, and at one table with others
who have been in like bondage, let them sit. But at their feet let us
place all those who have been the slaves of sloth, and who are not
worthy to sit higher: and then