154 
Butler — Dante. 
same discovery, that the shades in Hades were shadowless while 
he was not, had been made by Aridaeus the Cilician, soon after 
the Christian era. Plutarch tells the story and it may come 
before us again. 
In surveying the creations of pictorial old masters we at first 
consider them altogether original. But as soon as we enter a 
gallery where pictures are arranged chronologically, we recog¬ 
nize our mistake. Even in the master-pieces of Raphael the 
subjects chosen, the persons introduced, their grouping and ac¬ 
cessories, sometimes the very colors, were by no means new 
On the contrary, they were traditional, conventional — heir¬ 
looms from earlier centuries or imported from Byzantium. Nor 
were there many among Raphael’s own contemporaries from 
whom he failed to learn more or less, so that, on the whole, no 
artist caught more from others than this supreme artist. 
Scrutiny of Dante points the same way. He made spoil of the 
Egyptians like the Jews who at their exodus borrowed, every 
man and every woman of their neighbors, jewels of silver and 
jewels of gold. More than this, there went out a decree from 
Dante as from Cassar Augustus that all the world, and not Egypt 
only, should be taxed. 
But, however much Dante borrowed, he made everything 
his own. The notion that disembodied spirits cast no shadows 
is a thousand years older than Dante, and it may have come to 
him through books or by hearsay. It is noteworthy, however, 
that he makes the tradition his own as fully as if it had been his 
own invention. 
In the Inferno he never noticed this peculiarity. Perhaps it 
was too dark there for shadows to be noticed. It was in Purga¬ 
tory that it first caught his eye. Seeing his own shadow on 
the hill-side and none of Virgil, he was startled with fear that 
his guide was gone. Finding him close at hand his next won¬ 
der was how it was possible for purgatorians around him to be 
freezing and burning although they were shadowless. As this 
puzzle was past his finding out he thus learned to feel that his 
path was to be among more mysteries than had been dreamed 
of in his philosophy. 
It is worth observing that Dante’s shadow was as plain as 
