VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 381

It is true that Idleness does not elsewhere appear in the scheme, and is evidently intended to be included in the guilt of sadness by the word “accidioso;” but the main meaning of the poet is to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, according both to St. Paul’s command, and Isaiah’s promise, “Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.”* I do not know words that might with more benefit be borne with us, and set in our hearts momentarily against the minor regrets and rebelliousnesses of life, than these simple ones:

“Tristi fummo

Nell’ aer dolce, che del sol s’ allegra,

Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra.”¹

“We once were sad,

In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun,

Now in these murky settlings are we sad.Ӡ -CARY.

The virtue usually opposed to this vice of sullenness is Alacritas, uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness. Spenser has cheerfulness simply, in his description, never enough to be loved or praised, of the virtues of Womanhood; first, feminineness or womanhood in specialty; then,-

“Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse,

Ne ever durst her eyes from ground upreare,

Ne ever once did looke up from her desse,‡

As if some blame of evill she did feare

That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare:

And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed,

Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening cleare,

Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chaced.

* Isa. lxiv. 5.

† I can hardly think it necessary to point out to the reader the association between sacred cheerfulness and solemn thought, or to explain any appearance of contradiction between passages in which (as above in Chap. V.) I have had to oppose sacred pensiveness to unholy mirth, and those in which I have to oppose sacred cheerfulness to unholy sorrow.

‡ “Desse,” seat [dais].

¹ [Inferno, vii. 121. Ruskin omits the line (before the last one) containing the word just referred to, “accidioso”-“Portando dentro accidioso fummo”: “Carrying a foul and lazy mist within.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]