Note 306 — CANTO VII.

Necessity, etc.: Suggested, perhaps, by Horace’s Te semper anteit sæva necessitas (Od. i. 35). The question of how men can be free in the face of necessity, here associated with Fortune, more than once emerges in the Comedy. Dante’s belief on the subject was substantially that of his favourite author Boethius, who holds that ultimately ‘it is Providence that turns the wheel of all things;’ and who says, that ‘if you spread your sails to the wind you will be carried, not where you would, but whither you are driven by the gale: if you choose to commit yourself to Fortune, you must endure the manners of your mistress.’