All 8 Uses of
divine
in
Dante's Inferno -- translated by Cary
- "See next the wretches, who the needle left,
The shuttle and the spindle, and became
Diviners: baneful witcheries they wrought
With images and herbs.†Canto 1.12-22 *
- For I divine thy wish:
Canto 1.23-34 *divine = understand (discovered)
- The hour was morning's prime, and on his way
Aloft the sun ascended with those stars,
That with him rose, when Love divine first mov'd
Those its fair works: so that with joyous hope
All things conspir'd to fill me, the gay skin
Of that swift animal, the matin dawn
And the sweet season.†Canto 1.1-11
- Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.†Canto 1.1-11 *
- She with foresight plans,
Judges, and carries on her reign, as theirs
The other powers divine.†Canto 1.1-11
- If well thou note
This judgment, and remember who they are,
Without these walls to vain repentance doom'd,
Thou shalt discern why they apart are plac'd
From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours
Justice divine on them its vengeance down.†Canto 1.1-11
- In the Venetians' arsenal as boils
Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear
Their unsound vessels; for th' inclement time
Sea-faring men restrains, and in that while
His bark one builds anew, another stops
The ribs of his, that hath made many a voyage;
One hammers at the prow, one at the poop;
This shapeth oars, that other cables twirls,
The mizen one repairs and main-sail rent
So not by force of fire but art divine
Boil'd here a glutinous thick mass, that round
Lim'd all the shore beneath.†Canto 1.12-22
- I had come
Thus far from all your skirmishing secure,"
My teacher answered, "without will divine
And destiny propitious?†Canto 1.12-22
Definitions:
-
(1)
(divine as in: to forgive is divine) wonderful; or god-like or coming from God
-
(2)
(divine as in: divined from tea leaves) to predict or discover something supernaturally (as if by magic)
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(3)
(divine as in: divined through intuition) to discover or guess something -- usually through intuition or reflection
-
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) In the time of Shakespeare, divine was sometimes used as a noun to reference a priest or a person of the church. (To remember that sense, think of the clergyman as having come from God).
Divinity typically refers to a god or to a school of religion, but on rare occasions, it refers to the name of a kind of soft white candy. To remember that sense, you might think of it as tasting divine/wonderful.