The next canto continues to deal with the same topic; but enters more into detail with regard to the various families, and the vicissitudes in their fortunes. This leads up to the existing strife of parties, and this again naturally to Dante’s own share in it, and his exile. It must be remembered that this did not actually come about till two years after the date at which the action of the _Commedia_ is supposed to take place; so that the whole is cast into a prophetic form. The language used, however, must be taken as expressing the feeling with which Dante looked back after an interval of nearly twenty years--for the _Paradise_ was probably completed very shortly before the poet’s death--upon the events in which he had borne a somewhat prominent part. Whether he was ever a personage of the first importance in Florence we may be allowed to doubt. No doubt he was a man of some consideration; but still the office of Prior was one which nearly every eligible citizen must have held;[37] and Villani, who devotes a chapter to his memory, does not mention his name among the political leaders of an earlier period. Probably he occupied among the exiles of 1302 a far less important place in their own eyes and those of contemporaries than he does in ours; but if not a leader, he was in the front rank, and must have been aware of all that went on. The passages relating to his exile, to the worthlessness of his companions, to his gratitude towards those who helped him, gain immensely in force and pathos if we regard them as an aging man’s reminiscences of a long by-gone time.
With the passage to the sphere of Jupiter (Canto xviii.) the imagery becomes yet more daring. This is the region specially devoted to the spirits of the righteous; and these as they fly are forming letters, which ultimately spell out the opening words of the Book of Wisdom: “Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram.” When the final M is reached a further transformation takes place; the letter is gradually modified into the shape of the imperial eagle. Righteousness, or justice, is, it should be remembered, in Dante’s view (as indeed in that of most moralists) the source and foundation of all that goes to establish human society on a virtuous and duly ordered basis. Thus it is rightly illustrated by the symbol of the Empire. The Eagle behaves as one single individual, though composed of countless spirits; speaking with a single voice, and in the singular number. A discourse on justice leads up to a sharp rebuke of nearly every prince then ruling, on the score of misgovernment in one or another form.