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THE DIVINE COMEDY

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA SINGAPORE

THE
DIVINE COMEDY

being
EAE VISION OF
DANTE ALIGHIERI

translated by
HENRY FRANCIS CARY

With 109 illustrations by
John Flaxman

LONDON
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK TORONTO

DantTE ALIGHIFRI

Born at Florence sometime between mid-May and mid-
June, 1265

Died at Ravenna : ‘ : 14 September 1321
Earliest known manuscript of the poem 1336
First printed texts (three in number) 1472

This edriion of Cary’s translation was first printed in 1910
and reprinted in 1913, 1916, 1923,'1929, 1950 and 1957.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
O.S.A.

CONTENTS

PAGE
List oF ILLUSTRATIONS . f ; : é : vii
PREFACE . ; ; i : ‘ t : - ; xi
LIFE OF DANTE é : ‘ ; fs 5 i of) an
CHRONOLOGICAL VIEW OF THE AGE OF DANTE ; 7. xli
THE VISION OF DANTE:

Hell ~ ‘ 4 : A : : ; f : 1

Purgatory . : : , : ae ba |

Paradise f ‘ : . ; E : re. 5 |
NorvTeEs s ‘ : y , 5 A : é ~ 359

INDEX i : _ 2 : k ; P >. ‘bot

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/divinecomedybeinOO0dant

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HELL

PAGE
Virgil as Dante’s Guide. : : : : ; 3
Virgil and Beatrice meeting : ; : - : ; 6
Charon’s Boat . : f ; ‘ : ; 10
Christ’s Descent to Limbo . : : : - é , 12
The Sin of Paola and Francesca . : : : : F 17
The Punishment of Paola and Francesca : ; 3 : 18
Cerberus . : : = 2 : ; rt oe
The Region of Eien : : : : : A ot bongo
The City of Dis . : : . : . : : =) ee
The Furies 5 : A ; . : : é Q 30
The Fiery Sepulchres . : ° ‘ - : : a 3
The Tomb of Pope Anastasius : : , : AY» Bo
Encounter with the Centaurs . : ; P 4 >, 4p
The Forest of Harpies : ° 4 : - : » 43
The Statue of Four Metals . : : F : : » 49
Dante and Brunetto Latini . 2 ; . ‘ ’ 51
Guidoguerra, Aldobrandi, and BustienGci ‘ ? : ‘ 54
Geryon . , : ; : : , : , + ope
Malebolge : : ‘ : ; : , sy , 62
The Gulf of Simony . : : : : “7 64
Tiresias . & ‘ F ‘ : : ‘ 68
The Gulf of the Beier : , ee
The Demons threaten Dante and Wace : 5 4 = ofthe
The Lake of Boiling Pitch . : ° : : sy oie
The Punishment of Saeed : ; : : 2 30
The Serpents. : . : - - : Bees
Cacus j . 5 ‘ : : ‘ : : 86
The Flaming Gulf . ‘ : F ; or 90
The Contention for Guido da Monreteltro k : : . 94
Bertrand de Born ‘ FS : ‘ : ‘ ‘ 98
The Gulf of the Falsifiers . : ; é ? : 7 L0G
Schicchi and > ape : - : ; ; - 103
Antaeus . : ; : ‘ ; : . 108

The Frozen Circle : : : : : E : “ry 110

Viil LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Count Ugolino and his Sons sent to Prison .

he Death of Ugolino - :

Lucifer a s Q

The Reascent fears Hell : 2
PURGATORY

Cato, Virgil, and Dante .
Virgil girds Dante with a Reed
The Approach of the Boat .

The Spirits disembark

Casella

The Spirits of the Paes immniears
The Negligent

The Deliverance of Buancante
The Meeting with Sordello .

The Infants in Limbo :

The Guardians of the Vale .
Dante’s Dream .

The Gate of Pur pators

The Annunciation ‘ 5

The First Cornice, of Pride .

The Fall of Lucifer :
The Second Cornice, of Envy : .
Two Spirits on the Second Cornice
The Angel of the Second Cornice . : :
The Third Cornice, of Anger : : : “
The Angel-of the Third Cornice
The Fourth Cornice, of Sloth
The Fifth Cornice, of Avarice

The Earthquake

The Meeting with Statius

The Sixth Cornice, of Gluttony
Nella and Forese Donati

The Intemperate

The Seventh Cornice, of fant
Spirits meeting and kissing .

The Poets reposing

The Terrestrial Paradise

The Procession of Elders

The Descent of Beatrice

The Car of the Church

Matilda immerses Dante in Lethe
The Intrigues of the Church

The River Eunce ;

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PARADISE

Ascent to the Sphere of Fire
Beatrice and Dante enter the Moon
The First Heaven, of the Moon

Spirits returning to the Stars °

The Second Heaven, of Mercury . .
Spirits of the Ambitious. °
Beatrice and Dante . 5

The Third Heaven, of ee

Cunizza

The Fourth Heater ot t the Sh ;

The Church, with St. Francis and St. Toninic
A Second Circle of Spirits

The Adoration of the Trinity

The Fifth Heaven, of Mars.—The Bynes of the Chace
The Birth of Cacciaguida : : :
Mars in the Constellation Leo

Dante discoursing with Cacciaguida

The Sixth Heaven, of Jupiter

The Celestial Eagle

Ripheus, the Trojan :

The Seventh Heaven, of Saturn

The Sword of Heaven .

The Triumph of Christ :

The Eighth Heaven, of the Fixed ace

The Church Militant . :

St. John examines Dante

The Heavenly Choir :

The Ninth, or Crystalline, ener

The Creation of the Angels . - :
The Tenth, or Empyrean, Heaven ° :
The Glory of the Blessed Virgin . : :
St. Bernard and Dante : ° ° :
The Beatific Vision , A ‘ °

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PREFACE

In the years 1805 and 1806, I published the First Part of the
following Translation, with the Text of the Original. Since that
period, two impressions of the whole of the Divina Commedia,
in Italian, have made their appearance in this country. It is
not necessary that I should add a third: and I am induced to
hope that the Poem, even in the present version of it, may not
be without interest for the mere English reader.

The translation of the Second and Third Parts, The Purgatory
and The Paradise, was begun long before the First, and as early
as the year 1797; but, owing to many interruptions, not con-
cluded till the summer before last. On a retrospect of the time
and exertions that have been thus employed, I do not regard
those hours as the least happy of my life, during which (to use
the eloquent language of Mr. Coleridge) ‘ my individual recollec-
tions have been suspended, and lulled to sleep amid the music
of nobler thoughts’; nor that study as misapplied, which has
familiarized me with one of the sublimest efforts of the human
invention.

To those, who shall be at the trouble of examining into the
degree of accuracy with which the task has been executed, I may
be allowed to suggest, that their judgement should not be formed
on a comparison with any single text of my Author; since, in
more instances than I have noticed, I have had to make my choice
out of a variety of readings and interpretations, presented by
different editions and commentators.

In one or two of those editions is to be found the title of The
Vision; which I have adopted, as more conformable to the
genius of our language than that of The Divine Comedy. Dante
himself, I believe, termed it simply The Comedy ; in the first
place, because the style was of the middle kind ; and in the next,
because the story (if story it may be called) ends happily.

January, 1814.

The above Advertisement was prefixed to an edition of the
following Translation, printed in so small a character as to deter
a numerous class of readers from perusing it. Amongst the few

Xl PREFACE

into whose hands it fell, about two years ago, Mr. Coleridge
became one ; and [ have both a pride and a pleasure in acknow-
ledging that it has been chiefly owing to the prompt and strenuous
exertions of that gentleman in recommending the book to public
notice, that the opportunity has been afforded me of sending it
forth in its present form.

July, 1819.

When a Third Edition was called for in 1831, my duties as an
Assistant Librarian in the British Museum were such as to prevent
me from engaging in any task that would have required an
increase of sedentary labour. I was thus hindered not only from
attending to the accuracy of the press (which indeed the care of
my Publisher rendered almost unnecessary), but from collecting
and putting in order the several corrections and additions, which
I had occasionally noted with the purpose of introducing them
into that edition.

A long interval of leisure may since have enabled me to do
more effectually what I was before compelled to leave undone.
In the hope of rendering the Life of Dante and the Notes on the
Poem less imperfect, I have consulted most of the writers by
whom my Author has been recently illustrated. Wherever an
omission or an error in the translation has been pointed out to
me, I have done my best to supply the one and to correct the
other ; and my obligations in all these instances are acknowledged
in the Notes. Among those who have not thought a few hours
thrown away in noticing such oversights, it is gratifying to me to
mention the names of Mr. Carlyle, one of the most original
thinkers of our time; my long experienced friend, Mr. Darley,
one of our most genuine poets; and Mr. Lyell, my respected
fellow-labourer in the mine of Dante. At an advanced age, I do
not imagine myself capable of otherwise improving an attempt
which, however defective, has at least the advantage of having
had my earlier days bestowed on it.

February, 1844.

LIFE OF DANTE

DANTE,’ a name abbreviated, as was the custom in those days,
from Durante or Durando, was of a very ancient Florentine
family. The first of his ancestors? concerning whom anything
certain is known, was Cacciaguida,’ a Florentine knight, who died
fighting in the holy war, under the Emperor Conrad III. Caccia-
guida had two brothers, Moronto and Eliseo, the former of whom
is not recorded to have left any posterity ; the latter is the head
of the family of the Elisei, or perhaps (for it is doubtful which is
the case) only transmitted to his descendants a name which he
had himself inherited. From Cacciaguida himself were sprung
the Alighieri, so called from one of his sons, who bore the appella-
tion from his mother’s family,’ as is affirmed by the Poet himself,
under the person of Cacciaguida, in the fifteenth canto of the
Paradise. This name, Alighieri, is derived from the coat of arms,°
a wing or, on a field azure, still borne by the descendants of our
Poet at Verona, in the days of Leonardo Aretino.

Dante was born at Florence in May, 1265. His mother’s name
was Bella, but of what family is no longer known. His father °
he had the misfortune to lose in his childhood ; but by the advice
of his surviving relations, and with the assistance of an able
preceptor, Brunetto Latini, he applied himself closely to polite

1 A note by Salvini, on Muratori della Perf. Poes. Ital. lib. iii. cap. vili.

2 Leonardo Aretino, Vita di Dante.

3 Par. xv. He was born, as most have supposed, in 1106, and died about
1147. But Lombardi computes his birth to have happened about 1090.
See note to Par. xvi. 31. For what is known of his descendants till the
birth of Dante, see note to Par. xv. 86.

4 Vellutello, Vita di Dante. There is reason to suppose that she was the
daughter of Aldigerio, who was a lawyer of Verona, and brother of one of
the same name, bishop of that city, and author of an epistle addressed to his
mother, a religious recluse, with the title of Tractatus Adalgeri Episc. ad
Rosuvidam reclausam (or, ad Orismundam matrem inclusam) de Rebus
moralibus. See Cancellieri, Osservazioni, &c. Roma, 1814, p. 119.

5 Pelli describes the arms differently. Memorie per la Vita di Dante.
Opere di Dante. Ediz. Zatta, 1758, tom. iv. part. ii. p. 16. The male line
ended in Pietro, the sixth in descent from our Poet, and father of Ginevra,
married in 1549 to the Conte Marcantonio Sarego, of Verona. Pelli, p. 19.

6 His father Alighiero had been before married to Lapa, daughter of
Chiarissimo Cialuffi; and by her had a son named Francesco, who left two
daughters, and a son, whom he named Durante after his brother. Francesco
appears to have been mistaken for a son of our Poet’s. Boccaccio mentions
aS a sister of Dante, who was married to Poggi, and was the mother of
Andrea Poggi, Boccaccio’s intimate. Pelli, p. 267.

xiv LIFE OF DANTE

literature and other liberal studies, at the same time that he
omitted no pursuit necessary for the accomplishment of a manly
character, and mixed with the youth of his age in all honourable
and noble exercises.

In the twenty-fourth year of his age, he was present at the
memorable battle of Campaldino,' where he served in the fore-
most troop of cavalry, and was exposed to imminent danger.
Leonardo Aretino refers to a letter of Dante, in which he described
the order of that battle, and mentioned his having been engaged
in it. The cavalry of the Aretini at the first onset gained so
great an advantage over the Florentine horse, as to compel them
to retreat to their body of infantry. This circumstance in the
event proved highly fortunate to the Florentines ; for their own
cavalry being thus joined to their foot, while that of their enemies
was led by the pursuit to a considerable distance from theirs,
they were by these means enabled to defeat with ease their
separate forces. In this battle, the Uberti, Lamberti, and Abati,
with all the other ex-citizens of Florence who adhered to the
Ghibelline ? interest, were with the Aretini; while those inhabi-
tants of Arezzo, who, owing to their attachment to the Guelph?
party, had been banished from their own city, were ranged on the
side of the Florentines. In the following year, Dante took part in
another engagement between his countrymen and the citizens of
Pisa, from whom they took the castle of Caprona,?’ situated not
far from that city.

From what the Poet has told us in his treatise, entitled the
Vita Nuova, we learn that he was a lover long before he was
a soldier, and that his passion for the Beatrice whom he has
immortalized, commenced ‘ when she was at the beginning of her,
and he near the end of his, ninth year. Their first meeting was
at a banquet in the house of Folco Portinari’ her father ; and
the impression then made on the susceptible and constant heart
of Dante, was not obliterated by her death, which happened
after an interval of sixteen years.

But neither war, nor love, prevented Dante from gratifying the
earnest desire which he had of knowledge and mental improve-
ment. By Benvenuto da Imola, one of the earliest of his com-
mentators, it is related that he studied in his youth at the
universities of Bologna and Padua, as well as in that of his native
city, and devoted himself to the pursuit of natural and moral!
philosophy. There is reason to believe that his eagerness for
the acquisition of learning, at some time of his life, led him as far

1 G. Villani describes this engagement, lib. vii. cap. cxxx.

? For the supposed origin of these denominations, see note to Par. vi. 107.

8 Hell, xxi. 92.

4 See also the beginning of the Vita Nuova.

5 Folco di Ricovero Portinari was the founder of the hospital of S. Maria
Nuova, in 1280, and of other charitable institutions, and died in 1289, as
appeared from his epitaph. Pelli, p. 55.

LIFE OF DANTE XV

as Paris, and even Oxford ;! in the former of which universities
he is said to have taken the degree of a Bachelor, and distinguished
himself in the theological disputations ; but to have been hin-
dered from commencing Master, by a failure in his pecuniary
resources. Francesco da Buti, another of his commentators
in the fourteenth century, asserts that he entered the order
of the Frati Minori, but laid aside the habit before he was
professed.

In his own city, domestic troubles, and yet more severe public
calamities, awaited him. In 1291, he was induced, by the
solicitation of his friends, to console himself for the loss of
Beatrice by a matrimonial connexion with Gemma, a lady of
the noble family of the Donati, by whom he had a numerous
ofispring. But the violence of her temper proved a source of

1 Giovanni Villani, who was his contemporary, and, as Villani himself
says, his neighbour in Florence, informs us, that ‘he went to study at
Bologna, and then to Paris, and to many parts of the world ’ (an expression
that may well include England), ‘ subsequently to his banishment.’ Hist.
lib. ix. cap. cxxxv. Indeed, as we shall see, it is uncertain whether he might
not have been more than once a student at Paris.

But the fact of his having visited England rests on a passage alluding to it
in the Latin poems of Boccaccio, and on the authority of Giovanni da
Serravalle, Bishop of Fermo, who, as Tiraboschi observes, though he lived
at the distance of a century from Dante, might have known those who were
contemporaries with him. This writer, in an inedited commentary on the
Commedia, written while he was attending the Council of Constance, says
of our Poet: ‘ Anagorice dilexit theologiam sacram, in qua diu studuit
tam in Oxoniis in regno Angliae, quam Parisiis in regno Franciae,’ &c.
And again: ‘ Dantes se in juventute dedit omnibus artibus liberalibus,
studens eas Paduae, Bononiae, demum Oxoniis et Parisiis, ubi fecit
multos actus mirabiles, intantum quod ab aliquibus dicebatur magnus
philosophus, ab aliquibus magnus theologus, ab aliquibus magnus
poeta.’ Tiraboschi, Stor. della Poes. Ital. vol. ii. cap. iv. p. 14, as extracted
from Tiraboschi’s great work by Mathias, and edited by that gentleman.
Lond. 1803.

The bishop translated the poem itself into Latin prose, at the instance of
Cardinal Amedeo di Saluzzo, and of two English bishops, Nicholas Bubwith,
of Bath, and Robert Halam, of Salisbury, who attended the same Council.
One copy only of the version and commentary is known to be preserved, and
that is in the Vatican. I would suggest the probability of others existing
in this country. Stillingfleet, in the Origines Sacrae, twice quotes passages
from the Paradiso, ‘rendered into Latin’ (and it is Latin prose), as that
learned bishop says, ‘ by F. S.’ Orig. Sacr. b. ii. chap. ix. sect. xviii. § 4,
and chap. x. sect. v. Edit. Cambridge, 1701. See notes to Par. xxiv. 86,
and 104. This work was begun in February, 1416, and finished in the same
month of the following year. ee

The word ‘anagorice’ (into which the Italians altered ‘ anagogice ’)
which occurs in the former of the above extracts, is explained by Dante in
the Convito. Opere di Dante, tom. i. p. 43. Ediz. Venez. 1793, and more
briefly by Field, Of the Church, b. iii. cap. 26. ‘ The Anagogicall ’ sense is,
‘when the things literally expressed unto us do signifie something in the
state of heaven’s happiness.’ It was used by the Greek Fathers to
signify merely a more recondite sense in a text of Scripture than that
which the plain words offered. See Origen in Routh’s Reliquiae Sacrae,
vol. iv. p. 323.

xvi LIFE OF DANTE

the bitterest suffering to him ; and in that passage of the Inferno,
where one of the characters says,

La fiera moglie pit ch’ altro mi nuoce.
Canto xvi.
——— me, my wife
Of savage temper, more than aught beside,
Hath to this evil brought,

his own conjugal unhappiness must have recurred forcibly and
painfully to his mind.’ It is not improbable that political
animosity might have had some share in these dissensions ; for
his wife was a kinswoman of Corso Donati, one of the most
formidable, as he was one of the most inveterate of his opponents.

In 1300 he was chosen chief of the Priors, who at that time pos-
sessed the supreme authority in the state; his colleagues being
Palmieri degli Altoviti and Neri di Jacopo degli Alberti. From
this exaltation our Poet dated the cause of all his subsequent
misfortunes in life.?

In order to show the occasion of Dante’s exile, it may be
necessary to enter more particularly into the state of parties at
Florence. The city, which had been disturbed by many divisions
between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, at length remained in the
power of the former ; but after some time these were again split
into two factions. This perverse occurrence originated with the
inhabitants of Pistoia, who, from an unhappy quarrel between
two powerful families in that city, were all separated into parties
tmown by those denominations. With the intention of composing
their differences, the principals on each side were summoned to
the city of Florence ; but this measure, instead of remedying the
evil, only contributed to increase its virulence, by communicating
it to the citizens of Florence themselves. For the contending
parties were so far from being brought to a reconciliation, that
each contrived to gain fresh partisans among the Florentines,
with whom many of them were closely connected by the ties of
blood and friendship; and who entered into the dispute with
such acrimony and eagerness, that the whole city was soon engaged
either on one part or the other, and even brothers of the same
family were divided. It was not long before they passed, by the
usual gradations, from contumely to violence. The factions
were now known by the names of the Neri and the Bianchi, the
former generally siding with the Guelphs or adherents of the

1 Yet M. Artaud, in his Histoire de Dante (8vo, Paris, 1841, p. 85),
represents Gemma as a tender, faithful, and affectionate wife. I certainly
do not find any mention of her unhappy temper in the early biographers.
Regard for her or for her children might have restrained them. But in the
next century, Landino, though commending her good qualities, does not
scruple to assert that in this respect she was more than a Xanthippe.

? Leonardo Aretino. A late biographer, on the authority of Marchionne
Stefani, assigns different colleagues to Dante in his office of Prior. See
Balbo, Vita di Dante, vol. i. p. 219. Ediz. Torin. 1839.

LIFE OF DANTE XVii

papal power, the latter with the Ghibellines or those who sup-
ported the authority of the Emperor. The Neri assembled
secretly in the church of the Holy Trinity, and determined on
interceding with Pope Boniface VIII to send Charles of Valois
to pacify and reform the city. No sooner did this resolution
come to the knowledge of the Bianchi, than, struck with appre-
hension at the consequences of such a measure, they took arms,
and repaired to the Priors ; demanding of them the punishment
of their adversaries, for having thus entered into private delibera-
tions concerning the state, which they represented to have been
done with the view of expelling them from the city. Those who
had met, being alarmed in their turn, had also recourse to arms,
and made their complaints to the Priors. Accusing their op-
ponents of having armed themselves without any previous public
discussion ; and affirming that, under various pretexts, they had
sought to drive them out of their country, they demanded that
they might be punished as disturbers of the public tranquillity.
The dread and danger became general, when, by the advice of
Dante, the Priors called in the multitude to their protection and
assistance ; and then proceeded to banish the principals of the
two factions, who were these: Corso Donati,’ Geri Spini, Giacho-
notto de’ Pazzi, Rosso della Tosa, and others of the Nera party,
who were exiled to the Castello della Pieve in Perugia ; and of the
Bianca party, who were banished to Serrazana, Gentile and
Torrigiano de’ Cerchi, Guido Cavalcanti,’ Baschiera della Tosa,
Baldinaccio Adimari, Naldo son of Lottino Gherardini, and others.
On this occasion Dante was accused of favouring the Bianchi,
though he appears to have conducted himself with impartiality ;
and the deliberation held by the Neri for introducing Charles of
Valois* might, perhaps, have justified him in treating that party
with yet greater rigour. The suspicion against him was increased,
when those whom he was accused of favouring were soon after
allowed to return from their banishment, while the sentence
passed upon the other faction still remained in full force. To
this Dante replied, that when those who had been sent to Serra-
zana were recalled, he was no longer in office; and that their
return had been permitted on account of the death of Guido
Cavalcanti, which was attributed to the unwholesome air of that
place. The partiality which had been shown, however, afforded
a pretext to the Pope‘ for dispatching Charles of Valois to
Florence, by whose influence a great reverse was soon produced
in the public affairs; the ex-citizens being restored to their place,
and the whole of the Bianca party driven into exile. At this
juncture, Dante was not in Florence, but at Rome, whither he had

1 Of this remarkable man, see more in the Purg. xxiv. 81. ;

2 See notes to Hell, x. 59, and Purg. xi. 96. 3 See Purg. xx. 69.

4 Boniface VIII had before sent the Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta to
Florence, with the view of supporting his own adherents in that city. The
cardinal is supposed to be alluded to in the Paradise, xii. 115.
CARY B

Xvill LIFE OF DANTE

a short time before been sent ambassador to the Pope, with the
offer of a voluntary return to peace and amity among the citizens.
His enemies had now an opportunity of revenge, and, during his
absence on this pacific mission, proceeded to pass an iniquitous
decree of banishment against him and Palmieri Altoviti; and
at the same time confiscated his possessions, which indeed had
been previously given up to pillage.’

On hearing the tidings of his ruin, Dante instantly quitted
Rome, and passed with all possible expedition to Siena. Here
being more fully apprised of the extent of the calamity, for
which he could see no remedy, he came to the desperate resolution
of joining himself to the other exiles. His first meeting with them
was at a consultation which they had at Gorgonza, a small castle
subject to the jurisdiction of Arezzo, in which city it was finally,
after a long deliberation, resolved that they should take up their
station.” Hither they accordingly repaired in a numerous body,

1 On the 27th of January, 1302, he was mulcted 8,000 lire, and condemned
to two years’ banishment ; and in case the fine was not paid, his goods were
to be confiscated. On the 16th of March, the same year, he was sentenced to
a punishment due only to the most desperate of malefactors. The decree,
that Dante and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the
hands of their enemies, was first discovered in 1772, by the Conte Lodovico
Savioli. See Tiraboschi, where the document is given at length.

2 At Arezzo it was his fortune, in 1302, to meet with Busone da Gubbio,
who two years before had been expelled from his country as a Ghibelline,
in about the twentieth year of his age. Busone, himself a cultivator of the
Italian poetry, here contracted a friendship with Dante, which was after-
wards cemented by the reception afforded him under Busone’s roof during
a part of his exile. He was of the ancient and noble family of the Rafaelli
of Gubbio; and to his banishment owed the honourable offices which he
held of governor of Arezzo in 1316 and 1317; of governor of Viterbo in the
latter of these years; then of captain of Pisa; of deputy to the Emperor
in 1327; and finally of Roman senator in 1337. He died probably about
1350. The historian of Italian literature speaks slightly of his poetical pro-
ductions, consisting chiefly of comments on the Divina Commedia, which
were written in terza rima. They have been published by Sig. Francesco
Maria Rafaelli, who has collected all the information that could be obtained
respecting them. Deliciae Eruditor. v. xvii. He wrote also a romance,
entitled L’ Avventuroso Ciciliano, which has never been printed. Tiraboschi,
Stor. della Poes. Ital. v. ii. p. 56. In Allacci’s Collection, Ediz. Napoli, 1661,
p. 112, is a sonnet by Busone, on the death of a lady and of Dante, which
concludes,

Ma i’ mi conforto ch’ io credo che Deo
Dante abbia posto in glorioso scanno.

At the end of the Divina Commedia, in No. 3581 of the Harleian MSS.
in the British Museum, are four poems. The first, beginning,
O voi che siete nel verace lume,
is attributed, as usual, to Jacopo Dante. The second, which begins,

Acid che sia pit frutto e pit diletto
A quei che si dilettan di sapere
Dell’ alta comedia vero intelletto,

and proceeds with a brief explanation of the principal parts of the poem, is
here attributed to Messer Busone d’Agobbio. It is also inserted in Nos. 3459

LIFE OF DANTE xix

made the Count Alessandro da Romena their leader, and ap-
pointed a council of twelve, of which number Dante was one. In
the year 1304, having been joined by a very strong force, which
was not only furnished them by Arezzo, but sent from Bologna and
Pistoia, they made a sudden attack on the city of Florence,
gained possession of one of the gates, and conquered part of the
territory, but were finally compelled to retreat without retaining
any of the advantages they had acquired.

Disappointed in this attempt to reinstate himself in his country,
Dante quitted Arezzo; and his course is,* for the most part,
afterwards to be traced only by notices, casually dropped in his
own writings, or discovered in documents, which either chance or
the zeal of antiquaries may have brought to light. From an
instrument * in the possession of the Marchesi Papafavi, of Padua,
it has been ascertained that, in 1306, he was at that city and with
that family. Similar proof * exists of his having been present in
the following year at a congress of the Ghibellines and the Bianchi,
held in the sacristy of the church belonging to the abbey of
S. Gaudenzio in Mugello ; and from a passage in the Purgatory * we
collect, that before the expiration of 1307 he had found a refuge ir
Lunigiana, with the Marchese Morello or Marcello Malaspina, who,
though formerly a supporter ° of the opposite party, was now
magnanimous enough to welcome a noble enemy in his misfortune.

The time at which he sought an asylum at Verona, under the
hospitable roof of the Signori della Scala, is less distinctlysmarked.
It would seem as if those verses in the Paradise *, where the shade
of his ancestor declares to him,

Lo primo tuo rifugio e il primo ostello
Sara la cortesia del gran Lombardo,

First refuge thou must find, first place of rest,
In the great Lombard’s courtesy,

~

and 3460 of the same MSS.; and I have had occasion to refer to it in the
notes to Purg. xxix. 140. The third is a sonnet by Cino da Pistoia to
Busone ; and the fourth, Busone’s answer. Since this note was written,
Busone’s Romance, above mentioned, has been edited at Florence in the
year 1832, by the late Doctor Nott. i

1 A late writer has attempted a recital of his wanderings. For this pur-
pose, he assigns certain arbitrary dates to the completion of the several parts
of the Divina Commedia; and selecting from each what he supposes to be
reminiscences of particular places visited by Dante, together with allusions to
events then passing, contrives, by the help of some questionable documents,
to weave out of the whole a continued narrative, which, though it may pass
for current with the unwary reader, will not satisfy a more diligent inquirer
after the truth. See Troya’s Veltro Allegorico di Dante, Florence, 1826. _

2 Millesimo trecentesimo sexto, die vigesimo septimo mensis Augusti,
Padue in contrata Sancti Martini in domo Domine Amate Domini Papafave,
praesentibus Dantino quondam Alligerii de Florentia et nunc stat Padue in
contrata Sancti Laurentii, &c. Pelli, p. 83. fii

3 Pelli, p. 85, where the document is given. 4 Canto viii. 133.

5 Hell, xxiv. 144. Morello’s wife Alagia is honourably mentioned in the
Purg. xix. 140. 6 Canto xvii. 68.

Xx LIFE OF DANTE

should not be interpreted too strictly: but whether he ex-
perienced that courtesy at a very early period of his banishment,
or, as others have imagined, not till 1308, when he had quitted
the Marchese Morello, it is believed that he left Verona in disgust
at the flippant levity of that court, or at some slight which he
conceived to have been shown him by his munificent patron
Can Grande, on whose liberality he has passed so high an enco-
mium.’ Supposing the latter to have been the cause of his
departure, it must necessarily be placed at a date posterior to
1308; for Can Grande, though associated with his amiable
brother Albuino® in the government of Verona, was then only
seventeen years of age, and therefore incapable of giving the
alleged offence to his guest.

The mortifications which he underwent during these wan-
derings will be best described in his own language. In his
Convito he speaks of his banishment, and the poverty and distress
which attended it, in very affecting terms. ‘ Alas,’* said he,
“had it pleased the Dispenser of the Universe, that the occasion
of this excuse had never existed ; that neither others had com-
mitted wrong against me, nor I suffered unjustly ; suffered,
I say, the punishment of exile and of poverty ; since it was the
pleasure of the citizens of that fairest and most renowned daughter
of Rome, Florence, to cast me forth out of her sweet bosom, in
which I had my birth and nourishment even to the ripeness of
my age; and in which, with her good will, I desire, with all my
heart, to rest this wearied spirit of mine, and to terminate the
time allotted to me on earth. Wandering over almost every
part, to which this our language extends, I have gone about like
a mendicant ; showing, against my will, the wound with which
fortune has smitten me, and which is often imputed to his ill-
deserving on whom it is inflicted. I have, indeed, been a vessel
without sail and without steerage, carried about to divers ports,
and roads, and shores, by the dry wind that springs out of sad
poverty ; and have appeared before the eyes of many, who,
perhaps, from some report that had reached them, had imagined
me of a different form ; in whose sight not only my person was
disparaged, but every action of mine became of less value, as well
already performed, as those which yet remained for me to attempt.’
It is no wonder that, with feelings like these, he was now willing
to obtain by humiliation and entreaty, what he had before been
unable to effect by force.

1 Hell, i. 98, and Par. xvii. 75. A Latin Epistle dedicatory of the Para-
dise to Can Grande is attributed to Dante. Without better proof than has
been yet adduced, I cannot conclude it to be genuine. See the question
discussed by Fraticelli, in the Opere minori di Dante, tom. iii. pt¢ ii. 12°.
Fir. 1840.

2 Albuino is spoken of in the Convito, iv. 16, in such a manner that it is
not easy to say whether a compliment or a reflection is intended ; but I am
inclined to think the latter.

+ * Ahi! piaciuto fosse al Dispensatore dell’ universo,’ &c. Convito, i. 3.

He addressed several supplicatory epistles, not only to indi-
viduals who composed the government, but to the people at
large; particularly one letter, of considerable length, which
Leonardo Aretino relates to have begun with this expostulation :
* Popule mi, quid feci tibi ?’

While he anxiously waited the result of these endeavours to
obtain his pardon, a different complexion was given to the face of
public affairs by the exaltation of Henry of Luxemburg ? to the
imperial throne; and it was generally expected that the most
important political changes would follow, on the arrival of the
new sovereign in Italy. Another prospect, more suitable to the
temper of Dante, now disclosed itself to his hopes: he once more
assumed a lofty tone of defiance ; and, as it should seem, without
much regard either to consistency or prudence, broke out into
bitter invectives against the rulers of Florence, threatening them
with merited vengeance from the power of the Emperor, which
he declared that they had no adequate means of opposing. He
now decidedly relinquished the party of the Guelphs, which had
been espoused by his ancestors, and under whose banners he had
served in the earlier part of his life on the plains of Campaldino ;
and attached himself to the cause of their opponents, the Ghibel-
lines. Reverence for his country, says one of his biographers,’
prevailed on him to absent himself from the hostile army, when
Henry of Luxemburg encamped before the gates of Florence :
but it is difficult to give him credit for being now much influenced
by a principle which had not formerly been sufficient to restrain
him from similar violence. It is probable that he was actuated
by some desire, however weak, of preserving appearances ; for
of his personal courage no question can be made. Dante was
fated to disappointment. The Emperor’s campaign ended in
nothing ; the Emperor himself died the following summer (in
1313), at Buonconvento ; and, with him, all hopes of regaining
his native city expired in the breast of the unhappy exile. Several
of his biographers * affirm that he now made a second journey to
Paris, where Boccaccio adds that he held a public disputation *
on various questions of theology. To what other places ° he
might have roamed during his banishment, is very uncertain.
We are told that he was in Casentino, with the Conte Guido

1 Par. xvii. 80, and xxx. 135. 2 Leonardo Aretino.

3 Benvenuto da Imola, Filippo Villani, and Boccaccio. —

4 Another public philosophical disputation at Verona, in 1320, published
at. Venice in 1508, seems to be regarded by Tiraboschi with some suspicion
of its authenticity. It is entitled, ‘ Quaestio florulenta et perutilis de duobus
elementis aquae et terrae tractans, nuper reperta, quae olim Mantuae
auspicata, Veronae vero disputata et decisa, ac manu propria scripta a Dante
Florentino Poeta clarissimo, quae diligenter et accurate correcta fuit per
Rev. Magistrum Joan. Benedictum Moncettum de Castilione Aretino Re-
gentem Patavinum Ordinis Eremitarum Divi Augustini, sacraeque Theo-
logiae Doctorem excellentissimum.’ M :

5 Vellutello says that he was also in Germany. Vita di Dante.

XXli LIFE OF DANTE

Salvatico,' at one time; and, at another, in the mountains near
Urbino, with the Signori della Faggiola. At the monastery of
Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana, a wild and solitary retreat in the
territory of Gubbio, was shown a chamber, in which, as a Latin
inscription? declared, it was believed that he had composed no
small portion of his divine work. A tower,’ belonging to the Conti
Faleucci, in Gubbio, claims for itself a similar honour. In the
castle of Colmollaro, near the river Saonda, and about six miles
from the same city, he was courteously entertained by Busone da
Gubbio,* whom he had formerly met at Arezzo. There are some

z ne was grandson to the valiant Guidoguerra. Pelli, p. 95. See Hell,
xvi. 38.
2 Hocce cubiculum hospes
In quo Dantes Aligherius habitasse
In eoque non minimum praeclari ac
Pene divini operis partem com-
posuisse dicitur undique fatiscens
Ac tantum non solo aequatum
Philippus Rodulphius
Laurentii Nicolai Cardinalis
Amplissimi Fratris Filius summus
Collegii Praeses pro eximia erga
Civem suum pietate refici hancque
Illius effigiem ad tanti viri memo-
riam revocandam Antonio Petreio
Canon. Floren. procurante
Collocari mandavit
Kal. Maii. M.D.L.VII. Pelli, p. 98.
3 In this is inscribed,

Hic mansit Dantes
Aleghierius Poeta
Et carmina scripsit. Pelli, p. 97.

* The following sonnet, said to be addressed to him by Dante, was pub-
lished in the Deliciae Eruditorum, and is inserted in the Zatta edition of our
Poet’s works, tom. iv. part ii. p. 264, in which alone I have seen it.

Tu, che stampi lo colle ombroso e fresco,
Ch’ é co lo Fiume, che non é torrente,
Linci molle lo chiama quella gente
In nome Italiano e non Tedesco :

Ponti, sera e mattin, contento al desco,
Perché del car figliuol vedi presente
El frutto che speracsi, e si repente
S’ avaccia nello stil Greco e Francesco.

Perché cima d’ ingegno non s’ astalla
In quella Italia di dolor ostello,

Di cui si speri gia cotanto frutto ;

Gavazzi pur el primo Raffaello,

Che tra dotti vedrallo esser veduto,
Come sopr’ acqua si sostien la galla.

Translation.

Thou, who where Linci sends his stream to drench
The valley, walk’st that fresh and shady hill
(Soft Linci well they call the gentle rill,

Nor smooth Italian name to German wrench)

LIFE OF DANTE XXiil

traces of his having made a temporary abode at Udine, and
particularly of his having been in the Friuli with Pagano della
Torre, the patriarch of Aquileia, at the castle of Tolmino, where
he is also said to have employed himself on the Divina Commedia,
and where a rock was pointed out that was called the seat of
Dante.t What is known with greater certainty is, that he at
last found a refuge at Ravenna, with Guido Novello da Polenta ; *
a splendid protector of learning; himself a poet; and the kinsman
of that unfortunate Francesca,’ whose story has been told by
Dante with such unrivalled pathos.

It would appear from one of his Epistles that about the year
1316 he had the option given him of returning to Florence, on
the ignominious terms of paying a fine, and of making a public
avowal of his offence. It may, perhaps, be in reference to this
offer, which, for the same reason that Socrates refused to save his
life on similar conditions, he indignantly rejected, that he
promises himself he shall one day return ‘in other guise’,

and standing up
At his baptismal font, shall claim the wreath
Due to the poet’s temples. Par. xxv, 9.

Such, indeed, was the glory which his compositions in his native
tongue had now gained him, that he declares, in the treatise De

Evening and morning, seat thee on thy bench,

Content ; beholding fruit of knowledge fill

So early thy son’s branches, that grow still

Enriched with dews of Grecian lore and French.
Though genius, with like hopeful fruitage hung,

Spread not aloft in recreant Italy,

Where grief her home, and worth has made his grave ;
Yet may the elder Raffaello see,

With joy, his offspring seen the learned among,

Like buoyant thing that floats above the wave.

1 The considerations which induced the Cavalier Vannetti to conclude

that a part of the Commedia, and the Canzone beginning

Amor, dacché convien pur, ch’ io mi doglia,
were written in the valley Lagarina, in the territory of Trento, do not
appear entitled to much notice. Vannetti’s letter is in the Zatta edition of
Dante, tom. iv. part ii. p. 148. There may be better ground for concluding
that he was, sometime during his exile, with Lanteri Paratico, a man of
ancient and noble family, at the castle of Paratico, near Brescia, and that he
there employed himself on his poems. The proof of this rests upon a com-
munication made by the Abate Rodella to Dionisi, of an extract from a
chronicle remaining at Brescia. See Cancellieri, Osservazioni intorno alla
questione sopra l’originalita della Divina Commedia, &c. Roma, 1814, p. 125.

2 See Hell, xxvii. 38.

8 Hell, v. 113, and note. Former biographers of Dante have represented
Guido, his last patron, as the father of Francesca. Troya asserts that he
was her nephew. See his Veltro Allegorico di Dante. Ed. Florence, 1826,
p- 176. It is to be regretted that, in this instance, as in others, he gives no
authority for his assertion. He is however followed by Balbo, Vita di Dante,
ma 1839, v. ii. p. 315; and Artaud, Histoire de Dante, Paris, 1841,
p. 470.

XxiV LIFE OF DANTE

Vulgari Eloquentia,’ it had in some measure reconciled him even
to his banishment.

In the service of his last patron, in whom he seems to have
met with a more congenial mind than in any of the former, his
talents were gratefully exerted, and his affections interested but
too deeply ; for having been sent by Guido on an embassy to the
Venetians, and not being able even to obtain an audience, on
account of the rancorous animosity with which they regarded
that prince, Dante returned to Ravenna so overwhelmed with
disappointment and grief, that he was seized by an illness which
terminated fatally, either in July or September, 1321.2 Guido
testified his sorrow and respect by the sumptuousness of his
obsequies, and by his intention to erect a monument, which he
did not live to complete. His countrymen showed, too late, that
they knew the value of what they had lost. At the beginning of
the next century, their posterity marked their regret by entreating
that the mortal remains of their illustrious citizen might be
restored to them, and deposited among the tombs of their fathers.
But the people of Ravenna were unwilling to part with the sad
and honourable memorial of their own hospitality. No better
success attended the subsequent negotiations of the Florentines
for the same purpose, though renewed under the auspices of Leo X,
and conducted through the powerful mediation of Michael Angelo.*

The sepulchre, designed and commenced by Guido da Polenta,
was, in 1483, erected by Bernardo Bembo, the father of the
Cardinal; and, by him, decorated, besides other ornaments,
with an effigy of the Poet in bas-relief, the sculpture of Pietro
Lombardo, and with the following epitaph :

Exigua tumuli, Danthes, hic sorte jacebas,
Squalenti nulli cognite pene situ.

At nune marmoreo subnixus conderis arcu,
Omnibus et cultu splendidiore nites.

Nimirum Bembus Musis incensus Etruscis
Hoc tibi, quem imprimis hae coluere, dedit.

A yet more magnificent memorial was raised so lately as the
year 1780, by the Cardinal Gonzaga.*

1 Quantum vero suos familiares gloriosos efficiat, nos ipsi novimus, qui
huius dulcedine gloriae nostrum exilium postergamus. V. E. i. 17.

2 Filippo Villani; Domenico di Bandino d’Arezzo; and Giov. Villani,
Hist. lib. ix. cap. cxxxv. The last writer, whose authority is perhaps the best
on this point, in the Giunti edition of 1559, mentions July as the month in
which he died; but there is a MS. of Villani’s history, it is said, in the
library of St. Mark, at Venice, in which his death is placed in September.

3 Pelli, p. 104.

4 Tiraboschi. In the Literary Journal, Feb. 16, 1804, p. 192, is the follow-
ing article :—‘ A subscription has been opened at Florence for erecting a
monument in the cathedral there, to the memory of the great poet Dante.
A drawing of this monument has been submitted to the Florentine Academy
of the Fine Arts, and has met with universal approbation.’ A monument,
executed by Stefano Ricci of Arezzo, has since been erected to him in the Santa
Croce at Florence, which I had the gratification of seeing in the year 1833.

LIFE OF DANTE XXV

His children consisted of one daughter and five sons, two of
whom, Pietro’ and Jacopo,’ inherited some portion of their
father’s abilities, which they employed chiefly in the pious task
of illustrating his Divina Commedia. The former of these pos-
sessed acquirements of a more profitable kind; and obtained
considerable wealth at Verona, where he was settled, by the
exercise of the legal profession. He was honoured with the
friendship of Petrarch, by whom some verses were addressed to
him * at Trevigi, in 1361.

His daughter Beatrice * (whom he is said to have named after
the daughter of Folco Portinari) became a nun in the convent of
S. Stefano dell’ Uliva, at Ravenna; and, among the entries of
expenditure by the Florentine Republic, appears a present of
ten golden florins sent to her in 1350, by the hands of Boccaccio,
from the state. The imagination can picture to itself few
objects more interesting, than the daughter of Dante, dedicated
to the service of religion in the city where her father’s ashes
were deposited, and receiving from his countrymen this tardy
tribute of their reverence for his divine genius, and her own
virtues.

It is but justice to the wife of Dante not to omit what

1 Pietro was also a poet. His commentary on the Divina Commedia,
which is in Latin, has never been published. Lionardo, the grandson of
Pietro, came to Florence, with other young men of Verona, in the time of
Leonardo Aretino, who tells us, that he showed him there the house of Dante
and of his ancestors. Vita di Dante. To Pietro, the son of Lionardo, Mario
Filelfo addressed his Life of our Poet. The son of this Pietro, Dante III,
was a man of letters, and an elegant poet. Some of his works are preserved
in collections : he is commended by Valerianus de Infelicitate Literat. lib. 1,
and is, no doubt, the same whom Landino speaks of as living in his time at
Ravenna, and calls ‘ uomo molto literato ed eloquente e degno di tal sangue,
e quale meritamente si dovrebbe rivocar nella sua antica patria e nostra
republica’. In 1495, the Florentines took Landino’s advice, and invited him
back to the city, offering to restore all they could of the property that had
belonged to his ancestors; but he would not quit Verona, where he was
established in much opulence. Vellutello, Vita. He afterwards experienced
a sad reverse of fortune. He had three sons, one of whom, Francesco, made
a translation of Vitruvius, which is supposed to have perished. A better
fate has befallen an elegant dialogue written by him, which was published,
not many years ago, in the Anecdota Literaria, edit. Roma (no date), vol. ii.
p- 207. It is entitled Francisci Aligerii Dantis III. Filii Dialogus Alter de
Antiquitatibus Valentinis ex Cod. MS. Membranaceo. Saec. xvi. nunc primum
in lucem editus. Pietro, another son of Dante III, who was also a scholar,
and held the office of Proveditore of Verona in 1539, was the father of
Ginevra, mentioned above in the note to p. xiii. See Pelli, p. 28, &c. Vellu-
tello, in his Life of the Poet, acknowledges his obligations to this last Pietro
for the information he had given him. Mi) b 3 i

2 Jacopo is mentioned by Bembo among the Rimatori, lib. ii. della Volg.
Ling. at the beginning; and some of his verses are preserved in MS. in the
Vatican, and at Florence. He was living in 1342, and had children, of
whom little is known. The names of our Poet’s other sons were Gabriello,
Aligero, and Eliseo. The last two died in their childhood. Of Gabriello,
nothing certain is known.

3 Carm. lib. iii. ep. vii. 4 Pelli, p. 33.

XXv1 LIFE OF DANTE

Boccaccio ' relates of her ; that after the banishment of her hus-
band she secured some share of his property from the popular fury,
under the name of her dowry; that out of this she contrived to
support their little family with exemplary discretion ; and that
she even removed from them the pressure of poverty, by such
industrious efforts as in her former affluence she had never been
called on to exert. Who does not regret, that with qualities so
estimable, she wanted the sweetness of temper necessary for
riveting the affections of her husband ?

Dante was a man of middle stature and grave deportment ;
of a visage rather long; large eyes; an aquiline nose; dark
complexion; large and prominent cheek-bones; black curling
hair and beard; the under lip projecting beyond the upper.
He mentions, in the Convito, that his sight had been transiently
impaired by intense application to books.? In his dress, he studied
as much plainness as was suitable with his rank and station in life ;
and observed a strict temperance in his diet. He was at times
extremely absent and abstracted ; and appears to have indulged
too much a disposition to sarcasm. At the table of Can Grande,
when the company was amused by the conversation and tricks
of a buffoon, he was asked by his patron, why Can Grande himself,
and the guests who were present, failed of receiving as much
pleasure from the exertion of his talents, as this man had been
able to give them. ‘ Because all creatures delight in their own
resemblance,’ was the reply of Dante.* In other respects, his
manners are said to have been dignified and polite. He was
particularly careful not to make any approaches to flattery, a
vice which he justly held in the utmost abhorrence. He spoke
seldom, and in a slow voice ; but what he said derived authority
from the subtleness of his observations, somewhat like his own
poetical heroes, who

Parlavan rado, con voci soavi.
—— spake
Seldom, but all their words were tuneful sweet.
Hell, iv. 109.

He was connected in habits of intimacy and friendship with the
most ingenious men of his time ; with Guido Cavalcanti ;‘* with

1 Vita di Dante, p. 57, ed. Firenze, 1576.

2 < Per affaticare lo viso molto a studio di leggere, in tanto debilitai gli
spiriti visivi, che le stelle mi pareano tutte d’alcuno albore ombrate. E per
lunga riposanza in luoghi scuri e freddi, e con affreddare lo corpo dell’
occhio con acqua chiara, rivinsi la virtu disgregata, che tornai nel primo buono
stato della vista.’ Convito, ili. 9.

3 There is here a point of resemblance (nor is it the only one) in the
character of Milton. ‘I had rather,’ says the author of Paradise Lost, ‘ since
the life of man is likened to a scene, that all my entrances and exits might
mix with such persons only, whose worth erects them and their actions to
a grave and tragic deportment, and not to have to do with clowns and vices.’
Colasterion, Prose Works, vol. i. p. 339. Edit. London, 1753.

4 See Hell, x. and notes.

LIFE OF DANTE xxvii

Bonagiunta da Lucca;’ with Forese Donati;? with Cino da
Pistoia ;* with Giotto,‘ the celebrated painter, by whose hand
his likeness * was preserved ; with Oderigi da Gubbio,’ the illumi-
nator ; and with an eminent musician 7—

—-—his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.
Milton’s Sonnets.

Besides these, his acquaintance extended to some others, whose
names illustrate the first dawn of Italian literature. Lapo *

1 See Purg. xxiv. 20. Yet Tiraboschi observes, that though it is not impro-
bable that Bonagiunta was the contemporary and friend of Dante, it
cannot be considered as certain. Stor. della Poes. Ital. vol. i. p. 109,
Mr. Mathias’s Edit. 2 See Purg. xxiii. 44.

3 Guittoncino de’ Sinibuldi, commonly called Cino da Pistoia (besides the
passage that will be cited in a following note from the De Vulg. Eloq.), is
again spoken of in the same treatise, lib. i. c. 17, as a great master of the
vernacular diction in his Canzoni, and classed with our Poet himself, who is
termed ‘ amicus eius’; and likewise in lib. ii. c. 2, where he is said to have
written of ‘ Love’. His verse are cited too in other chapters. He addressed
and received sonnets from Dante; and wrote a sonnet, or canzone, on
Dante’s death, which is preserved in the library of St. Mark, at Venice.
Tiraboschi, della Poes. Ital. v. i. p. 116, and v. ii. p. 60. The same honour
was done to the memory of Cino by Petrarch, son. 71, part i. ‘ Celebrated
both as a lawyer and a poet, he is better known by the writings which he
has left in the latter of these characters,’ insomuch that Tiraboschi has
observed, that amongst those who preceded Petrarch, there is, perhaps, none
who can be compared to him in elegance and sweetness. ‘ There are many
editions of his poems, the most copious being that published at Venice in
1589, by P. Faustino Tasso ; in which, however, the Padre degli Agostini,
not without reason, suspects that the second book is by later hands.’ Tira-
boschi, ibid. There has been an edition by Seb. Ciampi, at Pisa, in 1813,
&c.; but see the remarks on it in Gamba’s Testi di Lingua Ital. 294. He
was interred at Pistoia, with this epitaph: ‘Cino eximio Juris interpreti
Bartolique praeceptori dignissimo populus Pistoriensis Civi suo B. M. fecit.
Obiit anno 1336.’ Guidi Panziroli de Claris Legum Interpretibus, lib. 11.
cap. xxix. Lips. 4to. 1721. A Latin letter supposed to be addressed by
Dante to Cino was published for the first time from a MS. in the Laurentian
library, by M. Witte. 4 See Purg. xi. 95.

° Mr. Eastlake, in a note to Kugler’s Hand-Book of Painting, translated
by a Lady, Lond. 1842, p. 50, describes the discovery and restoration, in
July, 1840, of Dante’s portrait by Giotto in the chapel of the Podesta at
Florence, where it had been covered with whitewash or plaster. But it
could scarcely have been concealed so soon as our distinguished artist
supposes, since Landino speaks of it as remaining in his time, and Vasari says
it was still to be seen when he wrote.

6 See Purg. xi. 79. 7 Tbid. Canto ii. 88

8 Lapo is said to have been the son of Farinata degli Uberti (see Hell, x. 32,
and Tiraboschi della Poes. Ital. v. i. p. 116), and the father of Fazio degli
Uberti, author of the Dittamondo, a poem which is thought, in the energy
of its style, to make some approaches to the Divina Commedia (Ibid. v. il.
B. 63), though Monti passes on it a much less favourable sentence (see his

roposta, V. ili. pte 2. p. 210. 8vo. 1824). He is probably the Lapo mentioned
in the sonnet to Guido Cavalcanti, beginning,

Guido, vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io,

which Mr. Hayley has so happily translated (see Hell, x. 63); and also in
@ passage that occurs in the De Vulg. Elog. i. 13: ‘ Quamquam fere

XXVili LIFE OF DANTE

degli Uberti; Dante da Maiano;* Cecco Angiolieri;* Dino
Frescobaldi ; * Giovanni del Virgilio ; * Giovanni Quirino ;° and
Francesco Stabili,* who is better known by the appellation of
Cecco d’Ascoli; most of them either honestly declared their
sense of his superiority, or betrayed it by their vain endeavours
to detract from the estimation in which he was held.

He is said to have attained some excellence in the art of
designing ; which may easily be believed, when we consider that
no poet has afforded more lessons to the statuary and the painter,’

omnes Tusci in suo turpiloquio sint obtusi, nonnullos vulgaris excellentiam
cognovisse sentimus, scilicet Guidonem, Lapum, et unum alium, Florentinos,
et Cinum Pistoriensem, quem nunc indigne postponimus, non indigne
coacti.’ ‘ Although almost all the Tuscans are marred by the baseness of
their dialect, yet I perceive that some have known the excellence of the
vernacular tongue, namely Guido Lapo’ (I suspect Dante here means his
two friends Cavalcanti and Uberti, though this has hitherto been taken for
the name of one person), ‘ and one other ’ (who is supposed to be the author
himself), ‘ Florentines ; and last, though not of least regard, Cino da Pistoia.’

1 Dante da Maiano flourished about 1290. He was a Florentine, and com-
posed many poems in praise of a Sicilian lady, who, being herself a poetess,
was insensible neither to his verses nor his love, so that she was called the
Nina of Dante. Pelli, p. 60, and Tiraboschi, Storia della Poes. Ital. v. i.
p. 137. There are several of his sonnets addressed to our Poet, who declares,
in his answer to one of them, that, although he knows not the name of its
author, he discovers in it the traces of a great mind.

2 Of Cecco Angiolieri, Boccaccio relates a pleasant story in the Decameron,
G. ix. 4. He lived towards the end of the thirteenth century, and wrote
several sonnets to Dante, which are in Allacci’s collection. In some of
them he wears the semblance of a friend ; but in one the mask drops, and
shows that he was well disposed to be a rival. See Crescimbeni, Com. alla
Storia di Volg. Poes. v. ii. par. ii. lib. ii. p. 1035; Pelli, p. 61.

3 Dino, son of Lambertuccio Frescobaldi. Crescimbeni (ibid. lib. iii. p. 120)
assures us that he was not inferior to Cino da Pistoia. Pelli, p. 61. He
is said to have been a friend of Dante’s, in whose writings I have not observed
any mention of him. Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, calls Dino ‘in que’
tempi famosissimo dicitore in rima in Firenze ’.

4 Giovanni del Virgilio addressed two Latin eclogues to Dante, which were
answered in similar compositions ; and is said to have been his friend and
admirer. See Boccaccio, Vita di Dante; and Pelli, p. 137. Dante’s poetical
genius sometimes breaks through the rudeness of style in his two Latin
eclogues.

5 Muratori had seen several sonnets, addressed to Giovanni Quirino by
Dante, in a MS. preserved in the Ambrosian library. Della Perfetta Poesia
Ital., Ediz. Venezia, 1770, tom. i. lib. i. c. iii. p. 9.

° For the correction of many errors respecting this writer, see Tiraboschi,
Stor. della Lett. Ital. tom. v. lib. ii. cap. ii. § 15, &. He was burned in
1317. In his Acerba, a poem in sesta rima, he has taken several occasions of
venting his spleen against his great contemporary.

7 Besides Filippo Brunelleschi, who, as Vasari tells us, ‘ diede molta opera
alle cose di Dante ’, and Michael Angelo, whose Last Judgement is probably
the mightiest effort of modern art, as the loss of his sketches on the margin
of the Divina Commedia may be regarded as the severest loss the art has
sustained ; besides these, Andrea Orgagna, Gio. Angelico di Fiesole, Luca
Signorelli, Spinello Aretino, Giacomo da Pontormo, and Aurelio Lomi, have
been recounted among the many artists who have worked on the same
original. See Cancellieri, Osservazioni, &c., p. 75. To these we may justly

LIFE OF DANTE XXix

in the variety of objects which he represents, and in the accuracy
and spirit with which they are brought before the eye. Indeed,
on one occasion,* he mentions that he was employed in delineating
the figure of an angel, on the first anniversary of Beatrice’s death.
It is not unlikely that the seed of the Paradiso was thus cast into
his mind ; and that he was now endeavouring to express by the
pencil an idea of celestial beatitude, which could only be conveyed
in its full perfection through the medium of song.

As nothing that related to such a man was thought unworthy
of notice, one of his biographers,* who had seen his handwriting,
has recorded that it was of a long and delicate character, and
remarkable for neatness and accuracy.

Dante wrote in Latin a Treatise De Monarchia, and two books
De Vulgari Eloquio.* In the former, he defends the Imperial
rights against the pretensions of the Pope, with arguments that
are sometimes chimerical, and sometimes sound and conclusive.
The latter, which he left unfinished, contains not only much
information concerning the progress which the vernacular poetry
of Italy had then made, but some reflections on the art itself,
that prove him to have entertained large and philosophical prin-
ciples respecting it.

His Latin style, however, is generally rude and unclassical.
It is fortunate that he did not trust to it, as he once intended, for
the work by which his name was to be perpetuated. In the use
of his own language he was, beyond measure, more successful.
The prose of his Vita Nuova and his Convito, although five cen-
turies have intervened since its composition, is probably, to an
Italian eye, still devoid neither of freshness nor elegance. In the
Vita Nuova, which he appears to have written about his twenty-
eighth year, he gives an account of his youthful attachment to
Beatrice. It is, according to the taste of those times, somewhat
mystical: yet there are some particulars in it, which have not at
all the air of a fiction, such as the death of Beatrice’s father, Folco
Portinari; her relation to the friend whom he esteemed next
after Guido Cavalcanti; his own attempt to conceal his passion,

pride ourselves in being able to add the names of Reynolds, Fuseli, and
Flaxman. The frescoes by Cornelius in the Villa Massimi at Rome, lately
executed, entitle the Germans to a share in this distinction.

1 *In quel giorno, nel quale si compiva l’anno, che questa donna era fatta
de’ cittadini di vita eterna, io mi sedea in parte, nella quale ricordandomi
di lei, disegnava un angelo sopra certe tavolette e mentre io | disegnava,
volsi gli occhi,’ &c. Vita Nuova, § xxxv. ; :

2 Leonardo Aretino. A specimen of it was believed to exist when Pelli
wrote, about sixty years ago, and perhaps still exists in a MS. preserved in
the archives at Gubbio, at the end of which was the sonnet to Busone, said
to be in the handwriting of Dante. Pelli, p. 51. i

3 These two were first published in an Italian translation, supposed to be
Trissino’s, and were not allowed to be genuine, till the Latin original was
published at Paris in 1577. Tiraboschi. A copy, written in the fourteenth
century, is said to have been lately found in the public library at Grenoble.
See Fraticelli’s Opere minori di Dante, 12°. Fir. 1840, tom. iii, p*® ii. p. Xvi.
A collation of this MS. is very desirable.

xX LIFE OF DANTE

by a pretended attachment to another lady ; and the anguish he
felt at the death of his mistress. He tells us too, that at the
time of her decease, he chanced to be composing a canzone in
her praise, and that he was interrupted by that event at the
conclusion of the first stanza; a circumstance which we can
scarcely suppose to have been a mere invention.

Of the poetry with which the Vita Nuova is plentifully inter-
spersed, the two sonnets that follow may be taken as a specimen.
Near the beginning he relates a marvellous vision, which appeared
to him in sleep, soon after his mistress had for the first time
addressed her speech to him ; and of this dream he thus asks for
an interpretation :—

To every heart that feels the gentle flame,

To whom this present saying comes in sight,

In that to me their thoughts they may indite,

All health! in Love, our lord and master’s name.
Now on its way the second quarter came

Of those twelve hours, wherein the stars are bright,

When Love was seen before me, in such might,

As to remember shakes with awe my frame.
Suddenly came he, seeming glad, and keeping

My heart in hand ; and in his arms he had

My Lady in a folded garment sleeping :
He waked her; and that heart all burning bade

Her feed upon, in lowly guise and sad :

Then from my view he turned ; and parted, weeping.

To this sonnet, Guido Cavalcanti, amongst others, returned
an answer in a composition of the same form ; endeavouring to
give a happy turn to the dream, by which the mind of the Poet
had been so deeply impressed. From the intercourse thus begun,
when Dante was eighteen years of age, arose that friendship
which terminated only with the death of Guido.

The other sonnet is one that was written after the death of
Beatrice :—

Ah pilgrims! ve that, haply musing, go,
On aught save that which on your road ye meet,
From land so distant, tell me, I intreat,
Come ye, as by your mien and looks ye show ?
Why mourn ye not, as through these gates of woe
Ye wend along our city’s midmost street,
Even like those who nothing seem to weet
What chance hath fall’n, why she is grieving so ?
If ye to listen but a while would stay,
Well knows this heart, which inly sigheth sore,
That ye would then pass, weeping on your way.
Ob hear: her Beatrice is no more ;
And words there are a man of her might say,
Would make a stranger’s eye that loss deplore.

1 Beatrice’s marriage to Simone dei Bardi, which is collected from a clause
in her father’s will dated January 15, 1287, would have been a fact too
unsentimental to be introduced into the Vita Nuova, and is not, I believe,
noticed by any of the early biographers.

LIFE OF DANTE XXxi

In the Convito,’ or Banquet, which did not follow till some
time after his banishment, he explains very much at large the
sense of three, out of fourteen, of his canzoni, the remainder of
which he had intended to open in the same manner. ‘ The viands
at his Banquet,’ he tells his readers, quaintly enough, ‘ will be set
out in fourteen different manners ; that is, will consist of fourteen
canzoni, the materials of which are love and virtue. Without the
present bread, they would not be free from some shade of obscurity,
so as to be prized by many less for their usefulness than for their
beauty ; but the bread wiil, in the form of the present exposition,
be that light, which will bring forth all their colours, and display
their true meaning to the view. And if the present work, which
is named a Banquet, and I wish may prove so, be handled after
a more manly guise than the Vita Nuova, I intend not, therefore,
that the former should in any part derogate from the latter, but
that the one should be a help to the other: seeing that it is fitting
in reason for this to be fervid and impassioned ; that, temperate
and manly. For it becomes us to act and speak otherwise at one
age than at another; since at one age, certain manners are suitable
and praiseworthy, which, at another, become disproportionate
and blameable.’ He then apologizes for speaking of himself.
‘T fear the disgrace,’ says he, ‘ of having been subject to so much
passion, as one, reading these canzoni, may conceive me to have
been; a disgrace, that is removed by my speaking thus unre-
servedly of myself, which shows not passion, but virtue, to have
been the moving cause. I intend, moreover, to set forth their
true meaning, which some may not perceive, if I declare it not.’
He next proceeds to give many reasons why his commentary was
not written rather in Latin than in Italian ; for which, if no excuse
be now thought necessary, it must be recollected that the Italian
language was then in its infancy, and scarce supposed to possess
dignity enough for the purposes of instruction. ‘The Latin,’ he
allows, ‘ would have explained his canzoni better to foreigners,
as to the Germans, the English, and others; but then it must
have expounded their sense, without the power of, at the same
time, transferring their beauty :’ and he soon after tells us, that
many noble persons of both sexes were ignorant of the learned
language. The best cause, however, which he assigns for this
preference, was his natural love of his native tongue, and the
desire he felt to exalt it above the Provencal, which by many was
said to be the more beautiful and perfect language ; and against
such of his countrymen as maintained so unpatriotic an opinion
he inveighs with much warmth.

1 Perticari (Degli Scrittori del Trecento, lib. ii. c. v.) speaking of the
Convito, observes that Salviati himself has termed it the most ancient and
principal of all excellent prose works in Italian. On the other hand, Balbo
(Vita di Dante, v. ii. p. 86) pronounces it to be, on the whole, certainly the
lowest. among Dante’s writings. In this difference of opinion, a foreigner
may be permitted to judge for himself.

XXXli LIFE OF DANTE

In his exposition of the first canzone of the three, he tells the
reader, that ‘ the Lady, of whom he was enamoured after his first
love, was the most beauteous and honourable daughter of the
Emperor of the universe, to whom Pythagoras gave the name of
Philosophy :’ and he applies the same title to the object of his
affections, when he is commenting on the other two.

The purport of his third canzone, which is less mysterious,
and, therefore, perhaps more likely to please than the others, is
to show that ‘ virtue only is true nobility’. Towards the con-
clusion, after having spoken of virtue itself, much as Pindar
would have spoken of it, as being ‘ the gift of God only’ ;

Ché solo Iddio all’ anima la dona,
he thus describes it as acting throughout the several stages of life.
L’anima, cui adorna, &c.

The soul, that goodness like to this adorns,
Holdeth it not concealed ;

But, from her first espousal to the frame,
Shows it, till death, revealed.

Obedient, sweet, and full of seemly shame,

She, in the primal age,

The person decks with beauty ; moulding it
Fitly through every part.

In riper manhood, temperate, firm of heart,
With love replenished, and with courteous praise,
In loyal deeds alone she hath delight.

And, in her elder days,

For prudent and just largeness is she known ;
Rejoicing with herself,

That wisdom in her staid discourse be shown.
Then, in life’s fourth division, at the last

She weds with God again,

Contemplating the end she shall attain ;

And looketh back; and blesseth the time past.

His lyric poems, indeed, generally stand much in need of a
comment to explain them ; but the difficulty arises rather from
the thoughts themselves, than from any imperfection of the
language in which those thoughts are conveyed. Yet they
abound not only in deep moral reflections, but in touches of
tenderness and passion.

Some, it has been already intimated, have supposed that
Beatrice was only a creature of Dante’s imagination ; and there
can be no question but that he has invested her, in the Divina
Commedia, with the attributes of an allegorical being. But who
can doubt of her having had a real existence, when she is spoken
of in such a strain of passion as in these lines ?

Quel ch’ ella par quand’ un poco sorride,

Non si puo dicer, né tener a mente,
Si é nuovo miracolo gentile. Vita Nuova, § 21.

Mira che quando ride
Passa ben di dolcezza ogni altra cosa. [Canz. xv.]

LIFE OF DANTE XXXlil

The canzone, from which the last couplet is taken, presents a
portrait which might well supply a painter with a far more
exalted idea of female beauty than he could form to himself
from the celebrated Ode of Anacreon on a similar subject. After
a@ minute description of those parts of her form which the gar-
ments of a modest woman would suffer to be seen, he raises the
whole by the superaddition of a moral grace and dignity, such as
the Christian religion alone could supply, and such as the pencil
of Raphael afterwards aimed to represent.

Umile, vergognosa e temperata,

E sempre a vertu grata,

Intra suoi be’ costumi un atto regna,

Che d’ ogni riverenza la fa degna.!

One or two of the sonnets prove that he could at times con-
descend to sportiveness and pleasantry. The following to
Brunetto, I should conjecture to have been sent with his Vita
Nuova, which was written the year before Brunetto died.

* Master Brunetto, this I send, entreating
Ye’ll entertain this lass of mine at Easter ;
She does not come among you as a feaster ;
No: she has need of reading, not of eating.
Nor let her find you at some merry meeting,
Laughing amidst buffoons and drollers, lest her
Wise sentence should escape a noisy jester :
She must be wooed, and is well worth the weeting.
If in this sort you fail to make her out,
You have amongst you many sapient men,
All famous as was Albert of Cologne.
I have been posed amid that learned rout.
And if they cannot spell her right, why then
Call Master Giano, and the deed is done.

Another, though on a more serious subject, is yet remarkable
for a fancifulness, such as that with which Chaucer, by a few
spirited touches, often conveys to us images more striking than
others have done by repeated and elaborate efforts of skill.

Came Melancholy to my side one day,
And said: ‘I must a little bide with thee :’

And brought along with her in company
Sorrow and Wrath.—Quoth I to her; ‘ Away:

1 T am aware that this canzone is not ascribed to Dante, in the collection
of Sonetti e Canzoni printed by the Giunti in 1527. Monti, in his Proposta
under the word ‘ Induare’, remarks that it is quite in the style of Fazio
degli Uberti; and adds, that a very rare MS. possessed by Perticari restores
it to that writer. On the other hand, Missirini, in a late treatise ‘On the
Love of Dante and on the Portrait of Beatrice’, printed at Florence in
1832, makes so little doubt of its being genuine, that he founds on it the
chief argument to prove an old picture in his possession to be intended for
a representation of Beatrice. See Fraticelli’s Opere minori di Dante, tom. 1.
p. eciii. 12°. Fir. 1834. .

2 Fraticelli (ibid. p. eccii. ecciii.) questions the genuineness of this sonnet,
and decides on the spuriousness of that which follows. I do not, in either
instance, feel the justness of his reasons.

XXXIV LIFE OF DANTE

I will have none of you: make no delay.’
And, like a Greek, she gave me stout reply.
Then, as she talked, I looked and did espy
Where Love was coming onward on the way,
A garment new of cloth of black he had,
And on his head a hat of mourning wore;
And he, of truth, unfeignedly was crying.
Forthwith I asked: ‘ What ails thee, caitiff lad ? ’
And hs sejoined: ‘Sad thought and anguish sore ;
Sweet brother mine! our lady lies a-dying.’

For purity of diction, the Rime of our author are, I think, on
the whole, preferred by Muratori to his Divina Commedia, though
that also is allowed to be a model of the pure Tuscan idiom. To .
this singular production, which has not only stood the test of
ages, but given a tone and colour to the poetry of modern Europe,
and even animated the genius of Milton and of Michael Angelo,
it would be difficult to assign its place according to the received
rules of criticism. Some have termed it an epic poem; and
others, a satire: but it matters little by what name it is called.
It suffices that the poem seizes on the heart by its two great
holds, terror and pity ; detains the fancy by an accurate and lively
delineation of the objects it represents; and displays throughout
such an originality of conception, as leaves to Homer and Shake-
spearealonethe power of challenging the pre-eminenceor equality."

1 Yet his pretensions to originality have not been wholly unquestioned.
Dante, it has been supposed, was more immediately influenced in his choice
of a subject by the Vision of Alberico, written in barbarous Latin prose
about the beginning of the twelfth century. The incident which is said to
have given birth to this composition, is not a little marvellous. Alberico,
the son of noble parents, and born at a castle in the neighbourhood of Alvito
in the diocese of Sora, in the year 1101 or soon after, when he had com-
pleted his ninth year, was seized with a violent fit of illness, which deprived
him of his senses for the space of nine days. During the continuance of this
trance, he had a vision, in which he seemed to himself to be carried away by
a dove, and conducted by St. Peter, in company with two angels, through
Purgatory and Hell, to survey the torments of sinners ; the saint giving him
information, as they proceeded, respecting what he saw: after which they
were transported together through the seven heavens, and taken up into
Paradise, to behold the glory of the blessed. As soon as he came to himself
again, he was permitted to make profession of a religious life in the monastery
of Monte Casino. As the account he gave of his vision was strangely altered
in the reports that went abroad of it, Girardo the abbot employed one of the
monks to take down a relation of it, dictated by the mouth of Alberico him-
self. Senioretto, who was chosen abbot in 1127, not contented with this
narrative, although it seemed to have every chance of being authentic,
ordered Alberico to revise and correct it, which he accordingly did with the
assistance of Pietro Diacono, who was his associate in the monastery, and
a few years younger than himself; and whose testimony to his extreme and
perpetual self-mortification, and to a certain abstractedness of demeanour,
which showed him to converse with other thoughts than those of this life,
is still on record. The time of Alberico’s death is not known; but it is
conjectured that he reached to a good old age. His Vision, with a preface by
the first editor Guido, and preceded by a letter from Alberico himself, is
preserved in a MS. numbered 257 in the archives of the monastery, which
contains the works of Pietro Diacono. and which was written between the

LIFE OF DANTE XXXV

The fiction, it has been remarked,! is admirable, and the work of
an inventive talent truly great. It comprises a description
of the heavens and heavenly bodies; a description of men, their
deserts and punishments, of supreme happiness and utter misery,
and of the middle state between the two extremes: nor, per-
haps, was there ever any one who chose a more ample and fertile
subject ; so as to afford scope for the expression of all his ideas,
from the vast multitude of spirits that are introduced speaking
on such different topics ; who are of so many different countries
and ages, and under circumstances of fortune so striking and so
diversified ; and who succeed, one to another, with such a rapidity
as never suffers the attention for an instant to pall.

years 1159 and 1181. The probability of our Poet’s having been indebted
to it, was first remarked either by Giovanni Bottari in a letter inserted in
the Deca di Simboli, and printed at Rome in 1753; or, as F. Cancellieri
conjectures, in the preceding year by Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi. In 1801,
extracts from Alberico’s Vision were laid before the public in a quarto
pamphlet, printed at Rome with the title of Lettera di Eustazio Dicearcheo
ad Angelio Sidicino, under which appellations the writer, Giustino di
Costanzo, concealed his own name and that of his friend Luigi Anton. Som-
pano; and the whole has since, in 1814, been edited in the same city by
Francesco Cancellieri, who has added to the original an Italian translation.
Such parts of it, as bear a marked resemblance to passages in the Divina
Commedia, will be found distributed in their proper places throughout the
following notes. The reader will in these probably see enough to convince
him that our author had read this singular work, although nothing to detract
from his claim to originality.

Long before the public notice had been directed to this supposed imitation,
Malatesta Porta, in the Dialogue entitled Rossi, as referred to by Fontanini
in his Eloquenza Italiana, had suggested the probability that Dante had
taken his plan from an ancient romance, called Guerrino di Durazzo il
Meschino. The above-mentioned Bottari, however, adduced reasons for
concluding that this book was written originally in Provencal, and not
translated into Italian till after the time of our Poet, by one Andrea di
Barberino, who embellished it with many images, and particularly with
similes, borrowed from the Divina Commedia. ae

Mr. Warton, in one part of his History of English Poetry (vol. 1. s. xviii.
p. 463), has observed, that a poem, entitled Le Voye or Le Songe d’Enfer,
was written by Raoul de Houdenc, about the year 1180; and in another
part (vol. ii. s. x. p. 219) he has attributed the origin of Dante’s Poem to
that ‘favourite apologue, the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, which, in
Chaucer’s words, treats

of heaven and hell,
And earth, and souls that therein dwell.’
Parlement of Foules.

It is likely that a little research might discover many other sources, from
which his invention might with an equal appearance of truth ke derived.
The method of conveying instruction or entertainment under the form of
a vision, in which the living should be made to converse with the dead, was
so obvious, that it would be, perhaps, difficult to mention any country in
which it had not been employed. It is the scale of magnificence on which
this conception was framed, and the wonderful development of it in all its
parts, that may justly entitle our Poet to rank among the few minds to
whom the power of a great creative faculty can be ascribed.

* Leonardo Aretino, Vita di Dante.

XXXVi LIFE OF DANTE

His solicitude, it is true, to define all his images in such
a manner as to bring them distinctly within the circle of our
vision, and to subject them to the power of the pencil, sometimes
renders him little better than grotesque, where Milton has since
taught us to expect sublimity. But his faults, in general, were
less those of the poet, than of the age in which he lived. For his
having adopted the popular creed in all its extravagance, we have
no more right to blame him, than we should have to blame Homer
because he made use of the heathen deities, or Shakespeare on
account of his witches and fairies. The supposed influence of
the stars on the disposition of men at their nativity, was hardly
separable from the distribution which he had made of the glorified
spirits through the heavenly bodies, as the abodes of bliss suited
to their several endowments. And whatever philosophers may
think of the matter, it is certainly much better, for the ends of
poetry at least, that too much should be believed, rather than less,
or even no more than can be proved to be true. Of what he con-
sidered the cause of civil and religious liberty, he is on all occasions
the zealous and fearless advocate ; and of that higher freedom,
which is seated in the will, he was an assertor equally strenuous
and enlightened. The contemporary of Thomas Aquinas, it is
not to be wondered if he has given his poem a tincture of the
scholastic theology, which the writings of that extraordinary
man had rendered so prevalent, and without which it could not
perhaps have been made acceptable to the generality of his
readers. The phraseology has been accused of being at times
hard and uncouth ; but, if this is acknowledged, yet it must be
remembered that he gave a permanent stamp and character to
the language in which he wrote, and in which, before him, nothing
great had been attempted ; that the diction is strictly vernacular,
without any debasement of foreign idiom ; that his numbers have
as much variety as the Italian tongue, at least in that kind of
metre, could supply ; and that, although succeeding writers may
have surpassed him in the lighter graces and embellishments of
style, not one of them has equalled him in succinctness, vivacity,
and strength.

Never did any poem rise so suddenly into notice after the
death of its author, or engage the public attention more power-
fully, than the Divina Commedia. This cannot be attributed
solely to its intrinsic excellence. The freedom with which the
writer had treated the most distinguished characters of his time,
gave it a further and stronger hold on the curiosity of the age:
many saw in it their acquaintances, kinsmen, and friends, or,
what scarcely touched them less nearly, their enemies, either
consigned to infamy or recorded with honour, and represented in
another world as tasting of

Heaven’s sweet cup, or poisonous drug of hell ;

so that not a page could be opened without exciting the strongest

LIFE OF DANTE XXXVii

personal feelings in the mind of the reader. These sources of
interest must certainly be taken into our account, when we
consider the rapid diffusion of the work, and the unexampled
pains that were taken to render it universally intelligible. Not
only the profound and subtle allegory which pervaded it, the
mysterious style of prophecy which the writer occasionally
assumed, the bold and unusual metaphors which he everywhere
employed, and the great variety of knowledge he displayed ;
but his hasty allusions to passing events, and his description of
persons by accidental circumstances, such as some peculiarity
of form or feature, the place of their nativity or abode, some office
they held, or the heraldic insignia they bore—all asked for the help
of commentators and expounders, who were not long wanting to
the task. Besides his two sons, to whom that labour most
properly belonged, many others were found ready to engage in it.
Before the century had expired, there appeared the commentaries
of Accorso de’ Bonfantini,' a Franciscan ; of Micchino da Mezzano,
a canon of Ravenna; of Fra Riccardo, a Carmelite ; of Andrea,
a Neapolitan; of Guiniforte Bazzisio, a Bergamese; of Fra
Paolo Albertino; and of several writers whose names are un-
known, and whose toils, when Pelli wrote, were concealed in the
dust of private libraries.?, About the year 1350, Giovanni Visconti,
archbishop of Milan, selected six of the most learned men in Italy,
two divines, two philosophers, and two Florentines ; and gave it
them in charge to contribute their joint endeavours towards the
compilation of an ample comment, a copy of which is preserved in
the Laurentian library at Florence. Who these were is no longer
known; but Jacopo della Lana,* and Petrarch, are conjectured
to have been among the number. At Florence, a public lecture
was founded for the purpose of explaining a poem that was at the
same time the boast and the disgrace of the city. The decree for
this institution was passed in 1373 ; and in that year Boccaccio,
the first of their writers in prose, was appointed, with an annual
salary of a hundred florins, to deliver lectures in one of the
churches, on the first of their poets. On this occasion he wrote
his comment, which extends only to a part of the Inferno, and has
been printed. In 1375 Boccaccio died ; and among his successors
in this honourable employment we find the names of Antonio
Piovano in 1381, and of Filippo Villani in 1401.

The example of Florence was speedily followed by Bologna,

1 Tiraboschi, Stor. della Poes. Ital. vol. ii. p. 39; and Pelli, p. 119.

? The Lettera di Eustazio Dicearcheo, &c., mentioned above, p. XxIx,
contains many extracts from an early MS. of the Divina Commedia, with
marginal notes in Latin, preserved in the monastery of Monte Cassino. To
these extracts I shall have frequent occasion to refer.

3 Pelli, p. 119, informs us, that the writer, who is termed sometimes ‘ the
good ’, sometimes the ‘ old commentator ’, by those deputed to correct the
Decameron, in the preface to their explanatory notes, and who began his work
in 1334, is known to be Jacopo della Lana; and that his commentary was
translated into Latin by Alberigo da Rosada, Doctor of Laws at Bologna.

XXXVill LIFE OF DANTE

by Pisa, by Piacenza, and by Venice. Benvenuto da Imola, on
whom the office of lecturer devolved at Bologna, sustained it for
the space of ten years. From the comment, which he composed
for the purpose, and which he sent abroad in 1379, those passages,
that tend to illustrate the history of Italy, have been published
by Muratori.t At Pisa, the same charge was committed to
Francesco da Buti about 1386.

On the invention of printing, in the succeeding century, Dante
was one of those writers who were first and most frequently given
to the press. But I do not mean to enter on an account of the
numerous editions of our author, which were then, or have since
been published ; but shall content myself with adding such re-
marks as have occurred to me on reading the principal writers, by
whose notes those editions have been accompanied.

Of the four chief commentators on Dante, namely Landino,
Vellutello, Venturi, and Lombardi, the first appears to enter
most thoroughly into the mind of the Poet. Within little more
than a century of the time in which Dante had lived; himself
a Florentine, while Florence was still free, and still retained
something of her ancient simplicity ; the associate of those great
men who adorned the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici ; Landino * was
the most capable of forming some estimate of the mighty stature
of his compatriot, who was indeed greater than them all. His
taste for the classics, which were then newly revived, and had
become the principal objects of public curiosity, as it impaired
his relish for what has not inaptly been termed the romantic
literature, did not, it is true, improve him for a critic on the
Divina Commedia. The adventures of King Arthur, by which *
Dante had been delighted, appeared to Landino no better than
a fabulous and inelegant book.‘ He is, besides, sometimes, un-
necessarily prolix ; at others, silent, where a real difficulty asks
for solution; and, now and then, a little visionary in his inter-
pretation. The commentary of his successor, Vellutello,’ is more
evenly diffused over the text ; and although without pretensions
to the higher qualities by which Landino is distinguished, he is
generally under the influence of a sober good sense, which renders
him a steady and useful guide. Venturi,® who followed after a
long interval of time, was too much swayed by his principles, or

1 Antiq. Ital. v. i. The Italian comment published under the name of
Benvenuto da Imola, at Milan, in 1473, and at Venice in 1477, is altogether
different from that which Muratori has brought to light, and appears to be
the same as the Italian comment of Jacopo della Lana before mentioned.
See Tiraboschi.

2 Cristofforo Landino was born in 1424, and died in 1504 or 1508. See
Bandini, Specimen Litterat. Florent. Edit. Florence, 1751.

3 See note to Purgatory, xxvi. 152.

4 ©] favoloso, enon molto elegante libro della Tavola Rotonda.’ Landino,
in the notes to the Paradise, xvi.

5 Alessandro Vellutello was born in 1519.

6 Pompeo Venturi was born in 1693, and died in 1752.

LIFE OF DANTE XxXxix

his prejudices, as a Jesuit, to suffer him to judge fairly of a Ghi-
belline poet ; and either this bias, or a real want of tact for the
higher excellence of his author, or, perhaps, both these imperfec-
tions together, betray him into such impertinent and injudicious
sallies, as dispose us to quarrel with our companion, though, in
the main, a very attentive one, generally acute and lively, and at
times even not devoid of a better understanding for the merits of
his master. To him, and in our own times, has succeeded the
Padre Lombardi. This good Franciscan, no doubt, must have
given himself much pains to pick out and separate those ears of
grain, which had escaped the flail of those who had gone before
him in that labour. But his zeal to do something new often
leads him to do something that is not over wise ; and if on certain
occasions we applaud his sagaciousness, on others we do not less
wonder that his ingenuity should have been so strangely perverted.
His manner of writing is awkward and tedious; his attention,
more than is necessary, directed to grammatical niceties ; and his
attachment to one of the old editions, so excessive, as to render
him disingenuous or partial in his representation of the rest.
But to compensate this, he is a good Ghibelline ; and his opposi-
tion to Venturi seldom fails to awaken him into a perception of
those beauties which had only exercised the spleen of the Jesuit.

He, who shall undertake another commentary on Dante ’ yet
completer than any of those which have hitherto appeared, must
make use of these four, but depend on none. To them he must
add several others of minor note, whose diligence will nevertheless
be found of some advantage, and among whom [ can particularly
distinguish Volpi. Besides this, many commentaries and mar-
ginal annotations, that are yet inedited, remain to be examined ;
many editions and manuscripts * to be more carefully collated ;
and many separate dissertations and works of criticism to be
considered. But this is not all. That line of reading which the
Poet himself appears to have pursued (and there are many ves-
tiges in his works by which we shall be enabled to discover it)
must be diligently tracked ; and the search, I have little doubt,
would lead to sources of information equally profitable and
unexpected.

If there is anything of novelty in the notes which accompany
the following translation, it will be found to consist chiefly in a
comparison of the Poet with himself, that is, of the Divina Com-

1 Baldassare Lombardi died January 2, 1802. See Cancellieri, Osserva-
zioni, &c. Roma, 1814, p. 112. ‘

2 Francesco Cionacci, a noble Florentine, projected an edition of the
Divina Commedia in one hundred volumes, each containing a single canto,
followed by all the commentaries, according to the order of time in which
they were written, and accompanied by a Latin translation for the use of
foreigners. Cancellieri, ibid. p. 64. :

8 The Count Mortara has lately shown me many various readings he has
remarked on collating the numerous MSS. of Dante in the Canonici collection
at the Bodleian. It is to be hoped he will make them public. [January, 1843.]

xl LIFE OF DANTE

media with his other writings ;* a mode of illustration so obvious,
that it is only to be wondered how others should happen to have
made so little use of it. As to the imitations of my author by
later poets, Italian and English, which I have collected in addition
to those few that had been already remarked, they contribute
little or nothing to the purposes of illustration, but must be
considered merely as matter of curiosity, and as instances of the
manner in which the great practitioners in art do not scruple to
profit by their predecessors.

1 The edition which is referred to in the following notes, is that printed
at Venice in 2 vols. 8vo. 1793.

D:
1265

1266

1268
1270

1272

1274

1277
1278

CHRONOLOGICAL VIEW

OF

THE AGE OF DANTE

May.—DANTE, son of Alighieri degli Alighieri and Bella, is
born at Florence. Of his own ancestry he speaks in the
Paradise, Canto xv and xvi.

In the same year, Manfredi, king of Naples and Sicily, is
defeated and slain by Charles of Anjou. H. xxviii. 13 and
Purg. iii. 110.

Guido Novello of Polenta obtains the sovereignty of Ravenna.
H.. xxvil. 38:

Battle of Evesham. Simon de Montfort, leader of the barons,
defeated and slain.

Two of the Frati Godenti chosen arbitrators of the differences
of Florence. H. xxiii. 104.

Gianni de’ Soldanieri heads the populace in that city. H.
xxxii. 118.

Roger Bacon sends a copy of his Opus Majus to Pope
Clement IV.

Charles of Anjou puts Conradine to death, and becomes king
of Naples. H. xxviii. 16 and Purg. xx. 66.

Louis 1X of France dies before Tunis. His widow, Beatrice,
daughter of Raymond Berenger, lived till 1295. Purg.
vii. 126. Par. vi. 135.

Henry III of England is succeeded by Edward I. Purg. vii. 129.

Guy de Montfort murders Prince Henry, son of Richard, king
of the Romans, and nephew of Henry III of England, at
Viterbo. H. xii. 119. Richard dies, as is supposed, of grief
for this event.

Abulfeda, the Arabic writer, is born.

Our Poet first sees Beatrice, daughter of Folco Portinari.

Rodolph acknowledged emperor.

Philip III of France marries Mary of Brabant, who lived till
1321.) .Purg. vi. 24.

Thomas Aquinas dies. Purg. xx. 67 and Par. x. 96.

Buonaventura dies. Par. xii. 25.

Pierre de la Brosse, secretary to Philip ILI of France, executed.
Purg. vi. 23.

Giotto, the painter, is born. Purg. xi. 95.

Pope Adrian V dies. Purg. xix. 97.

Guido Guinicelli, the poet, dies. Purg. xi. 96 and xxvi. 83.

Pope John XXI dies. Par. xii. 126.

Ottocar, king of Bohemia, dies. Purg. vii. 97. Robert of
Gloucester is living at this time.

xii
A.D.

1279
1280

1281

1282

1284

1285

1291

CHRONOLOGICAL VIEW

Dionysius succeeds to the throne of Portugal. Par. xix. 135.

Albertus Magnus dies. Par. x. 95.

Our Poet’s friend, Busone da Gubbio, is born about this time.
See the Life of Dante prefixed.

William of Ockham is born about this time.

Pope Nicholas III dies. H. xix. 71.

Dante studies at the universities of Bologna and Padua.

About this time Ricordano Malaspina, the Florentine annalist,
dies.

The Sicilian vespers. Par. viii. 80.

The French defeated by the people of Forli. H. xxvii. 41.

Tribaldello de’ Manfredi betrays the city of Faenza. H.
xxxii. 119;

Prince Charles of Anjou is defeated and made prisoner by
Rugier de Lauria, admiral to Peter III of Aragon. Purg.
xxi78.

Charles I, king of Naples, dies. Purg. vii. 111.

Alonzo X of Castile dies. He caused the Bible to be translated
into Castilian, and all legal instruments to be drawn up in
that language. Sancho IV succeeds him.

Philip (next year IV of France) marries Jane, daughter of
Henry of Navarre. Purg. vii. 102.

Pope Martin IV dies. Purg. xxiv. 23.

Philip III of France and Peter III of Aragon die. Purg.
vil. 101 and 110.

Henry II, king of Cyprus, comes to the throne. Par. xix. 144.

Simon Memmi, the painter, celebrated by Petrarch, is born.

Guido dalle Colonne (mentioned by Dante in his De Vulgari
Eloquio) writes ‘ The War of Troy’.

Pope Honorius IV dies.

Haquin, king of Norway, makes war on Denmark. Par. xix.

Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi dies of famine. H. xxxiii. 14.

The Scottish poet, Thomas Learmouth, commonly called
Thomas the Rhymer, is living at this time.

Dante is in the battle of Campaldino, where the Florentines
defeat the people of Arezzo, June 11. Purg. v. 90.

Beatrice dies. Purg. xxxii. 2.

He serves in the war waged by the Florentines upon the Pisans,
and is present at the surrender of Caprona in the autumn.
Fi xcxa, 92: ;

Guido dalle Colonne dies.

William, marquis of Montferrat, is made prisoner by his
traitorous subjects, at Alessandria in Lombardy. Purg.
vii. 133.

Michael Scott dies. H. xx. 115.

Dante marries Gemma de’ Donati, with whom he lives un-
happily. By this marriage he had five sons and a daughter.

Can Grande della Scala is born, March 9. H. i. 98. Purg.
xx. 16. Par. xvii. 75 and xxvii. 135.

The renegade Christians assist the Saracens to recover St. John
d@ Acre. H. xxvii. 84.

The Emperor Rodolph dies. Purg. vi. 104 and vii. 91.

A.D.
1201
1292

1294

1295

1296

1298

1300

1301
1302

1303

OF THE AGE OF DANTE xhil

Alonzo III of Aragon dies, and is succeeded by James II.
Purg. vil. 113 and Par. xix. 133.

Eleanor, widow of Henry III dies. Par. vi. 135.

Pope Nicholas IV dies.

Roger Bacon dies.

John Baliol, king of Scotland, crowned.

Clement V abdicates the papal chair. H. ili. 56.

Dante writes his Vita Nuova.

Fra Guittone d’ Arezzo, the poet, dies. Purg. xxiv. 56.

Andrea Taffi, of Florence, the worker in mosaic, dies.

Dante’s preceptor, Brunetto Latini, dies. H. xv. 28.
and dies in the same year.

Frederick, son of Peter III of Aragon, becomes king of Sicily.
Purg. vil. 117 and Par. xix. 127.

Taddeo, the physician of Florence, called the Hippocratean,
dies. Par. xii. 77.

Marco Polo, the traveller, returns from the East to Venice.

Ferdinand IV of Castile comes to the throne. Par. xix. 122.

Forese, the companion of Dante, dies. Purg. xxxiii. 44.

Sadi, the most celebrated of the Persian writers, dies.

War between England and Scotland, which terminates in the
submission of the Scots to Edward I; but in the following
year, Sir William Wallace attempts the deliverance of Scot-
land. Par. xix. 121.

The Emperor Adolphus falls in a battle with his rival, Albert I,
who succeeds him in the Empire. Purg. vi. 98.

Jacopo da Varagine, archbishop of Genoa, author of the
Legenda Aurea, dies.

The Bianca and Nera parties take their rise in Pistoia. H.
xxxii. 60.

This is the year in which he supposes himself to see his Vision.
Hat lgandyxxa. 109:

He is chosen chief magistrate, or first of the Priors of Florence :
and continues in office from June 15 to August 15.

Cimabue, the painter, dies. Purg. xi. 93.

Guido Cavalcanti, the most beloved of our Poet’s friends, dies.
H. x. 59 and Purg. xi. 96.

The Bianca party expels the Nera from Pistoia. H. xxiv.
142.

January 27. During his absence at Rome, Dante is mulcted
by his fellow-citizens in the sum of 8,000 lire, and condemned
to two years’ banishment.

March 10. He is sentenced, if taken, to be burned.

Fulcieri de’ Calboli commits great atrocities on certain of the
Ghibelline party. Purg. xiv. 61.
Carlino de’ Pazzi betrays the castle di Piano Travigne, in

Valdarno, to the Florentines. H. xxxii. 67.

The French vanquished in the battle of Courtrai. Purg. xx. 47.

James, king of Majorca and Minorca, dies. Par. xix. 133.

Pope Boniface VIII dies. H. xix.55. Purg. xx. 86; xxxii. 146,
and Par. xxvii. 20.

The other exiles appoint Dante one of a council of twelve, under

xliv

A.D.
1303

1304

1305

1306
1307

1308

1309
1310

1311

1312

1313

1314

CHRONOLOGICAL VIEW

Alessandro da Romena. He appears to have been much
dissatisfied with his colleagues. Par. xvii. 61.

Robert of Brunne translates into English verse the Manuel de
Pechés, a treatise written in French by Robert Grosseteste,
bishop of Lincoln.

Dante joins with the exiles in an unsuccessful attack on the city
of Florence.

May. The bridge over the Arno breaks down during a repre-
sentation of the infernal torments exhibited on that river.
He xxvit'9:

July 20. Petrarch, whose father had been banished two years
before from Florence, is born at Arezzo.

Winceslaus II, king of Bohemia, dies. Purg. vii. 99 and Par.
xix. 123.

A conflagration happens at Florence. H. xxvi. 9.

Sir William Wallace is executed at London.

Dante visits Padua.

He is in Lunigiana with the Marchese Marcello Malaspina.
Purg. vill. 133; xix. 140.

Dolcino, the fanatic, is burned. H. xxviii. 53.

Edward II of England comes to the throne.

The Emperor Albert I murdered. Purg. vi. 98 and Par. xix. 114.

Corso Donati, Dante’s political enemy, slain. Purg. xxiv. 81.

He seeks an asylum at Verona, under the roof of the Signori
della Scala. Par. xvii. 69.

He wanders, about this time, over various parts of Italy. See
his Convito. He is at Paris a second time; and, according
to one of the early commentators, visits Oxford.

Robert, the patron of Petrarch, is crowned king of Sicily.
Par. ix. 2.

Duns Scotus dies. He was born about the same time as Dante.

Charles II, king of Naples, dies. Par. xix. 125.

The Order of the Templars abolished. Purg. xx. 94.

Jean de Meun, the continuer of the Roman de la Rose, dies
about this time.

Pier Crescenzi of Bologna writes his book on agriculture, in Latin.

Fra Giordano da Rivalta, of Pisa, a Dominican, the author of
sermons esteemed for the purity of the Tuscan language, dies.

Robert, king of Sicily, opposes the coronation of the Emperor
Henry VII. Par. viii. 59.

Ferdinand IV of Castile dies, and is succeeded by Alonzo XI.

Dino Compagni, a distinguished Florentine, concludes his
history of his own time, written in elegant Italian.

Gaddo Gaddi, the Florentine artist, dies.

The Emperor Henry of Luxemburg, by whom he had hoped
to be restored to Florence, dies. Par. xvii. 80 and xxx. 135.
Henry is succeeded by Lewis of Bavaria.

Dante takes refuge at Ravenna, with Guido Novello da Polenta.

Giovanni Boccaccio is born.

Pope Clement V dies. H. xix. 86 and Par. xxvii. 53 and
xxx. 141.

Philip TV of France dies. Purg. vil. 108 and Par. xix. 117.

Louis X succeeds.

OF THE AGE OF DANTE xlv

A.D.
1314 Ferdinand IV of Spain dies. Par. xix. 122.
Jacopo da Carrara defeated by Can Grande, who makes himself
master of Vicenza. Par. ix. 45.
1315 Louis X of France marries Clemenza, sister to our Poet’s friend,
Charles Martel, king of Hungary. Par. ix. 2.
1316 Louis X of France dies, and is succeeded by Philip V.
John XXII elected Pope. Par. xxvii. 53.
Joinville, the French historian, dies about this time.

1320 About this time John Gower is born, eight years before his
friend Chaucer.

1321 July. Dante dies at Ravenna, of a complaint brought on by
disappointment at his failure in a negotiation which he had
been conducting with the Venetians, for his patron Guido
Novello da Polenta.

His obsequies are sumptuously performed at Ravenna by
Guido, who himself died in the ensuing year.

THE VISION OF DANTE
HELL

CANTO I

ARGUMENT

The writer, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by
certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, is met by Virgil, who pro-
mises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterwards of Purgatory ;
and that he shall then be conducted by Beatrice into Paradise. He
follows the Roman poet.

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell,
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death. ,
Yet, to discourse of what there good befell,
All else will I relate discovered there.
How first I entered it I scarce can say, 10
Such sleepy dullness in that instant weighed
My senses down, when the true path I left ;
But when a mountain’s foot I reached, where closed
The valley that had pierced my heart with dread,
I looked aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet’s beam,
Who leads all wanderers safe through every way-
Then was a little respite to the fear,
That in my heart’s recesses deep had lain
All of that night, so pitifully past : 20
And as a man, with difficult short breath,
Forespent with toiling, ’scaped from sea to shore,
Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands
At gaze; e’en so my spirit, that yet failed,
Struggling with terror, turned to view the straits
That none hath passed and lived. My weary frame
After short pause recomforted, again
I journeyed on over that lonely steep,
The hinder foot still firmer. Scarce the ascent

4 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO I

Shall worry, until he to hell at length
Restore her, thence by envy first let loose.
I, for thy profit pondering, now devise
That thou mayst follow me; and I, thy guide, IIo
Will lead thee hence through an eternal space,
Where thou shalt hear despairing shrieks, and see
Spirits of old tormented, who invoke
A second death; and those next view, who dwell
Content in fire, for that they hope to come,
Whene’er the time may be, among the blest,
Into whose regions if thou then desire
To ascend, a spirit worthier than I
Must lead thee, in whose charge, when I depart,
Thou shalt be left: for that Almighty King, 120
Who reigns above, a rebel to his law
Adjudges me; and therefore hath decreed
That, to his city, none through me should come.
He in all parts hath sway; there rules, there holds
His citadel and throne. O happy those,
Whom there he chooses!’ I to him in few:
‘Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore,
I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse
I may escape) to lead me where thou said’st,
That I Saint Peter’s gate may view, and those 130
Who, as thou tell’st, are in such dismal plight.’
Onward he moved, I close his steps pursued.

CANTO II

ARGUMENT

After the invocation, which poets are used to prefix to their works, he shows,
that, on a consideration of his own strength, he doubted whether it sufficed
for the journey proposed to him, but that, being comforted by Virgil, he
at last took courage, and followed him as his guide and master.

Now was the day departing, and the air,
Imbrowned with shadows, from their toils released
All animals on earth; and I alone
Prepared myself the conflict to sustain,
Both of sad pity, and that perilous road,
Which my unerring memory shall retrace.
O Muses! O high genius! now vouchsafe
Your aid. O mind! that all I saw hast kept
Safe in a written record, here thy worth
And eminent endowments come to proof. 10
I thus began: ‘ Bard! thou who art my guide,
Consider well, if virtue be in me
Sufficient, ere to this high enterprise

CANTO IT] HELL

Thou trust me. Thou hast told that Silvius’ sire,
Yet clothed in corruptible flesh, among

The immortal tribes had entrance, and was there
Sensibly present. Yet if heaven’s great Lord,
Almighty foe to ill, such favour showed

In contemplation of the high effect,

Both what and who from him should issue forth,
It seems in reason’s judgement well deserved ;
Sith he of Rome and of Rome’s empire wide,

In heaven’s empyreal height was chosen sire:
Both which, if truth be spoken, were ordained
And stablished for the holy place, where sits
Who to great Peter’s sacred chair succeeds.

He from this journey, in thy song renowned,
Learned things, that to his victory gave rise
And to the papal robe. In after-times

The chosen vessel also travelled there,

To bring us back assurance in that faith

Which is the entrance to salvation’s way.

But I, why should I there presume ? or who
Permits it ? not Aeneas I, nor Paul.

Myself I deem not worthy, and none else

Will deem me. I, if on this voyage then

I venture, fear it will in folly end.

Thou, who art wise, better my meaning know’st,
Than I can speak.’ As one, who unresolves
What he hath late resolved, and with new thoughts
Changes his purpose, from his first intent
Removed; e’en such was I on that dun coast,
Wasting in thought my enterprise, at first

So eagerly embraced. ‘If right thy words

I scan,’ replied that shade magnanimous,

“Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft

So overcasts a man, that he recoils

From noblest resolution, like a beast

At some false semblance in the twilight gloom.
That from this terror thou mayst free thyself,

T will instruct thee why I came, and what

I heard in that same instant, when for thee
Grief touched me first. JI was among the tribe
Who rest suspended, when a dame, so blest

And lovely I besought her tc command,

Called me; her eyes were brighter than the star
Of day; and she, with gentle voice and soft,
Angelically tuned, her speech addressed :

‘““Oh courteous shade of Mantua! thou whose fame
‘Yet lives, and shall live long as nature lasts !
“A friend, not of my fortune but myself,

*“On the wide desert in his road has met

40

5°

60

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto 11

“Hindrance so great, that he through fear has turned.
‘“ Now much I dread lest he past help have strayed,
‘* And I be risen too late for his relief,
“From what in heaven of him I heard. Speed now,
‘And by thy eloquent persuasive tongue,
‘“* And by all means for his deliverance meet,
“ Assist him. So to me will comfort spring.
‘“T, who now bid thee on this errand forth, 70
‘Am Beatrice; from a place I come
“ Revisited with joy. Love brought me thence,
‘““Who prompts my speech. When in my Master’s sight
‘““T stand, thy praise to him I oft will tell.”

‘She then was silent, and I thus began:
“QO Lady! by whose influence alone

‘* Mankind excels whatever is contained
‘* Within that heaven which hath the smallest orb,
‘So thy command delights me, that to obey
“If it were done already, would seem late. 80
‘“No need hast thou further to speak thy will: i
“ Yet tell the reason, why thou art not loath
“To leave that ample space, where to return
‘*“'Thou burnest, for this centre here beneath.”’
‘She then: “Since thou so deeply wouldst inquire,
‘“‘T will instruct thee briefly why no dread
‘“‘ Hinders my entrance here. Those things alone
‘““ Are to be feared whence evil may proceed ;
‘* None else, for none are terrible beside.
‘““T am so framed by God, thanks to his grace ! 90
“That any sufferance of your misery
‘“'Touches me not, nor flame of that fierce fire

LINEs 63-141] HELL 7

** Assails me. In high heaven a blessed dame
“* Resides, who mourns with such effectual grief
‘That hindrance, which I send thee to remove,
‘““That God’s stern judgement to her will inclines.
“To Lucia calling, her she thus bespake :
‘Now doth thy faithful servant need thy aid,
‘And I commend him to thee.’ At her word
**Sped Lucia, of all cruelty the foe, 100
** And coming to the place, where I abode
“Seated with Rachel, her of ancient days,
‘““She thus addressed me: ‘ Thou true praise of God !
‘ Beatrice! why is not thy succour lent
‘To him, who so much loved thee, as to leave
‘For thy sake all the multitude admires ?
‘Dost thou not hear how pitiful his wail,
“Nor mark the death, which in the torrent flood,
‘Swollen mightier than a sea, him struggling holds ?’
‘“‘Ne’er among men did any with such speed 110
** Haste to their profit, flee from their annoy,
‘“* As, when these words were spoken, I came here,
‘““Down from my blessed seat, trusting the force
‘““Of thy pure eloquence, which thee, and all
‘Who well have marked it, into honour brings.”
‘When she had ended, her bright beaming eyes
Tearful she turned aside; whereat I felt
Redoubled zeal to serve thee. As she willed,
Thus am I come: I saved thee from the beast,
Who thy near way across the goodly mount 120
Prevented. What is this comes o’er thee then?
Why, why dost thou hang back ? why in thy breast
Harbour vile fear? Why hast not courage there,
And noble daring; since three maids, so blest,
Thy safety plan, e’en in the court of heaven ;
And so much certain good my words forebode ?’
As florets, by the frosty air of night
Bent down and closed, when day has blanched their leaves,
Rise all unfolded on their spiry stems ;
So was my fainting vigour new restored, 130
And to my heart such kindly courage ran,
That I as one undaunted soon replied :
‘O full of pity she, who undertook
My succour! and thou kind, who didst perform
So soon her true behest! With such desire
Thou hast disposed me to renew my voyage,
That my first purpose fully is resumed.
Lead on: one only will is in us both.
Thou art my guide, my master thou, and lord.’
So spake I; and when he had onward moved, 140
I entered on the deep and woody way.

8 THE VISION OF DANTE (CANTO III

CANTO II

ARGUMENT

Dante, following Virgil, comes to the gate of Hell; where, after having read
the dreadful words that are written thereon, they both enter. Here, as he
understands from Virgil, those were punished who had passed their time
(for living it could not be called) in a state of apathy and indifference
both to good and evil. Then pursuing their way, they arrive at the river
Acheron ; and there find the old ferryman Charon, who takes the spirits
over to the opposite shore; which as soon as Dante reaches, he is seized
with terror and falls into a trance.

‘ THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain :
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved :
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primaeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’
Such characters, in colour dim, I marked IO
Over a portal’s lofty arch inscribed.
Whereat I thus: ‘ Master, these words import
Hard meaning.’ He as one prepared replied :
‘Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave ;
Here be vile fear extinguished. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doomed, who intellectual good
Have lost.’ And when his hand he had stretched forth
To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheered,
Into that secret place he led me on. 20
Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans,
Resounded through the air pierced by no star,
That e’en I wept at entering. Various tongues,
Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote that swelled the sounds,
Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls
Round through that air with solid darkness stained,
Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
I then, with error yet encompassed, cried : 30
*“O master! what is this I hear? what race
Are these, who seem so overcome with woe ?’
He thus to me: ‘This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those, who lived
Without or praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved,
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves

LiInEs 1-86] HELL 9

Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth,
Not to impair his lustre; nor the depth
Of Hell receives them, lest the accurséd tribe 40
Should glory thence with exultation vain.’
I then: ‘Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,
That they lament so loud?’ He straight replied :
‘That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain: and their blind life
So meanly passes, that all other lots
They envy. Fame of them the world hath none,
Nor suffers ; mercy and justice scorn them both.
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by.’
And JI, who straightway looked, beheld a flag, 50
Which whirling ran around so rapidly,
That it no pause obtained: and following came
Such a long train of spirits, I should ne’er
Have thought that death so many had despoiled.
When some of these I recognized, I saw
And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
Yielding, abjured his high estate. Forthwith
I understood, for certain, this the tribe
Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing
And to his foes. These wretches, who ne’er lived, 60
Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung
By wasps and hornets, which bedewed their cheeks
With blood, that, mixed with tears, dropped to their feet,
And by disgustful worms was gathered there.
Then looking farther onwards, I beheld
A throng upon the shore of a great stream :
Whereat I thus: ‘Sir! grant me now to know
Whom here we view, and whence impelled they seem
So eager to pass o’er, as I discern
Through the blear light ?’ He thus to me in few: 70
‘This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive
Beside the woful tide of Acheron.’
Then with eyes downward cast, and filled with shame,
Fearing my words offensive to his ear,
Till we had reached the river, I from speech
Abstained. And lo! toward us in a bark
Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,
Crying, ‘ Woe to you, wicked spirits! hope not
Ever to see the sky again. I come
To take you to the other shore across, 80
Into eternal darkness, there to dwell
In fierce heat and in ice. And thou, who there
Standest, live spirit! get thee hence, and leave
These who are dead.’ But soon as he beheld
I left them not, ‘ By other way,’ said he,
‘By other haven shalt thou come to shore.

10

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto UI

Not by this passage; thee a nimbler boat

Must carry.’ Then to him thus spake my guide:

“Charon! thyself torment not: so ’tis willed,

Where will and power are one: ask thou no more.’ go
Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks

Of him, the boatman o’er the livid lake,

Around whose eyes glared wheeling flames. Meanwhile

Those spirits, faint and naked, colour changed,

And gnashed their teeth, soon as the cruel words

They heard. God and their parents they blasphemed,

‘The human kind, the place, the time, and seed,

That did engender them and give them birth.

Then all together sorely wailing drew
To the cursed strand, that every man must pass 100
Who fears not God. Charon, demoniac form,
With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,
Beckoning, and each, that lingers, with his oar
Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,
One still another following, till the bough
Strews all its honours on the earth beneath ;
E’en in like manner Adam’s evil brood
Cast themselves, one by one, down from the shore,
Each at a beck, as falcon at his call.
Thus go they over through the umbered wave ; Ito
And ever they on the opposing bank
Be landed, on this side another throng
Still gathers. ‘Son,’ thus spake the courteous guide,
“Those who die subject to the wrath of God

CANTO IV] HELL il

All here together come from every clime,

And to o’erpass the river are not loath:

For so heaven’s justice goads them on, that fear

Is turned into desire. Hence ne’er hath passed

Good spirit. If of thee Charon complain,

Now mayst thou know the import of his words.’ 120
This said, the gloomy region trembling shook

So terribly, that yet with clammy dews

Fear chills my brow. The sad earth gave a blast,

That, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame,

Which all my senses conquered quite, and I

Down dropped, as one with sudden slumber seized.

CANTO IV

ARGUMENT

The Poet, being roused by a clap of thunder, and following his guide onwards
descends into Limbo, which is the first circle of Hell, where he finds the
souls of those, who, although they have lived virtuously and have not to
suffer for great sins, nevertheless, through lack of baptism, merit not the
bliss of Paradise. Hence he is led on by Virgil to descend into the second
circle.

BRoKE the deep slumber in my brain a crash
Of heavy thunder, that I shook myself,
As one by main force roused. Risen upright,
My rested eyes I moved around, and searched,
With fixéd ken, to know what place it was
Wherein I stood. For certain, on the brink
I found me of the lamentable vale,
The dread abyss, that joins a thundrous sound
Of plaints innumerable. Dark and deep,
And thick with clouds o’erspread, mine eye in vain 10
Explored its bottom, nor could aught discern.
‘Now let us to the blind world there beneath
Descend ;’ the bard began, all pale of look:
‘I go the first, and thou shalt follow next.’
Then I, his altered hue perceiving, thus:
‘How may I speed, if thou yieldest to dread,
Who still art wont to comfort me in doubt ?’
He then: ‘The anguish of that race below
With pity stains my cheek, which thou for fear
Mistakest. Let us on. Our length of way 20
Urges to haste.’ Onward, this said, he moved ;
And entering led me with him, on the bounds
Of the first circle that surrounds the abyss.
Here, as mine ear could note, no plaint was heard
Except of sighs, that made the eternal air

12

THE VISION OF DANTE (CANTO IV

Tremble, not caused by tortures, but from grief
Felt by those multitudes, many and vast,

Of men, women, and infants. Then to me

The gentle guide: ‘ Inquirest thou not what spirits
Are these which thou beholdest ? Ere thou pass 30
Farther, I would thou know, that these of sin
Were blameless ; and if aught they merited,

It profits not, since baptism was not theirs,

The portal to thy faith. If they before

The Gospel lived, they served not God aright ;

And among such am I. For these defects,

And for no other evil, we are lost ;

Only so far afflicted, that we live

Desiring without hope.’ Sore grief assailed

My heart at hearing this, for well I knew 40

Suspended in that Limbo many a soul

Of mighty worth. ‘O tell me, sire revered !

Tell me, my master!’ I began, through wish

Of full assurance in that holy faith

Which vanquishes all error; ‘say, did e’er

Any, or through his own or other’s merit,

Come forth from thence, who afterward was blest ?’
Piercing the secret purport of my speech,

He answered: ‘I was new to that estate,

When I beheld a puissant one arrive 50

Amongst us, with victorious trophy crowned.

He forth the shade of our first parent drew,

Abe] his child, and Noah righteous man,

LINES 26-102] HELL

Of Moses lawgiver for faith approved,

Of patriarch Abraham, and David king,
Israel with his sire and with his sons,

Nor without Rachel whom so hard he won,
And others many more, whom he to bliss
Exalted. Before these, be thou assured,
No spirit of human kind was ever saved.’

We, while he spake, ceased not our onward road,
Still passing through the wood; for so I name
Those spirits thick beset. We were not far
On this side from the summit, when I kenned
A flame, that o’er the darkened hemisphere
Prevailing shined. Yet we a little space
Were distant, not so far but I in part
Discovered that a tribe in honour high
That place possessed. ‘O thou, who every art
And science valuest! who are these, that boast
Such honour, separate from all the rest ?’

He answered: ‘The renown of their great names,
That echoes through your world above, acquires
Favour in heaven, which holds them thus advanced.’
Meantime a voice I heard: ‘ Honour the bard
Sublime! his shade returns, that left us late!’

No sooner ceased the sound, than I beheld
Four mighty spirits toward us bend their steps,
Of semblance neither sorrowful nor glad.

When thus my master kind began: ‘ Mark him,
Who in his right hand bears that falchion keen,
The other three preceding, as their lord.

This is that Homer, of all bards supreme:

Flaccus the next, in satire’s vein excelling ;

The third is Naso; Lucan is the last.

Because they all that appellation own,

With which the voice singly accosted me,

Honouring they greet me thus, and well they judge.’

So I beheld united the bright school
Of him the monarch of sublimest song,

That o’er the others like an eagle soars.

When they together short discourse had held,
They turned to me, with salutation kind
Beckoning me; at the which my master smiled :
Nor was this all; but greater honour still
They gave me, for they made me oi their tribe ;
And I was sixth amid so learned a band.

Far as the luminous beacon on we passed,
Speaking of matters, then befitting well
To speak, now fitter left untold. At foot
Of a magnificent castle we arrived,

Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round

13

7O

100

14

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Iv

Defended by a pleasant stream. O’er this
As o’er dry land we passed. Next, through seven gates,
I with those sages entered, and we came
Into a mead with lively verdure fresh.
There dwelt a race, who slow their eyes around
Majestically moved, and in their port
Bore eminent authority: they spake
Seldom, but all their words were tuneful sweet. 110
We to one side retired, into a place
Open and bright and lofty, whence each one
Stood manifest to view. Incontinent,
There on the green enamel of the plain
Were shown me the great spirits, by whose sight
I am exalted in my own esteem.
Electra there I saw accompanied
By many, among whom Hector I knew,
Anchises’ pious son, and with hawk’s eye
Caesar all armed, and by Camilla there 120
Penthesilea. On the other side,
Old king Latinus seated by his child
Lavinia, and that Brutus I beheld
Who Tarquin chased, Lucretia, Cato’s wife
Marcia, with Julia and Cornelia there ;
And sole apart retired, the Soldan fierce.
Then when a little more I raised my brow,
I spied the master of the sapient throng,
Seated amid the philosophic train.
Him all admire, all pay him reverence due. 130
There Socrates and Plato both I marked
Nearest to him in rank, Democritus,
Who sets the world at chance, Diogenes,
With Heraclitus, and Empedocles,
And Anaxagoras, and Thales sage,
Zeno, and Dioscorides well read
In nature’s secret lore. Orpheus I marked
And Linus, Tully and moral Seneca,
Euclid and Ptolemy, Hippocrates,
Galenus, Avicen, and him who made 140
That commentary vast, Averroes.
Of all to speak at full were vain attempt ;
For my wide theme so urges, that oft-times
My words fall short of what bechanced. In two
The six associates part. Another way
My sage guide leads me, from that air serene,
Into a climate ever vexed with storms:
And to a part I come, where no light shines.

CANTO V] HELL 15

CANTO V

ARGUMENT

Coming into the second circle of Hell, Dante at the entrance beholds Minos
the Infernal Judge, by whom he is admonished to beware how he enters
those regions. Here he witnesses the punishment of carnal sinners, who
are tossed about ceaselessly in the dark air by the most furious winds.
Amongst these, he meets with Francesca of Rimini, through pity at whose
sad tale he falls fainting to the ground.

From the first circle I descended thus

Down to the second, which, a lesser space

Embracing, so much more of grief contains,

Provoking bitter moans. There Minos stands,

Grinning with ghastly feature: he, of all

Who enter, strict examining the crimes,

Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath,

According as he foldeth him around :

For when before him comes the ill-fated soul,

It all confesses ; and that judge severe 10

Of sins, considering what place in hell

Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft

Himself encircles, as degrees beneath

He dooms it to descend. Before him stand

Alway a numerous throng; and in his turn

Each one to judgement passing, speaks, and hears

His fate, thence downward to his dwelling hurled.
*O thou! who to this residence of woe

Approachest !’ when he saw me coming, cried

Minos, relinquishing his dread employ, 20

“Look how thou enter here; beware in whom

Thou place thy trust; let not the entrance broad

Deceive thee to thy harm.’ To him my guide:

‘Wherefore exclaimest ? Hinder not his way

By destiny appointed ; so ’tis willed,

Where will and power are one. Ask thou no more.’
Now ’gin the rueful wailings to be heard.

Now am I come where many a plaining voice

Smites on mine ear. Into a place I came

Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groaned 30

A noise, as of a sea in tempest torn

By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell

With restless fury drives the spirits on,

Whirled round and dashed amain with sore annoy.

When they arrive before the ruinous sweep,

There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans,

And blasphemies ’gainst the good Power in heaven.
I understood, that to this torment sad

The carnal sinners are condemned, in whom

16

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO V

Reason by lust is swayed. As in large troops 40
And multitudinous, when winter reigns,
The starlings on their wings are borne abroad ;
So bears the tyrannous gust those evil souls.
On this side and on that, above, below,
It drives them: hope of rest to solace them
Is none, nor e’en of milder pang. As cranes,
Chanting their dolorous notes, traverse the sky,
Stretched out in long array; so I beheld
Spirits, who came loud wailing, hurried on
By their dire doom. Then I: ‘Instructor! who 50
Are these, by the black air so scourged ? ’—‘ The first
"Mong those, of whom thou question’st,’ he replied,
‘O’er many tongues was empress. She in vice
Of luxury was so shameless, that she made
Liking be lawful by promulged decree,
To clear the blame she had herself incurred.
This is Semiramis, of whom ’tis writ,
That she succeeded Ninus her espoused ;
And held the land, which now the Soldan rules.
Tne next in amorous fury slew herself, 60
And to Sicheus’ ashes broke her faith :
Then follows Cleopatra, lustful queen.’
There marked I Helen, for whose sake so long
The time was fraught with evil; there the great
Achilles, who with love fought to the end.
Paris I saw, and Tristan; and beside,
A thousand more he showed me, and by name
Pointed them out, whom love bereaved of life.
When [I had heard my sage instructor name
Those dames and knights of antique days, o’erpowered 70
By pity. wellnigh in amaze my mind
Was lost; and I began: ‘ Bard! willingly
I would address those two together coming,
Which seem so light before the wind.’ He thus:
‘Note thou, when nearer they to us approach.
Then by that love which carries them along,
Entreat ; and they will come.’ Soon as the wind
Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech :
‘O wearied spirits! come, and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrained.’ As doves 80
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along ;
Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks,
They, through the ill air speeding: with such force
My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.
‘O gracious creature and benign! who go’st
Visiting, through this element obscure,

LINEs 40-116] HELL 17

Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued ;
If, for a friend, the King of all, we owned, go
Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise,
Since thou hast pity on our evil plight.
Of whatsoe’er to hear or to discourse
It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that
Freely with thee discourse, while e’er the wind,
As now, is mute. The land, that gave me birth,
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams.
‘Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt,
Entangled him by that fair form, from me 100
Ta’en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still :

<S

SOE iol] Le) Ih
Se 72 ee

Love, that denial takes from none beloved,

Caught me with pleasing him so passing well,

That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not.

Love brought us to one death: Caina waits

The soul, who spilt our life.” Such were their words ;

At hearing which, downward I bent my looks,

And held them there so long, that the bard cried :

‘What art thou pondering ?’ I in answer thus:

‘Alas! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire eae

Must they at length to that ill pass have reached !
Then turning, | to them my speech addressed,

And thus began: ‘Francesca! your sad fate

Even to tears my grief and pity moves.

But tell me; in the time of your sweet sighs,

By what, and how, Love granted that ye knew

ll

~

18

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto v

Your yet uncertain wishes?’ She replied:

‘No greater grief than to remember days

Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens
Thy learned instructor. Yet so eagerly 120
If thou art bent to know the primal root,

From whence our love gat being, I will do

As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day,
For our delight we read of Lancelot,

How him love thralled. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Oft-times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue

Fled from our altered cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wishéd smile so rapturously kissed 130
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er
From me shall separate, at once my lips

All trembling kissed. The book and writer both
Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.’ While thus one spirit spake,
The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck

I, through compassion fainting, seemed not far
From death, and like a corse fell to the ground.

CaNnTO VI] HELL 19

CANTO VI

ARGUMENT

On his recovery, the Poet. finds himself in the third circle, where the glut-
tonous are punished. Their torment is to lie in the mire, under a con-
tinual and heavy storm of hail, snow, and discoloured water; Cerberus
meanwhile barking over them with his threefold throat, and rending
them piecemeal. One of these, who on earth was named Ciacco, foretells
the divisions with which Florence is about to be distracted. Dante pro-
poses a question to his guide, who solves it ; and they proceed towards the
fourth circle.

My sense reviving, that erewhile had drooped
With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief
O’ercame me wholly, straight around I see
New torments, new tormented souls, which way
Soe’er I move, or turn, or bend my sight.
In the third circle I arrive, of showers
Ceaseless, accursed, heavy and cold, unchanged
For ever, both in kind and in degree.
Large hail, discoloured water, sleety flaw
Through the dun midnight air streamed down amain: 10
Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell.
Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange,
Through his wide threefold throat, barks as a dog
Over the multitude immersed beneath.
His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard,
His belly large, and clawed the hands, with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs
Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs,
Under the rainy deluge, with one side
The other screening, oft they roll them round, 20
A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm
Descried us, savage Cerberus, he oped
His jaws, and the fangs showed us; not a limb
Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms
Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth
Raised them, and cast it in his ravenous maw.
E’en as a dog, that yelling bays for food
His keeper, when the morsel comes, lets fall
His fury, bent alone with eager haste
To swallow it; so dropped the loathsome cheeks 30
Of demon Cerberus, who thundering stuns
The spirits, that they for deafness wish in vain.
We, o’er the shades thrown prostrate by the brunt
Of the heavy tempest passing, set our feet
Upon their emptiness, that substance seemed.
They all along the earth extended lay,
Save one, that sudden raised himself to sit,
Soon as that way he saw us pass. ‘O thou!’

20

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto VI

He cried, ‘ who through the infernal shades art led,

Own, if again thou know’st me. Thou wast framed 40
Or ere my frame was broken.’ I replied:

‘The anguish thou endurest perchance so takes

Thy form from my remembrance, that it seems

As if I saw thee never. But inform

Me who thou art, that in a place so sad

Art set, and in such torment, that although

Other be greater, none disgusteth more.’

He thus in answer to my words rejoined:

‘Thy city, heaped with envy to the brim,

Aye, that the measure overflows its bounds, 50
Held me in brighter days. Ye citizens

Were wont to name me Ciacco. For the sin

Of gluttony, damned vice, beneath this rain,
E’en as thou seest, I with fatigue am worn:
Nor I sole spirit in this woe: all these
Have by like crime incurred like punishment.’
No more he said, and I my speech resumed :
‘Ciacco! thy dire affliction grieves me much,
Even to tears. But tell me, if thou know’st,
What shall at length befall the citizens 60
Of the divided city; whether any
Just one inhabit there: and tell the cause,
Whence jarring Discord hath assailed it thus.’
He then: ‘ After long striving they will come
To blood; and the wild party from the woods
Will chase the other with much injury forth.
Then it behoves that this must fall, within
Three solar circles; and the other rise

LINES 39-117] HELL 21

By borrowed force of one, who under shore
Now rests. It shall a long space hold aloof 70
Its forehead, keeping under heavy weight
The other oppressed, indignant at the load,
And grieving sore. The just are two in number,
But they neglected. Avarice, envy, pride,
Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all
On fire.’ Here ceased the lamentable sound ;
And I continued thus: ‘Still would I learn
More from thee, further parley still entreat.
Of Farinata and Tegghiaio say,
They who so well deserved; of Jacopo, 80
Arrigo, Mosca, and the rest, who bent
Their minds on working good. Oh! tell me where
They bide, and to their knowledge let me come.
For I am prest with keen desire to hear
If heaven’s sweet cup, or poisonous drug of hell,
Be to their lip assigned.’ He answered straight :
‘These are yet blacker spirits. Various crimes
Have sunk them deeper in the dark abyss.
If thou so far descendest, thou mayst see them.
But to the pleasant world, when thou return’st, go
Of me make mention, I entreat thee, there.
No more [ tel! thee, answer thee no more.’
This said, his fixéd eyes he turned askance,
A little eyed me, then bent down his head,
And ’midst his blind companions with it fell.
When thus my guide: ‘No more his bed he leaves,
Ere the last angel-trumpet blow. The Power
Adverse to these shall then in glory come,
Each one forthwith to his sad tomb repair,
Resume his fleshly vesture and his form, 100
And hear the eternal doom re-echoing rend
The vault.’ So passed we through that mixture foul
Of spirits and rain, with tardy steps; meanwhile
Touching, though slightly, on the life to come.
For thus I questioned: ‘Shall these tortures, Sir!
When the great sentence passes, be increased,
Or mitigated, or as now severe ?’
He then: ‘Consult thy knowledge; that decides,
That, as each thing to more perfection grows,
It feels more sensibly both good and pain. 110
Though ne’er to true perfection may arrive
This race accursed, yet nearer then, than now,
They shall approach it.’ Compassing that path,
Circuitous we journeyed ; and discourse,
Much more than I relate, between us passed :
Till at the point, whence the steps led below,
Arrived, there Plutus, the great foe, we found.

22 THE VISION OF DANTE [CanTOo VII

CANTO VII

ARGUMENT

In the present Canto Dante describes his descent into the fourth circle, at
the beginning of which he sees Plutus stationed. Here one like doom
awaits the prodigal and the avaricious ; which is, to meet in direful con-
flict, rolling great weights against each other with mutual upbraidings.
From hence Virgil takes occasion to show how vain the goods that are
committed into the charge of Fortune; and this moves our author to
inquire what being that Fortune is, of whom he speaks: which question
being resolved, they go down into the fifth circle, where they find the
wrathful and gloomy tormented in the Stygian lake. Having made
a compass round great part of this lake, they come at last to the base
of a lofty tower.

‘An me! O Satan! Satan!’ loud exclaimed
Plutus, in accent hoarse of wild alarm:
And the kind sage, whom no event surprised,
To comfort me thus spake: ‘ Let not thy fear
Harm thee, for power in him, be sure, is none
To hinder down this rock thy safe descent.’
Then to that swollen lip turning, ‘Peace!’ he cried,
‘Cursed wolf! thy fury inward on thyself
Prey, and consume thee! Through the dark profound,
Not without cause, he passes. So ’tis willed IO
On high, there where the great Archangel poured
Heaven’s vengeance on the first adulterer proud.’

As sails, full spread and bellying with the wind,
Drop suddenly collapsed, if the mast split ;
So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend.

LINEs 1-64] HELL 93

Thus we, descending to the fourth steep ledge,
Gained on the dismal shore, that all the woe
Hems in of all the universe. Ah me!
Almighty Justice! in what store thou heap’st
New pains, new troubles, as I here beheld. 20
Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this ?

E’en as a billow, on Charybdis rising,
Against encountered billow dashing breaks ;
Such is the dance this wretched race must lead,
Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found.
From one side and the other, with loud voice,
Both rolled on weights, by main force of their breasts,
Then smote together, and each one forthwith
Rolled them back voluble, turning again;
Exclaiming these, ‘Why holdest thou so fast ?’ 30
Those answering, ‘ And why castest thou away ?’
So, still repeating their despiteful song,
They to the opposite point, on either hand,
Traversed the horrid circle; then arrived,
Both turned them round, and through the middle space
Conflicting met again. At sight whereof
I, stung with grief, thus spake: ‘Oh say, my guide!
What race is this? Were these, whose heads are shorn,
On our left hand, all separate to the church ?’

He straight replied: ‘In their first life, these all 40
In mind were so distorted, that they made,
According to due measure, of their wealth
No use. This clearly from their words collect,
Which they howl forth, at each extremity
Arriving of the circle, where their crime
Contrary in kind disparts them. To the church
Were separate those, that with no hairy cowls
Are crowned, both Popes and Cardinals, o’er whom
Avarice dominion absolute maintains.’

I then: ‘’Mid such as these some needs must be, 50
Whom I shall recognize, that with the blot
Of these foul sins were stained.’ He answering thus:
‘Vain thought conceivest thou. That ignoble life,
Which made them vile before, now makes them dark,
And to all knowledge indiscernible.
For ever they shall meet in this rude shock:
These from the tomb with clenchéd grasp shall rise,
Those with close-shaven locks. That ill they gave,
And ill they kept, hath of the beauteous world
Deprived, and set them at this strife, which needs 60
No laboured phrase of mine to set it off.
Now mayst thou see, my son! how brief, how vain,
The goods committed into Fortune’s hands,
For which the human race keep such a coil!

24

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VII

Not al! the gold that is beneath the moon,

Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls

Might purchase rest for one.’ I thus rejoined:

“My guide! of thee this also would I learn ;

This Fortune, that thou speak’st of, what it is,

Whose talons grasp the blessings of the world.’
He thus: ‘O beings blind! what ignorance

Besets you! Now my judgement hear and mark.

He, whose transcendent wisdom passes all,

The heavens creating, gave them ruling powers

To guide them; so that each part shines to each,

Their light in equal distribution poured.

By similar appointment he ordained,

Over the world’s bright images to rule,

Superintendence of a guiding hand

And general minister, which, at due time,

May change the empty vantages of life

From race to race, from one to other’s blood,

Beyond prevention of man’s wisest care:

Wherefore one nation rises into sway,

Another languishes, e’en as her will

Decrees, from us concealed, as in the grass

The serpent train. Against her naught avails

Your utmost wisdom. She with foresight plans,

Judges, and carries on her reign, as theirs

The other powers divine. Her changes know

None intermission: by necessity

She is made swift, so frequent come who claim

Succession in her favours. This is she,

So execrated e’en by those whose debt

To her is rather praise: they wrongfully

With blame requite her, and with evil word ;

But she is blesséd, and for that recks not:

Amidst the other primal beings glad,

Rolls on her sphere, and in her bliss exults.

Now on our way pass we, to heavier woe

Descending: for each star is falling now,

That mounted at our entrance, and forbids

Too long our tarrying.’ We the circle crossed

To the next steep, arriving at a well,

That boiling pours itself down to a foss

Sluiced from its source. Far murkier was the wave

Than sablest grain: and we in company

Of the inky waters, journeying by their side,
Entered, though by a different track, beneath.
Into a lake, the Stygian named, expands

The dismal stream, when it hath reached the foot
Of the grey withered cliffs. Intent I stood

To gaze, and in the marish sunk descried

72

80

go

100

110

CANTO VIIT] HELL

bo
Or

A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks
Betokening rage. They with their hands alone
Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,
Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs.

The good instructor spake: ‘Now seest thou, son!
The souls of those, whom anger overcame.
This too for certain know, that underneath 120
The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs
Into these bubbles make the surface heave,
As thine eye tells thee wheresoe’er it turn.
Fixed in the slime, they say: “Sad once were we,
“In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun,
“Carrying a foul and lazy mist within:
‘** Now in these murky settlings are we sad.”
Such dolorous strain they gurgle in their throats,
But word distinct can utter none.’ Our route
Thus compassed we, a segment widely stretched 130
Between the dry embankment, and the core
Of the loathed pool, turning meanwhile our eyes
Downward on those who gulped its muddy lees ;
Nor stopped, till to a tower’s low base we came.

CANTO VIII

ARGUMENT

A signal having been made from the tower, Phlegyas, the ferryman of the
lake, speedily crosses it, and conveys Virgil and Dante to the other side.
On their passage, they meet with Filippo Argenti, whose fury and tor-
ment are described. They then arrive at the city of Dis, the entrance
whereto is denied, and the portals closed against them by many Demons.

My theme pursuing, I relate, that ere

We reached the lofty turret’s base, our eyes

Its height ascended, where we marked uphung
Two cressets, and another saw from far

Return the signal, so remote, that scarce

The eye could catch its beam. I, turning round
To the deep source of knowledge, thus inquired: _
‘Say what this means; and what, that other light
In answer set: what agency doth this ?’

‘There on the filthy waters,’ he replied, 10
‘E’en now what next awaits us mayst thou see,
If the marsh-gendered fog conceal it not.’

Never was arrow from the cord dismissed,

That ran its way so nimbly through the air, —
As a small bark, that through the waves I spied
Toward us coming, under the sole sway

Of one that ferried it, who cried aloud :

26 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto vm

‘ Art thou arrived, fell spirit ? ’—‘ Phlegyas, Phlegyas,
This time thou criest in vain,’ my lord replied ;
‘No longer shalt thou have us, but while o’er 20
The slimy pool we pass.’ As one who hears
Of some great wrong he hath sustained, whereat
Inly he pines: so Phlegyas inly pined
In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepped
Into the skiff, and bade me enter next,
Close at his side; nor, till my entrance, seemed
The vessel freighted. Soon as both embarked,
Cutting the waves, goes on the ancient prow,
More deeply than with others it is wont.
While we our course o’er the dead channel held, 30
One drenched in mire before me came. and said:
‘Who art thou, that thus comest ere thine hour ?’
I answered: ‘Though I come, I tarry not:
But who art thou, that art become so foul ?’
“One, as thou seest, who mourn:’ he straight replied.
To which I thus: ‘In mourning and in woe,
Cursed spirit! tarry thou. I know thee well,
F’en thus in filth disguised.’ Then stretched he forth
Hands to the bark; whereof my teacher sage
Aware, thrusting him back: ‘Away! down there 40
To the other dogs!’ then, with his arms my neck
Encircling, kissed my cheek, and spake: ‘Oh soul,
Justly disdainful! blest was she in whom
Thou wast conceived. He in the world was one
For arrogance noted: to his memory
No virtue lends its lustre; even so
Here is his shadow furious. There above,
How many now hold themselves mighty kings,
Who here like swine shall wallow in the mire,
Leaving behind them horrible dispraise.’ 50
I then: ‘Master! him fain would I behold
Whelmed in these dregs, before we quit the lake.’
He thus: ‘Or ever to thy view the shore
Be offered, satisfied shall be that wish,
Which well deserves completion.’ Scarce his words
Were ended, when I saw the miry tribes
Set on him with such violence, that yet
For that render I thanks to God, and praise.
To Filippo Argenti!’ cried they all:
And on himself the moody Florentine 60
Turned his avenging fangs. Him here we left,
Nor speak I of him more. But on mine ear
Sudden a sound of lamentation smote,
Whereat mine eye unbarred I sent abroad.
And thus the good instructor: * Now, my son,
Draws near the city, that of Dis is named,

Links 18-94] HELL 27

With its grave denizens, a mighty throng.’

I thus: ‘The minarets already, Sir !
There, certes, in the valley I descry,
Gleaming vermilion, as if they from fire 70
Had issued.’ He replied: ‘ Eternal fire,
That inward burns, shows them with ruddy flame
Illumed ; as in this nether hell thou seest.’

We came within the fosses deep, that moat
This region comfortless. The walls appeared
As they were framed of iron. We had made
Wide circuit, ere a place we reached, where loud
The mariner cried vehement: ‘Go forth:
The entrance is here.’ Upon the gates I spied

More than a thousand, who of old from heaven 80
Were showered. With ireful gestures, ‘Who is this,’
They cried, ‘that, without death first felt, goes through
The regions of the dead?’ My sapient guide
Made sign that he for secret parley wished ;
Whereat their angry scorn abating, thus __
They spake: ‘Come thou alone; and let him go,
Who hath so hardily entered this realm.
Alone return he by his witless way ;
If well he know it, let him prove. For thee,
Here shalt thou tarry, who through clime so dark go
Hast been his escort.’ Now bethink thee, reader !
What cheer was mine at sound of those cursed words.
I did believe I never should return.
*“O my loved guide! who more than seven times

28 THE VISION OF DANTE _— [Canto vir

Security hast rendered me, and drawn

From peril deep, whereto I stood exposed,
Desert me not,’ I cried, ‘in this extreme.
And, if our onward going be denied,

Together trace we back our steps with speed.’

My liege, who thither had conducted me, 100
Replied ; ‘Fear not: for of our passage none
Hath power to disappoint us, by such high
Authority permitted. But do thou
Expect me here; meanwhile, thy wearied spirit
Comfort, and feed with kindly hope, assured
I will not leave thee in this lower world.’

This said, departs the sire benevolent,

And quits me. Hesitating I remain
At war, *twixt will and will not, in my thoughts.

I could not hear what terms he offered them, 110
But they conferred not long, for all at once
Pellmell rushed back within. Closed were the gates,
By those our adversaries, on the breast
Of my liege lord: excluded, he returned
To me with tardy steps. Upon the ground
His eyes were bent, and from his brow erased
All confidence, while thus in sighs he spake:

“Who hath denied me these abodes of woe ?’
Then thus to me; ‘That I am angered, think
No ground of terror: in this trial I 120
Shall vanquish, use what arts they may within
For hindrance. This their insolence, not new,
Erewhile at gate less secret they displayed,
Which still is without bolt; upon its arch
Thou saw’st the deadly scroll: and even now,
On this side of its entrance, down the steep,
Passing the circles, unescorted, comes

One whose strong might can open us this land.’

CANTO IX

ARGUMENT

After some hindrances, and having seen the hellish furies and other mon-
sters, the Poet, by the help of an angel, enters the city of Dis, wherein he
discovers that the heretics are punished in tombs burning with intense
fire: and he, together with Virgil, passes onwards between the sepulchres
and the walls of the city.

THE hue, which coward dread on my pale cheeks
Imprinted when I saw my guide turn back,
Chased that from his which newly they had worn,
And inwardly restrained it. He, as one

Who listens, stood attentive: for his eye

CANTO Ix] HELL 29

Not far could lead him through the sable air,
And the thick-gathering cloud. ‘It yet behoves
We win this fight;’ thus he began: ‘if not,
Such aid to us is offered.—Oh! how long
Meseems it, ere the promised help arrive. 10
I noted, how the sequel of his words
Cloaked their beginning ; for the last he spake
Agreed not with the first. But not the less
My fear was at his saying; sith I drew
To import worse, perchance, than that he held,
His mutilated speech. ‘Doth ever any
Into this rueful concave’s extreme depth
Descend, out of the first degree, whose pain
Is deprivation merely of sweet hope ?’
Thus I inquiring. ‘ Rarely,’ he replied, 20
‘Tt chances, that among us any makes
This journey, which I wend. Erewhile, ’tis true,
Once came I here beneath, conjured by fell
Erictho, sorceress, who compelled the shades
Back to their bodies. No long space my flesh
Was naked of me, when within these walls
She made me enter, to draw forth a spirit
From out of Judas’ circle. Lowest place
Is that of all, obscurest, and removed
Farthest from heaven’s all-circling orb. The road 30
Full well I know: thou therefore rest secure.
That lake, the noisome stench exhaling, round
The city of grief encompasses, which now
We may not enter without rage.’ Yet more
He added: but I hold it not in mind,
For that mine eye toward the lofty tower
Had drawn me wholly, to its burning top ;
Where, in an instant, I beheld uprisen
At once three hellish furies stained with blood:
In limb and motion feminine they seemed ; 40
Around them greenest hydras twisting rolled
Their volumes ; adders and cerastes crept
Instead of hair, and their fierce temples bound.
He, knowing well the miserable hags
Who tend the queen of endless woe, thus spake:
‘Mark thou each dire Erynnis. To the left,
This is Megaera; on the right hand, she
Who wails, Alecto; and Tisiphone
I’ th’ midst.’ This said, in silence he remained.
Their breast they each one clawing tore; themselves 50
Smote with their palms, and such shrill clamour raised,
That to the bard I clung, suspicion-bound.
*Hasten Medusa: so to adamant
Him shall we change;’ all looking down exclaimed :

30

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Ix

‘E’en when by Theseus’ might assailed, we took
No ill revenge.’ ‘Turn thyself round, and keep
Thy countenance hid; for if the Gorgon dire
Be shown, and thou shouldst view it, thy return
Upwards would be for ever lost.’ This said,
Himself, my gentle master, turned me round ; 60
Nor trusted he my hands, but with his own
He also hid me. Ye of intellect
Sound and entire, mark well the lore concealed
Under close texture of the mystic strain.

And now there came o’er the perturbéd waves
Loud-crashing, terrible, a sound that made
Kither shore tremble, as if of a wind

Impetuous, from conflicting vapours sprung,
That *gainst some forest driving all his might,
Plucks off the branches, beats them down, and hurls 7o
Afar; then, onward passing, proudly sweeps
His whirlwind rage, while beasts and shepherds fly.

Mine eyes he loosed, and spake: ‘ And now direct
Thy visual nerve along that ancient foam,
There, thickest where the smoke ascends.’ As frogs
Before their foe the serpent, through the wave
Ply swiftly all, till at the ground each one
Lies on a heap; more than a thousand spirits
Destroyed, so saw I fleeing before one
Who passed with unwet feet the Stygian sound. 80
He, from his face removing the gross air,
Oft his left hand forth stretched, and seemed alone

LINES 55-131] HELL 3]

By that annoyance wearied. I perceived
That he was sent from heaven; and to my guide
Turned me, who signal made that I should stand
Quiet, and bend to him. Ah me! how full
Of noble anger seemed he. To the gate
He came, and with his wand touched it, whereat
Open without impediment it flew.
‘Outcasts of heaven! O abject race, and scorned !’ go
Began he, on the horrid grunsel standing,
‘Whence doth this wild excess of insolence
Lodge in you? wherefore kick you ’gainst that will
Ne’er frustrate of its end, and which so oft
Hath laid on you enforcement of your pangs ?
What profits, at the fates to butt the horn ?
Your Cerberus, if ye remember, hence
Bears still, peeled of their hair, his throat and maw.’
This said, he turned back o’er the filthy way,
And syllable to us spake none; but wore 100
The semblance of a man by other care
Beset, and keenly prest, than thought of him
Who in his presence stands. Then we our steps
Toward that territory moved, secure
After the hallowed words. We, unopposed,
There entered ; and, my mind eager to learn
What state a fortress like to that might hold,
I, soon as entered, throw mine eye around,
And see, on every part, wide-stretching space,
Replete with bitter pain and torment ill. 110
As where Rhone stagnates on the plains of Arles,
Or as at Pola, near Quarnaro’s gulf,
That closes Italy and laves her bounds,
The place is all thick spread with sepulchres ;
So was it here, save what in horror here
Excelled: for ’midst the graves were scattered flames,
Wherewith intensely all throughout they burned,
That iron for no craft there hotter needs.
Their lids all hung suspended; and beneath,
From them forth issued lamentable moans, 120
Such as the sad and tortured well might raise.
I thus: ‘Master! say who are these, interred
Within these vaults, of whom distinct we hear
The dolorous sighs.’ He answer thus returned :
‘The arch-heretics are here, accompanied
By every sect their followers; and much more,
Than thou believest, the tombs are freighted: like
With like is buried; and the monuments
Are different in degrees of heat.’ This said,
He to the right hand turning, on we passed 130
Betwixt the afflicted and the ramparts high.

32 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro x

CANTO X

ARGUMENT

Dante, having obtained permission from his guide, holds discourse with
Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcante Cavalcanti, who lie in their fiery
tombs that are yet open, and not to be closed up till after the last judge-
ment. Farinata predicts the Poet’s exile from Florence ; and shows him
that the condemned have knowledge of future things, but are ignorant of
what is at present passing, unless it be revealed by some new comer from
earth.

Now by a secret pathway we proceed,
Between the walls, that hem the region round,
And the tormented souls: my master first,
I close behind his steps. ‘ Virtue supreme !’
I thus began: ‘who through these ample orbs
In circuit lead’st me, even as thou will’st ;
Speak thou, and satisfy my wish. May those,
Who lie within these sepulchres, be seen ?
Already all the lids are raised, and none
O’er them keeps watch.’ He thus in answer spake: 10
“They shall be closed all, what time they here
From Josaphat returned shall come, and bring
Their bodies, which above they now have left.
The cemetery on this part obtain,
With Epicurus, all his followers,
Who with the body make the spirit die.
Here therefore satisfaction shall be soon,
Both to the question asked, and to the wish
Which thou conceal’st in silence.’ I replied:
‘I keep not, guide beloved! from thee my heart 20
Secreted, but to shun vain length of words ;
A lesson erewhile taught me by thyself.’
‘O Tuscan! thou, who through the city of fire
Alive art passing, so discreet of speech :
Here, please thee, stay awhile. Thy utterance
Declares the place of thy nativity
To be that noble land, with which perchance
I too severely dealt.’ Sudden that sound
Forth issued from a vault, whereat, in fear,
IT somewhat closer to my leader’s side 30
Approaching, he thus spake: ‘What dost thou? Turn:
Lo! Farinata there, who hath himself
Uplifted: from his girdle upwards, all
Exposed, behold him.’ On his face was mine
Already fixed: his breast and forehead there
Erecting, seemed as in high scorn he held
E’en hell. Between the sepulchres, to him
My guide thrust me, with fearless hands and prompt ;

LINEs 1-66] HELL 33

This warning added: ‘See thy words be clear.’

He, soon as there I stood at the tomb’s foot, 40
Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood
Addressed me: ‘Say what ancestors were thine.’

I, willing to obey him, straight revealed
The whole, nor kept back aught: whence he, his brow
Somewhat uplifting, cried: ‘ Fiercely were they
Adverse to me, my party, and the blood
From whence I sprang: twice, therefore, I abroad
Scattered them.’ ‘Though driven out, yet they each time
From all parts,’ answered I, ‘returned; an art
Which yours have shown they are not skilled to learn.’ 50

Then, peering forth from the uncloséd jaw,

Rose from his side a shade, high as the chin,
Leaning, methought, upon its knees upraised.

It looked around, as eager to explore

Ti there were other with me; but perceiving

That fond imagination quenched, with tears

Thus spake: ‘If thou through this blind prison go’st,
Led by thy lofty genius and profound,

Where is my son? and wherefore not with thee ?’

I straight replied: ‘Not of myself I come ; 60
By him, who there expects me, through this clime
Conducted, whom perchance Guido thy son
Had in contempt.’ Already had his words
And mode of punishment read me his name,

Whence I so fully answered. He at once
Exclaimed, up starting, ‘How! said’st thou, he had?

34 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto x

No longer lives he ? Strikes not on his eye
The blessed daylight ?” Then, of some delay
T made ere my reply, aware, down fell
Supine, nor after forth appeared he more. 70
Meanwhile the other, great of soul, near whom
I yet was stationed, changed not countenance stern,
Nor moved the neck, nor bent his ribbéd side.
‘ And if, continuing the first discourse,
‘They in this art,’ he cried, ‘small skill have shown ;
That doth torment me more e’en than this bed.
But not yet fifty times shall be relumed
Her aspect, who reigns here queen of this realm,
Ere thou shalt know the full weight of that art.
So to the pleasant world mayst thou return, 80
As thou shalt tell me why, in all their laws,
Against my kin this people is so fell.’
‘The slaughter and great havoc,’ I replied,
‘That coloured Arbia’s flood with crimson stain—
To these impute, that in our hallowed dome
Such orisons ascend.’ Sighing he shook
The head, then thus resumed: ‘In that affray
I stood not singly, nor without just cause,
Assuredly, should with the rest have stirred ;
But singly there I stood, when, by consent go
Of al!, Florence had to the ground been razed,
The one who openly forbade the deed.’
“So may thy lineage find at last repose,’
I thus adjured him, ‘as thou solve this knot,
Which now involves my mind. If right I hear,
Ye seem to view beforehand that which time
Leads with him, of the present uninformed.’
‘We view, as one who hath an evil sight,’
He answered, ‘ plainly, objects far remote ;
So much of his large splendour yet imparts 100
The Almighty Ruler: but when they approach,
Or actually exist, our intellect
Then wholly fails; nor of your human state,
Except what others bring us, know we aught.
Hence therefore mayst thou understand, that all
Our knowledge in that instant shall expire,
When on futurity the portals close.’
Then conscious of my fault, and by remorse
Smitten, I added thus: ‘Now shalt thou say
To him there fallen, that his offspring still 110
Is to the living joined; and bid him know,
That if from answer, silent, I abstained,
"Twas that my thought was occupied, intent
Upon that error, which thy help hath solved.’
But now my master summoning me back

CANTO XI] HELL 35,

I heard, and with more eager haste besought
The spirit to inform me, who with him
Partook his lot. He answer thus returned:
‘More than a thousand with me here are laid.
Within is Frederick, second of that name, 120
And the Lord Cardinal; and of the rest
I speak not.’ He, this said, from sight withdrew.
But I my steps toward the ancient bard
Reverting, ruminated on the words
Betokening me such ill. Onward he moved,
And thus, in going, questioned: ‘Whence the amaze
That holds thy senses wrapped ?’ I satisfied
The inquiry, and the sage enjoined me straight :
‘Let thy safe memory store what thou hast heard
To thee importing harm; and note thou this,’ 130
With his raised finger bidding me take heed,
‘When thou shalt stand before her gracious beam,
Whose bright eye all surveys, she of thy life
The future tenor will to thee unfold.’

Forthwith he to the left hand turned his feet :
We leit the wall, and towards the middle space
Went by a path that to a valley strikes,
Which e’en thus high exhaled its noisome steam.

CANTO XI

ARGUMENT
Dante arrives at the verge of a rocky precipice which encloses the seventh
circle, where he sees the sepulchre of Anastasius the Heretic; behind the
lid of which pausing a little, to make himself capable by degrees of endur-
ing the fetid smell that steamed upward from the abyss, he is instructed
by Virgil concerning the manner in which the three following circles are
disposed, and what description of sinners is punished in each. He then
inquires the reason why the carnal, the gluttonous, the avaricious and
prodigal, the wrathful and gloomy, suffer not their punishments within
the city of Dis. He next asks how the crime of usury is an offence against
God; and at length the two Poets go towards the place from whence

a passage leads down to the seventh circle.

Upon the utmost verge of a high bank,

By craggy rocks environed round, we came,
Where woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stowed:
And here, to shun the horrible excess

Of fetid exhalation upward cast

From the profound abyss, behind the lid

Of a great monument we stood retired,

Whereon this scroll I marked: ‘I have in charge
Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew

From the right path.’—‘ Ere our descent, behoves 10
CARY D

36

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XI

We make delay, that somewhat first the sense,
To the dire breath accustomed, afterward
Regard it not.? My master thus; to whom
Answering I spake: ‘Some compensation find,
That the time pass not wholly lost.’ He then:
‘Lo! how my thoughts e’en to thy wishes tend.
My son! within these rocks,’ he thus began,

‘ Are three close circles in gradation placed,

As these which now thou leavest. Each one is full
Of spirits accursed ; but that the sight alone
Hereafter may suffice thee, listen how

And for what cause in durance they abide.

20

‘Of all malicious act abhorred in heaven,
The end is injury; and all such end
Either by force or fraud works other’s woe.
But fraud, because of man peculiar evil,
To God is more displeasing ; and beneath,
The fraudulent are therefore doomed to endure
Severer pang. The violent occupy
All the first circle; and because, to force,
Taree persons are obnoxious, in three rounds,
Each within other separate, is it framed.
To God, his neighbour, and himself, by man
Force may be offered; to himself I say,
And his possessions, as thou soon shalt hear
At full. Death, violent death, and painful wounds
Upon his neighbour he inflicts; and wastes,

LINEs 11-86] HELL 37

By devastation, pillage, and the flames,
His substance. Slayers, and each one that smites
In malice, plunderers, and all robbers, hence 40
The torment undergo of the first round,
In different herds. Man can do violence
To himself and his own blessings: and for this,
He, in the second round must ay deplore
With unavailing penitence his crime,
Whoe’er deprives himself of life and light,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.
To God may force be offered, in the heart
Denying and blaspheming his high power, 50
And Nature with her kindly law contemning.
And thence the inmost round marks with its seal
Sodom, and Cahors, and all such as speak
Contemptuously of the Godhead in their hearts.
‘Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting,
May be by man employed on one, whose trust
He wins, or on another who withholds
Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way
Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes.
Whence in the second circle have their nest, 60
Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries,
Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce
To lust, or set their honesty at pawn,
With such vile scum as these. The other way
Forgets both Nature’s general love, and that
Which thereto added afterward gives birth
To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle,
Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis,
The traitor is eternally consumed.’
I thus: ‘Instructor, clearly thy discourse 70
Proceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm
And its inhabitants with skill exact.
But tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool,
Whom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives,
Or who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet,
Wherefore within the city fire-illumed
Are not these punished, if God’s wrath be on them ?
And if it be not, wherefore in such guise
Are they condemned ?’ He answer thus returned:
‘Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind, 80
Not so accustomed ? or what other thoughts
Possess it ? Dwell not in thy memory
The words, wherein thy ethic page describes
Three dispositions adverse to Heaven’s will,
Incontinence, malice, and mad _ brutishness,
And how incontinence the least offends

38

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XI

God, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note
This judgement, and remember who they are,
Without these walls to vain repentance doomed,
Thou shalt discern why they apart are placed go
From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours
Justice divine on them its vengeance down.’
‘O sun! who healest all imperfect sight,
Thou so content’st me, when thou solvest my doubt,
That ignorance not less than knowledge charms.
Yet somewhat turn thee back,’ I in these words
Continued, ‘ where thou said’st, that usury
Offends celestial Goodness; and this knot
Perplexed unravel.’ He thus made reply:
“Philosophy, to an attentive ear, 100
Clearly points out, not in one part alone,
How imitative Nature takes her course
From the celestial mind, and from its art:
And where her laws the Stagirite unfolds,
Not many leaves scanned o’er, observing well
Thou shalt discover, that your art on her
Obsequious follows, as the learner treads
In his instructor’s step; so that your art
Deserves the name of second in descent
From God. These two, if thou recall to mind 110
Creation’s holy book, from the beginning
Were the right source of life and excellence
To human kind. But in another path
The usurer walks; and Nature in herself
And in her follower thus he sets at naught,
Placing elsewhere his hope. But follow now
My steps on forward journey bent; for now
The Pisces play with undulating glance
Along the horizon, and the Wain lies all
O’er the north-west; and onward there a space 120
Is our steep passage down the rocky height.’

CaNnTO x11] HELL 39

CANTO XII

ARGUMENT

Descending by a very rugged way into the seventh circle, where the violent
are punished, Dante and his leader find it guarded by the Minotaur ;
whose fury being pacified by Virgil, they step downwards from crag to
crag; till, drawing near the bottom, they descry a river of blood, wherein
are tormented such as have committed violence against their neighbour.
At these, when they strive to emerge from the blood, a troop of Centaurs,
running along the side of the river, aim their arrows; and three of their
band opposing our travellers at the foot of the steep, Virgil prevails so far,
that one consents to carry them both across the stream; and on their
passage, Dante is informed by him of the course of the river, and of those
that are punished therein.

THE place, where to descend the precipice
We came, was rough as Alp; and on its verge
Such object lay, as every eye would shun.
As is that ruin, which Adice’s stream
On this side Trento struck, shouldering the wave,
Or loosed by earthquake or for lack of prop ;
For from the mountain’s summit, whence it moved
To the low level, so the headlong rock
Is shivered, that some passage it might give
To him who from above would pass; e’en such 10
Into the chasm was that descent: and there
At point of the disparted ridge lay stretched
The infamy of Crete, detested brood
Of the feigned heifer: and at sight of us
It gnawed itself, as one with rage distract.
To him my guide exclaimed: ‘ Perchance thou deem’st
The King of Athens here, who, in the world
Above, thy death contrived. Monster! avaunt !
He comes not tutored by thy sister’s art,
But to behold your torments is he come.’ 20
Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side; so saw I plunge
The Minotaur; whereat the sage exclaimed :
‘Run to the passage! while he storms, ’tis well
That thou descend.’ Thus down our road we took
Through those dilapidated crags, that oft
Moved underneath my feet, to weight like theirs
Unused. I pondering went, and thus he spake: 30
‘Perhaps thy thoughts are of this ruined steep,
Guarded by the brute violence, which I
Have vanquished now. Know then, that when I erst
Hither descended to the nether hell,
This rock was not yet fallen. But past doubt,

40 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XII

(If well I mark) not long ere He arrived,

Who carried off from Dis the mighty spoil

Of the highest circle, then through all its bounds

Such trembling seized the deep concave and foul,

I thought the universe was thrilled with love, 40
Whereby, there are who deem, the world hath oft

Been into chaos turned: and in that point,

Here, and elsewhere, that old rock toppled down.

But fix thine eyes beneath: the river of blood
Approaches, in the which all those are steeped,

Who have by violence injured.’ O blind lust!

O foolish wrath! who so dost goad us on

In the brief life, and in the eternal then

Thus miserably o’erwhelm us. I beheld

An ample foss, that in a bow was bent, 50

As circling all the plain; for so my guide

Had told. Between it and the rampart’s base,

On trail ran Centaurs, with keen arrows armed,

As to the chase they on the earth were wont.
At seeing us descend they each one stood ;

And issuing from the troop, three sped with bows

And missile weapons chosen first; of whom

One cried from far: ‘Say, to what pain ye come

Condemned, who down this steep have journeyed. Speak

From whence ye stand, or else the bow I draw.’ 60
To whom my guide: ‘Our answer shall be made

To Chiron, there, when nearer him we come.

Ill was thy mind, thus ever quick and rash.’

Then me he touched, and spake: ‘ Nessus is this,

Who for the fair Deianira died,

And wrought himself revenge for his own fate.

He in the midst, that on his breast looks down,

LINES 36-116] HELL 41

Is the great Chiron who Achilles nursed ;
That other, Pholus, prone to wrath.’ Around
The foss these go by thousands, aiming shafts 70
At whatsoever spirit dares emerge
From out the blood, more than his guilt allows.
We to those beasts, that rapid strode along,
Drew near; when Chiron took an arrow forth,
And with the notch pushed back his shaggy beard
To the cheek-bone, then, his great mouth to view
Exposing, to his fellows thus exclaimed :
‘ Are ye aware, that he who comes behind
Moves what he touches? The feet of the dead
Are not so wont.’ My trusty guide, who now 80
Stood near his breast, where the two natures join,
Thus made reply: ‘ He is indeed alive,
And solitary so must needs by me
Be shown the gloomy vale, thereto induced
By strict necessity, not by delight.
She left her joyful harpings in the sky,
Who this new office to my care consigned.
He is no robber, no dark spirit I.
But by that virtue, which empowers my step
To tread so wild a path, grant us, I pray, ge
One of thy band, whom we may trust secure,
Who to the ford may lead us, and convey
Across, him mounted on his back; for he
Is not @ spirit that may walk the air.’
Then on his right breast turning, Chiron thus
To Nessus spake: ‘ Return, and be their guide.
And if ye chance to cross another troop,
Command them keep aloof.’ Onward we moved,
The faithful escort by our side, along
The border of the crimson-seething flood, 100
Whence, from those steeped within, loud shrieks arose.
Some there I marked, as high as to their brow
Immersed, of whom the mighty Centaur thus:
‘These are the souls of tyrants, who were given
To blood and rapine. Here they wail aloud
Their merciless wrongs. Here Alexander dwells,
And Dionysius fell, who many a year
Of woe wrought for fair Sicily. That brow,
Whereon the hair so jetty clustering hangs,
Is Azzolino: that with flaxen locks 110
Obizzo of Este, in the world destroyed
By his foul stepson.’ To the bard revered
I turned me round, and thus he spake: ‘ Let him
Be to thee now first leader, me but next
To him in rank.’ Then further on a space
The Centaur paused, near some, who at the throat

42 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XII

Were extant from the wave: and, showing us

A spirit by itself apart retired,

Exclaimed: ‘He in God’s bosom smote the heart,

Which yet is honoured on the bank of Thames.’ 120
A race I next espied who held the head,

And even all the bust, above the stream.

*Midst these I many a face remembered well.

Thus shallow more and more the blood became,

So that at last it but imbrued the feet ;

And there our passage lay athwart the foss.
‘As ever on this side the boiling wave

Thou seest diminishing,’ the Centaur said,

‘So on the other, be thou well assured,

It lower still and lower sinks its bed, 130

Till in that part it re-uniting join,

Where ’tis the lot of tyranny to mourn.

There Heaven’s stern justice lays chastising hand

On Attila, who was the scourge of earth,

On Sextus and on Pyrrhus, and extracts

Tears ever by the seething flood unlocked

From the Rinieri, of Corneto this,

Pazzo the other named, who filled the ways

With violence and war.’ This said, he turned,

And quitting us, alone repassed the ford. 140

CANTO XIII

ARGUMENT

Still in the seventh circle, Dante enters its second compartment, which con-
tains both those who have done violence on their own persons and those
who have violently consumed their goods; the first changed into rough
and knotted trees whereon the harpies build their nests, the latter chased
and torn by black female mastiffs. Among the former, Piero delle Vigne
is one who tells him the cause of his having committed suicide, and more-
over in what manner the souls are transformed into those trunks. Of the
latter crew, he recognizes Lano, a Sienese, and Jacomo, a Paduan: and
lastly, a Florentine, who had hung himself from his own roof, speaks to
him of the calamities of his countrymen.

Ere Nessus yet had reached the other bank,

We entered on a forest, where no track

Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there

The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light

The boughs and tapering, but with knares deformed

And matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns
Instead, with venom filled. Less sharp than these,

Less intricate the brakes, wherein abide

Those animals, that hate the cultured fields,

Betwixt Corneto and Cecina’s stream. 10

CANTO XIII] HELL 43

Here the brute Harpies make their nest, the same
Who from the Strophades the Trojan band
Drove with dire boding of their future woe.
Broad are their pennons, of the human form
Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen
The feet, and the huge belly fledge with wings.
These sit and wail on the drear mystic wood.

The kind instructor in these words began:
‘Ere farther thou proceed, know thou art now
T th’ second round, and shalt be, till thou come 20
Upon the horrid sand: look therefore well
Around thee, and such things thou shalt behold,
As would my speech discredit.’ On all sides

I heard sad plainings breathe, and none could see

From whom they might have issued. In amaze

Fast bound I stood. He, as it seemed, believed

That I had thought so many voices came

From some amid those thickets close concealed,

And thus his speech resumed: ‘If thou lop off

A single twig from one of those ill plants, 30

The thought thou hast conceived shall vanish quite.’
Thereat a little stretching forth my hand,

From a great wilding gathered I a branch,

And straight the trunk exclaimed ; ‘ Why pluck’st thou me ? ’

Then, as the dark blood trickled down its side,

These words it added: ‘Wherefore tear’st me thus ?

Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast ?

Men once were we, that now are rooted here.

44 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xu

Thy hand might well have spared us, had we been
The souls of serpents.’ As a brand yet green, 40
That burning at one end from the other sends
A groaning sound, and hisses with the wind
That forces out its way, so burst at once
Forth from the broken splinter words and blood.
I, letting fall the bough, remained as one
Assailed by terror; and the sage replied:
‘Tf he, O injured spirit ! could have believed
What he hath seen but in my verse described,
He never against thee had stretched his hand.
But I, because the thing surpassed belief, 50
Prompted him to this deed, which even now
Myself I rue. But tell me, who thou wast ;
That, for this wrong to do thee some amends,
In the upper world (for thither to return
Is granted him) thy fame he may revive.’
“That pleasant word of thine,’ the trunk replied,
‘Hath so inveigled me, that I from speech
Cannot refrain, wherein if I indulge
A little longer, in the snare detained,
Count it not grievous. I it was, who held 60
Both keys to Frederick’s heart, and turned the wards,
Opening and shutting, with a skill so sweet,
That besides me, into his inmost breast
Scarce any other could admittance find.
The faith I bore to my high charge was such,
It cost me the life-blood that warmed my veins.
The harlot, who ne’er turned her gloating eyes
From Caesar’s household, common vice and pest
Of courts, ’gainst me inflamed the minds of all;
And to Augustus they so spread the flame, 70
That my glad honours changed to bitter woes.
My soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought
Refuge in death from scorn, and I became,
Just as I was, unjust toward myself.
By the new roots, which fix this stem, I swear,
That never faith I broke to my liege lord,
Who merited such honour; and of you,
If any to the world indeed return,
Clear he from wrong my memory, that lies
Yet prostrate under envy’s cruel blow.’ 80
First somewhat pausing, till the mournful words
Were ended, then to me the bard began:
“Lose not the time; but speak, and of him ask,
If more thou wish to learn.’ Whence [I replied:
“Quest on thou him again of whatsoe’er
Will, as thou think’st, content me; for no power
Have I to ask, such pity is at my heart.’

LINES 39-136] HELL 45

He thus resumed: ‘So may he do for thee
Freely what thou entreatest, as thou yet
Be pleased, imprisoned spirit ! to declare, go
How in these gnarled joints the soul is tied ;
And whether any ever from such frame
Be loosened, if thou canst, that also tell.’
Thereat the trunk breathed hard, and the wind soon
Changed into sounds articulate like these:
‘ Briefly ye shall be answered. When departs
The fierce soul from the body, by itself
Thence torn asunder, to the seventh gulf
By Minos doomed, into the wood it falls,
No place assigned, but wheresoever chance 100
Hurls it; there sprouting, as a grain of spelt,
It rises to a sapling, growing thence
A savage plant. The Harpies, on its leaves
Then feeding, cause both pain, and for the pain
A vent to grief. We, as the rest, shall come
For our own spoils, yet not so that with them
We may again be clad; for what a man
Takes from himself it is not just he have.
Here we perforce shall drag them; and throughout
The dismal glade our bodies shall be hung, 110
Each on the wild thorn of his wretched shade.’
Attentive yet to listen to the trunk
We stood, expecting further speech, when us
A noise surprised ; as when a man perceives
The wild boar and the hunt approach his place
Of stationed watch, who of the beasts and boughs
Loud rustling round him hears. And lo! there came
Two naked, torn with briers, in headlong flight,
That they before them broke each fan o’ th’ wood.
‘Haste now,’ the foremost cried, ‘now haste thee, death !’
The other, as seemed, impatient of delay, 121
Exclaiming, ‘ Lano! not so bent for speed
Thy sinews, in the lists of Toppo’s field.’
And then, for that perchance no longer breath
Sufficed him, of himself and of a bush
One group he made. Behind them was the wood
Full of black female mastifis, gaunt and fleet,
As greyhounds that have newly slipped the leash.
On him, who squatted down, they stuck their fangs,
And having rent him piecemeal bore away 130
The tortured limbs. My guide then seized my hand,
And led me to the thicket, which in vain
Mourned through its bleeding wounds: *O Jacomo
Of Sant’ Andrea! what avails it thee,’
It cried, ‘ that of me thou hast made thy screen ?
For thy ill life, what blame on me recoils ?’

46 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xur

When o’er it he had paused, my master spake:
‘Say who wast thou, that at so many points
Breathest out with blood thy lamentable speech ?’
He answered: ‘O ye spirits! arrived in time 140
To spy the shameful havoc that from me
My leaves hath severed thus, gather them up,
And at the foot of their sad parent-tree
Carefully lay them. In that city I dwelt,
Who for the Baptist her first patron changed,
Whence he for this shall cease not with his art
To work her woe: and if there still remained not
On Arno’s passage some faint glimpse of him,
Those citizens, who reared once more her walls
Upon the ashes left by Attila, 150
Had laboured without profit of their toil.
I slung the fatal noose from my own roof.’

CANTO XIV

ARGUMENT

They arrive at the beginning of the third of those compartments into which
this seventh circle is divided. It is a plain of dry and hot sand, where
three kinds of violence are punished; namely, against God, against
Nature, and against Art ; and those who have thus sinned, are tormented
by flakes of fire, which are eternally showering down upon them. Among
the violent against God is found Capaneus, whose blasphemies they hear.
Next, turning to the left along the forest of self-slayers, and having
journeyed a little onwards, they meet with a streamlet of blood that
issues from the forest and traverses the sandy plain. Here Virgil speaks
to our Poet of a huge ancient statue that stands within Mount Ida in
Crete, from a fissure in which statue there is a dripping of tears, from
yas said streamlet, together with the three other infernal rivers, are
formed.

Soon as the charity of native land
Wrought in my bosom, I the scattered leaves
Collected, and to him restored, who now
Was hoarse with utterance. To the limit thence
We came, which from the third the second round
Divides, and where of justice is displayed
Contrivance horrible. Things then first seen
Clearlier to manifest, I tell how next
A plain we reached, that from its sterile bed
Each plant repelled. The mournful wood waves round — 10
Its garland on all sides, as round the wood
Spreads the sad foss. There, on the very edge,
Our steps we stayed. It was an area wide
Of arid sand and thick, resembling most
The soil that erst by Cato’s feot was trod.
Vengeance of heaven! Oh! how shouldst thou be feared

CaNnTO XIv] HELL 47

By all, who read what here mine eyes beheld.
Of naked spirits many a flock I saw,
All weeping piteously, to different laws
Subjected ; for on the earth some lay supine, 20
Some crouching close were seated, others paced
Incessant!y around; the latter tribe
More numerous, those fewer who beneath
The torment lay, but louder in their grief.
O’er all the sand fell slowly wafting down
Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow
On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed
As, in the torrid Indian clime, the son
Of Ammon saw, upon his warrior band
Descending, solid flames, that to the ground 30
Came down; whence he bethought him with his troop
To trample on the soil; for easier thus
The vapour was extinguished, while alone:
So fell the eternal fiery flood, wherewith
The marl glowed underneath, as under stove
The viands, doubly to augment the pain.
Unceasing was the play of wretched hands,
Now this, now that way glancing, to shake off
The heat, still falling fresh. I thus began:
‘Instructor ! thou who all things overcomest, 40
Except the hardy demons that rushed forth
To stop our entrance at the gate, say who
Is yon huge spirit, that, as seems, heeds not
The burning, but lies writhen in proud scorn,
As by the sultry tempest immatured ?’
Straight he himself, who was aware I asked
My guide of him, exclaimed: ‘Such as I was
When living, dead such now I am. If Jove
Weary his workman out, from whom in ire
He snatched the lightnings, that at my last day 50
Transfixed me; if the rest he weary out,
At their black smithy labouring by turns,
In Mongibello, while he cries aloud,
“Help, help, good Mulciber!”’ as erst he cried
In the Phlegraean warfare; and the bolts
Launch he, full aimed at me, with all his might ;
He never should enjoy a sweet revenge.’
Then thus my guide, in accent higher raised
Than I before had heard him: ‘ Capaneus!
Thou art more punished, in that this thy pride 60
Lives yet unquenched: no torment, save thy rage,
Were to thy fury pain proportioned full.’
Next turning round to me, with milder lip
He spake: ‘This of the seven kings was one,
Who girt the Theban walls with siege, and held,

48 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XIV

As still he seems to hold, God in disdain,
And sets his high omnipotence at naught.
But, as I told him, his despiteful mood
Is ornament well suits the breast that wears it.
Follow me now; and look thou set not yet 70
Thy foot in the hot sand, but to the wood
Keep ever close.’ Silently on we passed
To where there gushes from the forest’s bound
A little brook, whose crimsoned wave yet lifts
My hair with horror. As the rill, that runs
From Bulicame, to be portioned out
Among the sinful women; so ran this
Down through the sand; its bottom and each bank
Stone-built, and either margin at its side,
Whereon [I straight perceived our passage lay. 80
‘Of all that I have shown thee, since that gate
We entered first, whose threshold is to none
Denied, naught else so worthy of regard,
As is this river, has thine eye discerned,
O’er which the flaming volley all is quenched.’
So spake my guide; and I him thence besought,
That having given me appetite to know,
The food he too would give, that hunger craved.
‘In midst of ocean,’ forthwith he began,
“A desolate country lies, which Crete is named ; go
Under whose monarch, in old times, the world
Lived pure and chaste. A mountain rises there,
Called Ida, joyous once with leaves and streams,
Deserted now like a forbidden thing.
It was the spot which Rhea, Saturn’s spouse,
Chose for the secret cradle of her son;
And better to conceal him, drowned in shouts
His infant cries. Within the mount, upright
An ancient form there stands, and huge, that turns
His shoulders towards Damiata; and at Rome, 100
As in his mirror, looks. Of finest gold
His head is shaped, pure silver are the breast
And arms, thence to the middle is of brass,
And downward all beneath well-tempered steel,
Save the right foot of potter’s clay, on which
Than on the other more erect he stands.
Each part, except the gold, is rent throughout ;
And from the fissure tears distil, which joined
Penetrate to that cave. They in their course,
Thus far precipitated down the rock, IIO
Form Acheron, and Styx, and Phlegethon ;
Then by this straitened channel passing hence
Beneath, e’en to the lowest depth of all,
Form there Cocytus, of whose lake (thyself

LINES 66-138] HELL

Shalt see it) I here give thee no account.’

Then I to him: ‘If from our world this sluice
Be thus derived; wherefore to us but now
Appears it at this edge?’ He straight replied :

49

‘The place, thou know’st, is round: and though great part

Thou have already passed, still to the left
Descending to the nethermost, not yet

Hast thou the circuit made of the whole orb.
Wherefore, if aught of new to us appear,

It needs not bring up wonder in thy looks.’

Then I again inquired: ‘ Where flow the streams
Of Phlegethon and Lethe? for of one
Thou tell’st not; and the other, of that shower,
Thou say’st, is formed.’ He answer thus returned:
‘Doubtless thy questions all well pleased I hear.
Yet the red seething wave might have resolved
One thou proposest. Lethe thou shalt see,
But not within this hollow, in the place
Whither, to lave themselves, the spirits go,
Whose blame hath been by penitence removed.’
He added: ‘Time is now we quit the wood.
Look thou my steps pursue: the margins give
Safe passage, unimpeded by the flames ;
For over them all vapour is extinct.’

120

130

50 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xv

CANTO XV

ARGUMENT

Taking their way upon one of the mounds by which the streamlet, spoken
of in the last Canto, was embanked, and having gone so far that they could
no longer have discerned the forest if they had turned round to look for it,
they meet a troop of spirits that come along the sand by the side of the
pier. These are they who have done violence to Nature; and amongst
them Dante distinguishes Brunetto Latini, who had been formerly his
master; with whom, turning a little backward, he holds a discourse which
occupies the remainder of this Canto.

OnE of the solid margins bears us now
Enveloped in the mist, that, from the stream
Arising, hovers o’er, and saves from fire
Both piers and water. As the Flemings rear
Their mound, *twixt Ghent and Bruges, to chase back
The ocean, fearing his tumultuous tide
That drives toward them; or the Paduans theirs
Along the Brenta, to defend their towns
And castles, ere the genial warmth be felt
On Chiarentana’s top; such were the mounds, IO
So framed, though not in height or bulk to these
Made equal, by the master, whosoe’er
He was, that raised them here. We from the wood
Were now so far removed, that turning round
I might not have discerned it, when we met
A troop of spirits, who came beside the pier.
They each one eyed us, as at eventide
One eyes another under a new moon;
And toward us sharpened their sight, as keen
As an old tailor at his needle’s eye. 20
Thus narrowly explored by all the tribe,
I was agnized of one, who by the skirt
Caught me, and cried, ‘ What wonder have we here ?’
And I, when he to me outstretched his arm,
Intently fixed my ken on his parched looks,
That, although smirched with fire, they hindered not
But I remembered him; and towards his face
My hand inclining, answered: ‘Ser Brunetto!
And are ye here?’ He thus to me: ‘My son!
Ob let it not displease thee, if Brunetto 30
Latini but a little space with thee
Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed.’
I thus to him replied: ‘Much as [I can,
I thereto pray thee; and if thou be willing
That I here seat me with thee, I consent ;
His leave, with whom I journey, first obtained.’
‘QO son!’ said he, ‘ whoever of this throng

LINEs 1-68] HELL

One instant stops, lies then a hundred years,

No fan to ventilate him, when the fire

Smites sorest. Pass thou therefore on. I close

Will at thy garments walk, and then rejoin

My troop, who go mourning their endless doom.’
I dared not from the path descend to tread

On equal ground with him, but held my head

Bent down, as one who walks in reverent guise.
‘What chance or destiny,’ thus he began,

‘Ere the last day, conducts thee here below ?

And who is this that shows to thee the way ?’
‘There up aloft,’ I answered, ‘in the life

Serene, I wandered in a valley lost,

Before mine age had to its fullness reached.

40

5°

But yestermorn I left it: then once more
Into that vale returning, him I met;
And by this path homeward he leads me back.
“If thou,’ he answered, ‘follow but thy star,
Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven ;
Unless in fairer days my judgement erred.
And if my fate so early had not chanced,
Seeing the heavens thus bounteous to thee, I
Had gladly given thee comfort in thy work.
But that ungrateful and malignant race,
Who in old times came down from Fiesole,

Aye, and still smack of their rough mountain-flint,

Will for thy good deeds show thee enmity.
Nor wonder; for amongst ill-savoured crabs
It suits not the sweet fig-tree lay her fruit.
Old fame reports them in the world for blind,
Covetous, envious, proud. Look to it well:

52 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XV

Take heed thou cleanse thee of their ways. For thee,

Thy fortune hath such honour in reserve, 70

That thou by either party shalt be craved

With hunger keen: but be the fresh herb far

From the goat’s tooth. The herd of Fiesole

May of themselves make litter, not touch the plan‘,

If any such yet spring on their rank bed,

In which the holy seed revives, transmitted

From those true Romans, who still there remained,

When it was made the nest of so much ill.’
‘Were all my wish fulfilled,’ I straight replied,

‘Thou from the confines of man’s nature yet So

Hadst not been driven forth; for in my mind

Is fixed, and now strikes full upon my heart,

The dear, benign, paternal image, such

As thine was, when so lately thou didst teach me

The way for man to win eternity:

And how I prized the lesson, it behoves,

That, long as life endures, my tongue should speak.

What of my fate thou tell’st, that write I down:

And, with another text to comment on,

For her I keep it, the celestial dame, go

Who will know all, if I to her arrive.

This only would I have thee clearly note:

That, so my conscience have no plea against me,

Do Fortune as she list, I stand prepared.

Not new or strange such earnest to mine ear.

Speed Fortune then her wheel, as likes her best ;

The clown his mattock; all things have their course.’
Thereat my sapient guide upon Y his right

Turned himself back, then looked at me, and spake:

‘He listens to good purpose who takes note.’ 100
I not the less still on my way proceed,

Discoursing with Brunetto, and inquire

Who are most known and chief among his tribe.
‘To know of some is well;* he thus replied,

* But of the rest silence may best beseem.

Time would not serve us for report so long.

In brief I tell thee, that all these were clerks,

Men of great learning and no less renown,

By one same sin polluted in the world.

With them is Priscian ; and Accorso’s son, 110

Francesco, herds among that wretched throng :

And, if the wish of so impure a blotch

Possessed thee, him thou also mightst have seen,

Who by the servants’ servant was transferred

From Arno’s seat to Bacchiglione, where

His ill-strained nerves he left. I more would add,

But must from further speech and onward way

Canto xvi] HELL 53

Alike desist ; for yonder I behold
A mist new-risen on the sandy plain.
A company, with whom I may not sort, 120
Approaches. I commend my T'reasure to thee,
Wherein I yet survive; my sole request.’
This said, he turned, and seemed as one of those
Who o’er Verona’s champain try their speed
For the green mantle; and of them he seemed,
Not he who loses but who gains the prize.

CANTO XVI

ARGUMENT

Journeying along the pier, which crosses the sand, they are now so near the
end of it as to hear the noise of the stream falling into the eighth circle,
when they meet the spirits of three military men; who, judging Dante,
from his dress, to be a countryman of theirs, entreat him to stop. He
complies, and speaks with them. The two Poets then reach the place
where the water descends, being the termination of this third compart-
ment in the seventh circle; and here Virgil having thrown down into the
hollow a cord, wherewith Dante was girt, they behold at that signal
a monstrous and horrible figure come swimming up to them.

Now came I where the water’s din was heard,
As down it fell into the other round,
Resounding like the hum of swarming bees :
When forth together issued from a troop,
That passed beneath the fierce tormenting storm,
Three spirits, running swift. They towards us came,
And each one cried aloud, ‘Oh! do thou stay,
Whom, by the fashion of thy garb, we deem
To be some inmate of our evil land.’
Ah me! what wounds I marked upon their limbs, 10
Recent and old, inflicted by the flames.
E’en the remembrance of them grieves me yet.
Attentive to their cry, my teacher paused,
And turned to me his visage, and then spake:
‘Wait now: our courtesy these merit well:
And were *t not for the nature of the place,
Whence glide the fiery darts, I should have said,
That haste had better suited thee than them.’
They, when we stopped, resumed their ancient wail,
And, soon as they had reached us, all the three
Whirled round together in one restless wheel.
As naked champions, smeared with slippery oil
Are wont, intent, to watch their place of hold
And vantage, ere in closer strife they meet ;
Thus each one, as he wheeled, his countenance
At me directed, so that opposite

i)
i)

54 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xvI

The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet.

“If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,’
Thus one began, ‘ added to our sad cheer
Thus peeled with flame, do call forth scorn on us
And our entreaties, let our great renown
Incline thee to inform us who thou art,
That dost imprint, with living feet unharmed,
The soil of Hell. He, in whose track thou seest
My steps pursuing, naked though he be
And reft of all, was of more high estate
Than thou believest ; grandchild of the chaste
Gualdrada, him they Guidoguerra called,
Who in his lifetime many a noble act

———————— —<—

2S
Sa =

Achieved, both by his wisdom and his sword.
The other, next to me that beats the sand,

Is Aldobrandi, name deserving well,

In the upper world, of honour; and myself,
Who in this torment do partake with them,

Am Rusticucci, whom, past doubt, my wife,

Of savage temper, more than aught beside

Hath to this evil brought.’ If from the fire

I had been sheltered, down amidst them straight
I then had cast me; nor my guide, I deem,
Would have restrained my going: but that fear
Of the dire burning vanquished the desire,
Which made me eager of their wished embrace.

I then began: ‘ Not scorn, but grief much more,

Such as long time alone can cure, your doom
Fixed deep within me, soon as this my lord

40

5°

LINES 27-104] HELL 55

Spake words, whose tenor taught me to expect
That such a race, as ye are, was at hand.
I am a countryman of yours, who still
Affectionate have uttered, and have heard
Your deeds and names renowned. Leaving the gall, 60
For the sweet fruit I go, that a sure guide
Hath promised to me. But behoves, that far
As to the centre first I downward tend.’
‘So may long space thy spirit guide thy limbs,’
He answer straight returned; ‘and so thy fame
Shine bright when thou art gone, as thou shalt tell,
If courtesy and valour, as they wont,
Dwell in our city, or have vanished clean:
For one amidst us late condemned to wail,
Borsiere, yonder walking with his peers, 7O
Grieves us no little by the news he brings.’
‘An upstart multitude and sudden gains,
Pride and excess, O Florence! have in thee
Engendered, so that now in tears thou mourn’st !’
Thus cried I, with my face upraised, and they
All three, who for an answer took my words,
Looked at each other, as men look when truth
Comes to their ear. ‘If at so little cost,’
They all at once rejoined, ‘ thou satisfy
Others who question thee, O happy thou! 80
Gifted with words so apt to speak thy thought.
Wherefore, if thou escape this darksome clime,
Returning to behold the radiant stars,
When thou with pleasure shalt retrace the past,
See that of us thou speak among mankind.’
This said, they broke the circle, and so swift
Fled, that as pinions seemed their nimble feet.
Not in so short a time might one have said
‘Amen,’ as they had vanished. Straight my guide
Pursued his track. I followed: and small space go
Had we passed onward, when the water’s sound
Was now so near at hand, that we had scarce
Heard one another’s speech fcr the loud din.
E’en as the river, that first holds its course
Unmingled, from the Mount of Vesulo,
On the left side of Apennine, toward
The east, which Acquacheta higher up
They call, ere it descend into the vale,
At Forli, by that name no longer known,
Rebellows o’er Saint Benedict, rolled on 100
From the Alpine summit down a precipice,
Where space enough to lodge a thousand spreads ;
Thus downward from a craggy steep we found
That this dark wave resounded, roaring loud,

56 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xvr

So that the ear its clamour soon had stunned.

I had a cord that braced my girdle round,
Wherewith I erst had thought fast bound to take
The painted leopard. This when I had all
Unloosened from me (so my master bade)
I gathered up, and stretched it forth to him. 110
Then to the right he turned, and from the brink
Standing few paces distant, cast it down
Into the deep abyss. ‘And somewhat strange,’
Thus to myself I spake, ‘signal so strange
Betokens, which my guide with earnest eye
Thus follows.’ Ah! what caution must men use
With those who look not at the deed alone,
But spy into the thoughts with subtle skill.

‘Quickly shall come,’ he said, ‘ what I expect ;
Thine eye discover quickly that, whereof 120
Thy thought is dreaming.’ Ever to that truth,
Which but the semblance of a falsehood wears,
A man, if possible, should bar his lip ;
Since, although blameless, he incurs reproach.
But silence here were vain; and by these notes,
Which now I sing, reader, I swear to thee,
So may they favour find to latest times !
That through the gross and murky air I spied
A shape come swimming up, that might have quelled
The stoutest heart with wonder; in such guise 130
As one returns, who hath been down to loose
An anchor grappled fast against some rock,
Or to aught else that in the salt wave lies,
Who, upward springing, close draws in his feet.

CANTO XVII

ARGUMENT
The monster Geryon is described ; to whom while Virgil is speaking in
order that he may carry them both down to the next circle, Dante, by
permission, goes a little farther along the edge of the void, to descry the
third species of sinners contained in this compartment, namely, those who
have done violence to Art; and then returning to his master, they both
descend, seated on the back of Geryon.

‘Lo! the fell monster with the deadly sting,

Who passes mountains, breaks through fenced walls

And firm embattled spears, and with his filth

Taints all the world. Thus me my guide addressed,

And beckoned him, that he should come to shore,

Near to the stony causeway’s utmost edge.
Forthwith that image vile of Fraud appeared,

CANTO XvIT] HELL

His head and upper part exposed on land,
But laid not on the shore his bestial train.
His face the semblance of a just man’s wore,
So kind and gracious was its outward cheer;
The rest was serpent all: two shaggy claws
Reached to the armpits; and the back and breast
And either side, were painted o’er with nodes
And orbits. Colours variegated more
Nor Turks nor Tartars e’er on cloth of state
With interchangeable embroidery wove,
Nor spread Arachne o’er her curious loom.
As oft-times a light skiff, moored to the shore,
Stands part in water, part upon the land ;
Or, as where dwells the greedy German boor,
The beaver settles, watching for his prey ;
So on the rim, that fenced the sand with rock,
Sat perched the fiend of evil. In the void
Glancing, his tail upturned its venomous fork,
With sting like scorpion’s armed. Then thus my guide:
“Now need our way must turn few steps apart.
Far as to that ill beast, who couches there.’
Thereat, toward the right our downward course
We shaped, and, better to escape the flame
And burning marl, ten paces on the verge
Proceeded. Soon as we to him arrive,
A little farther on mine eye beholds
A tribe of spirits, seated on the sand
Near to the void. Forthwith my master spake:
‘That to the full thy knowledge may extend
Of all this round contains, go now, and mark
The mien these wear: but hold not long discourse.
Till thou returnest, I with him meantime
Will parley, that to us he may vouchsafe
The aid of his strong shoulders.’ Thus alone,
Yet forward on the extremity I paced
Of that seventh circle, where the mournful tribe
Were seated. At the eyes forth gushed their pangs.
Against the vapours and the torrid soil
Alternately their shifting hands they plied.
Thus use the dogs in summer still to ply
Their jaws and feet by turns, when bitten sore
By gnats, or flies, or gadflies swarming round.
Noting the visages of some, who lay
Beneath the pelting of that dolorous fire,
One of them all I knew not; but perceived,
That pendent from his neck each bore a pouch
With colours and with emblems various marked,
On which it seemed as if their eye did feed.
And when, amongst them, looking round I came,

’

20

WwW
Oo

40

58 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xvi

A yellow purse I saw with azure wrought,
That wore a lion’s countenance and port.
Then, still my sight pursuing its career,
Another I beheld, than blood more red, 60
A goose display of whiter wing than curd.
And one, who bore a fat and azure swine
Pictured on his white scrip, addressed me thus:
“What dost thou in this deep? Go now and know,
Since yet thou livest, that my neighbour here
Vitaliano on my left shall sit.
A Paduan with these Florentines am I.
Oft-times they thunder in mine ears, exclaiming,
“Oh! haste that noble knight, he who the pouch
“With the three beaks will bring.”’ This said, he writhed 70
The mouth, and lolled the tongue out, like an ox
That licks his nostrils. I, lest longer stay
He ill might brook, who bade me stay not long,
Backward my steps from those sad spirits turned.
My guide already seated on the haunch
Of the fierce animal I found; and thus
He me encouraged. ‘ Be thou stout: be bold.
Down such a steep flight must we now descend.
Mount thou before: for, that no power the tail
May have to harm thee, I will be 7 th’ midst.’ 80
As one, who hath an ague fit so near,
His nails already are turned blue, and he
Quivers all o’er, if he but eye the shade ;
Such was my cheer at hearing of his words.
But shame soon interposed her threat, who makes
The servant bold in presence of his lord.
I settled me upon those shoulders huge,
And would have said, but that the words to aid
My purpose came not, ‘ Look thou clasp me firm.’
But he whose succour then not first I proved, 90
Soon as I mounted, in his arms aloft,
Embracing, held me up; and thus he spake:
‘Geryon! now move thee: be thy wheeling gyres
Of ample circuit, easy thy descent.
Think on the unusual burden thou sustain’st.’
As a small vessel, backening out from land,
Her station quits; so thence the monster loosed,
And, when he felt himself at large, turned round
There, where the breast had been, his forkéd tail.
Thus, like an eel, outstretched at length he steered, 100
Gathering the air up with retractile claws.
Not greater was the dread, when Phaéton
The reins let drop at random, whence high heaven,
Whereof signs yet appear, was wrapt in flames ;
Nor when ill-fated Icarus perceived,
By liquefaction of the scalded wax,

LINES 57-132] HELL

The trusted pennons loosened from his loins,

His sire exclaiming loud, ‘ II] way thou keep’st ;’
Than was my dread, when round me on each part
The air I viewed, and other object none

Save the fell beast. He, slowly sailing, wheels
His downward motion, unobserved of me,

But that the wind, arising to my face,

Breathes on me from below. Now on our right

I heard the cataract beneath us leap

With hideous crash ; whence bending down to explore,
New terror I conceived at the steep plunge ;

For flames I saw, and wailings smote mine ear :

IIo

So that, all trembling, close I crouched my limbs,

And then distinguished, unperceived before,

By the dread torments that on every side

Drew nearer, how our downward course we wound.
As falcon, that hath long been on the wing,

But lure nor bird hath seen, while in despair

The falconer cries, “Ah me! thou stoop’st to earth,’

Wearied descends, whence nimbly he arose

In many an airy wheel, and lighting sits

At distance from his lord in angry mood ;

So Geryon lighting places us on foot

Low down at base of the deep-furrowed rock,

And, of his burden there discharged, forthwith

Sprang forward, like an arrow from the string.

I20

60 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvi

CANTO XVIII

ARGUMENT

The Poet describes the situation and form of the eighth circle, divided into
ten gulfs, which contain as many different descriptions of fraudulent
sinners ; but in the present Canto he treats only of two sorts: the first is
of those who, either for their own pleasure, or for that of another, have
seduced any woman from her duty ; and these are scourged of demons in
the first gulf: the other sort is of flatterers, who in the second gulf are
condemned to remain immersed in filth.

THERE is a place within the depths of hell

Called Malebolge, all of rock dark-stained

With hue ferruginous, e’en as the steep

That round it circling winds. Right in the midst

Of that abominable region yawns

A spacious gulf profound, whereof the frame

Due time shall tell. The circle, that remains,

Throughout its round, between the gulf and base

Of the high craggy banks, successive forms

Ten bastions, in its hollow bottom raised. IO
As where, to guard the walls, full many a foss

Begirds some stately castle, sure defence

Affording to the space within; so here

Were modelled these: and as like fortresses,

E’en from their threshold to the brink without,

Are flanked with bridges; from the rock’s low base

Thus flinty paths advanced, that ’cross the moles

And dikes struck onward far as to the gulf,

That in one bound collected cuts them off.

Such was the place, wherein we found ourselves 20

From Geryon’s back dislodged. The bard to left

Held on his way, and I behind him moved.
On our right hand new misery I saw,

New pains, new executioners of wrath,

That swarming peopled the first chasm. Below

Were naked sinners. Hitherward they came,

Meeting our faces, from the middle point ;

With us beyond, but with a larger stride.

E’en thus the Romans, when the year returns

Of Jubilee, with better speed to rid 30

The thronging multitudes, their means devise

For such as pass the bridge; that on one side

All front toward the castle, and approach

Saint Peter’s fane, on the other towards the mount.
Each diverse way, along the grisly rock,

Horned demons I beheld, with lashes huge,

That on their back unmercifully smote.

Ah! how they made them bound at the first stripe !

LINEs 1-37] HELL

None for the second waited, nor the third.
Meantime, as on I passed, one met my sight,

Whom soon as viewed, ‘ Of him,’ cried I, ‘ not yet

Mine eye hath had his fill.” I therefore stayed

My feet to scan him, and the teacher kind

Paused with me, and consented I should walk

Backward a space; and the tormented spirit,

Who thought to hide him, bent his visage down.

But it availed him naught; for I exclaimed:

‘Thou who dost cast thine eye upon the ground,

Unless thy features do belie thee much,

Venedico art thou. But what brings thee

Into this bitter seasoning ?’ He replied :

‘Unwillingly I answer to thy words.

But thy clear speech, that to my mind recalls

The world I once inhabited, constrains me.

Know then *t was I who Jed fair Ghisola

To do the Marquis’ will, however fame

The shameful tale have bruited. Nor alone

Bologna hither sendeth me to mourn.

Rather with us the place is so o’erthronged,

That not so many tongues this day are taught,

Betwixt the Reno and Savena’s stream,

To answer Szpa in their country’s phrase.

And if of that securer proof thou need,

Remember but our craving thirst for gold.’
Him speaking thus, a demon with his thong

Struck and exclaimed, ‘ Away, corrupter! here

Women are none for sale.’ Forthwith I joined

My escort, and few paces thence we came

To where a rock forth issued from the bank.

That easily ascended, to the right

Upon its splinter turning, we depart

From those eternal barriers. When arrived

Where, underneath, the gaping arch lets pass

The scourgéd souls: ‘ Pause here,’ the teacher said,

‘And let these others miserable now
Strike on thy ken; faces not yet beheld,
For that together they with us have walked.’

From the old bridge we eyed the pack, who came

From the other side toward us, like the rest,
Excoriate from the lash. My gentle guide,

By me unquestioned, thus his speech resumed :
‘Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends,
And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear.
How yet the regal aspect he retains !

Jason is he, whose skill and prowess won

The ram from Colchos. To the Lemnian isle
His passage thither led him, when those bold

61

40

So

79O

80

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canro xvm

And pitiless women had slain all their males.

There he with tokens and fair witching words

Hypsipyle beguiled, a virgin young, go
Who first had all the rest herself beguiled

Impregnated, he left her there forlorn.

Such is the guilt condemns him to this pain.

Here too Medea’s injuries are avenged.

All bear him company, who like deceit

To his have practised. And thus much to know

Of the first vale suffice thee, and of those

Whom its keen torments urge.’ Now had we come

Where, crossing the next pier, the straitened path

Bestrides its shoulders to another arch. 100
Hence, in the second chasm we heard the ghosts,

Who gibber in low melancholy sounds,

With wide-stretched nostrils snort, and on themselves

Smite with their palms. Upon the banks a scurf,

From the foul steam condensed, encrusting hung,

That held sharp combat with the sight and smell.
So hollow is the depth, that from no part,

Save on the summit of the rocky span,

CANTO XIX] HELL 63

Could I distinguish aught. Thus far we came;
And thence I saw, within the foss below, 110
A crowd immersed in ordure, that appeared
Draff of the human body. There beneath
Searching with eye inquisitive, I marked
One with his head so grimed, ’t were hard to deem
If he were clerk or layman. Loud he cried:
‘Why greedily thus bendest more on me,
Than on these other filthy ones, thy ken ?’
‘ Because, if true my memory,’ I replied,
‘IT heretofore have seen thee with dry locks ;
And thou Alessio art, of Lucca sprung. 120
Therefore than all the rest I scan thee more.’
Then beating on his brain, these words he spake:
‘Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk,
Wherewith I ne’er enough could glut my tongue.’
My leader thus: ‘A little farther stretch
Thy face, that thou the visage well mayst note
Of that besotted, sluttish courtezan,
Who there doth rend her with defiléd nails,
Now crouching down, now risen on her feet.
Thais is this, the harlot, whose false lip 130
Answered her doting paramour that asked,
“'Thankest me much ?”—“‘ Say rather, wondrously,”’
And, seeing this, here satiate be our view.’

CANTO XIX

ARGUMENT

They come to the third gulf, wherein are punished those who have been
guilty of simony. These are fixed with the head downwards in certain
apertures, so that no more of them than the legs appears without, and on
the soles of their feet are seen burning flames. Dante is taken down by
his guide into the bottom of the gulf ; and there finds Pope Nicholas the
Fifth, whose evil deeds, together with those of other pontifis, are bitterly
reprehended. Virgil then carries him up again to the arch, which affords
them a passage over the following gulf.

WoE to thee, Simon Magus! woe to you,
His wretched followers! who the things of God,
Which should be wedded unto goodness, them,
Rapacious as ye are, do prostitute
For gold and silver in adultery.
Now must the trumpet sound for you, since yours
Is the third chasm. Upon the following vault
We now had mounted, where the rock impends
Directly o’er the centre of the foss.

Wisdom Supreme! how wonderful the art, 10
Which thou dost manifest in heaven, in earth,

64

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xIx

And in the evil world, how just a meed
Allotting by thy virtue unto all.

I saw the livid stone, throughout the sides
And in its bottom full of apertures,
All equal in their width, and circular each.
Nor ample less nor larger they appeared
Than, in Saint John’s fair dome of me beloved,
Those framed to hold the pure baptismal streams,
One of the which I brake, some few years past, 20
To save a whelming infant: and be this
A seal to undeceive whoever doubts
The motive of my deed. From out the mouth
Of every one emerged a sinner’s feet,

And of the legs high upward as the calf.
The rest beneath was hid. On either foot
The soles were burning; whence the flexile joints
Glanced with such violent motion, as had snapped
Asunder cords or twisted withes. As flame,
Feeding on unctuous matter, glides along 30
The surface, scarcely touching where it moves;
So here, from heel to point, glided the flames.
‘Master! say who is he, than all the rest
Glancing in fiercer agony, on whom
A ruddier flame doth prey ?’ I thus inquired.
‘If thou be willing,’ he replied, ‘that I
Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,
He of himself shall tell thee, and his wrongs.’
I then: ‘As pleases thee, to me is best.

LINES 12-88] HELL

Thou art my lord; and know’st that ne’er I quit
Thy will: what silence hides, that know’st thou.’
Thereat on the fourth pier we came, we turned,
And on our left descended to the depth,
A narrow strait, and perforated close.
Nor from his side my leader set me down,
Till to his orifice he brought, whose limb
Quivering expressed his pang. ‘ Whoe’er thou art
Sad spirit! thus reversed, and as a stake
Driven in the soil,’ I in these words began ;
‘If thou be able, utter forth thy voice.’
There stood I like the friar, that doth shrive

?

A wretch for murder doomed, who, e’en when fixed,

Calleth him back, whence death awhile delays.
He shouted: ‘Ha: already standest there ?

Already standest there, O Boniface !

By many a year the writing played me false.

So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,

For which thou fearedst not in guile to take

The lovely lady, and then mangle her ?’
I felt as those who, piercing not the drift

Of answer made them, stand as if exposed

In mockery, nor know what to reply ;

When Virgil thus admonished: ‘Tell him quick,

‘*T am not he, not he whom thou believest.”’ ’
And I, as was enjoined me, straight replied.
That heard, the spirit all did wrench his feet,

And, sighing, next in woful accent spake:

‘What then of me requirest ? If to know

So much imports thee, who I am, that thou

Hast therefore down the bank descended, learn’ +

That in the mighty mantle I was robed,

And of a she-bear was indeed the son,

So eager to advance my whelps, that there

My having in my purse above I stowed,

And here myself. Under my head are dragged

The rest, my predecessors in the guilt

Of simony. Stretched at their length, they lie

Along an opening in the rock. ’Midst them

I also low shall fall, soon as he comes,

For whom I took thee, when so hastily

I questioned. But already longer time

Hath passed, since my soles kindled, and I thus

Upturned have stood, than is his doom to stand

Planted with fiery feet. For after him,

One yet of deeds more ugly shall arrive,

From forth the west, a shepherd without law,

Fated to cover both his form and mine.

He a new Jason shall be called of whom

50

60

80

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XIX

In Maccabees we read; and favour such
As to that priest his king indulgent showed,
Shall be of France’s monarch shown to him.’
I know not if I here too far presumed,
But in this strain I answered: ‘Tell me now
What treasures from Saint Peter at the first
Our Lord demanded, when he put the keys
Into his charge ? Surely he asked no more
But “ Follow me!” Nor Peter, nor the rest,
Or gold or silver of Matthias took,
When lots were cast upon the forfeit place
Of the condemnéd soul. Abide thou then ;
Thy punishment of right is merited :
And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin,
Which against Charles thy hardihood inspired.
If reverence of the keys restrained me not,
Which thou in happier time didst hold, I yet
Severer speech might use. Your avarice
O’ercasts the world with mourning, under foot
Treading the good, and raising bad men up.
Of shepherds like to you, the Evangelist
Was ware, when her, who sits upon the waves,
With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld ;
She who with seven heads towered at her birth,
And from ten horns her proof of glory drew,
Long as her spouse in virtue took delight.
Of gold and silver ye have made your god,
Differing wherein from the idolater,
But that he worships one, a hundred ye ?
Ah, Constantine! to how much ill gave birth,
Nat thy conversion, but that plenteous dower,
Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee.’
Meanwhile, as thus I sang, he, whether wrath
Or conscience smote him, violent upsprang
Spinning on either sole. I do believe
My teacher well was pleased, with so composed
A lip he listened ever to the sound
Of the true words I uttered. In both arms
He caught, and, to his bosom lifting me,
Upward retraced the way of his descent.
Nor weary of his weight, he pressed me close,
Till to the summit of the rock we came,
Our passage from the fourth to the fifth pier.
His cherished burden there gently he placed
Upon the rugged rock and steep, a path
Not easy for the clambering goat to mount.
Thence to my view another vale appeared.

99°

100

IIo

I20

130

CANTO xx] HELL 67

CANTO XxX

ARGUMENT

The Poet relates the punishment of such as presumed, while living, to pre-
dict future events. It is to have their faces reversed and set the contrary
way on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before
them, they are constrained ever to walk backwards. Among these Virgil
points out to him Amphiaratis, Tiresias, Aruns, and Manto (from the
mention of whom he takes occasion to speak of the origin of Mantua),
together with several others, who had practised the arts of divination
and astrology.

AND now the verse proceeds to torments new,
Fit argument of this the twentieth strain
Of the first song, whose awful theme records
The spirits whelmed in woe. Earnest I looked
Into the depth, that opened to my view,
Moistened with tears of anguish, and beheld
A tribe, that came along the hollow vale,
In silence weeping: such their step as walk
Choirs, chanting solemn litanies, on earth.
As on them more direct mine eye descends, 10
Each wondrously seemed to be reversed
At the neck-bone, so that the countenance
Was from the reins averted; and because
None might before him look, they were compelled
To advance with backward gait. Thus one perhaps
Hath been by force of palsy clean transposed,
But I ne’er saw it nor believe it so.
Now, reader! think within thyself, so God
Fruit of thy reading give thee! how I long
Could keep my visage dry, when I beheld 20
Near me our form distorted in such guise,
That on the hinder parts fallen from the face
The tears down-streaming rolled. Against a rock
I leant and wept, so that my guide exclaimed :
‘What, and art thou, too, witless as the rest ?
Here pity most doth show herself alive,
When she is dead. What guilt exceedeth his,
Who with Heaven’s judgement in his passion strives ?
Raise up thy head, raise up, and see the man
Before whose eyes earth gaped in Thebes, when all 30
Cried out ‘‘ Amphiaraiis, whither rushest ?
““Why leavest thou the war?” He not the less
Fell ruining far as to Minos down,
Whose grapple none eludes. Lo! how he makes
The breast his shoulders; and who once too far
Before him wished to see, now backward looks
And treads reverse his path. ‘Tiresias note,
CARY E

68

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xx

Who semblance changed, when woman he became
Of male, through every limb transformed; and then
Once more behoved him with his rod to strike 40
The two entwining serpents, ere the plumes,
That marked the better sex, might shoot again.

‘ Aruns, with rear his belly facing, comes.
On Luni’s mountains ’midst the marbles white,
Where delves Carrara’s hind, who wons beneath,
A cavern was his dwelling, whence the stars
And main-sea wide in boundless view he held.

“The next, whose loosened tresses overspread
Her bosom, which thou seest not (for each hair
On that side grows) was Manto, she who searched 50
Through many regions, and at length her seat

Fixed in my native land: whence a short space
My words detain thy audience. When her sire
From life departed, and in servitude

The city dedicate to Bacchus mourned,

Long time she went a wanderer through the world.
Aloft in Italy’s delightful land

A lake there lies, at foot of that proud Alp

That o’er the Tyrol locks Germania in,

Its name Benacus, from whose ample breast 60
A thousand springs, methinks, and more, between
Camonica and Garda, issuing forth,

Water the Apennine. There is a spot

At midway of that lake, where he who bears

Of Trento’s flock the pastoral staff, with him

Of Brescia, and the Veronese, might each

Passing that way his benediction give.

A garrison of goodly site and strong

LInEs 38-117] HELL 69

Peschiera stands, to awe with front opposed

The Bergamese and Brescian, whence the shore 70
More slope each way descends. There, whatsoe’er
Benacus’ bosom holds not, tumbling o’er

Down falls, and winds a river flood beneath

Through the green: pastures. Soon as in his course

The stream makes head, Benacus then no more

They call the name, but Mincius, till at last

Reaching Governo, into Po he falls.

Not far his course hath run, when a wide flat

It finds, which overstretching as a marsh

It covers, pestilent in summer oft. 80
Hence journeying, the savage maiden saw

Midst of the fen a territory waste

And naked of inhabitants. To shun

All human converse, here she with her slaves,

Plying her arts, remained, and lived, and left

Her body tenantless. Thenceforth the tribes,

Who round were scattered, gathering to that place,
Assembled ; for its strength was great, enclosed

On all parts by the fen. On those dead bones

They reared themselves a city, for her sake go
Calling it Mantua, who first chose the spot,

Nor asked another omen for the name;

Wherein more numerous the people dwelt,

Ere Casalodi’s madness by deceit

Was wronged of Pinamonte. If thou hear

Henceforth another origin assigned

Of that my country, I forewarn thee now,

That falsehood none beguile thee of the truth.’

I answered, ‘Teacher, I conclude thy words
So certain, that all else shall be to me 100
As embers lacking life. But now of these,

Who here proceed, instruct me, if thou see
Any that merit more especial note.
For thereon is my mind alone intent.’

He straight replied: ‘That spirit, from whose cheek

The beard sweeps o’er his shoulders brown, what time
Graecia was emptied of her males, that scarce
The cradles were supplied, the seer was he
In Aulis, who with Calchas gave the sign
When first to cut the cable. Him they named 110
Eurypilus: so sings my tragic strain,
In which majestic measure well thou know’st,
Who know’st it al!. That other, round the loins
So slender of his shape, was Michael Scott,
Practised in every sleight of magic wile.

‘Guido Bonatti see: Asdente mark, ;

Who now were willing he had tended still

70 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xx

The thread and cordwain, and too late repents.
‘See next the wretches, who the needle left,

The shuttle and the spindle, and became 120

Diviners: baneful witcheries they wrought

With images and herbs. But onward now:

For now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine

On either hemisphere, touching the wave

Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight

The moon was round. Thou mayst remember well :

For she good service did thee in the gloom

Of the deep wood.’ This said, both onward moved.

CANTO XXI

ARGUMENT

Still in the eighth circle, which bears the name of Malebolge, they look
down from the bridge that passes over its fifth gulf, upon the barterers or
public peculators. These are plunged in a lake of boiling pitch, and
guarded by Demons, to whom Virgil, leaving Dante apart, presents him-
self ; and licence being obtained to pass onward, both pursue their way.

Tuus we from bridge to bridge, with other talk
The which my drama cares not to rehearse,
Passed on; and to the summit reaching, stood
To view another gap, within the round
Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs.

Marvellous darkness shadowed o’er the place.

In the Venetians’ arsenal as boils
Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear
Their unsound vessels; for the inclement time
Seafaring men restrains, and in that while fo)
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,
Boiled here a glutinous thick mass, that round
Limed all the shore beneath. I that beheld,
But therein naught distinguished, save the bubbles
Raised by the boiling, and one mighty swell 20
Heave, and by turns subsiding fall. While there
I fixed my ken below, ‘Mark! mark!’ my guide
Exclaiming, drew me towards him from the place
Wherein I stood. I turned myself, as one
Impatient to behold that which beheld
He needs must shun, whom sudden fear unmans,
That he his flight delays not for the view.

CANTO xx] HELL it

Behind me I discerned a devil black,
That running up advanced along the rock.
Ah! what fierce cruelty his look bespake. 30
In act how bitter did he seem, with wings
Buoyant outstretched and feet of nimblest tread.
His shoulder, proudly eminent and sharp,
Was with a sinner charged; by either haunch
He held him, the foot’s sinew gripping fast.

“Ye of our bridge!’ he cried, ‘ keen-taloned fiends !
Lo! one of Santa Zita’s elders. Him
Whelm ye beneath, while I return for more.
That land hath store of such. All men are there,
Except Bonturo, barterers: of ‘ no” 40

For lucre there an “aye” is quickly made.’

Him dashing down, o’er the rough rock he turned ;
Nor ever after thief a mastiff loosed
Sped with like eager haste. That other sank,
And forthwith writhing to the surface rose.
But those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge,
Cried, ‘ Here the hallowed visage saves not: here
Is other swimming than in Serchio’s wave,
Wherefore, if thou desire we rend thee not,
Take heed thou mount not o’er the pitch.’ This said, 50
They grappled him with more than hundred hooks,
And shouted: ‘Covered thou must sport thee here
So, if thou canst, in secret mayst thou filch.’
E’en thus the cook bestirs him, with his grooms,
To thrust the flesh into the cauldron down

2 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxr

With flesh-hooks, that it float not on the top.

Me then my guide bespake: ‘ Lest they descry
That thou art here, behind a craggy rock
Bend low and screen thee: and whate’er of force
Be offered me, or insult, fear thou not; 60
For I am well advised, who have been erst
In the like fray.’ Beyond the bridge’s head
Therewith he passed; and reaching the sixth pier,
Behoved him then a forehead terror-proof.

With storm and fury, as when dogs rush forth
Upon the poor man’s back, who suddenly
From whence he standeth makes his suit; so rushed

Those from beneath the arch, and against him
Their weapons all they pointed. He, aloud:
‘Be none of you outrageous: ere your tine 70
Dare seize me, come forth from amongst you one,
Who having heard my words, decide he then
If he shall tear these limbs.’ They shouted loud,
“Go, Malacoda!’ Whereat one advanced,
The others standing firm, and as he came,
‘What may this turn avail him?’ he exclaimed.
‘ Believest thou, Malacoda! I had come
Thus far from all your skirmishing secure,’
My teacher answered, ‘ without will divine
And destiny propitious ? Pass we then ; 80
For so Heaven’s pleasure is, that I should lead
Another through this savage wilderness.’
Forthwith so fell his pride, that he let drop
The instrument of torture at his feet,

LINES 56-133] HELL 73

And to the rest exclaimed: ‘We have no power
To strike him.’ Then to me my guide: ‘O thou!
Who on the bridge among the crags dost sit

Low crouching, safely now to me return.’

I rose, and towards him moved with speed ; the fiends
Meantime all forward drew: me terror seized, go
Lest they should break the compact they had made.

Thus issuing from Caprona, once I saw
The infantry, dreading lest his covenant
The foe should break; so close he hemmed them round.

I to my leader’s side adhered, mine eyes
With fixed and motionless observance bent
On their unkindly visage. They their hooks
Protruding, one the other thus bespake :

‘Wilt thou I touch him on the hip?’ To whom
Was answered: ‘Even so; nor miss thy aim.’ 100
But he, who was in conference with my guide,
Turned rapid round; and thus the demon spake:
‘Stay, stay thee, Scarmiglione!’ Then to us
He added: ‘Further footing to your step
This rock affords not, shivered to the base
Of the sixth arch. But would ye still proceed,
Up by this cavern go: not distant far,
Another rock will yield you passage safe.
Yesterday, later by five hours than now,
Twelve hundred threescore years and six had filled 110
The circuit of their course, since here the way
Was broken. Thitherward I straight dispatch
Certain of these my scouts, who shall espy
If any on the surface bask. With them
Go ye: for ye shall find them nothing fell.
Come, Alichino, forth,’ with that he cried,
‘And Calcabrina, and Cagnazzo thou !
The troop of ten let Barbariccia lead.
With Libicocco, Draghignazzo haste,
Fanged Ciriatto, Graffiacane fierce, 120
And Farfarello, and mad Rubicant.
Search ye around the bubbling tar. For these,
In safety lead them, where the other crag
Uninterrupted traverses the dens.’
I then: ‘O master! what a sight is there.
Ah! without escort, journey we alone,
Which, if thou know the way, I covet not.
Unless thy prudence fail thee, dost not mark
How they do gnarl upon us, and their scowl
Threatens us present tortures?’ He replied: 130
“I charge thee, fear not: let them, as they will,
Gnarl on: ’tis but in token of their spite
Against the souls who mourn in torment steeped.’

74 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XXI

To leftward o’er the pier they turned; but each
Had first between his teeth pressed close the tongue,
Toward their leader for a signal looking,

Which he with sound obscene triumphant gave.

CANTO XXII

ARGUMENT

Virgil and Dante proceed, accompanied by the Demons, and see other sinners
of the same description in the same gulf. The device of Ciampolo, one of
these, to escape from the Demons, who had laid hold on him.

It hath been heretofore my chance to see

Horsemen with martial order shifting camp,

To onset sallying, or in muster ranged,

Or in retreat sometimes outstretched for flight :

Light-arm4d squadrons and fleet foragers

Scouring thy plains, Arezzo! have I seen,

And clashing tournaments, and tilting jousts,

Now with the sound of trumpets, now of bells,

Tabors, or signals made from castled heights,

And with inventions multiform, our own, IO

Or introduced from foreign land; but ne’er

To such a strange recorder I beheld,

In evolution moving, horse nor foot,

Nor ship, that tacked by sign from land or star.
With the ten demons on our way we went;

Ah, fearful company! but in the church

With saints, with gluttons at the tavern’s mess.
Still earnest on the pitch I gazed, to mark

All things whate’er the chasm contained, and those

Who burned within. As dolphins that, in sign 20

To mariners, heave high their archéd backs,

That thence forewarned they may advise to save

Their threatened vessel; so, at intervals,

To ease the pain, his back some sinner showed,

Then hid more nimbly than the lightning-glance.
E’en as the frogs, that of a watery moat

Stand at the brink, with the jaws only out,

Their feet and of the trunk all else concealed,

Thus on each part the sinners stood; but soon

As Barbariccia was at hand, so they 30

Drew back under the wave. I saw, and yet

My heart doth stagger, one, that waited thus,

As it befalls that oft one frog remains,

While the next springs away: and Graffiacan,

Who of the fiends was nearest, grappling seized

His clotted locks, and dragged him sprawling up,

CANTO XXIT] HELL

~]

or

That he appeared to me an otter. Each
Already by their names I knew, so well

When they were chosen I observed, and marked
How one the other called. ‘0 Rubicant !

See that his hide thou with thy talons flay,’
Shouted together all the curséd crew.

Then I: ‘Inform thee, Master! if thou may,
What wretched soul is this, on whom their hands
His foes have laid.’ My leader to his side
Approached, and whence he came inquired; to whom
Was answered thus: ‘ Born in Navarre’s domain,

My mother placed me in a lord’s retinue ;
For she had borne me to a losel vile,
A spendthrift of his substance and himself. 50

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LANL!
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ee

The good king Thibault after that I served:
To peculating here my thoughts were turned,
Whereof I give account in this dire heat.’

Straight Ciriatto, from whose mouth a tusk
Issued on either side, as from a boar,
Ripped him with one of these. ‘Twixt evil claws
The mouse had fallen: but Barbariccia cried,
Seizing him with both arms: ‘Stand thou apart,
While I do fix him on my prong transpierced.
Then added, turning to my guide his face, 60
‘Inquire of him, if more thou wish to learn,
Ere he again be rent.’ My leader thus:
“Then tell us of the partners in thy guilt ;
Knowest thou any sprung of Latian land
Under the tar ?’—‘I parted,’ he replied,
‘But now from one, who sojourned not far thence,

76

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xx

So were I under shelter now with him,
Nor hook nor talon then should scare me more.’
‘Too long we suffer,’ Libicocco cried ;
Then, darting forth a prong, seized on his arm, 70
And mangled bore away the sinewy part.
Him Draghignazzo by his thighs beneath
Would next have caught; whence angrily their chief,
Turning on all sides round, with threatening brow
Restrained them. When their strife a little ceased,
Of him, who yet was gazing on his wound,
My teacher thus without delay inquired :
‘Who was the spirit, from whom by evil hap
Parting, as thou hast told, thou camest to shore ?’—
‘It was the friar Gomita,’ he rejoined, 80
“He of Gallura, vessel of all guile,
Who had his master’s enemies in hand,
And used them so that they commend him well.
Money he took, and them at large dismissed ;
So he reports; and in each other charge
Committed to his keeping played the part
Of barterer to the height. With him doth herd
The chief of Logodoro, Michel Zanche.
Sardinia is a theme whereof their tongue
Is never weary. Out! alas! behold go
That other, how he grins. More would I say,
But tremble lest he mean to maul me sore.’
Their captain then to Farfarello turning,
Who rolled his moony eyes in act to strike,
Rebuked him thus: ‘ Off, curséd bird! avaunt !’
“If ye desire to see or hear,’ he thus
Quaking with dread resumed, ‘or Tuscan spirits
Or Lombard, I will cause them to appear.
Meantime let these ill talons bate their fury,
So that no vengeance they may fear from them, 100
And I, remaining in this self-same place,
Will, for myself but one, make seven appear,
When my shrill whistle shall be heard: for so
Our custom is to call each other up.’
Cagnazzo at that word deriding grinned,
Then wagged the head and spake: ‘ Hear his device,
Mischievous as he is, to plunge him down.’
Whereto he thus, who failed not in rich store
Of nice-wove toils: ‘ Mischief, forsooth, extreme!
Meant only to procure myself more woe.’ IIo
No longer Alichino then refrained,
But thus, the rest gainsaying, him bespake:
‘Tf thou do cast thee down, I not on foot
Will chase thee, but above the pitch will beat
My plumes. Quit we the vantage ground, and let

CaNTO XXIII] HELL 77

The bank be as a shield; that we may see,
If singly thou prevail against us all.’

Now, reader, of new sport expect to hear.

They each one turned his eyes to the other shore,
He first, who was the hardest to persuade. 12
The spirit of Navarre chose well his time,

Planted his feet on land, and at one leap
Escaping, disappointed their resolve.

Them quick resentment stung, but him the most
Who was the cause of failure: in pursuit
He therefore sped, exclaiming, ‘Thou art caught.’

But little it availed; terror outstripped
His following flight; the other plunged beneath,
And he with upward pinion raised his breast :

E’en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives 130
The falcon near, dives instant down, while he

Enraged and spent retires. That mockery

In Calcabrina fury stirred, who flew

After him, with desire of strife inflamed ;

And, for the barterer had ’scaped, so turned

His talons on his comrade. O’er the dike

In grapple close they joined; but the other proved

A goshawk able to rend well his foe ;

And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat

Was umpire soon between them; but in vain 140
To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued

Their pennons. Barbariccia, as the rest,

That chance lamenting, four in flight dispatched

From the other coast, with all their weapons armed.
They, to their post on each side speedily

Descending, stretched their hooks towards the fiends,
Who floundered, inly burning from their scars :

And we departing left them to that broil.

oO

CANTO XXIII

ARGUMENT
The enraged Demons pursue Dante, but he is preserved from them by

Virgil. On reaching the sixth gulf, he beholds the punishment of the
hypocrites ; which is, to pace continually round the gulf under the pressure
of caps and hoods, that are gilt on the outside, but leaden within. He is
addressed by two of these, Catalano and Loderingo, knights of St. Mary,
otherwise called Joyous Friars of Bologna. Caiaphas is seen fixed to
a cross on the ground, and lies so stretched along the way, that all tread
on him in passing.

In silence and in solitude we went,

One first, the other following his steps,

As minor friars journeying on their road.
The present fray had turned my thoughts to muse

78

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxut

Upon old Aesop’s fable, where he told
What fate unto the mouse and frog befell ;
For language hath not sounds more like in sense,
Than are these chances, if the origin
And end of each be heedfully compared.
And as one thought bursts from another forth, 10
So afterward from that another sprang,
Which added doubly to my former fear.
For thus I reasoned: ‘These through us have been
So foiled, with loss and mockery so complete,
As needs must sting them sore. If anger then
Be to their evil will conjoined, more fell
They shall pursue us, than the savage hound
Snatches the leveret panting *twixt his jaws.’
Already I perceived my hair stand all
On end with terror, and looked eager back. 20
‘Teacher,’ I thus began, ‘ if speedily
Thyself and me thou hide not, much I dread
Those evil talons. Even now behind
They urge us: quick imagination works
So forcibly, that I already feel them.’
He answered: ‘ Were I formed of leaded glass,
I should not sooner draw unto myself
Thy outward image, than I now imprint
That from within. This moment came thy thoughts
Presented before mine, with similar act 30
And countenance similar, so that from both
I one design have framed. If the right coast
Incline so much, that we may thence descend
Into the other chasm, we shall escape
Secure from this imaginéd pursuit.’
He had not spoke his purpose to the end,
When I from far beheld them with spread wings
Approach to take us. Suddenly my guide
Caught me, even as a mother that from sleep
Is by the noise aroused, and near her sees 40
The climbing fires, who snatches up her babe
And flies ne’er pausing, careful more of him
Than of herself, that but a single vest
Clings round her limbs. Down from the jutting beach
Supine he cast him to that pendent rock,
Which closes on one part the other chasm.
Never ran water with such hurrying pace
Adown the tube to turn a land-mill’s wheel,
When nearest it approaches to the spokes,
As then along that edge my master ran, 50
Carrying me in his bosom, as a child,
Not a companion. Scarcely had his feet
Reached to the lowest of the bed beneath,

LINEs 5-102] HELL 79

When over us the steep they reached: but fear
In him was none: for that high Providence,
Which placed them ministers of the fifth foss,
Power of departing thence took from them all.

There in the depth we saw a painted tribe,
Who paced with tardy steps around, and wept,
Faint in appearance and o’ercome with toil. 60
Caps had they on, with hoods, that fell low down
Before their eyes, in fashion like to those
Worn by the monks in Cologne. Their outside
Was overlaid with gold, dazzling to view,

But leaden all within, and of such weight,
That Frederick’s compared to these were straw.
Oh, everlasting wearisome attire !

We yet once more with them together turned
To leftward, on their dismal moan intent.

But by the weight oppressed, so slowly came 70
The fainting people, that our company
Was changed, at every movement of the step.

Whence I my guide addressed: ‘See that thou find
Some spirit, whose name may by his deeds be known;
And to that end look round thee as thou go’st.’

Then one, who understood the Tuscan voice,

Cried after us aloud: ‘Hold in your feet,
Ye whv so swiftly speed through the dusk air.
Perchance from me thou shalt obtain thy wish.’

Whereat my leader, turning, me bespake: 80
‘Pause, and then onward at their pace proceed.’

I stayed, and saw two spirits in whose look
Impatient eagerness of mind was marked
To overtake me; but the load they bare
And narrow path retarded their approach.

Soon as arrived, they with an eye askance
Perused me, but spake not: then turning, each
To other thus conferring said: ‘This one
Seems. by the action of his throat, alive ;

And, be they dead, what privilege allows go
They walk unmantled by the cumbrous stole ?’
Then thus to me: ‘Tuscan, who visitest
The college of the mourning hypocrites,
Disdain not to instruct us who thou art.’ —
‘By Arno’s pleasant stream,’ I thus replied,
“In the great city I was bred and grew,
And wear the body I have ever worn. be
But who are ye. from whom such mighty grief,
As now I witness, courseth down your cheeks ?
What torment breaks forth in this bitter woe ?’ 100
‘Our bonnets gleaming bright with orange hue,
One of them answered, ‘are so leaden gross,

80

THE VISION OF DANTE § [Canto xxur

That with their weight they make the balances
To crack beneath them. Joyous friars we were,
Bologna’s natives; Catalano I,
He Loderingo named; and by thy land
Together taken, as men use to take
A single and indifferent arbiter,
To reconcile their strifes. How there we sped,
Gardingo’s vicinage can best declare.’

‘O friars!’ I began, ‘ your miseries—’
But there brake off, for one had caught mine eye,
Fixed to a cross with three stakes on the ground:
He, when he saw me, writhed himself, throughout
Distorted, ruffling with deep sighs his beard.

And Catalano, who thereof was ’ware,

Thus spake: ‘That piercéd spirit, whom intent
Thou view’st, was he who gave the Pharisees
Counsel, that it were fitting for one man

To suffer for the people. He doth lie
Transverse ; nor any passes, but him first
Behoves make feeling trial how each weighs.

In straits like this along the foss are placed
The father of his consort, and the rest
Partakers in that council, seed of ill

And sorrow to the Jews.’ I noted then,

How Virgil gazed with wonder upon him,

Thus abjectly extended on the cross

In banishment eternal. To the friar

He next his words addressed: ‘We pray ye tell,
If so be lawful, whether on our right

Lies any opening in the rock, whereby

We both may issue hence, without constraint

IIo

120

CANTO XXIV] HELL Si

On the dark angels, that compelled they come
To lead us from this depth.’ He thus replied :
‘Nearer than thou dost hope, there is a rock
From the great circle moving, which o’ersteps
Kach vale of horror, save that here his cope
Is shattered. By the ruin ye may mount:
For on the side it slants, and most the height 140
Rises below.’ With head bent down awhile
My leader stood; then spake: ‘He warned us i!
Who yonder hangs the sinners on his hook.’

To whom the friar: ‘At Bologna erst
I many vices of the devil heard ;
Among the rest was said, “ He is a liar,
“And the father of lies!” When he had spoke,
My leader with large strides proceeded on,
Somewhat disturbed with anger in his look.

I therefore left the spirits heavy laden, 150
And, following, his beloved footsteps marked.

CANTO XXIV

ARGUMENT

Under the escort of his faithful master, Dante not without difficulty makes
his way out of the sixth gulf; and in the seventh, sees the robbers tor-
mented by venomous and pestilent serpents. The soul of Vanni Fucci,
who had pillaged the sacristy of St. James in Pistoia, predicts some
calamities that impended over that city, and over the Florentines.

In the year’s early nonage, when the sun

Tempers his tresses in Aquarius’ urn,

And now towards equal day the nights recede ;

Whenas the rime upon the earth puts on

Her dazzling sister’s image, but not long

Her milder sway endures; then riseth up

The village hind, whom fails his wintry store,

And looking out beholds the plain around

All whitened ; whence impatiently he smites

His thighs, and to his hut returning in, 10
There paces to and fro, wailing his lot,

As a discomfited and helpless man ;

Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope

Spring in his bosom, finding e’en thus soon

The world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook,
And forth to pasture drives his little flock :

So me my guide disheartened, when I saw

His troubled forehead ; and so speedily

That ill was cured; for at the fallen bridge

Arriving, towards me with a look as sweet, 20

82

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxiv

He turned him back, as that I first beheld
At the steep mountain’s foot. Regarding well
The ruin, and some counsel first maintained
With his own thought, he opened wide his arm
And took me up. As one, who, while he works,
Computes his labour’s issue, that he seems
Still to foresee the effect; so lifting me
Up to the summit of one peak, he fixed
His eye upon another. ‘Grapple that,’
Said he, ‘ but first make proof, if it be such 30
As will sustain thee.’ For one capped with lead
This were no journey. Scarcely he, though light,
And I, though onward pushed from crag to crag,
Could mount. And if the precinct of this coast
Were not less ample than the last, for him
I know not, but my strength had surely failed.
But Malebolge all toward the mouth
Inclining of the nethermost abyss,
The site of every valley hence requires,
That one side upward slope, the other fall. 40
At length the point from whence the utmost stone
Juts down, we reached; soon as to that arrived,
So was the breath exhausted from my lungs
I could no farther, but did seat me there.
‘Now needs thy best of man;’ so spake my guide:
‘For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, fame is won ;
Without which whosoe’er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth,
As smoke in air or foam upon the wave. 50
Thou therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness
By the mind’s effort, in each struggle formed
To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight
Of her corporeal frame to crush her down.
A longer ladder yet remains to scale.
From these to have escaped sufficeth not,
If well thou note me, profit by my words.’
I straightway rose, and showed myself less spent
Than I in truth did feel me. ‘On,’ I cried,
‘For I am stout and fearless.’ Up the rock 60
Our way we held, more rugged than before,
Narrower, and steeper far to climb. From talk
I ceased not, as we journeyed, so to seem
Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss
Did issue forth, for utterance suited ill.
Though on the arch that crosses there I stood,
What were the words I knew not, but who spake
Seemed moved in anger. Down I stooped to look ;
But my quick eye might reach not to the depth

LINEs 21-96] HELL 83

For shrouding darkness; wherefore thus I spake : 70
‘To the next circle, teacher, bend thy steps,
And from the wall dismount we; for as hence
I hear and understand not, so I see
Beneath, and naught discern.’—‘ I answer not,’
Said he, ‘but by the deed. To fair request
Silent performance maketh best return.’
We from the bridge’s head descended, where
To the eighth mound it joins; and then, the chasm
Opening to view, I saw a crowd within
Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape 80
And hideous, that remembrance in my veins

I

Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands
Let Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus,
Pareas and Chelyder be her brood,
Cenchris and Amphisbaena, plagues so dire
Or in such numbers swarming ne’er she showed,
Not with all Ethiopia, and whate’er
Above the Erythraean sea is spawned.
Amid this dread exuberance of woe
Ran naked spirits winged with horrid fear, go
Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope to charm them out of view.
With serpents were their hands behind them bound,
Which through their reins infixed the tail and head,
Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one
Near to our side, darted an adder up,

84

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxiv

And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,
Transpierced him. Far more quickly than e’er pen
Wrote O or I, he kindled, burned, and changed
To ashes all, poured out upon the earth. 100
When there dissolved he lay, the dust again
Uprolled spontaneous, and the self-same form
Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell,
The Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years
Have wellnigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith
Renascent: blade nor herb throughout his life
He tastes, but tears of frankincense alone
And odorous amomum: swaths of nard
And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,
He knows not how, by force demoniac dragged 110
To earth, or through obstruction fettering up
In chains invisible the powers of man,
Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around,
Bewildered with the monstrous agony
He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs ;
So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.
Oh! how severe God’s judgement, that deals out
Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was,
My teacher next inquired; and thus in few
He answered: ‘ Vanni Fucci am I called, 120
Not long since rainéd down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleased, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoia found my worthy den.’
I then to Virgil: ‘ Bid him stir not hence ;
And ask what crime did thrust him hither: once
A man I knew him, choleric and bloody.’
The sinner heard and feigned not, but towards me
His mind directing and his face, wherein
Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake: 130
‘It grieves me more to have been caught by thee
In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than
When I was taken from the other life.
I have no power permitted to deny
What thou inquirest. I am doomed thus low
To dwell, for that the sacristy by me
Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,
And with the guilt another falsely charged.
But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,
So as thou e’er shalt ’scape this darksome realm, 140
Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.
Reft of the Neri first Pistoia pines ;
Then Florence changeth citizens and laws ;
From Valdimagra, drawn by wrathful Mars,
A vapour rises, wrapped in turbid mists,

CanTo xxv] HELL 85

And sharp and eager driveth on the storm

With arrowy hurtling o’er Piceno’s field,

Whence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike

Each helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground.

This have [ told, that grief may rend thy heart.’ 150

CANTO XXV

ARGUMENT

The sacrilegious Fucci vents his fury in blasphemy, is seized by serpents,
and flying is pursued by Cacus in the form of a Centaur, who is described
with a swarm of serpents on his haunch, and a dragon on his shoulders
breathing forth fire. Our Poet then meets with the spirits of three of his
countrymen, two of whom undergo a marvellous transformation in his

presence.

WHEN he had spoke, the sinner raised his hands
Pointed in mockery, and cried: ‘Take them, God!
I level them at thee.’ From that day forth
The serpents were my friends; for round his neck
One of them rolling twisted, as it said,
‘Be silent, tongue!’ Another, to his arms
Upgliding, tied them, riveting itself
So close, it took from them the power to move.
Pistoia! ah, Pistoia! why dost doubt
To turn thee into ashes, cumbering earth 10
No longer, since in evil act so far
Thou hast outdone thy seed ? I did not mark,
Through all the gloomy circles of the abyss,
Spirit, that swelled so proudly ’gainst his God ;
Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled,
Nor uttered more; and after him there came
A centaur full of fury, shouting, ‘ Where,
Where is the caitiff ?? On Maremma’s marsh
Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch
They swarmed, to where the human face begins. 20
Behind his head, upon the shoulders, lay
With open wings a dragon, breathing fire
On whomsoe’er he met. To me my guide:
‘Cacus is this, who underneath the rock
Of Aventine spread oft a lake of blood.
He, from his brethren parted, here must tread
A different journey, for his fraudful theft
Of the great herd that near him stalled; whence found
His felon deeds their end, beneath the mace
Of stout Alcides, that perchance laid on 30
A hundred blows, and not the tenth was felt.’
While yet he spake, the centaur sped away :

86

THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxv

And under us three spirits came, of whom

Nor I nor he was ware, till they exclaimed,
“Say who are ye!’ We then brake off discourse,
Intent on these alone. I knew them not:

But, as it chanceth oft, befell, that one

Had need to name another. ‘ Where,’ said he,
‘Doth Cianfa lurk?’ I, for a sign my guide
Should stand attentive, placed against my lips 40
The finger lifted. If, O reader! now

Thou be not apt to credit what I tell,

No marvel; for myself do scarce allow

The witness of mine eyes. But as I looked
Toward them, lo! a serpent with six feet

Springs forth on one, and fastens full upon him:

His midmost grasped the belly, a forefoot

Seized on each arm (while deep in either cheek

He fleshed his fangs); the hinder on the thighs

Were spread, *twixt which the tail inserted curled 50
Upon the reins behind. Ivy ne’er clasped

A doddered oak, as round the other’s limbs

The hideous monster intertwined his own.

Then, as they both had been of burning wax,

Each melted into other, mingling hues,

That which was either now was seen no more.

Thus up the shrinking paper, ere it burns,

A brown tint glides, not turning yet to black,

And the clean white expires. The other two

Looked on, exclaiming, ‘Ah! how dost thou change, 60
Agnello! See! Thou art nor double now,

LINES 33-110] HELL 87

Nor only one.’ The two heads now became

One, and two figures blended in one form

Appeared, where both were lost. Of the four lengths

Two arms were made: the belly and the chest,

The thighs and legs, into such members changed

As never eye hath seen. Of former shape

All trace was vanished. Two, yet neither, seemed

That image miscreate, and so passed on

With tardy steps. As underneath the scourge 70

Of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields,

Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems

A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road ;

So toward the entrails of the other two

Approaching seemed an adder all on fire,

As the dark pepper-grain livid and swart.

In that part, whence our life is nourished first,

One he transpierced ; then down before him fell

Stretched out. The piercéd spirit looked on him,

But spake not; yea, stood motionless and yawned, 80

As if by sleep or feverous fit assailed.

He eyed the serpent, and the serpent him.

One from the wound, the other from the mouth

Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapoury columns joined.
Lucan in mute attention now may hear,

Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus, tell,

Nor thine, Nasidius. Ovid now be mute.

What if in warbling fiction he record

Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake

Him changed, and her into a fountain clear, go

I envy not; for never face to face

Two natures thus transmuted did he sing,

Wherein both shapes were ready to assume

The other’s substance. They in mutual guise

So answered, that the serpent split his train

Divided to a fork, and the pierced spirit

Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs

Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon

Was visible: the tail, disparted, took

The figure which the spirit lost; its skin 100

Softening, his indurated to a rind.

The shoulders next I marked, that entering joined

The monster’s arm-pits, whose two shorter feet

So lengthened, as the others dwindling shrank.

The feet behind then twisting up became

That part that man conceals, which in the wretch

Was cleft in twain. While both the shadowy smoke

With a new colour veils, and generates

The excrescent pile on one, peeling it off

From the other body, lo! upon his feet 110

88 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxv

One upright rose, and prone the other fell.
Nor yet their glaring and malignant lamps
Were shifted, though each feature changed beneath.
Of him who stood erect, the mounting face
Retreated towards the temples, and what there
Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears
From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward dragged,
Of its excess did shape the nose; and swelled
Into due size protuberant the lips.
He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends 120
His sharpened visage, and draws down the ears
Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.
His tongue, continuous before and apt
For utterance, severs; and the other’s fork
Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.
The soul, transformed into the brute, glides off,
Hissing along the vale, and after him
The other talking sputters; but soon turned
His new-grown shoulders on him, and in fow
Thus to another spake: ‘ Along this path 130
Crawling, as I have done, speed Buoso now !’
So saw I fluctuate in successive change
The unsteady ballast of the seventh hold:
And here if aught my pen have swerved, events
So strange may be its warrant. O’er mine eyes
Confusion hung, and on my thoughts amaze.
Yet scaped they not so covertly, but well
I marked Sciancato: he alone it was
Of the three first that came, who changed not: thou
The other’s fate, Gaville! still dost rue. 140

CANTO XXVI

ARGUMENT

Remounting by the steps, down which they had descended to the seventh
gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from
thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsel-
lors, each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and
Ulysses, the latter of whom relates the manner of his death.

FLoRENCE, exult! for thou so mightily
Hast thriven, that o’er land and sea thy wings
Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.
Among the plunderers, such the three I found
Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,
And no proud honour to thyself redounds.

But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,
Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long

CANTO XxvT] HELL 39

Shalt feel what Prato (not to say the rest)
Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance 10
Were in good time, if it befell thee now.
Would so it were, since it must needs befall !
For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.
We from the depth departed ; and my guide
Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late
We downward traced, and drew me up the steep.
Pursuing thus our solitary way
Among the crags and splinters of the rock,
Sped not our feet without the help of hands.
Then sorrow seized me, which e’en now revives,
As my thought turns again to what I saw,
And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb
The powers of nature in me, lest they run
Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good
My gentle star or something better gave me,
I envy not myself the precious boon.
As in that season, when the sun least veils
His face that lightens all, what time the fly
Gives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then,
Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees 30
Fire-flies innumerous spangling o’er the vale,
Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labour lies ;
With flames so numberless throughout its space
Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth
Was to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs
The bears avenged, at its departure saw |
Elijah’s chariot, when the steeds erect
Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes, meanwhile,
Straining pursued them, till the flame alone,
Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenned : 40
E’en thus along the gulf moves every flame,
A sinner so enfolded close in each,
That none exhibits token of the theft.
Upon the bridge I forward bent to look,
And grasped a flinty mass, or else had fallen,
Though pushed not from the height. The guide, who marked
How I did gaze attentive, thus began:
‘Within these ardours are the spirits, each
Swathed in confining fire.—‘ Master! thy word,’
I answered, ‘hath assured me; yet I deemed 50
Already of the truth, already wished
To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes
So parted at the summit, as it seemed
Ascending from that funeral pile where lay
The Theban brothers.’ He replied: ‘ Within,
Ulysses there and Diomede endure
Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now

Nu
a

90 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxvi

Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath.

These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore

The ambush of the horse, that opened wide 60
A portal for that goodly seed tu pass,

Which sowed imperial Rome; nor less the guile

Lament they, whence, of her Achilles ’reft,

Deidamia yet in death complains.

And there is rued the stratagem that Troy

Of her Palladium spoiled.’—‘ If they have power

Of utterance from within these sparks,’ said I,

‘O master! think my prayer a thousandfold

In repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe

To pause till here the hornéd flame arrive. 70
See, how toward it with desire I bend.’

ee ae —— =e

A —

He thus: ‘Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,
And I accept it therefore; but do thou
Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;
For I divine thy wish; and they perchance,
For they were Greeks, might shun discourse with thee.’
When there the flame had come, where time and place
Seemed fitting to my guide, he thus began:
‘O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!
If, living, I of you did merit aught, 80
Whate’er the measure were of that desert,
When in the world my lofty strain I poured,
Move ye not on, till one of you unfold
In what clime death o’ertook him self-destroyed
Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn
Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire

LInEs 58-135] HELL 9]

That labours with the wind, then to and fro

Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,

Threw out its voice, and spake: ‘When I escaped
From Circe, who beyond a circling year go
Had held me near Caieta by her charms,

Ere thus Aeneas yet had named the shore ;

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence

Of my old father, nor return of love,

That should have crowned Penelope with joy,
Could overcome in me the zeal I had

To explore the world, and search the ways of life
Man’s evil and his virtue. Forth I sailed

Into the deep illimitable main,

With but one bark, and the small faithful band 100
That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,

Far as Morocco, either shore I saw,

And the Sardinian and each isle beside

Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age

Were I and my companions, when we came

To the strait pass, where Hercules ordained

The boundaries not to be o’erstepped by man.

The walls of Seville to my right I left,

On the other hand already Ceuta past.

““O brothers!” I began, “ who to the west 110
“Through perils without number now have reached ;
“To this the short remaining watch, that yet

“Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof

““Of the unpeopled world, following the track

“Of Phoebus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang :
““Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes,

““ But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.”

With these few words I sharpened for the voyage

The mind of my associates, that I then

Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn 120
Our poop we turned, and for the witless flight

Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.

Each star of the other pole night now beheld,

And ours so low, that from the ocean floor

It rose not. Five times re-illumed, as oft

Vanished the light from underneath the moon,

Since the deep way we entered, when from far
Appeared a mountain dim, loftiest methought

Of all I e’er beheld. Joy seized us straight ;

But soon to mourning changed. From the new land 130
A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side

Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirled her round

With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up

The poop, and sank the prow; so fate decreed :

And over us the booming billow closed.’

>

92 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvir

CANTO XXVII

ARGUMENT

The Poet, treating of the same punishment as in the last Canto, relates that
he turned towards a flame in which was the Count Guido da Montefeltro,
whose inquiries respecting the state of Romagna he answers ; and Guido
is thereby induced to declare who he is, and why condemned to that
torment.

Now upward rose the flame, and stilled its light
To speak no more, and now passed on with leave
From the mild poet gained; when following came
Another, from whose top a sound confused,
Forth issuing, drew our eyes that way to look.

As the Sicilian bull, that rightfully
His cries first echoed who had shaped its mould,
Did so rebellow, with the voice of him
Tormented, that the brazen monster seemed
Pierced through with pain; thus, while no way they found,1o
Nor avenue immediate through the flame,
Into its language turned the dismal words:
But soon as they had won their passage forth,
Up from the point, which vibrating obeyed
Their motion at the tongue, these sounds were heard :
*‘O thou! to whom I now direct my voice,
That lately didst exclaim in Lombard phrase,
“Depart thou; I solicit thee no more ;”
Though somewhat tardy I perchance arrive,
Let it not irk thee here to pause awhile, 20
And with me parley: lo! it irks not me,
And yet I burn. If but e’en now thou fall
Into this blind world, from that pleasant land
Of Latium, whence I draw my sum of guilt,
Tell me if those who in Romagna dwell
Have peace or war. For of the mountains there
Was I, betwixt Urbino and the height
Whence Tiber first unlocks his mighty flood.’

Leaning I listened yet with heedful ear,
When, as he touched my side, the leader thus: 30
“Speak thou: he is a Latian.’ My reply
Was ready, and I spake without delay:
‘O spirit! who art hidden here below,
Never was thy Romagna without war
In her proud tyrants’ bosoms, nor is now:
But open war there left I none. The state,
Ravenna hath maintained this many a year,
Is steadfast. There Polenta’s eagle broods ;
And in his broad circumference of plume
O’ershadows Cervia. The green talons grasp 40

LinzEs 1-89] HELL

The land, that stood erewhile the proof so long
And piled in bloody heap the host of France.

‘The old mastiff of Verruchio and the young,
That tore Montagna in their wrath, still make,
Where they are wont, an auger of their fangs.

‘Lamone’s city, and Santerno’s, range
Under the lion of the snowy lair,

Inconstant partisan, that changeth sides,

Or ever summer yields to winter’s frost.

And she, whose flank is washed of Savio’s wave,
As *twixt the level and the steep she lies,

Lives so *twixt tyrant power and liberty.

‘Now tell us, I entreat thee, who art thou:
Be not more hard than others. In the world,
So may thy name still rear its forehead high.’

Then roared awhile the fire, its sharpened point
On either side waved, and thus breathed at last:
“If I did think my answer were to one
Who ever could return unto the world,

This flame should rest unshaken. But since ne’er,
If true be told me, any from this depth

Has found his upward way, I answer thee,

Nor fear lest infamy record the words.

‘A man of arms at first, I clothed me then
In good Saint Francis’ girdle, hoping so
To have made amends. And certainly my hope
Had failed not, but that he, whom curses light on,
The high priest, again seduced me into sin.

And how, and wherefore, listen while I tell.
Long as this spirit moved the bones and pulp
My mother gave me, less my deeds bespake

The nature of the lion than the fox.

All ways of winding subtlety I knew,

And with such art conducted, that the sound
Reached the world’s limit. Soon as to that part
Of life I found me come, when each behoves

To lower sails and gather in the lines ;

That, which before had pleased me, then I rued,
And to repentance and confession turned,
Wretch that I was; and well it had bested me.
The chief of the new Pharisees meantime,
Waging his warfare near the Lateran,

Not with the Saracens or Jews (his foes

All Christians were, nor against Acre one

Had fought, nor trafficked in the Soldan’s land),
He, his great charge nor sacred ministry,

In himself reverenced, nor in me that cord _
Which used to mark with leanness whom it girded.
As in Soracte, Constantine besought,

50

60

7O

94

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvir

To cure his leprosy, Sylvester’s aid ; go
So me, to cure the fever of his pride,
This man besought: my counsel to that end
He asked; and I was silent; for his words
Seemed drunken: but forthwith he thus resumed:
“From thy heart banish fear: of all offence
“T hitherto absolve thee. In return,
““Teach me my purpose so to execute,
“That Penestrino cumber earth no more.
** Heaven, as thou knowest, I have power to shut
“And open: and the keys are therefore twain, 100
*“The which my predecessor meanly prized.”
‘Then, yielding to the forceful arguments,

eo ee

ns

———S—S}
———S} A

ORR CARR ARERR IIA

Of silence as more perilous I deemed,

And answered: ‘“ Father! since thou washest me

“Clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall,

““Large promise with performance scant, be sure,

“Shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.”
“When I was numbered with the dead, then came

Saint Francis for me; but a cherub dark

He met, who cried, ‘“‘ Wrong me not; he is mine, IIO

“And must below to join the wretched crew,

“For the deceitful counsel which he gave.

“Fer since I watched him, hovering at his hair.

“No power can the impenitent absolve ;

‘““Nor to repent, and will, at once consist,

“By contradiction absolute forbid.”

Oh misery! how I shook myself, when he

Canto XXVIII] HELL 95

Seized me, and cried, “‘ Thou haply thought’st me not
“A disputant in logic so exact!”
To Minos down he bore me; and the judge 120
Twined eight times round his callous back the tail,
Which biting with excess of rage, he spake:
“This is a guilty soul, that in the fire
“Must vanish.” Hence, perdition-doomed, I rove
A prey to rankling sorrow, in this garb.’
When he had thus fulfilled his words, the flame
In dolour parted, beating to and fro,
And writhing its sharp horn. We onward went,
I and my leader, up along the rock,
Far as another arch, that overhangs 130
The foss, wherein the penalty is paid
Of those who load them with committed sin.

CANTO XXVIII

ARGUMENT

They arrive in the ninth gulf, where the sowers of scandal, schismatics, and
heretics, are seen with their limbs miserably maimed or divided in different
ways. Among these the Poet finds Mahomet, Piero da Medicina, Curio,
Mosca, and Bertrand de Born.

Wuo, e’en in words unfettered, might at full
Tell of the wounds and blood that now I saw,
Though he repeated oft the tale? No tongue

So vast a theme could equal, speech and thought
Both impotent alike. If in one band

Collected, stood the people all, who e’er

Poured on Apulia’s happy soil their blood,

Slain by the Trojans, and in that long war,
When of the rings the measured booty made

A pile so high, as Rome’s historian writes 10
Who errs not; with the multitude, that felt

The griding force of Guiscard’s Norman steel,
And those the rest, whose bones are gathered yet
At Ceperano, there where treachery

Branded the Apulian name, or where beyond
Thy walls, O Tagliacozzo, without arms

The old Alardo conquered; and his limbs

One were to show transpierced, another his

Clean lopped away; a spectacle like this

Were but a thing of naught, to the hideous sight 20
Of the ninth chasm. A runlet, that hath lost
Its middle or side stave, gapes not so wide

96 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvur

As one I marked, torn from the chin throughout
Down to the hinder passage: *twixt the legs
Dangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay

Open to view, and wretched ventricle,

That turns the englutted aliment to dross.

Whilst eagerly I fix on him my gaze,

He eyed me, with his hands laid his breast bare,

And cried, ‘Now mark how I do rip me: lo! 30
How is Mohammed mangled: before me

Walks Ali weeping, from the chin his face

Cleft to the forelock; and the others all,

Whom here thou seest, while they lived, did sow

Scandal and schism, and therefore thus are rent.

A fiend is here behind, who with his sword

Hacks us thus cruelly, slivering again

Each of this ream, when we have compassed round

The dismal way; for first our gashes close

Ere we repass before him. But, say who 40
Art thou, that standest musing on the rock,

Haply so lingering to delay the pain

Sentenced upon thy crimes.’—‘ Him death not yet,’

My guide rejoined, ‘ hath overta’en, nor sin

Conducts to torment; but, that he may make

Full trial of your state, I who am dead

Must through the depths of hell, from orb to orb,

Conduct him. Trust my words; for they are true.’

More than a hundred spirits, when that they heard,
Stood in the foss to mark me, through amaze 50
Forgetful of their pangs. ‘Thou, who perchance
Shalt shortly view the sun, this warning thou
Bear to Dolcino: bid him, if he wish not
Here soon to follow me, that with good store
Of food he arm him, lest imprisoning snows
Yield him a victim to Novara’s power ;

No easy conquest else:’ with foot upraised

For stepping, spake Mohammed, on the ground

Then fixed it to depart. Another shade,

Pierced in the throat, his nostrils mutilate 60
E’en from beneath the eyebrows, and one ear

Lopped off, who, with the rest, through wonder stood
Gazing, before the rest advanced, and bared

His wind-pipe, that without was all o’ersmeared

With crimson stain. ‘O thou!’ said he, ‘whom sin
Condemns not, and whom erst (unless too near
Resemblance do deceive me) I aloft

Have seen on Latian ground, call thou to mind

Piero of Medicina, if again

Returning, thou behold’st the pleasant land 70
That from Vercelli slopes to Mercabo ;

LINES 23-120] HELL 97

And there instruct the twain, whom Fano boasts

Her worthiest sons, Guido and Angelo,

That if ’tis given us here to scan aright

The future, they out of life’s tenement

Shall be cast forth, and whelmed under the waves

Near to Cattolica, through perfidy

Of a fell tyrant. °Twixt the Cyprian isle

And Balearic, ne’er hath Neptune seen

An injury so foul, by pirates done, 80

Or Argive crew of old. That one-eyed traitor

(Whose realm, there is a spirit here were fain

His eye had still lacked sight of) them shall bring

To conference with him, then so shape his end,

That they shall need not ’gainst Focara’s wind

Offer up vow nor prayer.’ I answering thus:

‘Declare, as thou dost wish that I above

May carry tidings of thee, who is he,

In whom that sight doth wake such sad remembrance.’
Forthwith he laid his hand on the cheek-bone go

Of one, his fellow spirit, and his jaws

Expanding, cried: ‘Lo! this is he I wot of:

He speaks not for himself: the outcast this,

Who overwhelmed the doubt in Caesar’s mind,

Affirming that delay to men prepared

Was ever harmful.’ Oh! how terrified

Methought was Curio, from whose throat was cut

The tongue, which spake that hardy word. Then one,

Maimed of each hand, uplifted in the gloom

The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots 100

Sullied his face, and cried; ‘ Remember thee

Of Mosca too; I who, alas! exclaimed,

‘““The deed once done, there is an end,” that proved

A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.’
I added: ‘ Aye, and death to thine own tribe.’
Whence, heaping woe on woe, he hurried off,

As one grief-stung to madness. But I there

Still lingered to behold the troop, and saw

Thing, such as I may fear without more proof

To tell of, but that conscience makes me firm, IIo

The boon companion, who her strong breastplate

Buckles on him, that feels no guilt within,

And bids him on and fear not. Without doubt

I saw, aud yet it seems to pass before me,

A headless trunk, that even as the rest

Of the sad flock paced onward. By the hair

It bore the severed member, lantern-wise

Pendent in hand, which looked at us, and said,

‘Woe’s me!’ The spirit lighted thus himself ;

And two there were in one, and one in two. 120

298

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XXVIII

How that may be, he knows who ordereth so.
When at the bridge’s foot direct he stood,

His arm aloft he reared, thrusting the head

Full in our view, that nearer we might hear

The words, which thus it uttered: ‘ Now behold

This grievous torment, thou, who breathing go’st

To spy the dead: behold, if any else

Be terrible as this. And, that on earth

Thou mayst bear tidings of me, know that I

Am Bertrand, he of Born, who gave king John 130
The counsel mischievous. Father and son

I set at mutual war. For Absalom

And David more did not Ahitophel,

Spurring them on maliciously to strife.

For parting those so closely knit, my brain

Parted, alas! I carry from its source,

That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law

Of retribution fiercely works in me.’

CANTO XXIX] HELL 99

CANTO XXIx

ARGUMENT

Dante, at the desire of Virgil, proceeds onward to the bridge that crosses the
tenth gulf, from whence he hears the cries of the alchemists and forgers,
who are tormented therein; but not being able to discern anything on
account of the darkness, they descend the rock, that bounds this the last
of the compartments in which the eighth circle is divided, and then behold
the spirits who are afflicted by divers plagues and diseases. Two of them,
namely, Griffolino of Arezzo and Capocchio of Siena, are introduced
speaking.

So were mine eyes inebriate with the view
Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds
Disfigured, that they longed to stay and weep.
But Virgil roused me: ‘What yet gazest on ?
Wherefore doth fasten yet thy sight below
Among the maimed and miserable shades ?
Thou hast not shown in any chasm beside
This weakness. Know, if thou wouldst number them,
That two and twenty miles the valley winds
Its circuit, and already is the moon 10
Beneath our feet: the time permitted now
Is short; and more, not seen, remains to see.’
‘Tf thou, I straight replied, ‘ hadst weighed the cause,
For which I looked, thou hadst perchance excused
The tarrying still. My leader part pursued
His way, the while I followed, answering him,
And adding thus: ‘ Within that cave I deem,
Whereon so fixedly I held my ken,
There is a spirit dwells, one of my blood,
Wailing the crime that costs him now so dear.’ 20
Then spake my master: ‘Let thy soul no more
Afflict itself for him. Direct elsewhere
Its thought, and leave him. At the bridge’s foot
I marked how he did point with menacing look
At thee, and heard him by the others named
Geri of Bello. Thou so wholly then
Wert busied with his spirit, who once ruled
The towers of Hautefort, that thou lookedst not
That way, ere he was gone.’—‘O guide beloved !
His violent death yet unavenged,’ said I, 30
‘By any, who are partners in his shame,
Made him contemptuous; therefore, as I think,
He passed me speechless by; and, doing so,
Hath made me more compassionate his fate.’
So we discoursed to where the rock first showed
The other valley, had more light been there,
E’en to the lowest depth. Soon as we came
CARY F

100 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxix

O’er the last cloister in the dismal rounds
Of Malebolge, and the brotherhood
Were to our view exposed, then many a dart 40
Of sore lament assailed me, headed all
With points of thrilling pity, that I closed
Both ears against the volley with mine hands.
As were the torment, if each lazar-house
Of Valdichiana, in the sultry time
’Twixt July and September, with the isle
Sardinia and Maremma’s pestilent fen,
Had heaped their maladies all in one foss
Together ; such was here the torment: dire
The stench, as issuing steams from festered limbs. 50

We Or

|

\i

We on the utmost shore of the long rock
Descended still to leftward. Then my sight
Was livelier to explore the depth, wherein
The minister of the most mighty Lord,
All-searching Justice, dooms to punishment
The forgers noted on her dread record.
More rueful was it not methinks to see
The nation in Aegina droop, what time
Each living thing, e’en to the little worm,
All fell, so full of malice was the air 60
(And afterward, as bards of yore have told,
The ancient people were restored anew
From seed of emmets), than was here to see
The spirits, that languished through the murky vale,
Up-piled on many a stack. Confused they lay,

LinEs 38-114] HELL 101

One o’er the belly, o’er the shoulders one
Rolled of another; sideling crawled a third
Along the dismal pathway. Step by step
We journeyed on, in silence looking round,
And listening those diseased, who strove in vain 70
To lift their forms. Then two I marked, that sat
Propped ’gainst each other, as two brazen pans
Set to retain the heat. From head to foot,
A tetter barked them round. Nor saw I e’er
Groom currying so fast, for whom his lord
Impatient waited, or himself perchance
Tired with long watching, as of these each one
Plied quickly his keen nails, through furiousness
Of ne’er abated pruriency. The crust
Came drawn from underneath in flakes, like scales 80
Scraped from the bream, or fish of broader mail.
*O thou! who with thy fingers rendest off
Thy coat of proof,’ thus spake my guide to one,
‘And sometimes makest tearing pincers of them,
Tell me if any born of Latian land
Be among these within: so may thy nails
Serve thee for everlasting to this toil.’
‘Both are of Latium,’ weeping he replied,
‘Whom tortured thus thou seest: but who art thou
That hast inquired of us?’ To whom my guide: go
“One that descend with this man, who yet lives,
From rock to rock, and show him hell’s abyss.’
Then started they asunder, and each turned
Trembling toward us, with the rest, whose ear
Those words redounding struck. To me my liege
Addressed him: ‘Speak to them whate’er thou list.’
And I therewith began: ‘So may no time
Filch your remembrance from the thoughts of men
In the upper world, but after many suns
Survive it, as ye tell me, who ye are, 100
And of what race ye come. Your punishment,
Unseemly and disgustful in its kind,
Deter you not from opening thus much to me.’
‘ Arezzo was my dwelling,’ answered one,
‘And me Albero of Siena brought
To die by fire: but that, for which I died,
Leads me not here. True is, in sport I told him,
That I had learned to wing my flight in air ;
And he, admiring much, as he was void
Of wisdom, willed me to declare to him 110
The secret of mine art: and only hence,
Because I made him not a Daedalus,
Prevailed on one supposed his sire to burn me,
But Minos to this chasm, last of the ten,

~

102 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxrx

For that I practised alchemy on earth,
Has doomed me. Him no subterfuge eludes.’

Then to the bard I spake: ‘ Was ever race
Light as Siena’s ? Sure not France herself
Can show a tribe so frivolous and vain.’

The other leprous spirit heard my words, 120
And thus returned: ‘ Be Stricca from this charge
Exempted, he who knew so temperately
To lay out fortune’s gifts; and Niccolo,

Who first the spice’s costly luxury

Discovered in that garden, where such seed
Roots deepest in the soil: and be that troop
Exempted, with whom Caccia of Asciano
Lavished his vineyards and wide-spreading woods,
And his rare wisdom Abbagliato showed

A spectacle for all. That thou mayst know 130
Who seconds thee against the Sienese

Thus gladly, bend this way thy sharpened sight,
That well my face may answer to thy ken;

So shalt thou see I am Capocchio’s ghost,

Who forged transmuted metals by the power

Of alchemy; and if I scan thee right,

Thou needs must well remember how I aped
Creative nature by my subtle art.’

CANTO XXX

ARGUMENT

In the same gulf, other kinds of impostors, as those who have counterfeited
the persons of others, or debased the current coin, or deceived by speech
under false pretences, are described as suffering various diseases. Sinon
of Troy and Adamo of Brescia mutually reproach each other with their
several impostures.

Wuat time resentment burned in Juno’s breast
For Semele against the Theban blood,

As more than once in dire mischance was rued ;
Such fatal frenzy seized on Athamas,

That he his spouse beholding with a babe

Laden on either arm, ‘Spread out,’ he cried,
‘The meshes, that I take the lioness

And the young lions at the pass:’ then forth
Stretched he his merciless talons, grasping one,
One helpless innocent, Learchus named, 10
Whom swinging down he dashed upon a rock ;
And with her other burden, self-destroyed,

The hapless mother plunged. And when the pride
Of all presuming Troy fell from its height,

CANTO Xxx] HELL 103

By fortune overwhelmed, and the old king

With his realm perished; then did Hecuba,

A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw
Polyxena first slaughtered, and her son,

Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach

Next met the mourner’s view, then reft of sense 20
Did she run barking even as a dog ;

Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul.
But ne’er the Furies, or of Thebes, or Troy,
With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads
Infixing in the limbs of man or beast,

As now two pale and naked ghosts I saw,

That gnarling wildly scampered, like the swine
Excluded from his sty. One reached Capocchio,
And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs,

Dragged him, that o’er the solid pavement rubbed 30
His belly stretched out prone. The other shape,
He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake:
‘That sprite of air is Schicchi; in like mood
Of random mischief vents he still his spite.’
To whom I answering: ‘Oh! as thou dost hope
The other may not flesh its jaws on thee,
Be patient to inform us, who it is,
Ere it speed hence.’—‘ That is the ancient soul
Of wretched Myrrha,’ he replied, ‘ who burned
With most unholy flame for her own sire, 40
And a false shape assuming, so performed
The deed of sin; e’en as the other there,
That onward passes, dared to counterfeit
Donati’s features, to feigned testament _
The seal affixing, that himself might gain,
For his own share, the lady of the herd.’
When vanished the two furious shades, on whom

104 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxx

Mine eye was held, I turned it back to view
The other curséd spirits. One I saw
In fashion like a lute, had but the groin 50
Been severed where it meets the forkéd part.
Swoln dropsy, disproportioning the limbs
With ill-converted moisture, that the paunch
Suits not the visage, opened wide his lips,
Gasping as in the hectic man for drought,
One towards the chin, the other upward curled.
‘O ye! who in this world of misery,
Wherefore I know not, are exempt from pain,’
Thus he began, ‘ attentively regard
Adamo’s woe. When living, full supply 60
Ne’er lacked me of what most I coveted ;
One drop of water now, alas! I crave.
The rills, that glitter down the grassy slopes
Of Casentino, making fresh and soft
The banks whereby they glide to Arno’s stream,
Stand ever in my view; and not in vain;
For more the pictured semblance dries me up,
Much more than the disease, which makes the flesh
Desert these shrivelled cheeks. So from the place,
Where I transgressed, stern justice urging me, 70
Takes means to quicken more my labouring sighs.
There is Romena, where I falsified
The metal with the Baptist’s form impressed,
For which on earth I left my body burnt.
But if I here might see the sorrowing soul
Of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,
For Branda’s limpid spring I would not change
The welcome sight. One is e’en now within,
If truly the mad spirits tell, that round
Are wandering. But wherein besteads me that ? 80
My limbs are fettered. Were I but so light,
That I each hundred years might move one inch,
I had set forth already on this path,
Seeking him out amidst the shapeless crew,
Although eleven miles it wind, not less
Than half of one across. They brought me down
Among this tribe ; induced by them, I stamped
The florins with three carats of alloy.’
‘Who are that abject pair,’ I next inquired,
‘That closely bounding thee upon thy right go
Lie smoking, like a hand in winter steeped
In the chill stream ?’—‘ When to this gulf I dropped,’
He answered, ‘here I found them; since that hour
They have not turned, nor ever shall, I ween,
Till time hath run his course. One is that dame,
The false accuser of the Hebrew youth ;

Lines 48-145] HELL 105

Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy.

Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out,

In such a cloud upsteamed.’ When that he heard,

One, galled perchance to be so darkly named, 100
With clenched hand smote him on the braced paunch,
That like a drum resounded: but forthwith

Adamo smote him on the face, the blow

Returning with his arm, that seemed as hard.

‘Though my o’erweighty limbs have ta’en from me
The power to move,’ said he, ‘I have an arm
At liberty for such employ.’ To whom
Was answered: ‘When thou wentest to the fire,

Thou hadst it not so ready at command;
Then readier when it coined the impostor gold.’ 110

And thus the dropsied: ‘ Aye, now speak’st thou true:
But there thou gavest not such true testimony,

When thou wast questioned of the truth, at Troy.’

‘If I spake false, thou falsely stamp’dst the coin,’
Said Sinon; ‘I am here for but one fault,

And thou for more than any imp beside.’

“Remember,” he replied, ‘O perjured one!

The horse remember, that did teem with death ;
And all the world be witness to thy guilt.’

“To thine,’ returned the Greek, ‘ witness the thirst 120
Whence thy tongue cracks, witness the fluid mound
Reared by thy belly up before thine eyes,

A mass corrupt.’ To whom the coiner thus:

‘Thy mouth gapes wide as ever to let pass

Its evil saying. Me if thirst assails,

Yet I am stuffed with moisture. Thou art parched:
Pains rack thy head: no urging wouldst thou need
To make thee lap Narcissus’ mirror up.’

I was all fixed to listen, when my guide
Admonished: ‘ Now beware. A little more, 130
And I do quarrel with thee.’ I perceived
How angrily he spake, and towards him turned
With shame so poignant, as remembered yet
Confounds me. As a man that dreams of harm
Befallen him, dreaming wishes it a dream,

And that which is, desires as if it were not;

Such then was I, who, wanting power to speak,
Wished to excuse myself, and all the while

Excused me, though unweeting that I did.

‘More grievous fault than thine has been, less shame, 140
My master cried, ‘might expiate. Therefore cast
All sorrow from thy soul; and if again |
Chance bring thee where like conference is held,

Think I am ever at thy side. To hear
Such wrangling is a joy for vulgar minds.

106 THE VISION OF DANTE = (Canto xxx

CANTO XXXI

ARGUMENT

The Poets, following the sound of a loud horn, are led by it to the ninth
circle, in which there are four rounds, one enclosed within the other, and
containing as many sorts of Traitors; but the present Canto shows only
that the circle is encompassed with Giants, one of whom, Antaeus, takes
them both in his arms and places them at the bottom of the circle.

THE very tongue, whose keen reproof before
Had wounded me, that either cheek was stained,
Now ministered my cure. So have I heard,
Achilles’ and his father’s javelin caused
Pain first, and then the boon of health restored.
Turning our back upon the vale of woe,
We crossed the encircled mound in silence. There
Was less than day and less than night, that far
Mine eye advanced not: but I heard a horn
Sounded so loud, the peal it rang had made 10
The thunder feeble. Following its course
The adverse way, my strainéd eyes were bent
On that one spot. So terrible a blast
Orlando blew not, when that dismal rout
O’erthrew the host of Charlemagne, and quenched
His saintly warfare. Thitherward not long
My head was raised, when many a lofty tower
Methought I spied. ‘ Master,’ said I, ‘ what land
Is this?’ He answered straight: ‘Too long a space
Of intervening darkness has thine eye 20
To traverse: thou hast therefore widely erred
In thy imagining. Thither arrived
Thou well shalt see, how distance can delude
The sense. A little therefore urge thee on.’
Then tenderly he caught me by the hand ;
‘Yet know,’ said he, ‘ere farther we advance,
That it less strange may seem, these are not towers,
But giants. In the pit they stand immersed,
Each from his navel downward, round the bank.’
As when a fog disperseth gradually, 30
Our vision traces what the mist involves
Condensed in air; so piercing through the gross
And gloomy atmosphere, as more and more
We neared toward the brink, mine error fled,
And fear came o’er me. As with circling round
Of turrets, Montereggion crowns his walls ;
E’en thus the shore, encompassing the abyss,
Was turreted with giants, half their length
Uprearing, horrible, whom Jove from heaven
Yet threatens, when his muttering thunder rolls. 40

Of one already I descried the face,
Shoulders, and breast, and of the belly huge
Great part, and both arms down along his ribs,
All-teeming Nature, when her plastic hand
Left framing of these monsters, did display
Past doubt her wisdom, taking from mad War
Such slaves to do his bidding; and if she
Repent her not of the elephant and whale,
Who ponders well confesses her therein
Wiser and more discreet; for when brute force
And evil will are backed with subtlety,
Resistance none avails. His visage seemed
In length and bulk, as doth the pine that tops
Saint Peter’s Roman fane; and the other bones
Of like proportion, so that from above
The bank, which girdled him below, such height
Arose his stature, that three Frieslanders
Had striven in vain to reach but to his hair.
Full thirty ample palms was he exposed
Downward from whence a man his garment loops.
*Raphel bai ameth, sabi almi:’
So shouted his fierce lips, which sweeter hymns
Became not; and my guide addressed him thus:
‘O senseless spirit! let thy horn for thee
Interpret: therewith vent thy rage, if rage
Or other passion wring thee. Search thy neck,
There shalt thou find the belt that binds it on.
Spirit confused! lo, on thy mighty breast
Where hangs the baldrick!’ Then to me he spake:
“He doth accuse himself. Nimrod is this,
Through whose ill counsel in the world no more
One tongue prevails. But pass we on, nor waste
Our words; for so each language is to him,
As his to others, understood by none.’
Then to the leftward turning sped we forth,
And at a sling’s throw found another shade
Far fiercer and more huge. I cannot say
What master hand had girt him; but he held
Behind the right arm fettered, and before,
The other, with a chain, that fastened him
From the neck down; and five times round his form
Apparent met the wreathéd links. ‘This proud one
Would of his strength against almighty Jove
Make trial,’ said my guide: ‘ whence he is thus
Requited: Ephialtes him they call.
Great was his prowess, when the giants brought —
Fear on the gods: those arms, which then he plied,
Now moves he never.’ Forthwith I returned :
‘Fain would I, if ’twere possible, mine eyes,

LINES 1-89] HELL 107

5°

60

7O

so

108 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxx1

Of Briareus immeasurable, gained go
Experience next.’ He answered: ‘Thou shalt see

Not far from hence Antaeus, who both speaks

And is unfettered, who shall place us there

Where guilt is at its depth. Far onward stands

Whom thou wouldst fain behold, in chains, and made
Like to this spirit, save that in his looks

More fell he seems.’ By violent earthquake rocked
Ne’er shook a tower, so reeling to its base,

As Ephialtes. More than ever then
I dreaded death; nor than the terror more 100
Had needed, if I had not seen the cords
That held him fast. We, straightway journeying on,
Came to Antaeus, who, five ells complete
Without the head, forth issued from the cave.
‘O thou, who in the fortunate vale, that made
Great Scipio heir of glory, when his sword
Drove back the troop of Hannibal in flight,
Who thence of old didst carry for thy spoil
An hundred lions; and if thou hadst fought

CANTO XXXII] HELL 109

In the high conflict on thy brethren’s side, 110
Seems as men yet believed, that through thine arm

The sons of earth had conquered ; now vouchsafe

To place us down beneath, where numbing cold

Locks up Cocytus. Force not that we crave

Or Tityus’ help or Typhon’s. Here is one

Can give what in this realm ye covet. Stoop

Therefore, nor scornfully distort thy lip.

He in the upper world can yet bestow

Renown on thee; for he doth live, and looks

For life yet longer, if before the time 120
Grace call him not unto herself.’ Thus spake

The teacher. He in haste forth stretched his hands
And caught my guide. Alcides whilom felt

That grapple, straitened sore. Soon as my guide

Had felt it, he bespake me thus: ‘This way,

That I may clasp thee;’ then so caught me up,

That we were both one burden. As appears

The tower of Carisenda, from beneath

Where it doth lean, if chance a passing cloud

So sail across, that opposite it hangs ; 130
Such then Antaeus seemed, as at mine ease

I marked him stooping. I were fain at times

To have passed another way. Yet in the abyss,

That Lucifer with Judas low ingulfs,

Lightly he placed us; nor, there leaning, stayed ;

But rose, as in a bark the stately mast.

CANTO XXXII

ARGUMENT

This Canto treats of the first, and, in part, of the second of those rounds,
into which the ninth and last, or frozen circle, is divided. In the former,
called Caina, Dante finds Camicion de’ Pazzi, who gives him an account
of other sinners who are there punished ; and in the next, named Ante-
nora, he hears in like manner from Bocca degli Abati who his fellow
sufferers are.

Coutp I command rough rhymes and hoarse, to suit
That hole of sorrow o’er which every rock _

His firm abutment rears, then might the vein

Of fancy rise full springing: but not mine

Such measures, and with faltering awe I touch

The mighty theme; for to describe the depth

Of all the universe, is no emprize

To jest with, and demands a tongue not used

To infant babbling. But let them assist _

My song, the tuneful maidens, by whose aid fe)

110 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxx1t

Amphion walled in Thebes; so with the truth

My speech shall best accord. Oh ill-starred folk,
Beyond all others wretched! who abide

In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words
To speak of, better had ye here on earth

Been flocks, or mountain goats. As down we stood
In the dark pit beneath the giants’ feet,

But lower far than they, and I did gaze

Still on the lofty battlement, a voice

Bespake me thus: ‘Look how thou walkest. Take 20
Good heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads

Of thy poor brethren.’ Thereupon I turned,

And saw before and underneath my feet

A lake, whose frozen surface liker seemed

To glass than water. Not so thick a veil
In winter e’er hath Austrian Danube spread
O’er his still course, nor Tanais far remote
Under the chilling sky. Rolled o’er that mass
Had Tabernicch or Pietrapana fallen,
Not e’en its rim had creaked. As peeps the frog 30
Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams
The village gleaner oft pursues her toil,
So, to where modest shame appears, thus low
Blue pinched and shrined in ice the spirits stood,
Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.
His face each downward held; their mouth the cold,
Their eyes expressed the dolour of their heart.
A space I looked around, then at my feet
Saw two so strictly joined, that of their head
The very hairs were mingled. ‘Tell me ye, 40

Lines 11-89] HELL 111

Whose bosoms thus together press,’ said T,

“Who are ye?’ At that sound their necks they bent ;
And when their looks were lifted up to me,
Straightway their eyes, before all moist within,
Distilled upon their lips, and the frost bound

The tears betwixt those orbs, and held them there.
Plank unto plank hath never cramp closed up

So stoutly. Whence, like two enraged goats,

They clashed together: them such fury seized.

And one, from whom the cold both ears had reft, 50
Exclaimed, still looking downward: ‘Why on us
Dost speculate so long? If thou wouldst know
Who are these two, the valley, whence his wave
Bisenzio slopes, did for its master own
Their sire Alberto, and next him themselves.

They from one body issued: and throughout
Caina thou mayst search, nor find a shade

More worthy in congealment to be fixed ;

Not him, whose breast and shadow Arthur’s hand
At that one blow dissevered ; not Focaccia ; 60
No, not this spirit, whose o’erjutting head
Obstructs my onward view: he bore the name
Of Mascheroni: Tuscan if thou be,

Well knowest who he was. And to cut short

All further question, in my form behold

What once was Camicion. I await

Carlino here my kinsman, whose deep guilt

Shall wash out mine.’ A thousand visages

Then marked I, which the keen and eager cold
Had shaped into a doggish grin; whence creeps 70
A shivering horror o’er me, at the thought

Of those frore shallows. While we journeyed on
Toward the middle, at whose point unites

All heavy substance, and I trembling went
Through that eternal chillness, [ know not

Tf will it were, or destiny, or chance,

But, passing ’midst the heads, my foot did strike
With violent blow against the face of one.

‘Wherefore dost bruise me ?’ weeping he exclaimed.
‘Unless thy errand be some fresh revenge So
For Montaperto, wherefore troublest me ?’

I thus: ‘Instructor, now await me here,

That I through him may rid me of my doubt:
Thenceforth what haste thou wilt.’ The teacher paused ;
And to that shade I spake, who bitterly

Still cursed me in his wrath. ‘What art thou, speak,
That railest thus on others?’ He replied:

‘Now who art thou, that smiting others’ cheeks,
Through Antenora roamest, with such force

112 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro xxxu

As were past sufferance, wert thou living still ?’ go
‘And I am living, to thy joy perchance,’
Was my reply, ‘if fame be dear to thee,
That with the rest I may thy name enrol.’
‘The contrary of what I covet most,’
Said he, ‘thou tender’st: hence! nor vex me more.
Ill knowest thou to flatter in this vale.’
Then seizing on his hinder scalp I cried:
‘Name thee, or not a hair shall tarry here.’
“Rend all away,’ he answered, ‘ yet for that
I will not tell, nor show thee, who I am, 100
Though at my head thou pluck a thousand times.’
Now I had grasped his tresses, and stripped off
More than one tuft, he barking, with his eyes
Drawn in and downward, when another cried,
‘What ails thee, Bocca ? Sound not loud enough
Thy chattering teeth, but thou must bark outright ?
What devil wrings thee ?’—‘ Now,’ said I, ‘ be dumb,
Accurséd traitor! To thy shame, of thee
True tidings will I bear.’—‘ Off!’ he replied ;
‘Tell what thou list: but, as thou scape from hence, 110
To speak of him whose tongue hath been so glib,
Forget not: here he wails the Frenchman’s gold.
“Him of Duera,” thou canst say, ‘“‘I marked,
‘“* Where the starved sinners pine.” If thou be asked
What other shade was with them, at thy side
Is Beccaria, whose red gorge distained
The biting axe of Florence. Farther on,
If I misdeem not, Soldanieri bides,
With Ganellon, and Tribaldello, him
Who oped Faenza when the people slept.’ 120
We now had left him, passing on our way,
When I beheld two spirits by the ice
Pent in one hollow, that the head of one
Was cowl unto the other; and as bread
Is ravened up through hunger, the uppermost
Did so apply his fangs to the other’s brain,
Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously
On Menalippus’ temples Tydeus gnawed,
Than on that skull and on its garbage he.
*O thou! who show’st so beastly sign of hate 130
’*Gainst him thou prey’st on, let me hear,’ said I,
‘The cause, on such condition, that if right
Warrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are,
And what the colour of his sinning was,
I may repay thee in the world above,
It that, wherewith I speak, be moist so long.’

CANTO XXXIIT] HELL 113

CANTO XXXIII

ARGUMENT

The Poet is told by Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi of the cruel manner in
which he and his children were famished in the tower at Pisa, by com-

mand of the Archbishop Ruggieri. He next discourses of the third round,
called Ptolomea, wherein those are punished who have betrayed others
under the semblance of kindness; and among these he finds the Friar
Alberigo de’ Manfredi, who tells him of one whose soul was already tor-

mented in that place, though his body appeared still to be alive upon the
earth, being yielded up to the governance of a fiend.

His jaws uplifting from their fell repast,

That sinner wiped them on the hairs o’ the head,
Which he behind had mangled, then began:

‘Thy will obeying, I call up afresh

Sorrow past cure; which, but to think of, wrings
My heart, or ere I tell on’t. But if words,

That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear

Fruit of eternal infamy to him,

The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once

Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be 10
I know not, nor how here below art come:

But Florentine thou seemest of a truth,

When I do hear thee. Know, I was on earth
Count Ugolino, and the Archbishop he

Ruggieri. Why I neighbour him so close,

Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts
In him my trust reposing, I was ta’en

And after murdered, need is not I tell.

What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is,
How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear, 20
And know if he have wronged me. A small grate
Within that mew, which for my sake the name

Of famine bears, where others yet must pine,
Already through its opening several moons

Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep

That from the future tore the curtain off.

This one, methought, as master of the sport,

Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf, and his whelps,
Unto the mountain which forbids the sight

Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs 30
Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged

Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.

After short course the father and the sons

Seemed tired and lagging, and methought I saw
The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke,
Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard

My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask

114 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxm

For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang

Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold ;
And if not now, why use thy tears to flow ? 40
Now had they wakened; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I
Heard, at its outlet underneath locked up

The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word,
I looked upon the visage of my sons.

I wept not: so all stone I felt within.

They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried,
“Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee?” Yet

S

—

“il

I shed no tear, nor answered all that day 50
Nor the next night, until another sun

Came out upon the world. When a faint beam

Had to our doleful prison made its way,

And in four countenances I descried

The image of my own, on either hand

Through agony [ bit; and they, who thought

I did it through desire of feeding, rose

O’ the sudden, and cried, “‘ Father, we should grieve
“Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest
“These weeds of miserable flesh we wear ; 60
“And do thou strip them off from us again.”

Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down

My spirit in stillness. That day and the next

We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth !

LINEs 38-97] HELL

Why open’dst not upon us? When we came

To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretched did fling him, crying, “Hast no help
‘For me, my father!” There he died; and e’en
Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three

Fall one by one *twixt the fifth day and sixth:
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud

Called on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
The mastery of grief.” Thus having spoke,

Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth

He fastened like a mastiff’s ’gainst the bone,
Firm and unyielding. Oh, thou Pisa! shame

Of all the people, who their dwelling make

In that fair region, where the Italian voice

a
— — —
— = =
<= =—
—

|

115

Is heard; since that thy neighbours are so slack

To punish, from their deep foundations rise

Caprara and Gorgona, and dam up

The mouth of Arno; that each soul in thee

May perish in the waters. What if fame

Reported that thy castles were betrayed

By Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou

To stretch his children on the rack. For them,

Brigata, Uguccione, and the pair

Of gentle ones, of whom my song hath told,

Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make

Uncapable of guilt. Onward we passed,

Where others, scarfed in rugged folds of ice,

Not on their feet were turned, but each reversed.
There, very weeping suffers not to weep ;

For, at their eyes, grief, seeking passage, finds

Impediment, and rolling inward turns

For increase of sharp anguish: the first tears

116 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxu1

Hang clustered, and like crystal vizors show,
Under the socket brimming all the cup.
Now though the cold had from my face dislodged 100
Each feeling, as ’t were callous, yet meseemed
Some breath of wind I felt. ‘Whence cometh this,’
Said I, ‘my Master? Is not here below
All vapour quenched ?’—‘ Thou shalt be speedily,’
He answered, ‘ where thine eyes shall tell thee whence,
The cause deserying of this airy shower.’
Then cried out one, in the chill crust who mourned :
*“O souls! so cruel, that the farthest post
Hath been assigned you, from this face remove
The hardened veil; that I may vent the grief IIo
Impregnate at my heart, some little space,
Ere it congeal again.’ I thus replied:
‘Say who thou wast, if thou wouldst have mine aid ;
And if I extricate thee not, far down
As to the lowest ice may I descend.’
‘The friar Alberigo,’ answered he,
‘Am I, who from the evil garden plucked
Its fruitage, and am here repaid, the date
More luscious for my fig.’—‘ Hah!’ I exclaimed,
‘ Art thou too dead ?’—‘ How in the world aloft 120
It fareth with my body,’ answered he,
‘IT am right ignorant. Such privilege
Hath Ptolomea, that oft-times the soul
Drops hither, ere by Atropos divorced.
And that thou mayst wipe out more willingly
The glazed tear-drops that o’erlay mine eyes,
Know that the soul, that moment she betrays,
As I did, yields her body to a fiend
Who after moves and governs it at will,
Till all its time be rounded: headlong she 13¢
Falls to this cistern. And perchance above
Doth yet appear the body of a ghost,
Who here behind me winters. Him thou know’st,
If thou but newly art arrived below.
The years are many that have passed away,
Since to this fastness Branca d’Oria came.’
‘Now,’ answered I, ‘ methinks thou mockest me;
For Branca d’Oria never yet hath died,
But doth all natural functions of a man,
Kats, drinks, and sleeps, and putteth raiment on.’ 140
He thus: ‘Not yet unto that upper foss
By the evil talons guarded, where the pitch
Tenacious boils, had Michel Zanche reached,
When this one left a demon in his stead
In his own body, and of one his kin,
Who with him treachery wrought. But now put forth

CANTO XXXIV] HELL 117

Thy hand, and ope mine eyes.’ I oped them not.
Ill manners were best courtesy to him,
Ah Genoese! men perverse in every way,
With every foulness stained, why from the earth 150
Are ye not cancelled ? Such an one of yours
I with Romagna’s darkest spirit found,
As, for his doings, even now in soul
Is in Cocytus plunged, and yet doth seem
In body still alive upon the earth.

CANTO XXXIV

ARGUMENT

in the fourth and last round of the ninth circle, those who have betrayed
their benefactors are wholly covered with ice. And in the midst is Lucifer,
at whose back Dante and Virgil ascend, till by a secret path they reach
the surface of the other hemisphere of the earth, and once more obtain
sight of the stars.

‘THE banners of Hell’s Monarch do come forth
Toward us; therefore look,’ so spake my guide,
‘if thou discern him.’ As, when breathes a cloud
Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night
Fall on our hemisphere, seems viewed from far
A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round ;
Such was the fabric then methought I saw.
To shield me from the wind, forthwith I drew
Behind my guide: no covert else was there.
Now came I (and with fear I bid my strain 10
Record the marvel) where the souls were all
Whelmed underneath, transparent, as through glass
Pellucid the frail stem. Some prone were laid ;
Others stood upright, this upon the soles,
That on his head, a third with face to feet
Arched like a bow. When to the point we came,
Whereat my guide was pleased that I should see
The creature eminent in beauty once,
He from before me stepped and made me pause.
‘Lo!’ he exclaimed, ‘lo Dis; and lo the place, 20
Where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength.’
How frozen and how faint I then became,
Ask me not, reader! for I write it not;
Since words would fail to tell thee of my state.
I was not dead nor living. Think thyself,
If quick conception work in thee at all,
How I did feel. That emperor, who sways
The realm of sorrow, at mid breast from the ice
Stood forth; and I in stature am more like

118 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxiv

A giant, than the giants are his arms. 30
Mark now how great that whole must be, which suits
With such a part. If he were beautiful

As he is hideous now, and yet did dare

To scowl upon his Maker, well from him

May all our misery flow. Oh what a sight!

How passing strange it seemed, when I[ did spy

Upon his head three faces: one in front

Of hue vermilion, the other two with this

Midway each shoulder joined and at the crest ;

The right *twixt wan and yellow seemed; the left 40
To look on, such as come from whence old Nile

Stoops to the lowlands. Under each shot forth
Two mighty wings, enormous as became

A bird so vast. Sails never such I saw
Outstretched on the wide sea. No plumes had they,
But were in texture like a bat; and these

He flapped i’ the air, that from him issued still
Three winds, wherewith Cocytus to its depth

Was frozen. At six eyes he wept: the tears
Adown three chins distilled with bloody foam. 50
At every mouth his teeth a sinner champed,
Bruised as with ponderous engine; so that three
Were in this guise tormented. But far more

Than from that gnawing, was the foremost panged
By the fierce rending, whence oft-times the back
Was stripped of all its skin. ‘That upper spirit,

LINEs 30-105] HELL 119

Who hath worst punishment,’ so spake my guide,
‘Is Judas, he that hath his head within
And plies the feet without. Of the other two,
Whose heads are under, from the murky jaw 60
Who hangs, is Brutus: lo! how he doth writhe
And speaks not. The other, Cassius, that appears
So large of limb. But night now reascends ;
And it is time for parting. All is seen.’
I clipped him round the neck; for so he bade:
And noting time and place, he, when the wings
Enough were oped, caught fast the shaggy sides,
And down from pile to pile descending stepped
Between the thick fell and the jagged ice.
Soon as he reached the point, whereat the thigh 70
Upon the swelling of the haunches turns,
My leader there, with pain and struggling hard,
Turned round his head where his feet stood before,
And grappled at the fell as one who mounts ;
That into hell methought we turned again.
‘Expect that by such stairs as these,’ thus spake
The teacher, panting like a man forespent,
“We must depart from evil so extreme:’
Then at a rocky opening issued forth,
And placed me on the brink to sit, next joined 80
With wary step my side. I raised mine eyes,
Believing that I Lucifer should see
Where he was lately left, but saw him now
With legs held upward. Let the grosser sort,
Who see not what the point was I had past,
Bethink them if sore toil oppressed me then.
‘ Arise, my master cried, ‘upon thy feet.
The way is long, and much uncouth the road ;
And now within one hour and half of noon
The sun returns.’ It was no palace-hall go
Lofty and luminous wherein we stood,
But natural dungeon where ill-footing was
And scant supply of light. ‘Ere from the abyss
I separate, thus when risen I began:
“My guide! vouchsafe few words to set me free
From error’s thraldom. Where is now the ice ?
How standeth he in posture thus reversed ?
And how from eve to morn in space so brief
Hath the sun made his transit ?’ He in few
Thus answering spake: ‘Thou deemest thou art still 100
On the other side the centre, where I grasped
The abhorred worm that boreth through the world.
Thou wast on the other side, so long as I
Descended; when I turned, thou didst o’erpass
That point, to which from every part is dragged

120

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro xxxiv

All heavy substance. Thou art now arrived
Under the hemisphere opposed to that,

Which the great continent doth overspread,

And underneath whose canopy expired

The Man, that was born sinless and so lived.
Thy feet are planted on the smallest sphere,
Whose other aspect is Judecca. Morn

Here rises, when there evening sets: and he,
Whose shaggy pile we scaled, yet standeth fixed,
As at the first. On this part he fell down

From heaven; and th’ earth, here prominent before,

Through fear of him did veil her with the sea,
And to our hemisphere retired. Perchance,

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To shun him, was the vacant space left here,
By what of firm land on this side appears,
That sprang aloof.’ There is a place beneath,
From Belzebub as distant, as extends

The vaulted tomb; discovered not by sight,
But by the sound of brooklet, that descends
This way along the hollow of a rock,

Which, as it winds with no precipitous course,
The wave hath eaten. By that hidden way
My guide and [I did enter, to return

To the fair world: and heedless of repose
We climbed, he first, I following his steps,
Till on our view the beautiful lights of heaven
Dawned through a circular opening in the cave:
Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.

Ilo

130

PURGATORY

CANTO I

ARGUMENT

The Poet describes the delight he experienced at issuing a little before dawn
from the infernal regions, into the pure air that surrounds the isle of
Purgatory ; and then relates how, turning to the right, he beheld four
stars never seen before but by our first parents, and met on his left the
shade of Cato of Utica, who, having warned him and Virgil what is needful
to be done before they proceed on their way through Purgatory, dis-
appears ; and the two poets go towards the shore, where Virgil cleanses
meee face with the dew, and girds him with a reed, as Cato had com-
manded.

O’ER better waves to speed her rapid course
The light bark of my genius lifts the sail,
Well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind ;
And of that second region will I sing,
In which the human spirit from sinful blot
Is purged, and for ascent to Heaven prepares.
Here, O ye hallowed Nine! for in your train
I follow, here the deadened strain revive ;
Nor let Calliope refuse to sound
A somewhat higher song, of that loud tone 10
Which when the wretched birds of chattering note
Had heard, they of forgiveness lost all hope.
Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, that was spread
O’er the serene aspect of the pure air,
High up as the first circle, to mine eyes
Unwonted joy renewed, soon as I ’scaped
Forth from the atmosphere of deadly gloom,
That had mine eyes and bosom filled with grief.
The radiant planet, that to love invites,
Made all the orient laugh, and veiled beneath 20
The Pisces’ light, that in his escort came.
To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind
On the other pole attentive, where I saw
Four stars ne’er seen before save by the ken
Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays
Seemed joyous. O thou northern site! bereft
Indeed, and widowed, since of these deprived.
As from this view I had desisted, straight
Turning a little towards the other pole,
There from whence now the wain had disappeared, 30

122 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto I

IT saw an old man standing by my side
Alone, so worthy of reverence in his look,
That ne’er from son to father more was owed.
Low down his beard, and mixed with hoary white,
Descended, like his locks, which, parting, fell
Upon his breast in double fold. The beams
Of those four luminaries on his face
So brightly shone, and with such radiance clear
Decked it, that I beheld him as the sun.

‘Say who are ye, that stemming the blind stream, 4c
Forth from the eternal prison-house have fled ?’
He spoke and moved those venerable plumes.

‘Who hath conducted, or with lantern sure
Lights you emerging from the depth of night,
That makes the infernal valley ever black ?
Are the firm statutes of the dread abyss
Broken, or in high heaven new laws ordained,
That thus, condemned, ye to my caves approach ?’
My guide, then laying hold on me, by words
And intimations given with hand and head, 50
Made my bent knees and eye submissive pay
Due reverence; then thus to him replied:
“Not of myself I come; a Dame from heaven
Descending, him besought me in my charge
To bring. But since thy will implies, that more
Our true condition I unfold at large,
Mine is not to deny thee thy request.

LINEs 31-106] PURGATORY

This mortal ne’er hath seen the farthest gloom ;

But erring by his folly had approached —

So near, that little space was left to turn.

Then, as before I told, I was dispatched

To work his rescue; and no way remained

Save this which I have ta’en. I have displayed

Before him all the regions of the bad:

And purpose now those spirits to display,

That under thy command are purged from sin.

How I have brought him would be long to say.

From high descends the virtue, by whose aid

I to thy sight and hearing him have led.

Now may our coming please thee. In the search

Of liberty he journeys: that how dear,

They know who for her sake have life refused.

Thou knowest, to whom death for her was sweet

In Utica, where thou didst leave those weeds,

That in the last great day will shine so bright.

For us the eternal edicts are unmoved:

He breathes, and I of Minos am not bound,

Abiding in that circle, where the eyes

Of thy chaste Marcia beam, who still in look

Prays thee, O hallowed spirit! to own her thine.

Then by her love we implore thee, let us pass

Through thy seven regions; for which, best thanks

I for thy favour will to her return,

If mention there below thou not disdain.’
‘Marcia so pleasing in my sight was found,’

He then to him rejoined, ‘ while I was there,

That all she asked me I was fain to grant.

Now that beyond the accurséd stream she dwells,

She may no longer move me, by that law,

Which was ordained me, when I issued thence.

Not so, if Dame from heaven, as thou sayst,

Moves and directs thee; then no flattery needs.

Enough for me that in her name thou ask.

Go therefore now: and with a slender reed

See that thou duly gird him, and his face

Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence.

For not with eye, by any cloud obscured,

Would it be seemly before him to come,

Who stands the foremost minister in heaven.

This islet all around, there far beneath,

Where the wave beats it, on the oozy bed

Produces store of reeds. No other plant,

Covered with leaves, or hardened in its stalk,

There lives, not bending to the water’s sway.

After, this way return not; but the sun

Will show you, that now rises, where to take

60

79°

80

go

100

124 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO 1

The mountain in its easiest ascent.’

He disappeared ; and I myself upraised
Speechless, and to my guide retiring close,
Toward him turned mine eyes. He thus began: IIO
‘My son! observant thou my steps pursue.

We must retreat to rearward ; for that way
The champain to its low extreme declines.’

The dawn had chased the matin hour of prime,
Which fled before it, so that from afar
I spied the trembling of the ocean stream.

We traversed the deserted plain, as one
Who, wandered from his track, thinks every step
Trodden in vain till he regain the path.

foes

When we had come, where yet the tender dew 120
Strove with the sun, and in a place where fresh
The wind breathed o’er it, while it slowly dried ;
Both hands extended on the watery grass
My master placed, in graceful act and kind.
Whence I of his intent before apprised,
Stretched out to him my cheeks suffused with tears.
There to my visage he anew restored
That hue which the dun shades of hell concealed.
Then on the solitary shore arrived,
That never sailing on its waters saw 130
Man that could after measure back his course,
He girt me in such manner as had pleased
Him who instructed; and O strange to tell!
As he selected every humble plant,
Wherever one was plucked another there
Resembling, straightway in its place arose.

CANTO 11] PURGATORY 125

CANTO II

ARGUMENT
They behold a vessel under conduct of an angel, coming over the waves
with spirits to Purgatory, among whom, when the passengers have landed
Dante recognizes his friend Casella; but, while they are entertained by
him with a song, they hear Cato exclaiming against their negligent loiter-
ing, and at that rebuke hasten forwards to the mountain. .

Now had the sun to that horizon reached,

That covers, with the most exalted point

Of its meridian circle, Salem’s walls ;

And night, that opposite to him her orb

Rounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,
Holding the scales, that from her hands are dropped
When she reigns highest: so that where I was,
Aurora’s white and vermeil-tinctured cheek

To orange turned as she in age increased.

Meanwhile we lingered by the water’s brink, Ke)
Like men, who, musing on their road, in thought
Journey, while motionless the body rests.

When lo! as, near upon the hour of dawn,

Through the thick vapours Mars with fiery beam
Glares down in west, over the ocean floor ;

So seemed, what once again I hope to view,

A light, so swiftly coming through the sea,

No wingéd course might equal its career.

From which when for a space I had withdrawn

Mine eyes, to make inquiry of my guide, 20
Again I looked, and saw it grown in size

And brightness: then on either side appeared
Something, but what I knew not, of bright hue,

And by degrees from underneath it came

Another. My preceptor silent yet

Stood, while the brightness, that we first discerned,
Opened the form of wings: then when he knew

The pilot, cried aloud, ‘ Down, down ; bend low

Thy knees; behold God’s angel: fold thy hands:
Now shalt thou see true ministers indeed. 30
Lo! how all human means he sets at naught ;

So that nor oar he needs, nor other sail

Except his wings, between such distant shores.

Lo! how straight up to heaven he holds them reared,
Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes,

That not like mortal hairs fall off or change.’

As more and more toward us came, more bright
Appeared the bird of God, nor could the eye
Endure his splendour near: I mine bent down.

He drove ashore in a small bark so swift 40

126

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto II

And light, that in its course no wave it drank.

The heavenly steersman at the prow was seen,

Visibly written Blesséd in his looks.

Within, a hundred spirits and more there sat.
‘In Exitu Israel de Aegypto,’

All with one voice together sang, with what

In the remainder of that hymn is writ.

Then soon as with the sign of holy cross

He blessed them, they at once leaped out on land:

He, swiftly as he came, returned. The crew,

There left, appeared astounded with the place,

Gazing around, as one who sees new sights.

From every side the sun darted his beams,
And with his arrowy radiance from mid heaven
Had chased the Capricorn, when that strange tribe,
Lifting their eyes toward us: ‘If ye know,
Declare what path will lead us to the mount.’
Them Virgil answered: ‘ Ye suppose, perchance,
Us well acquainted with this place: but here,
We, as yourselves, are strangers. Not long erst
We came, before you but a little space,
By other road so rough and hard, that now
The ascent will seem to us as play.’ The spirits,
Who from my breathing had perceived I lived,
Grew pale with wonder. As the multitude
Flock round a herald sent with olive branch,
To hear what news he brings, and in their haste

T/y

4f
Yy
Ss

5°

60

LINES 41-97] PURGATORY 127

Tread one another down; e’en so at sight

Of me those happy spirits were fixed, each one

Forgetful of its errand to depart 70

Where, cleansed from sin, it might be made all fair.
Then one I saw darting before the rest

With such fond ardour to embrace me, I

To do the like was moved. O shadows vain!

Except in outward semblance: thrice my hands

I clasped behind it, they as oft returned

Empty into my breast again. Surprise

I need must think was painted in my looks,

For that the shadow smiled and backward drew.

To follow it I hastened, but with voice 80

Of sweetness it enjoined me to desist.

Then who it was I knew, and prayed of it,

To talk with me it would a little pause.

It answered: ‘Thee as in my mortal frame

I loved, so loosed from it I love thee still,

And therefore pause: but why walkest thou here ?’
“Not without purpose once more to return,

Thou find’st me, my Casella, where I am,

Journeying this way,’ I said: ‘ but how of thee

Hath so much time been lost ?’ He answered straight: 90
‘No outrage hath been done to me, if he,

Who when and whom he chooses takes, hath oft

Denied me passage here; since of just will

His will he makes. These three months past indeed,

He, whoso chose to enter, with free leave

Hath taken; whence I wandering by the shore

Where Tiber’s wave grows salt, of him gained kind

128 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto II

Admittance, at that river's mouth, toward which
His wings are pointed; for there always throng
All such as not to Acheron descend.’

100
Then I: ‘If new law taketh not from thee

Memory or custom of love-tuned song,

That whilom all my cares had power“to assuage ;

Please thee therewith a little to console

My spirit, that encumbered with its frame,

Travelling so far, of pain is overcome.’
‘Love, that discourses in my thoughts,’ he then

Began in such soft accents, that within

The sweetness thrills me yet. My gentle guide,

And all who came with him, so well were pleased, 1IO

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That seemed naught else might in their thoughts have room.
Fast fixed in mute attention to his notes
We stood, when lo! that old man venerable
Exclaiming, ‘ How is this, ye tardy spirits ?
What negligence detains you loitering here ?
Run to the mountain to cast off those scales,
That from your eyes the sight of God conceal.’
As a wild flock of pigeons, to their food
Collected, blade or tares, without their pride
Accustomed, and in still and quiet sort, 120
If aught alarm them, suddenly desert
Their meal, assailed by more important care ;
So I that new-come troop beheld, the song
Deserting, hasten to the mountain’s side,
As one who goes, yet, where he tends, knows not.
Nor with less hurried step did we depart.

CaNnro 111] PURGATORY 129

CANTO III

ARGUMENT

Our Poet, perceiving no shadow except that cast by his own body, is fearful
that Virgil has deserted him; but he is freed from that error, and both
arrive together at the foot of the mountain: on finding it too steep to
climb, they inquire the way from a troop of spirits that are coming towards
them, and are by them shown which is the easiest ascent. Manfredi, king
of Naples, who is one of these spirits, bids Dante inform his daughter
Costanza, queen of Aragon, of the manner in which he had died.

THEM sudden flight had scattered o’er the plain,
Turned towards the mountain, whither reason’s voice
Drives us: I, to my faithful company
Adhering, left it not. For how, of him
Deprived, might I have sped? or who, beside,
Would o’er the mountainous tract have led my steps ?
He, with the bitter pang of self-remorse,
Seemed smitten. O clear conscience, and upright !
How doth a little failing wound thee sore.

Soon as his feet desisted (slackening pace) 10
From haste, that mars all decency of act,
My mind, that in itself before was wrapped,
Its thought expanded, as with joy restored ;
And full against the steep ascent I set
My face, where highest to heaven its top o’erflows.

The sun, that flared behind, with ruddy beam
Before my form was broken; for in me
His rays resistance met. I turned aside
With fear of being left, when I beheld
Only before myself the ground obscured. 20
When thus my solace, turning him around,
Bespake me kindly: ‘Why distrustest thou ?
Believest not I am with thee, thy sure guide ?
It now is evening there, where buried lies
The body in which I cast a shade, removed
To Naples from Brundusium’s wall. Nor thou
Marvel, if before me no shadow fall,
More than that in the skyey element
One ray obstructs not other. To endure
Torments of heat and cold extreme, like frames
That virtue hath disposed, which, how it works,
Wills not to us should be revealed. Insane,
Who hopes our reason may that space explore,
Which holds three persons in one substance knit.
Seek not the wherefore, race of human kind ;
Could ye have seen the whole, no need had been
For Mary to bring forth. Moreover, ye
Have seen such men desiring fruitlessly ;

oe)
O

130 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto 11

To whose desires, repose would have been given,

That now but serve them for eternal grief. 40
I speak of Plato, and the Stagirite,

And others many more.’ And then he bent

Downwards his forehead, and in troubled mood

Broke off his speech. Meanwhile we had arrived

Far as the mountain’s foot, and there the rock

Found of so steep ascent, that nimblest steps

To climb it had been vain. The most remote,

Most wild, untrodden path, in all the tract

*Twixt Lerice and Turbia, were to this

A ladder easy and open of access. 50

‘Who knows on which hand now the steep declines ? ’
My master said, and paused; ‘so that he may
Ascend, who journeys without aid of wing ?’

And while, with looks directed to the ground,
The meaning of the pathway he explored,

And I gazed upward round the stony height ;

On the left hand appeared to us a troop

Of spirits, that toward us moved their steps ;
Yet moving seemed not, they so slow approached.

I thus my guide addressed: ‘ Upraise thine eyes: 60
Lo! that way some, of whom thou mayst obtain
Counsel, if of thyself thou find’st it not.’

Straightway he looked, and with free speech replied :
‘Let us tend thither: they but softly come.

And thou be firm in hope, my son beloved.’

Now was that crowd from us distant as far,
(When we some thousand steps, I say, had passed,)
As at a throw the nervous arm could fling ;

When all drew backward on the massy crags
Of the steep bank, and firmly stood unmoved, 70
As one, who walks in doubt, might stand to look.
‘O spirits perfect ! O already chosen!’
Virgil to them began: ‘by that blest peace,
Which, as I deem, is for you all prepared,
Instruct us where the mountain low declines,
So that attempt to mount it be not vain.
For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves.’

As sheep, that step from forth their fold, by one,
Or pairs, or three at once; meanwhile the rest
Stand fearfully, bending the eye and nose 80
To ground, and what the foremost does, that do
The others, gathering round her if she stops,

Simple and quiet, nor the cause discern ;

So saw I moving to advance the first,

Who of that fortunate crew were at the head,
Of modest mien, and graceful in their gait.
When they before me had beheld the light

LINES 39-115] PURGATORY 131

From my right side fall broken on the ground,
So that the shadow reached the cave; they stopped,
And somewhat back retired: the same did all go
Who followed, though unweeting of the cause.
‘Unasked of you, yet freely I confess,
This is a human body which ye see.
That the sun’s light is broken on the ground,
Marvel not: but believe, that not without
Virtue derived from Heaven, we to climb
Over this wall aspire.’ So them bespake
My master; and that virtuous tribe rejoined:
‘Turn, and before you there the entrance lies ;’
Making a signal to us with bent hands. 109

Then of them one began. ‘ Whoe’er thou art,
Who journey’st thus this way, thy visage turn ;
Think if me elsewhere thou hast ever seen.’

I towards him turned, and with fixed eye beheld.
Comely and fair, and gentle of aspect
He seemed, but on one brow a gash was marked.

When humbly I disclaimed to have beheld
Him ever: ‘ Now behold!’ he said, and showed
High on his breast a wound: then smiling spake

‘I am Manfredi, grandson to the Queen 110
Costanza: whence I pray thee, when returned,

To my fair daughter go, the parent glad

Of Aragonia and Sicilia’s pride ;

And of the truth inform her, if of me

Aught else be told. When by two mortal blows
CARY a

132 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro 1

My frame was shattered, I betook myself

Weeping to him, who of free will forgives.

My sins were horrible: but so wide arms

Hath goodness infinite, that it receives

All who turn to it. Had this text divine 120
Been of Cosenza’s shepherd better scanned,

Who then by Clement on my hunt was set,

Yet at the bridge’s head my bones had lain,

Near Benevento, by the heavy mole

Protected ; but the rain now drenches them,

And the wind drives, out of the kingdom’s bounds,

Far as the stream of Verde, where, with lights
Extinguished, he removed them from their bed.

Yet by their curse we are not so destroyed,

But that the eternal love may turn, while hope 130
Retains her verdant blossom. ‘True it is,

That such one as in contumacy dies

Against the holy church, though he repent,

Must wander thirtyfold for all the time

In his presumption past; if such decree

Be not by prayers of good men shorter made.

Look therefore if thou canst advance my bliss ;
Revealing to my good Costanza, how

Thou hast beheld me, and beside, the terms

Laid on me of that interdict; for here 140
By means of those below much profit comes.’

CANTO IV

ARGUMENT

Dante and Virgil ascend the mountain of Purgatory, by a steep and narrow
path pent in on each side by rock, till they reach a part of it that opens
into a ledge or cornice. There seating themselves, and turning to the east,
Dante wonders at seeing the sun on their left, the cause of which is ex-
plained to him by Virgil; and while they continue their discourse, 2 voice
addresses them, at which they turn, and find several spirits behind the
rock, and amongst the rest one named Belacqua, who had been known to
our Poet on earth, and who tells that he is doomed to linger there on
account of his having delayed his repentance to the last.

WHEN by sensations of delight or pain,

That any of our faculties hath seized,

Entire the soul collects herself, it seems

She is intent upon that power alone ;

And thus the error is disproved, which holds
The soul not singly lighted in the breast.
And therefore whenas aught is heard or seen,
That firmly keeps the soul toward it turned,
Time passes, and a man perceives it not.

CANTO Iv] PURGATORY 133

For that, whereby we hearken, is one power ; 10
Another that, which the whole spirit hath :
This is as it were bound, while that is free.
This found I true by proof, hearing that spirit,
And wondering ; for full fifty steps aloft
The sun had measured, unobserved of me,
When we arrived where all with one accord
The spirits shouted, ‘Here is what ye ask.’
A larger aperture oft-times is stopped,
With forkéd stake of thorn by villager,
When the ripe grape imbrowns, than was the path, 20
By which my guide, and I behind him elose,
Ascended solitary, when that troop
Departing left us. On Sanleo’s road
Who journeys, or to Noli low descends,
Or mounts Bismantua’s height, must use his feet ;
But here a man had need to fly, I mean
With the swift wing and plumes of high desire,
Conducted by his aid, who gave me hope,
And with light furnished to direct my way.

We through the broken rock ascended, close 30
Pent on each side, while underneath the ground
Asked help of hands and feet. When we arrived
Near on the highest ridge of the steep bank,
Where the plain level opened, I exclaimed,
“O Master! say, which way can we proceed.’

He answered, ‘ Let no step of thine recede.
Behind me gain the mountain, till to us
Some practised guide appear.’ That eminence
Was lofty, that no eye might reach its point ;
And the side proudly rising, more than line 40
From the mid quadrant to the centre drawn.
I, wearied, thus began: ‘ Parent beloved !
Turn and behold how I remain alone,
If thou stay not.’—‘ My son!’ he straight replied,
‘Thus far put forth thy strength;’ and to a track
Pointed, that, on this side projecting, round
Circles the hill. His words so spurred me on,
That I, behind him, clambering, forced myself,
Till my feet pressed the circuit plain beneath.
There both together seated, turned we round
To eastward, whence was our ascent: and oft
Many beside have with delight looked back.

First on the nether shores I turned mine eyes,
Then raised them to the sun, and wondering marked
That from the left it smote us. Soon perceived
That poet sage, how at the car of light
Amazed I stood, where ’twixt us and the north
Its course it entered. Whence he thus to me:

wa
(@)

134 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO IV

‘Were Leda’s ofispring now in company
Of that broad mirror, that high up and low 60
Imparts his light beneath, thou mightst behold
The ruddy Zodiac nearer to the Bears
Wheel, if its ancient course it not forsook.
How that may be, if thou wouldst think; within
Pondering, imagine Sion with this mount
Placed on the earth, so that to both be one
Horizon, and two hemispheres apart,
Where lies the path that Phaéton ill knew
To guide his erring chariot: thou wilt see
How of necessity by this, on one, 70
He passes, while by that on the other side;
If with that clear view thine intellect attend.’
‘Of truth, kind teacher!’ I exclaimed, ‘so clear
Aught saw I never, as I now discern,
Where seemed my ken to fail, that the mid orb
Of the supernal motion (which in terms
Of art is called the Equator, and remains
Still ’twixt the sun and winter) for the cause
Thou hast assigned, from hence toward the north
Departs, when those, who in the Hebrew land 80
Were dwellers, saw it towards the warmer part.
But if it please thee, I would gladly know,
How far we have to journey: for the hill
Mounts higher, than this sight of mine can mount.’
He thus to me: ‘Such is this steep ascent,
That it is ever difficult at first,
But more a man proceeds, less evil grows.
When pleasant it shall seem to thee, so much
That upward going shall be easy to thee
As in a vessel to go down the tide, go
Then of this path thou wilt have reached the end.
There hope to rest thee from thy toil. No more
I answer, and thus far for certain know.’
As he his words had spoken, near to us
A voice there sounded: ‘ Yet ye first perchance
May to repose you by constraint be led.’
At sound thereof each turned; and on the left
A huge stone we beheld, of which nor I
Nor he before was ware. Thither we drew;
And there were some, who in the shady place 100
Behind the rock were standing, as a man
Through idleness might stand. Among them one,
Who seemed to be much wearied, sat him down,
And with his arms did fold his knees about,
Holding his face between them downward bent.
“Sweet Sir!’ I cried, ‘ behold that man who shows
Himself more idle than if laziness

LINEs 59-135] PURGATORY

Were sister to him.’ Straight he turned to us
And, o’er the thigh lifting his face, observed,
Then in these accents spake: ‘ Up then, proceed
Thou valiant one.’ Straight who it was I knew.
Nor could the pain I felt (for want of breath
Still somewhat urged me) hinder my approach,
And when I came to him, he scarce his head
Uplifted, saying, ‘ Well hast thou discerned,
How from the left the sun his chariot leads.’

His lazy acts and broken words my lips.
To laughter somewhat moved; when I began :
* Belacqua, now for thee I grieve no more.
But tell, why thou art seated upright there.

TU

=
f= >

Waitest thou escort to conduct thee hence ?

Or blame I only thine accustomed ways ?’

Then he: ‘My brother! of what use to mount,

When, to my suffering, would not let me pass

The bird of God, who at the portal sits ?

Behoves so long that heaven first bear me round

Without its limits, as in life it bore;

Because I, to the end, repentant sighs

Delayed ; if prayer do not aid me first,

That riseth up from heart which lives in grace.

What other kind avails, not heard in heaven ?’
Before me now the poet, up the mount

Ascending, cried: ‘Haste thee: for see the sun

Has touched the point meridian; and the night

Now covers with her foot Morocco’s shore.’

135

120

130

136 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Vv

CANTO V

ARGUMENT

They meet with others, who had deferred their repentance till they were
overtaken by a violent death, when sufficient space being allowed them,
they were then saved; and amongst these, Jacopo del Cassero, Buon-
conte da Montefeltro, and Pia, a lady of Siena.

Now had I left those spirits, and pursued

The steps of my conductor; when behind,

Pointing the finger at me, one exclaimed :

‘See, how it seems as if the light not shone

From the left hand of him beneath, and he,

As living, seems to be led on.’ Mine eyes

I at that sound reverting, saw them gaze,

Through wonder, first at me; and then at me

And the light broken underneath, by turns.

“Why are thy thoughts thus riveted, my guide 10

Exclaimed, ‘that thou hast slacked thy pace? or how

Imports it thee, what thing is whispered here ?

Come after me, and to their babblings leave

The crowd. Be as a tower, that, firmly set,

Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

He, in whose bosom thought on thought shoots out,

Still of his aim is wide, in that the one

Sicklies and wastes to naught the other’s strength.’
What other could I answer, save ‘I come’ ?

I said it, somewhat with that colour tinged, 20

Which oft-times pardon meriteth for man.
Meanwhile traverse along the hill there came,

A little way before us, some who sang

The ‘ Miserere’ in responsive strains.

When they perceived that through my body I

Gave way not for the rays to pass, their song

Straight to a long and hoarse exclaim they changed ;

And two of them, in guise of messengers,

Ran on to meet us, and inquiring asked :

‘Of your condition we would gladly learn.’ 30
To them my guide: ‘ Ye may return, and bear

Tidings to them who sent you, that his frame

Is real flesh. If, as I deem, to view

His shade they paused, enough is answered them:

Him let them honour: they may prize him well.’
Ne’er saw I fiery vapours with such speed

Cut through the serene air at fall of night,

Nor August’s clouds athwart the setting sun,

That upward these did not in shorter space

Return; and, there arriving, with the rest 40

Wheel back on us, as with loose rein a troop.

LINES 1-90] PURGATORY 137

‘Many,’ exclaimed the bard, ‘are these, who throng
Around us: to petition thee, they come.
Go therefore on, and listen as thou go’st.’
‘O spirit! who go’st on to blessedness,
With the same limbs that clad thee at thy birth,
Shouting they came: ‘a little rest thy step.
Look if thou any one amongst our tribe
Hast e’er beheld, that tidings of him there
Thou mayst report. Ah, wherefore go’st thou on ? 50
Ah, wherefore tarriest thou not? We all
By violence died, and to our latest hour
Were sinners, but then warned by light from heaven ;
So that, repenting and forgiving, we
Did issue out of life at peace with God,
Who, with desire to see him, fills our heart.’
Then I: ‘The visages of all I scan,
Yet none of ye remember. But if aught
That I can do may please you, gentle spirits!
Speak, and I will perform it; by that peace, 60
Which, on the steps of guide so excellent
Following, from world to world, intent I seek.
In answer he began: ‘ None here distrusts
Thy kindness, though not promised with an oath;
So as the will fail not for want of power.
Whence I, who sole before the others speak,
Entreat thee, if thou ever see that land
Which lies between Romagna and the realm
Of Charles, that of thy courtesy thou pray
Those who inhabit Fano, that for me 75
Their adorations duly be put up,
By which I may purge off my grievous sins.
From thence I came. But the deep passages,
Whence issued out the blood wherein I dwelt,
Upon my bosom in Antenor’s land
Were made, where to be more secure I thought.
The author of the deed was Este’s prince,
Who, more than right could warrant, with his wrath
Pursued me. Had I towards Mira fled,
When overta’en at Oriago, still 80
Might I have breathed. But to the marsh I sped ;
And in the mire and rushes tangled there
Fell, and beheld my life-blood float the plain.’
Then said another: ‘Ah! so may the wish,
That takes thee o’er the mountain, be fulfilled,
As thou shalt graciously give aid to mine.
Of Montefeltro I; Buonconte I:
Giovanna nor none else have care for me;
Sorrowing with these I therefore go.’ I thus:
‘From Campaldino’s field what force or chance go

138 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO V

Drew thee, that ne’er thy sepulture was known ?’
“Oh!” answered he, ‘at Casentino’s foot

A stream there courseth, named Archiano, sprung

In Apennine above the hermit’s seat.

E’en where its name is cancelled, there came I,

Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot,

And bloodying the plain. Here sight and speech

Failed me; and, finishing with Mary’s name,

I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

I will report the truth; which thou again 100

Tell to the living. Me God’s angel took,

Whilst he of hell exclaimed: ‘‘O thou from heaven !

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**Say wherefore hast thou robbed me? Thou of him
“The eternal portion bear’st with thee away,
“For one poor tear that he deprives me of.
** But of the other, other rule I make.”
“Thou know’st how in the atmosphere collects
That vapour dank, returning into water
Soon as it mounts where cold condenses it.
That evil will, which in his intellect 110
Still follows evil, came; and raised the wind
And smoky mist, by virtue of the power
Given by his nature. Thence the valley, soon
As day was spent, he covered o’er with cloud,
From Pratomagno to the mountain range ;
And stretched the sky above; so that the air
Impregnate changed to water. Fell the rain;

Canto VI] PURGATORY 139

And to the fosses came all that the land
Contained not; and, as mightiest streams are wont,
To the great river, with such headlong sweep, 120
Rushed, that naught stayed its course. My stiffened frame,
Laid at his mouth, the fell Archiano found,
And dashed it into Arno; from my breast
Loosening the cross, that of myself I made
When overcome with pain. He hurled me on,
Along the banks and bottom of his course ;
Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapped.’
“Ah! when thou to the world shalt be returned,
And rested after thy long road,’ so spake
Next the third spirit; ‘then remember me. 130
I once was Pia. Siena gave me life ;
Maremma took it from me. That he knows,
Who me with jewelled ring had first espoused.’

CANTO VI

ARGUMENT

Many besides, who are in like case with those spoken of in the last Canto,
beseech our Poet to obtain for them the prayers of their friends, when he
shall be returned to this world. This moves him to express a doubt to his
guide, how the dead can be profited by the prayers of the living ; for the
solution of which doubt he is referred to Beatrice. Afterwards he meets
with Sordello the Mantuan, whose affection, shown to Virgil his country-
man, leads Dante to break forth into an invective against the unnatural
divisions with which Italy, and more especially Florence, was distracted.

WHEN from their game of dice men separate,
He who hath lost remains in sadness fixed,
Revolving in his mind what luckless throws
He cast: but, meanwhile, all the company
Go with the other; one before him runs,
And one behind his mantle twitches, one
Fast by his side bids him remember him.
He stops not; and each one, to whom his hand
Is stretched, well knows he bids him stand aside ;
And thus he from the press defends himself. 10
F’en such was I in that close-crowding throng ;
And turning so my face around to all,
And promising, I ’scaped from it with pains.
Here of Arezzo him I saw, who fell
By Ghino’s cruel arm; and him beside,
Who in his chase was swallowed by the stream.
Here Frederic Novello, with his hand
Stretched forth, entreated; and of Pisa he,
Who put the good Marzucco to such proof
Of constancy. Count Orso I beheld ; 20

140 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VI

And from its frame a soul dismissed for spite
And envy, as it said, but for no crime ;
I speak of Peter de la Brosse: and here,
While she yet lives, that Lady of Brabant,
Let her beware; lest for so false a deed
She herd with worse than these. When I was freed
From all those spirits, who prayed for others’ prayers
To hasten on their state of blessedness ;
Straight I began: ‘O thou, my luminary !
It seems expressly in thy text denied, 30
That heaven’s supreme decree can ever bend
To supplication; yet with this design
Do these entreat. Can then their hope be vain ?
Or is thy saying not to me revealed ?’
He thus to me: ‘ Both what I write is plain,
And these deceived not in their hope; if well
Thy mind consider, that the sacred height
Of judgement doth not stoop, because love’s flame
In a short moment all fulfils, which he,
Who sojourns here, in right should satisfy. 40
Besides, when I this point concluded thus,
By praying no defect could be supplied ;
Because the prayer had none access to God.
Yet in this deep suspicion rest thou not
Contented, unless she assure thee so,
Who betwixt truth and mind infuses light :
I know not if thou take me right; I mean
Beatrice. Her thou shalt behold above,
Upon this mountain’s crown, fair seat of joy.’

Then I: ‘Sir! let us mend our speed; for now 50
I tire not as before: and lo! the hill |
Stretches its shadow far.’ He answered thus:

‘Our progress with this day shall be as much

As we may now dispatch; but otherwise

Than thou supposest is the truth. For there

Thou canst not be, ere thou once more behold

Him back returning, who behind the steep

Is now so hidden, that, as erst, his beam

Thou dost not break. But lo! a spirit there

Stands solitary, and toward us looks: 60
It will instruct us in the speediest way.’

We soon approached it. Oh thou Lombard spirit!
How didst thou stand, in high abstracted mood,
Scarce moving with slow dignity thine eyes.

It spoke not aught, but let us onward pass,
Eyeing us as a lion on his watch.

But Virgil, with entreaty mild, advanced,
Requesting it to show the best ascent.

In answer to his question none returned ;

LINEs 21-99] PURGATORY 14]

But of our country and our kind of life 70
Demanded. When my courteous guide began,
‘Mantua,’ the shadow, in itself absorbed,
Rose towards us from the place in which it stood,
And cried, ‘ Mantuan! I am thy countryman,
Sordello.” Each the other then embraced.
Ab, slavish Italy! thou inn of grief!
Vessel without a pilot in loud storm!
Lady no longer of fair provinces,
But brothel-house impure! this gentle spirit,
Even from the pleasant sound of his dear land 80
Was prompt to greet a fellow citizen
With such glad cheer: while now thy living ones
In thee abide not without war; and one

f

Malicious gnaws another; aye, of those

Whom the same wall and the same moat contains.

Seek, wretched one! around thy sea-coasts wide ;

Then homeward to thy bosom turn; and mark,

If any part of thee sweet peace enjoy.

What boots it, that thy reins Justinian’s hand

Refitted, if thy saddle be unpressed ? go

Naught doth he now but aggravate thy shame.

Ah, people! thou obedient still shouldst live,

And in the saddle let thy Caesar sit,

If well thou marked’st that which God commands,
Look how that beast to fellness hath relapsed,

From having lost correction of the spur,

Since to the bridle thou hast set thine hand,

O German Albert! who abandon’st her

That is grown savage and unmanageable,

142 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VI

When thou shouldst clasp her flanks with forked heels. 100
Just judgement from the stars fall on thy blood ;
And be it strange and manifest to all ;
Such as may strike thy successor with dread ;
For that thy sire and thou have suffered thus,
Through greediness of yonder realms detained,
The garden of the empire to run waste.
Come, see the Capulets and Montagues,
The Filippeschi and Monaldi, man
Who carest for naught! those sunk in grief, and these
With dire suspicion racked. Come, cruel one! IIo
Come, and behold the oppression of the nobles,
And mark their injuries; and thou mayst see
What safety Santafiore can supply.
Come and behold thy Rome, who calls on thee,
Desolate widow, day and night with moans,
“My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side ?’
Come, and behold what love among thy people:
And if no pity touches thee for us,
Come, and blush for thine own report. For me,
If it be lawful, O Almighty Power! 120
Who wast in earth for our sakes crucified,
Are thy just eyes turned elsewhere ? or is this
A preparation, in the wondrous depth
Of thy sage counsel made, for some good end,
Entirely from our reach of thought cut off ?
So are the Italian cities all o’erthronged
With tyrants, and a great Marcellus made
Of every petty factious villager.

My Florence! thou mayst well remain unmoved
At this digression, which affects not thee 130
Thanks to thy people, who so wisely speed.
Many have justice in their heart, that long
Waiteth for counsel to direct the bow,
Or ere it dart unto its aim: but thine
Have it on their lip’s edge. Many refuse
To bear the common burdens: readier thine
Answer uncalled, and cry, ‘ Behold I stoop!’

Make thyself glad, for thou hast reason now,
Thou wealthy! thou at peace! thou wisdom-fraught !
Facts best will witness if I speak the truth. 140
Athens and Lacedaemon, who of old
Enacted laws, for civil arts renowned,
Made little progress in improving life
Towards thee, who usest such nice subtlety,
That to the middle of November scarce
Reaches the thread thou in October weavest.
How many times within thy memory,
Customs, and laws, and coins, and offices

CANTO VIt] PURGATORY 143

Have been by thee renewed, and people changed.
If thou remember’st well and canst see clear, 150
Thou wilt perceive thyself like a sick wretch,
Who finds no rest upon her down, but oft
Shifting her side, short respite seeks from pain.

CANTO VII

ARGUMENT

The approach of night hindering further ascent, Sordello conducts our Poet
apart to an eminence, from whence they behold a pleasant recess, in form
of a flowery valley, scooped out of the mountain ; where are many famous
spirits, and among them the Emperor Rodolph, Ottocar, king of Bohemia,
Philip III of France, Henry of Navarre, Peter III of Aragon, Charles I of
Naples, Henry 1II of England, and William, Marquis of Montferrat.

AFTER their courteous greetings joyfully

Seven times exchanged, Sordello backward drew
Exclaiming, ‘ Who are ye ?’—‘ Before this mount
By spirits worthy of ascent to God

Was sought, my bones had by Octavius’ care
Been buried. I am Virgil; for no sin

Deprived of heaven, except for lack of faith.’

So answered him in few my gentle guide.

As one, who aught before him suddenly
Beholding, whence his wonder riseth, cries, fo)
‘It is, yet is not,’ wavering in belief ;

Such he appeared ; then downward bent his eyes,
And, drawing near with reverential step,

Caught him, where one of mean estate might clasp
His lord. ‘Glory of Latium!’ he exclaimed,

‘In whom our tongue its utmost power displayed ;
Boast of my honoured birth-place! what desert

Of mine, what favour, rather, undeserved,

Shows thee to me? If I to hear that voice

Am worthy, say if from below thou comest, 20
And from what cloister’s pale.’-—‘ Through every orb
Of that sad region,’ he replied, ‘thus far

Am I arrived, by heavenly influence led:

And with such aid I come. Not for my doing,

But for not doing, have I lost the sight

Of that high Sun, whom thou desirest, and who

By me too late was known. There is a place
There underneath, not made by torments sad, _
But by dun shades alone; where mourning’s voice
Sounds not of anguish sharp, but breathes in sighs. 30
There I with little innocents abide,

Who, by death’s fangs were bitten, ere exempt

144

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto vit

From human taint. There I with those abide,

Who the three holy virtues put not on,

But understood the rest, and without blame
Followed them all. But, if thou know’st, and canst,
Direct us how we soonest may arrive,

Where Purgatory its true beginning takes.’

He answered thus: ‘We have no certain place
Assigned us: upwards I may go, or round. 40
Far as I can, I join thee for thy guide.

But thou beholdest now how day declines ;
And upwards to proceed by night, our power
Excels: therefore it may be well to choose

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A place of pleasant sojourn. To the right
Some spirits sit apart retired. If thou
Consentest, I to these will lead thy steps:

And thou wilt know them, not without delight.’

‘How chances this?” was answered: ‘ whoso wished
To ascend by night, would he be thence debarred 50
By other, or through his own weakness fail ?’

The good Sordello then, along the ground
Trailing his finger, spoke: ‘ Only this line
Thou shalt not overpass, soon as the sun
Hath disappeared ; not that aught else impedes
Thy going upwards, save the shades of night.

These, with the want of power, perplex the will.
With them thou haply mightst return beneath,
Or to and fro around the mountain’s side

Lines 33-108] PURGATORY 145

Wander, while day is in the horizon shut.’ 60
My master straight, as wondering at his speech,
Exclaimed: ‘Then lead us quickly, where thou sayst
That, while we stay, we may enjoy delight.’
A little space we were removed from thence,
When I perceived tlie mountain hollowed out,
Even as large valleys hollowed out on earth.
‘That way,’ the escorting spirit cried, ‘ we go,
Where in a bosom the high bank recedes :
And thou await renewal of the day.’
Betwixt the steep and plain, a crooked path 70
Led us traverse into the ridge’s side,
Where more than half the sloping edge expires.
Refulgent gold, and silver thrice refined,
And scarlet grain and ceruse, Indian wood
Of lucid dye serene, fresh emeralds
But newly broken, by the herbs and flowers
Placed in that fair recess, in colour all
Had been surpassed, as great surpasses less.
Nor nature only there lavished her hues,
But of the sweetness of a thousand smells 80
A rare and undistinguished fragrance made.
‘Salve Regina,’ on the grass and flowers,
Here chanting, I beheld those spirits sit,
Who not beyond the valley could be seen.
‘Before the westering sun sink to his bed,’
Began the Mantuan, who our steps had turned,
**Mid those, desire not that I lead ye on.
For from this eminence ye shall discern
Better the acts and visages of all,
Than, in the nether vale, among them mixed. go
He, who sits high above the rest, and seems
To have neglected that he should have done,
And to the others’ song moves not his lip,
The Emperor Rodolph call, who might have healed
The wounds whereof fair Italy hath died,
So that by others she revives but slowly.
He, who with kindly visage comforts him,
Swayed in that country, where the water springs,
That Moldau’s river to the Elbe, and Elbe
Rolls to the ocean: Ottocar his name: 100
Who in his swaddling clothes was of more worth
Than Winceslaus his son, a bearded man,
Pampered with rank luxuriousness and ease.
And that one with the nose depressed, who close
In counsel seems with him of gentle look,
Flying expired, withering the lily’s flower.
Look there, how he doth knock against his breast.
The other ye behold, who for his cheek

146 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VII

Makes of one hand a couch, with frequent sighs.

They are the father and the father-in-law IIo

Of Gallia’s bane: his vicious life they know

And foul; thence comes the grief that rends them thus.
‘He, so robust of limb, who measure keeps

In song with him of feature prominent,

With every virtue bore his girdle braced.

And if that stripling, who behind him sits,

King after him had lived, his virtue then

From vessel to like vessel had been poured ;

Which may not of the other heirs be said.

By James and Frederick his realms are held ; 120

Neither the better heritage obtains.

Rarely into the branches of the tree

Doth human worth mount up: and so ordains

He who bestows it, that as his free gift

It may be called. To Charles my words apply

No less than to his brother in the song ;

Which Pouille and Provence now with grief confess.

So much that plant degenerates from its seed,

As, more than Beatrix and Margaret,

Costanza still boasts of her valorous spouse. 130
‘Behold the king of simple life and plain,

Harry of England, sitting there alone:

He through his branches better issue spreads.
‘That one, who, on the ground, beneath the rest,

Sits lowest, yet his gaze directs aloft,

Is William, that brave Marquis, for whose cause,

The deed of Alexandria and his war

Makes Montferrat and Canavese weep.’

CANTO VIII

ARGUMENT

Two angels, with flaming swords broken at the points, descend to keep
watch over the valley, into which Virgil and Dante entering by desire of
Sordello, our Poet meets with joy the spirit of Nino, the judge of Gallura,
one who was well known to him. Meantime three exceedingly bright
stars appear near the pole, and a serpent creeps subtly into the valley, but
flees at hearing the approach of those angelic guards. Lastly, Conrad
Malaspina predicts to our Poet his future banishment.

Now was the hour that wakens fond desire

In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell,
And pilgrim newly on his road with love

Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far,

That seems to mourn for the expiring day:

CANTO VIII] PURGATORY 147

When I, no longer taking heed to hear,

Began, with wonder, from those spirits to mark

One risen from its seat, which with its hand

Audience implored. Both palms it joined and raised, 10
Fixing its steadfast gaze toward the east,

As telling God, ‘I care for naught beside.’

‘Te Lucis Ante,’ so devoutly then

Came from its lip, and in so soft a strain,

That all my sense in ravishment was lost.

And the rest after, softly and devout,

Followed through all the hymn, with upward gaze
Directed to the bright supernal wheels.

Here, reader! for the truth make thine eyes keen:
For of so subtle texture is this veil, 20
That thou with ease mayst pass it through unmarked.

I saw that gentle band silently next
Look up, as if in expectation held,

Pale and in lowly guise; and, from on high,
I saw, forth issuing descend beneath,
Two angels, with two flame-illumined swords,
Broken and mutilated of their points.
Green as the tender leaves but newly born,
Their vesture was, the which, by wings as green
Beaten, they drew behind them, fanned in air. 30
A little over us one took his stand ;
The other lighted on the opposing hill;
So that the troop were in the midst contained.
Well I descried the whiteness on their heads ;
But in their visages the dazzled eye
Was lost, as faculty that by too much
Is overpowered. ‘From Mary’s bosom both
Are come,’ exclaimed Sordello, ‘as a guard
Over the vale, ’gainst him, who hither tends,
The serpent.’ Whence, not knowing by which path 40
He came, I turned me round; and closely pressed,
All frozen, to my leader’s trusted side.

Sordello paused not: ‘To the valley now
(For it is time) let us descend; and hold
Converse with those great shadows: haply much
Their sight may please ye.’ Only three steps down
Methinks I measured, ere I was beneath,

And noted one who looked as with desire
To know me. Time was now that air grew dim;
Yet not so dim, that, ’twixt his eyes and mine, 50
It cleared not up what was concealed before.
Mutually towards each other we advanced.
Nino, thou courteous judge! what joy I felt,
When I perceived thou wert not with the bad.
No salutation kind on either part

148 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VIII

Was left unsaid. He then inquired: ‘ How long,
Since thou arrived’st at the mountain’s foot,
Over the distant waves ?’—‘ Oh!’ answered I,
‘Through the sad seats of woe this morn I came ;
And still in my first life, thus journeying on, 60
The other strive to gain.’ Soon as they heard
My words, he and Sordello backward drew,
As suddenly amazed. To Virgil one,
The other to a spirit turned, who near
Was seated, crying: ‘Conrad! up with speed:
Come, see what of his grace high God hath willed.’
Then turning round to me: ‘ By that rare mark
Of honour, which thou owest to him, who hides
So deeply his first cause it hath no ford ;
When thou shalt be beyond the vast of waves, 70
Tell my Giovanna, that for me she call
There, where reply to innocence is made.
Her mother, I believe, loves me no more;
Since she has changed the white and wimpled folds,
Which she is doomed once more with grief to wish.
By her it easily may be perceived,
How long in woman lasts the flame of love,
If sight and touch do not relume it oft.
For her so fair a burial will not make
The viper, which calls Milan to the field, 8o
As had been made by shrill Gallura’s bird.’
He spoke, and in his visage took the stamp
Of that right zeal, which with due temperature
Glows in the bosom. My insatiate eyes
Meanwhile to heaven had travelled, even there
Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel
Nearest the axle; when my guide inquired:
‘What there aloft, my son, has caught thy gaze ?’
I answered: ‘The three torches, with which here
The pole is all on fire.’ He then to me: go
‘The four resplendent stars, thou saw’st this morn,
Are there beneath; and these, risen in their stead.’
While yet he spoke, Sordello to himself
Drew him, and cried: ‘Lo there our enemy!’
And with his hand pointed that way to look.
Along the side, where barrier none arose
Around the little vale, a serpent lay,
Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food.
Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake
Came on, reverting oft his lifted head ; 100
And, as a beast that smooths its polished coat,
Licking his back. I saw not, nor can tell,
How those celestial falcons from their seat
Moved, but in motion each one well descried.

LINES 56-132] PURGATORY 149

Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes,
The serpent fled; and, to their stations, back
The angels up returned with equal flight.
The spirit (who to Nino, when he called,
Had come), from viewing me with fixéd ken,
Through all that conflict, loosened not his sight. 110
‘So may the lamp, which leads thee up on high,
Find, in thy free resolve, of wax so much,
As may suffice thee to the enamelled height,’
It thus began: ‘If any certain news
Of Valdimagra and the neighbour part
Thou know’st, tell me, who once was mighty there.
They called me Conrad Malaspina; not

That old one; but from him I sprang. The love
I bore my people is now here refined.’
‘In your domains,’ I answered, ‘ne’er was I. 120
But, through all Europe, where do those men dwell,
To whom their glory is not manifest ?
The fame, that honours your illustrious house,
Proclaims the nobles, and proclaims the land ;
So that he knows it, who was never there.
T swear to you, so may my upward route
Prosper, your honoured nation not impairs
The value of her coffer and her sword.
Nature and use give her such privilege,
That while the world is twisted from his course 130
By a bad head, she only walks aright,
And has the evil way in scorn.’ He then:

150 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VIII

‘Now pass thee on: seven times the tired sun
Revisits not the couch, which with four feet

The forkéd Aries covers, ere that kind

Opinion shall be nailed into thy brain

With stronger nails than other’s speech can drive ;
If the sure course of judgement be not stayed.’

CANTO IX

ARGUMENT

Dante is carried up the mountain, asleep and dreaming, by Lucia; and, on
wakening, finds himself, two hours after sunrise, with Virgil, near the
gate of Purgatory, through which they are admitted by the angel deputed
by St. Peter to keep it.

Now the fair consort of Tithonus old,

Arisen from her mate’s belovéd arms,

Looked palely o’er the eastern cliff; her brow,
Lucent with jewels, glittered, set in sign

Of that chill animal, who with his train

Smites fearful nations: and where then we were,
Two steps of her ascent the night had passed ;

And now the third was closing up its wing,

When I, who had so much of Adam with me,

Sank down upon the grass, o’ercome with sleep, 10
There where all five were seated. In that hour,
When near the dawn the swallow her sad lay,
Remembering haply ancient grief, renews ;

And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh,
And less by thought restrained, are, as ’twere, full
Of holy divination in their dreams ;

Then, in a vision, did I seem to view

A golden-feathered eagle in the sky,

With open wings, and hovering for descent ;

And I was in that place, methought, from whence 20
Young Ganymede, from his associates ’reft,

Was snatched aloft to the high consistory.

‘Perhaps,’ thought I within me, ‘ here alone

He strikes his quarry, and elsewhere disdains

To pounce upon the prey.’ Therewith, it seemed,

A little wheeling in his aéry tour,

Terrible as the lightning, rushed he down,

And snatched me upward even to the fire.

There both, I thought, the eagle and myself

Did burn; and so intense the imagined flames, 30
That needs my sleep was broken off. As erst
Achilles shook himself, and round him rolled

His wakened eyeballs, wondering where he was,

CANTO 1x] PURGATORY 151

Whenas his mother had from Chiron fled

To Scyros, with him sleeping in her arms

(There whence the Greeks did after sunder him) ;
E’en thus I shook me, soon as from my face

The slumber parted, turning deadly pale,

Like one ice-struck with dread. Sole at my side

My comfort stood: and the bright sun was now 40
More than two hours aloft: and to the sea

My looks were turned. ‘Fear not,’ my master cried,
* Assured we are at happy point. Thy strength
Shrink not, but rise dilated. Thou art come

To Purgatory now. Lo! there the cliff

That circling bounds it. Lo! the entrance there,

Where it doth seem disparted. Ere the dawn

Ushered the daylight, when thy wearied soul

Slept in thee, o’er the flowery vale beneath

A lady came, and thus bespake me: “I 50
“Am Lucia. Suffer me to take this man,

“Who slumbers. Easier so his way shall speed.”
Sordello and the other gentle shapes

Tarrying, she bare thee up: and, as day shone,

This summit reached: and I pursued her steps.

Here did she place thee. First, her lovely eyes

That open entrance showed me; then at once

She vanished with thy sleep.’ Like one, whose doubts
Are chased by certainty, and terror turned

To comfort on discovery of the truth, 60
Such was the change in me: and as my guide

152 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Ix

Beheld me fearless, up along the cliff
He moved, and I behind him, towards the height.
Reader! thou markest how my theme doth rise ;
Nor wonder therefore, if more artfully
I prop the structure. Nearer now we drew,
Arrived whence, in that part, where first a breach
As of a wall appeared, I could descry
A portal, and three steps beneath, that led
For inlet there, of different colour each ; 70
And one who watched, but spake not yet a word.
As more and more mine eye did stretch its view,
I marked him seated on the highest step,
In visage such, as passed my power to bear.
Grasped in his hand, a naked sword glanced back
The rays so towards me, that I oft in vain
My sight directed. ‘Speak, from whence ye stand ;’
He cried: ‘What would ye? Where is your escort ?
Take heed your coming upward harm ye not.’
‘A heavenly dame, not skilless of these things,’ 80
Replied the instructor, ‘told us, even now,
“Pass that way: here the gate is.” ’"—‘ And may she,
Befriending, prosper your ascent,’ resumed
The courteous keeper of the gate: ‘Come then
Before our steps.’ We straightway thither came.
The lowest stair was marble white, so smooth
And polished, that therein my mirrored form
Distinct I saw. The next of hue more dark
Than sablest grain, a rough and singéd block,
Cracked lengthwise and across. The third, that lay 90
Massy above, seemed porphyry, that flamed
Red as the life-blood spouting from a v2in.
On this God’s angel either foot sustained,
Upon the threshold seated, which appeared
A rock of diamond. Up the trinal steps
My leader cheerly drew me. ‘ Ask,’ said he,
“With humble heart, that he unbar the bolt.’
Piously at his holy feet devolved
I cast me, praying him for pity’s sake
That he would open to me; but first fell 100
Thrice on my bosom prostrate. Seven times
The letter, that denotes the inward stain,
He, on my forehead, with the blunted point
Of his drawn sword, inscribed. And ‘ Look’, he cried,
‘When entered, that thou wash these scars away.’
Ashes, or earth ta’en dry out of the ground,
Were of one colour with the robe he wore.
From underneath that vestment forth he drew
Two keys, of metal twain: the one was gold,
Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, 110

LINES 62-131] PURGATORY

And next the burnished, he so plyed the gate,
As to content me well. ‘Whenever one

Faileth of these, that in the key-hole straight
It turn not, to this alley then expect

Access in vain.’ Such were the words he spake.
‘One is more precious: but the other needs
Skill and sagacity, large share of each,

Ere its good task to disengage the knot

Be worthily performed. From Peter these

—— ==
iD
~~’.

..

Mn Vs.

Sm!

I hold, of him instructed that I err
Rather in opening, than in keeping fast ;
So but the suppliant at my feet implore.’
Then of that hallowed gate he thrust the door,
Exclaiming, ‘ Enter, but this warning hear:
He forth again departs who looks behind.’
As in the hinges of that sacred ward
The swivels turned, sonorous metal strong,
Harsh was the grating; nor so surlily
Roared the Tarpeian, when by force bereft
Of good Metellus, thenceforth from his loss
To leanness doomed. Attentively I turned,

153

IZ0O

130

154 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO IX

Listening the thunder that first issued forth ;

And ‘ We praise thee, O God’, methought I heard,
In accents blended with sweet melody.

The strains came o’er mine ear, e’en as the sound
Of choral voices, that in solemn chant

With organ mingle, and, now high and clear

Come swelling, now float indistinct away.

CANTO X

ARGUMENT

Being admitted at the gate of Purgatory, our Poets ascend a winding path
up the rock, till they reach an open and level space that extends each way
round the mountain. On the side that rises, and which is of white marble,
are seen artfully engraven many stories of humility, which whilst they
are contemplating, there approach the souls of those who expiate the sin
of pride, and who are bent down beneath the weight of heavy stones.

WHEN we had passed the threshold of the gate

(Which the soul’s ill affection doth disuse,

Making the crooked seem the straighter path),

I heard its closing sound. Had mine eyes turned,

For that offence what plea might have availed ?
We mounted up the riven rock, that wound

On either side alternate, as the wave

Flies and advances. ‘ Here some little art

Behoves us,’ said my leader, ‘that our steps

Observe the varying flexure of the path.’ 10
Thus we so slowly sped, that with cleft orb

The moon once more o’erhangs her watery couch,

Ere we that strait have threaded. But when free,

We came, and open, where the mount above

One solid mass retires; I spent with toil,

And both uncertain of the way, we stood,

Upon a plain more lonesome than the roads

That traverse desert wilds. From whence the brink

Borders upon vacuity, to foot

Of the steep bank that rises still, the space 20

Had measured thrice the stature of a man:

And, distant as mine eye could wing its flight,

To leftward now and now to right dispatched,

That cornice equal in extent appeared.
Not yet our feet had on that summit moved,

When I discovered that the bank, around,

Whose proud uprising all ascent denied,

Was marble white; and so exactly wrought

With quaintest sculpture, that not there alone

Had Polycletus, but e’en nature’s self 30

Been shamed. The angel (who came down to earth

CANTO x] PURGATORY 155

With tidings of the peace so many years

Wept for in vain, that oped the heavenly gates
From their long interdict) before us seemed,

In a sweet act, so sculptured to the life,

He looked no silent image. One had sworn

He had said ‘ Hail!’ for she was imaged there,
By whom the key did open to God’s love ;

And in her act as sensibly impressed

That word, ‘ Behold the handmaid of the Lord,’ 40
As figure sealed on wax. ‘ Fix not thy mind
On one place only,’ said the guide beloved,
Who had me near him on that part where lies

The heart of man. My sight forthwith I turned,
And marked, behind the Virgin Mother’s form,
Upon that side where he that moved me stood,
Another story graven on the rock.

I passed athwart the bard, and drew me near,
That it might stand more aptly for my view.
There, in the self-same marble, were engraved 50
The cart and kine, drawing the sacred ark,

That from unbidden office awes mankind.

Before it came much people; and the whole
Parted in seven choirs. One sense cried ‘ Nay’,
Another, ‘ Yes, they sing.’ Like doubt arose
Betwixt the eye and smell, from the curled fume
Of incense breathing up the well-wrought toil.
Preceding the blest vessel, onward came

156 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO x

With light dance leaping, girt in humble guise,
Israel’s sweet harper: in that hap he seemed 60
Less, and yet more, than kingly. Opposite,
At a great palace, from the lattice forth
Looked Michal, like a lady full of scorn
And sorrow. To behold the tablet next,
Which, at the back of Michal, whitely shone,
I moved me. There, was storied on the rock
The exalted glory of the Roman prince,
Whose mighty worth moved Gregory to earn
His mighty conquest, Trajan the Emperor.
A widow at his bridle stood, attired 70
In tears and mourning. Round about them trooped
Full throng of knights; and overhead in gold
The eagles floated, struggling with the wind.
The wretch appeared amid all these to say:
‘Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this heart,
My son is murdered.’ He replying seemed :
‘Wait now till I return.’ And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief: ‘O Sire! if thou
Dost not return ?’—‘ Where I am, who then is,
May right thee.’—‘ What to thee is other’s good, 8o
If thou neglect thy own ?’—‘ Now comfort thee .’
At length he answers. ‘It beseemeth well
My duty be performed, ere I move hence:
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.’
He, whose ken nothing new surveys, produced
That visible speaking, new to us and strange,
The like not found on earth. Fondly I gazed
Upon those patterns of meek humbleness,
Shapes yet more precious for their artist’s sake ;
When ‘Lo!’ the poet whispered, ‘ where this way go
(But slack their pace) a multitude advance.
These to the lofty steps shall guide us on.’
Mine eyes, though bent on view of novel sights,
Their loved allurement, were not slow to turn.
Reader! I would not that amazed thou miss
Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God
Decrees our debts be cancelled. Ponder not
The form of suffering. Think on what succeeds :
Think that, at worst, beyond the mighty doom
It cannot pass. ‘Instructor!’ I began, 100
“What I see hither tending, bears no trace
Of human semblance, nor of aught beside
That my foiled sight can guess.” He answering thus:
‘So courbed to earth, beneath their heavy terms
Of torment stoop they, that mine eye at first
Struggled as thine. But look intently thither ;
And disentangle with thy labouring view,

CANTO XI] PURGATORY 157

What, underneath those stones, approacheth: now,
E’en now, mayst thou discern the pangs of each.’
Christians and proud! O poor and wretched ones! 110
That, feeble in the mind’s eye, lean your trust
Upon unstaid perverseness: know ye not
That we are worms, yet made at last to form
The wingéd insect, imped with angel plumes,
That to heaven’s justice unobstructed soars ?
Why buoy ye up aloft your unfledged souls ?
Abortive then and shapeless ye remain,
Like the untimely embryon of a worm.
As, to support incumbent floor or roof,
For corbel, is a figure sometimes seen, 120
That crumples up its knees unto its breast ;
With the feigned posture, stirring ruth unfeigned
In the beholder’s fancy ; so I saw
These fashioned, when I noted well their guise.
Each, as his back was laden, came indeed
Or more or less contracted ; and it seemed
As he, who showed most patience in his look,
Wailing exclaimed: ‘I can endure no more.’

CANTO XI

ARGUMENT

After a prayer uttered by the spirits, who were spoken of in the last Canto,
Virgil inquires the way upwards, and is answered by one, who declares
himself to have been Omberto, son of the Count of Santafiore. Next our
Poet distinguishes Oderigi, the illuminator, who discourses on the vanity
of worldly fame, and points out to him the soul of Provenzano Salvani.

*O tHov Almighty Father! who dost make

The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confined,
But that, with love intenser, there thou view’st
Thy primal effluence; hallowed be thy name:

Join, each created being, to extol

Thy might; for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom’s peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,

With all our striving, thither tend in vain.

As, of their will, the angels unto thee 10
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne

With loud hosannas; so of theirs be done

By saintly men on earth. Grant us, this day,

Our daily manna, without which he roams

Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each

Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou

158 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XI

Benign, and of our merit take no count.
*Gainst the old adversary, prove thou not
Our virtue, easily subdued; but free 20
From his incitements, and defeat his wiles.
This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves; since that were needless now ;
But for their sakes who after us remain.’
Thus for themselves and us good speed imploring,
Those spirits went beneath a weight like that
We sometimes feel in dreams; all, sore beset,
But with unequal anguish; wearied all;
Round the first circuit; purging as they go
The world’s gross darkness off. In our behoof 30

IN

or

Al

Lr

Ss

If their vows still be offered, what can here

For them be vowed and done by such, whose wills

Have root of goodness in them ? Well beseems

That we should help them wash away the stains

They carried hence; that so, made pure and light,

That may spring upward to the starry spheres.
“Ah! so may mercy-tempered justice rid

Your burdens speedily ; that ye have power

To stretch your wing, which e’en to your desire

Shall lift you; as ye show us on which hand 40

Toward the ladder leads the shortest way.

And if there be more passages than one,

Instruct us of that easiest to ascend :

For this man, who comes with me, and bears yet

LINEs 13-93] PURGATORY 159

The charge of fleshly raiment Adam left him,
Despite his better will, but slowly mounts.’
From whom the answer came unto these words,
Which my guide spake, appeared not; but ’twas said:
‘Along the bank to rightward come with us;
And ye shall find a pass that mocks not toil 50
Of living man to climb: and were it not
That I am hindered by the rock, wherewith
This arrogant neck is tamed, whence needs I stoop
My visage to the ground; him, who yet lives,
Whose name thou speak’st not, him I fain would view ;
To mark if eer I knew him, and to crave
His pity for the fardel that I bear.
I was of Latium; of a Tuscan born,
A mighty one: Aldobrandesco’s name,
My sire’s, I know not if ye e’er have heard. 60
My old blood and forefathers’ gallant deeds
Made me so haughty, that I clean forgot
The common mother; and to such excess
Waxed in my scorn of all men, that I fell,
Fell therefore; by what fate, Siena’s sons,
Each child in Campagnatico, can tell.
I am Omberto: not me, only, pride
Hath injured, but my kindred all involved
In mischief with her. Here my lot ordains
Under this weight to groan, till I appease 70
God’s angry justice, since I did it not
Amongst the living, here amongst the dead.’

Listening I bent my visage down: and one
(Not he who spake) twisted beneath the weight
That urged him, saw me, knew me straight, and called ;
Holding his eyes with difficulty fixed
Intent upon me, stooping as I went
Companion of their way. ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed,
‘Art thou not Oderigi? art not thou
Agobbio’s glory, glory of that art 8o
Which they of Paris call the limner’s skill ?’

‘Brother!’ said he, ‘ with tints, that gayer smile
Bolognian Franco’s pencil lines the leaves.
His all the honour now; my light obscured.
In truth, I had not been thus courteous to him
The whilst I lived, through eagerness of zeal
For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on.
Here, of such pride, the forfeiture is paid.
Nor were I even here, if, able still
To sin, I had not turned me unto God. go
Ob powers of man! how vain your glory, nipped
E’en in its height of verdure, if an age
Less bright succeed not. Cimabue thought

160 THE VISION OF DANTE [CanTO XI

To lord it over painting’s field; and now

The cry is Giotto’s, and his name eclipsed.

Thus hath one Guido from the other snatched

The lettered prize: and he, perhaps, is born,

Who shall drive either from their nest. The noise

Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,

That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name, 100

Shifting the point it blows from. Shalt thou more

Live in the mouths of mankind, if thy flesh

Part shrivelled from thee, than if thou hadst died

Before the coral and the pap were left ;

Or ere some thousand years have passed ? and that

Is, to eternity compared, a space

Briefer than is the twinkling of an eye

To the heaven’s slowest orb. He there, who treads

So leisurely before me, far and wide

Through Tuscany resounded once; and now IIo

Is in Siena scarce with whispers named :

There was he sovereign, when destruction caught

The maddening rage of Florence, in that day

Proud as she now is loathsome. Your renown

Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go;

And his might withers it, by whom it sprang

Crude from the lap of earth.’ I thus to him:

‘True are thy sayings: to my heart they breathe

The kindly spirit of meekness, and allay

What tumours rankle there. But who is he, 120

Of whom thou spakest but now ?’ ‘This,’ he replied,

‘Is Provenzano. He is here, because

He reached, with grasp presumptuous, at the sway

Of all Siena. Thus he still hath gone,

Thus goeth never-resting, since he died.

Such is the acquittance rendered back of him,

Who, in the mortal life, too much hath dared.’

I then: ‘If soul, that to life’s verge delays

Repentance, linger in that lower space,

Nor hither mount (unless good prayers befriend), 130

Or ever time, long as it lived, be past;

How chanced admittance was vouchsafed to him ?’
‘When at his glory’s topmost height,’ said he,

‘Respect of dignity all cast aside,

Freely he fixed him on Siena’s plain,

A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,

Who languished in the prison-house of Charles ;

Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein

To tremble. More I will not say; and dark,

I know, my words are; but thy neighbours soon 140

Shall help thee to a comment on the text.

This is the work, that from these limits freed him.’

CANTO XII] PURGATORY 161

CANTO XII

ARGUMENT
Dante being desired by Virgil to look down on the ground which they are
treading, observes that it is wrought over with imagery exhibiting various
instances of pride recorded in history and fable. They leave the first
cornice, and are ushered to the next by an angel who points out the way.

WITH equal pace, as oxen in the yoke,
I, with that laden spirit, journeyed on,
Long as the mild instructor suffered me;
But, when he bade me quit him, and proceed
(For ‘ Here’, said he, *‘ behoves with sail and oars
Each man, as best he may, push on his bark’),
Upright, as one disposed for speed, I raised
My body, still in thought submissive bowed.
I now my leader’s track not loath pursued ;
And each had shown how light we fared along, 10
When thus he warned me: ‘ Bend thine eyesight down:
For thou, to ease the way, shalt find it good
To ruminate the bed beneath thy feet.’
As, in memorial of the buried, drawn
Upon earth-level tombs, the sculptured form
Of what was once, appears (at sight whereof
Tears often stream forth, by remembrance waked,
Whose sacred stings the piteous often feel),
So saw I there, but with more curious skill
Of portraiture o’erwrought, whate’er of space 20
From forth the mountain stretches. On one part
Him I beheld, above all creatures erst
Created noblest, lightening fall from heaven:
On the other side, with bolt celestial pierced,
Briareus ; cumbering earth he lay, through dint
Of mortal ice-stroke. The Thymbraean god,
With Mars, I saw, and Pallas, round their sire,
Armed still, and gazing on the giants’ limbs
Strewn o’er the ethereal field. Nimrod I saw:
At foot of the stupendous work he stood, 30
As if bewildered, looking on the crowd
Leagued in his proud attempt on Sennaar’s plain.
O Niobe! in what a trance of woe
Thee I beheld, upon that highway drawn,
Seven sons on either side thee slain. O Saul!
How ghastly didst thou look, on thine own sword
Expiring, in Gilboa, from that hour
Ne’er visited with rain from heaven, or dew.
O fond Arachne! thee I also saw,
Half spider now, in anguish, crawling up 40
The unfinished web thou weaved’st to thy bane.

162

THE VISION OF DANTE [CanTo x11

O Rehoboam! here thy shape doth seem
Louring no more defiance; but fear-smote,
With none to chase him, in his chariot whirled.
Was shown beside upon the solid floor,
How dear Alemaeon forced his mother rate
That ornament, in evil hour received:
How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell
His sons, and how a corpse they left him there.
Was shown the scath, and cruel mangling made 50
By Tomyris on Cyrus, when she cried,
‘Blood thou didst thirst for: take thy fill of blood.’
Was shown how routed in the battle fled
The Assyrians, Holofernes slain, and e’en

The relics of the carnage. Troy I marked,
In ashes and in caverns. Oh! how fallen,
How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there.
What master of the pencil or the style
Had traced the shades and lines, that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder? Dead, the dead; 60
The living seemed alive: with clearer view,
His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth,
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went
Low bending. Now swell out, and with stiff necks
Pass on, ye sons of Eve! vale not your looks,
Lest they desery the evil of your path.
I noted not (so busied was my thought)
How much we now had circled of the mount ;
And of his course yet more the sun had spent ;

LInEs 42-118] PURGATORY 163

When he, who with still wakeful caution went, 70
Admonished: ‘ Raise thou up thy head: for know
Time is not now for slow suspense. Behold,
That way, an angel hasting towards us. Lo,
Where duly the sixth handmaid doth return
From service on the day. Wear thou, in look
And gesture, seemly grace of reverent awe ;
That gladly he may forward us aloft.
Consider that this day ne’er dawns again.’
Time’s loss he had so often warned me ’gainst,
I could not miss the scope at which he aimed. 80
The goodly shape approached us, snowy white
In vesture, and with visage casting streams
Of tremulous lustre like the matin star.
His arms he opened, then his wings; and spake:
‘Onward! the steps, behold, are near; and now
The ascent is without difficulty gained.’
A scanty few are they, who, when they hear
Such tidings, hasten. O, ye race of men!
Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind
So slight to baffle ye? He led us on go
Where the rock parted; here, against my front,
Did beat his wings; then promised I should fare
In safety on my way. As to ascend
That steep, upon whose brow the chapel stands
(O’er Rubaconte, looking lordly down
On the well-guided city), up the right
The impetuous rise is broken by the steps
Carved in that old and simple age, when still
The registry and label rested safe ;
Thus is the acclivity relieved, which here, 109
Precipitous, from the other circuit falls:
But, on each hand, the tall cliff presses close.
As, entering, there we turned, voices, in strain
Ineffable, sang: ‘ Blessed are the poor
In spirit.’ Ah! how far unlike to these
The straits of hell: here songs to usher us,
There shrieks of woe. We climb the holy stairs:
And lighter to myself by far I seemed
Than on the plain before; whence thus I spake:
‘Say, master, of what heavy thing have I 1190
Been lightened ; that scarce aught the sense of toil
Affects me journeying ?’ He in few replied:
‘When sin’s broad characters, that yet remain
Upon thy temples, though wellnigh effaced,
Shall be, as one is, all clean razed out ;
Then shall thy feet by heartiness of will
Be so o’ercome, they not alone shall feel
No sense of labour, but delight much more
CARY H

164 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO x

Shall wait them, urged along their upward way.’
Then like to one, upon whose head is placed 120

Somewhat he deems not of, but from the becks

Of others, as they pass him by; his hand

Lends therefore help to assure him, searches, finds,

And well performs such office as the eye

Wants power to execute; so stretching forth

The fingers of my right hand, did I find

Six only of the letters, which his sword,

Who bare the keys, had traced upon my brow.

The leader, as he marked mine action, smiled.

CANTO XIII

ARGUMENT

They gain the second cornice, where the sin of envy is purged ; and having
proceeded a little to the right, they hear voices uttered by invisible spirits
recounting famous examples of charity, and next behold the shades, or
souls, of the envious clad in sackcloth, and having their eyes sewed up
with an iron thread. Amongst these Dante finds Sapia, a Sienese lady,
from whom he learns the cause of her being there.

WE reached the summit of the scale, and stood
Upon the second buttress of that mount

Which healeth him who climbs. A cornice there,
Like to the former, girdles round the hill ;

Save that its arch, with sweep less ample, bends.

Shadow, nor image there, is seen: all smooth
The rampart and the path, reflecting naught
But the rock’s sullen hue. ‘If here we wait,

For some to question,’ said the bard, ‘1 fear
Our choice may haply meet too long delay.’ 10

Then fixedly upon the sun his eyes
He fastened ; made his right the central point
From whence to move; and turned the left aside.
*O pleasant light, my confidence and hope !
Conduct us thou,’ he cried, ‘on this new way,
Where now I venture; leading to the bourn
We seek. The universal world to thee
Owes warmth and lustre. If no other cause
Forbid, thy beams should ever be our guide.’

Far, as is measured for a mile on earth, 20
In brief space had we journeyed ; such prompt will
Impelled ; and towards us flying, now were heard
Spirits invisible, who courteously
Unto love’s table bade the welcome guest.

The voice, that first flew by, called forth aloud,
‘They have no wine,’ so on behind us passed,

Canto x11] PURGATORY 165

Those sounds reiterating, nor yet lost

In the faint distance, when another came

Crying, ‘I am Orestes,’ and alike

Winged its fleet way. ‘O father!’ I exclaimed, 30

‘What tongues are these ?’ and as I questioned, lo!

A third exclaiming, ‘ Love ye those have wronged you.’
‘This circuit,’ said my teacher, ‘knots the scourge

For envy; and the cords are therefore drawn

By charity’s correcting hand. The curb

Is of a harsher sound; as thou shalt hear

(If I deem rightly) ere thou reach the pass,

Where pardon sets them free. But fix thine eyes

Intently through the air; and thou shalt see

A multitude before thee seated, each 40
Along the shelving grot.’ Then more than erst
I oped mine eyes; before me viewed ; and saw
Shadows with garments dark as was the rock ;
And when we passed a little forth, I heard
A crying, ‘ Blessed Mary! pray for us,
Michael and Peter! all ye saintly host !’
I do not think there walks on earth this day
Man so remorseless, that he had not yearned
With pity at the sight that next I saw.
Mine eyes a load of sorrow teemed, when now 50
I stood so near them, that their semblances
Came clearly to my view. Of sackcloth vile
Their covering seemed ; and, on his shoulder, one
Did stay another, leaning; and all leaned
Against the cliff. E’en thus the blind and poor,

166 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xm

Near the confessionals, to crave an alms,
Stand, each his head upon his fellow’s sunk ;
So most to stir compassion, not by sound
Of words alone, but that which moves not less,
The sight of misery. And as never beam 60
Of noonday visiteth the eyeless man,
Even so was heaven a niggard unto these
Of his fair tight: for, through the orbs of all,
A thread of wire, impiercing, knits them up,
As for the taming of a haggard hawk.
It were a wrong, methought, to pass and look
On others, yet myself the while unseen.
To my sage counsel therefore did I turn.
He knew the meaning of the mute appeal,
Nor waited for my questioning, but said: 70
‘Speak; and be brief, be subtile in thy words.’
On that part of the cornice, whence no rim
Engarlands its steep fall, did Virgil come ;
On the other side me were the spirits, their cheeks
Bathing devout with penitential tears,
That through the dread impalement forced a way.
I turned me to them, and ‘O shades!’ said I,
‘ Assured that to your eyes unveiled shall shine
The lofty light, sole object of your wish,
So may heaven’s grace clear whatsoe’er of foam 80
Floats turbid on the conscience, that thenceforth
The stream of mind roll limpid from its source ;
As ye declare (for so shall ye impart
A boon I dearly prize) if any soul
Of Latium dwell among ye: and perchance
That soul may profit, if I learn so much.’
‘My brother! we are, each one, citizens
Of one true city. Any, thou wouldst say,
Who lived a stranger in Italia’s land.’
So heard I answering, as appeared, a voice go
That onward came some space from whence I stood.
A spirit I noted, in whose look was marked
Expectance. Ask ye how? The chin was raised
As in one reft of sight. ‘Spirit,’ said I,
‘Who for thy rise art tutoring (if thou be
That which didst answer to me), or by place,
Or name, disclose thyself, that I may know thee.’
‘I was,’ it answered, ‘of Siena: here
I cleanse away with these the evil life,
Soliciting with tears that He, who is, 100
Vouchsafe him to us. Though Sapia named,
In sapience I excelled not; gladder far
Of other’s hurt, than of the good befell me.
That thou mayst own I now deceive thee not,

LINES 56-145] PURGATORY 167

Hear, if my folly were not as I speak it.
When now my years sloped waning down the arch,
It so bechanced, my fellow-citizens
Near Colle met their enemies in the field ;
And I prayed God to grant what He had willed.
There were they vanquished, and betook themselves 110
Unto the bitter passages of flight.
I marked the hunt; and waxing out of bounds
In gladness, lifted up my shameless brow,
And, like the merlin cheated by a gleam,
Cried, “‘It is over. Heaven! I fear thee not.”
Upon my verge of life I wished for peace
With God; nor yet repentance had supplied
What I did lack of duty, were it not
The hermit Piero, touched with charity,
In his devout oraisons thought on me. 120
But who art thou that questionest of our state,
Who go’st, as I believe, with lids unclosed,
And breathest in thy talk ?’—‘ Mine eyes,’ said I,
‘May yet be here ta’en from me; but not long ;
For they have not offended grievously
With envious glances. But the woe beneath
Urges my soul with more exceeding dread.
That nether load already weighs me down.’
She thus: ‘ Who then, amongst us here aloft,
Hath brought thee, if thou weenest to return ?’ 130
‘He,’ answered I, ‘who standeth mute beside me.
I live: of me ask therefore, chosen spirit !
If thou desire I yonder yet should move
For thee my mortal feet.—‘ Oh!’ she replied,
‘This is so strange a thing, it is great sign
That God doth love thee. Therefore with thy prayer
Sometime assist me: and, by that I crave,
Which most thou covetest, that if thy feet
E’er tread on Tuscan soil, thou save my fame
Amongst my kindred. Them shalt thou behold 140
With that vain multitude, who set their hope
On Talamone’s haven; there to fail
Confounded, more than when the fancied stream
They sought, of Dian called: but they, who lead
Their navies, more than ruined hopes shall mourn.’

168 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XIV

CANTO XIV

ARGUMENT

Our Poet on this second cornice finds also the souls of Guido del Duca of
Brettinoro, and Rinieri da Calboli of Romagna; the latter of whom,
hearing that he comes from the banks of the Arno, inveighs against the
degeneracy of all those who dwell in the cities visited by that stream ;
and the former, in like manner, against the inhabitants of Romagna. On
leaving these, our Poets hear voices recording noted instances of envy.

‘Say, who is he around our mountain winds,
Or ever death has pruned his wing for flight ;
That opes his eyes, and covers them at will ?’

‘I know not who he is, but know thus much ;
He comes not singly. Do thou ask of him,
For thou art nearer to him; and take heed,
Accost him gently, so that he may speak.’

Thus on the right two spirits, bending each
Toward the other, talked of me; then both
Addressing me, their faces backward leaned, 10
And thus the one began: ‘O soul, who yet
Pent in the body, tendest towards the sky!
For charity, we pray thee, comfort us ;
Recounting whence thou comest, and who thou art:
For thou dost make us, at the favour shown thee,
Marvel, as at a thing that ne’er hath been.’

‘There stretches through the midst of Tuscany,’
I straight began, ‘a brooklet, whose well-head
Springs up in Falterona; with his race
Not satisfied, when he some hundred miles 20
Hath measured. From his banks bring I this frame.
To tell you who I am were words misspent :
For yet my name scarce sounds on rumoutr’s lip.’

“If well I do incorporate with my thought
The meaning of thy speech,’ said he, who first
Addressed me, ‘thou dost speak of Arno’s wave.’

To whom the other: ‘Why hath he concealed
The title of that river, as a man
Doth of some horrible thing?” The spirit, who
Thereof was questioned, did acquit him thus: 30
‘I know not: but ’tis fitting well the name
Should perish of that vale; for from the source,
Where teems so plenteously the Alpine steep
Maimed of Pelorus (that doth scarcely pass
Beyond that limit), even to the point
Where unto ocean is restored what heaven
Drains from the exhaustless store for all earth’s streams,
Throughout the space is virtue worried down,
As ’twere a snake, by all, for mortal foe ;

LINES 1-69] PURGATORY 169

Or through disastrous influence on the place, 40
Or else distortion of misguided wills

That custom goads to evil: whence in those,

The dwellers in that miserable vale,

Nature is so transformed, it seems as they

Had shared of Circe’s feeding. ’*Midst brute swine,
Worthier of acorns than of other food

Created for man’s use, he shapeth first

His obscure way; then, sloping onward, finds

Curs, snarlers more in spite than power, from whom

He turns with scorn aside: still journeying down, 50
By how much more the cursed and luckless foss

Swells out to largeness, e’en so much it finds

Dogs turning into wolves. Descending still

Through yet more hollow eddies, next he meets

A race of foxes, so replete with craft,

They do not fear that skill can master it.

Nor will I cease because my words are heard

By other ears than thine. It shall be well

For this man, if he keep in memory

What from no erring spirit I reveal. 60
Lo! I behold thy grandson, that becomes

A hunter of those wolves, upon the shore

Of the fierce stream ; and cows them all with dread.
Their flesh, yet living, sets he up to sale,

Then, like an aged beast, to slaughter dooms.

Many of life he reaves, himself of worth

And goodly estimation. Smeared with gore,

Mark how he issues from the rueful wood ;

Leaving such havoc, that in thousand years

170 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xiv

It spreads not to prime lustihood again.’ 70

As one, who tidings hears of woe to come,

Changes his looks perturbed, from whate’er part
The peril grasp him; so beheld I change

That spirit, who had turned to listen; struck
With sadness, soon as he had caught the word.

His visage, and the other’s speech, did raise
Desire in me to know the names of both ;

Whereof, with meek entreaty, I inquired.

The shade, who late addressed me, thus resumed :
‘Thy wish imports, that I vouchsafe to do 80
For thy sake what thou wilt not do for mine.

But, since God’s will is that so largely shine

His grace in thee, I will be liberal too.

Guido of Duca know then that I am.

Envy so parched my blood, that had I seen

A fellow man made joyous, thou hadst marked

A livid paleness overspread my cheek.

Such harvest reap I of the seed I sowed.

O man! why place thy heart where there doth need
Exclusion of participants in good ? go
This is Rinieri’s spirit ; this, the boast

And honour of the house of Calboli ;

Where of his worth no heritage remains.

Nor his the only blood, that hath been stripped
(Twixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore)
Of all that truth or fancy asks for bliss :

But, in those limits, such a growth has sprung

Of rank and venomed roots, as long would mock
Slow culture’s toil. Where is good Lizio ? where
Mainardi, Traversaro, and Carpigna ? 100
O bastard slips of old Romagna’s line !

When in Bologna the low artisan,

And in Faenza yon Bernardin sprouts,

A gentle scion from ignoble stem.

Wonder not, Tuscan, if thou see me weep,

When I recall to mind those once loved names,
Guido of Prata, and of Azzo him

That dwelt with us; Tignoso and his troop,

With Traversaro’s house and Anastagio’s,

(Each race disherited) ; and beside these, 110
The ladies and the knights, the toils and ease,

That witched us into love and courtesy ;

Where now such malice reigns in recreant hearts.

O Brettinoro ! wherefore tarriest still,

Since forth of thee thy family hath gone,

And many, hating evil, joined their steps ?

Well doeth he, that bids his lineage cease,
Bagnacavallo ; Castrocaro ill,

CANTO xv] PURGATORY 171

And Conio worse, who care to propagate
A race of Counties from such blood as theirs. 120
Well shall ye also do, Pagani, then
When from amongst you hies your demon child ;
Not so, howe’er, that thenceforth there remain
True proof of what ye were. O Hugolin,
Thou sprung of Fantolini’s line! thy name
Is safe; since none is looked for after thee
To cloud its lustre, warping from thy stock.
But, Tuscan! go thy ways; for now I take
Far more delight in weeping, than in words.
Such pity for your sakes hath wrung my heart.’ 130
We knew those gentle spirits, at parting, heard
Our steps. Their silence therefore, of our way,
Assured us. Soon as we had quitted them,
Advancing onward, lo! a voice, that seemed
Like volleyed lightning, when it rives the air,
Met us, and shouted, ‘ Whosoever finds
Will slay me’; then fled from us, as the bolt
Lanced sudden from a downward-rushing cloud.
When it had given short truce unto our hearing,
Behold the other with a crash as loud 140
As the quick-following thunder: ‘Mark in me
Aglauros, turned to rock.’ I, at the sound
Retreating, drew more closely to my guide.
Now in mute stillness rested all the air ;
And thus he spake: ‘ There was the galling bit,
Which should keep man within his boundary.
But your old enemy so baits the hook,
He drags you eager to him. Hence nor curb
Avails you, nor reclaiming call. Heaven calls,
And, round about you wheeling, courts your gaze 150
With everlasting beauties. Yet your eye
Turns with fond doting still upon the earth.
Therefore He smites you who discerneth all.’

CANTO XV

ARGUMENT

An angel invites them to ascend the next steep. On their way Dante
suggests certain doubts, which are resolved by Virgil; and, when they
reach the third cornice, where the sin of anger is purged, our Poet, in
a kind of waking dream, beholds remarkable instances of patience; and
soon after they are enveloped in a dense fog.

As much as *twixt the third hour’s close and dawn,
Appeareth of heaven’s sphere, that ever whirls

As restless as an infant in his play ;

So much appeared remaining to the sun

172 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xv

Of his slope journey towards the western goal.

Evening was there, and here the noon of night ;
And full upon our forehead smote the beams.
For round the mountain, circling, so our path
Had led us, that toward the sunset now
Direct we journeyed ; when I felt a weight 10
Of more exceeding splendour, than before,
Press on my front. The cause unknown, amaze
Possessed me! and both hands against my brows
Lifting, I interposed them, as a screen,
That of its gorgeous superflux of light
Clips the diminished orb. As when the ray,
Striking on water or the surface clear
Wd
wey
prio. Ss

R

Of mirror, leaps unto the opposite part,
Ascending at a glance, e’en as it fell,
And as much differs from the stone, that falls 20
Through equal space (so practic skill hath shown) ;
Thus, with refracted light, before me seemed
The ground there smitten ; whence, in sudden haste,
My sight recoiled. ‘What is this, sire beloved !
*Gainst which I strive to shield the sight in vain ?’
Cried I, ‘and which toward us moving seems ?’
‘Marvel not, if the family of heaven,’
He answered, ‘ yet with dazzling radiance dim
Thy sense. It is a messenger who comes,
Inviting man’s ascent. Such sights ere long, 30
Not grievous, shall impart to thee delight,
As thy perception is by nature wrought
Up to their pitch.’ The blessed angel, soon

Linzs 5-82] PURGATORY 173

As we had reached him, hailed us with glad voice:
‘Here enter on a ladder far less steep
Than ye have yet encountered.’ We forthwith
Ascending, heard behind us chanted sweet,
‘ Blesséd the merciful,’ and * Happy thou,
That conquerest’. Lonely each, my guide and I,
Pursued our upward way; and as we went, 40
Some profit from his words I hoped to win,
And thus of him inquiring, framed my speech :
“What meant Romagna’s spirit, when he spake
Of bliss exclusive, with no partner shared ?’
He straight replied: ‘No wonder, since he knows
What sorrow waits on his own worst defect,
If he chide others, that they less may mourn.
Because ye point your wishes at a mark,
Where, by communion of possessors, part
Is lessened, envy bloweth up men’s sighs. 50
No fear of that might touch ye, if the love
Of higher sphere exalted your desire.
For there, by how much more they call it ours,
So much propriety of each in good
Increases more, and heightened charity
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.’
“Now lack I satisfaction more,’ said I,
‘Than if thou hadst been silent at the first ;
And doubt more gathers on my labouring thought.
How can it chance, that good distributed, 60
The many, that possess it, makes more rich,
Than if *t were shared by few?’ He answering thus
‘Thy mind, reverting still to things of earth,
Strikes darkness from true light. The highest good
Unlimited, ineffable, doth so speed
To love, as beam to lucid body darts,
Giving as much of ardour as it finds.
The sempiterna] effluence streams abroad,
Spreading, wherever charity extends.
So that the more aspirants to that bliss 70
Are multiplied, more good is there to love,
And more is loved ; as mirrors, that reflect,
Each unto other, propagated light.
If these my words avail not to allay
Thy thirsting, Beatrice thou shalt see,
Who of this want, and of all else thou hast,
Shall rid thee to the full. Provide but thou,
That from thy temples may be soon erased,
E’en as the two already, those five scars,
That, when they pain thee worst, then kindliest heal.’ 80
‘Thou,’ I had said, ‘ content’st me’; when I saw
The other round was gained, and wondering eyes

174 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xv

Did keep me mute. There suddenly I seemed
By an ecstatic vision wrapped away ;
And in a temple saw, methought, a crowd
Of many persons; and at the entrance stood
A dame, whose sweet demeanour did express
A mother’s love, who said, ‘Child! why hast thou
Dealt with us thus? Behold thy sire and I
Sorrowing have sought thee ;’ and so held her peace; 90
And straight the vision fled. A female next
Appeared before me, down whose visage coursed
Those waters, that grief forces out from one
By deep resentment stung, who seemed to say:
‘If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed
Over this city, named with such debate
Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,
Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace
Hath clasped our daughter ;’ and to her, meseemed,
Benign and meek, with visage undisturbed, 100
Her sovereign spake: ‘ How shall we those requite
Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn
The man that loves us?’ After that I saw
A multitude, in fury burning, slay
With stones a stripling youth, and shout amain
‘Destroy, destroy’; and him I saw, who bowed
Heavy with death unto the ground, yet made
His eyes, unfolded upward, gates to heaven,
Praying forgiveness of the Almighty Sire,
Amidst that cruel conflict, on his foes, ig Co
With looks that win compassion to their aim.
Soon as my spirit, from her airy flight
Returning, sought again the things whose truth
Depends not on her shaping, I observed
She had not roved to falsehood in her dreams.
Meanwhile the leader, who might see I moved
As one who struggles to shake off his sleep,
Exclaimed: ‘ What ails thee, that thou canst not hold
Thy footing firm; but more than half a league
Hast travelled with closed eyes and tottering gait, 120
Like to a man by wine or sleep o’ercharged ?’
‘ Beloved father! so thou deign,’ said I,
‘To listen, I will tell thee what appeared
Before me, when so failed my sinking steps.’
He thus: ‘ Not if thy countenance were masked
With hundred vizards, could a thought of thine,
How small soe’er, elude me. What thou saw’st
Was shown, that freely thou mightst ope thy heart
To the waters of peace, that flow diffused
From their eternal fountain. I not asked, 130
What ails thee ? for such cause as he doth, who

CANTO xvi] PURGATORY 175

Looks only with that eye, which sees no more,
When spiritless the body lies; but asked,
To give fresh vigour to thy foot. Such goads,
The slow and loitering need; that they be found
Not wanting, when their hour of watch returns.’
So on we journeyed, through the evening sky
Gazing intent, far onward as our eyes,
With level view, could stretch against the bright
Vespertine ray: and lo! by slow degrees 140
Gathering, a fog made towards us, dark as night.
There was no room for ’scaping; and that mist
Bereft us, both of sight and the pure air.

CANTO XVI

ARGUMENT

As they proceed through the mist, they hear the voices of spirits praying.
Marco Lombardo, one of these, points out to Dante the error of such as
impute our actions to necessity ; explains to him that man is endued with
free will; and shows that much of human depravity results from the
undue mixture of spiritual and temporal authority in rulers.

HELL’s dunnest gloom, or night unlustrous, dark,
Of every planet ’reft, and palled in clouds,
Did never spread before the sight a veil
In thickness like that fog, nor to the sense
So palpable and gross. Entering its shade,
Mine eye endured not with uncloséd lids ;
Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide,
Offering me his shoulder for a stay.
As the blind man behind his leader walks,
Lest he should err, or stumble unawares 10
On what might harm him or perhaps destroy ;
I journeyed through that bitter air and foul,
Still listening to my escort’s warning voice,
‘Look that from me thou part not.’ Straight I heard
Voices, and each one seemed to pray for peace,
And for compassion, to the Lamb of God
That taketh sins away. Their prelude still
Was ‘ Agnus Dei’; and through all the choir,
One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seemed
The concord of their song. ‘ Are these I hear 20
Spirits, O master?’ I exclaimed; and he,
‘Thou aim’st aright: these loose the bonds of wrath.’
‘Now who art thou, that through our smoke dost cleave,
And speak’st of us, as thou thyself e’en yet
Dividedst time by calends?’ So one voice
Bespake me; whence my master said, * Reply ;

176 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xvx

And ask, if upward hence the passage lead.’

‘O being! who dost make thee pure, to stand
Beautiful once more in thy Maker’s sight ;
Along with me: and thou shalt hear and wonder.’ 30
Thus I, whereto the spirit answering spake :
‘Long as ’tis lawful for me, shall my steps
Follow on thine; and since the cloudy smoke
Forbids the seeing, hearing in its stead
Shall keep us joined.’ I then forthwith began :
‘Yet in my mortal swathing, I ascend
To higher regions; and am hither come
Thorough the fearful agony of hell.

And, if so largely God hath doled his grace,

ae =
sich Ey OW LT ES —EN
. > io = —
X fe ————
ae

SSS

That, clean beside all modern precedent, 40
He wills me to behold his kingly state ;
From me conceal not who thou wast, ere death
Had loosed thee ; but instruct me: and instruct
If rightly to the pass I tend; thy words
The way directing, as a safe escort.’
‘I was of Lombardy, and Marco called:
Not inexperienced of the world, that worth
I still affected, from which all have turned
The nerveless bow aside. Thy course tends right
Unto the summit:’ and, replying thus, 50
He added, ‘I beseech thee pray for me,
When thou shalt come aloft.’ And I to him
‘ Accept my faith for pledge I will perform

LINES 27-102] PURGATORY LW

What thou requirest. Yet one doubt remains,
That wrings me sorely, if I solve it not.
Singly before it urged me, doubled now
By thine opinion, when I couple that
With one elsewhere declared ; each strengthening other.
The world indeed is even so forlorn
Of all good, as thou speak’st it, and so swarms 60
With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point
The cause out to me, that myself may see,
And unto others show it: for in heaven
One places it, and one on earth below.’

Then heaving forth a deep and audible sigh,
‘Brother!’ he thus began, ‘the world is blind ;
And thou in truth comest from it. Ye, who live,
Do so each cause refer to heaven above,
E’en as its motion, of necessity,
Drew with it all that moves. If this were so, 70
Free choice in you were none; nor justice would
There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill.
Your movements have their primal bent from heaven
Not all: yet said I all; what then ensues ?
Light have ye still to follow evil or good,
And of the will free power, which, if it stand
Firm and unwearied in Heaven’s first assay,
Conquers at last, so it be cherished well,
Triumphant over all. To mightier force,
To better nature subject, ye abide 80
Free, not constrained by that which forms in you
The reasoning mind uninfluenced of the stars.
If then the present race of mankind err,
Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there.
Herein thou shalt confess me no false spy.

‘Forth from his plastic hand, who charmed beholds
Her image ere she yet exist, the soul
Comes like a babe, that wantons sportively,
Weeping and laughing in its wayward moods ;
As artless, and as ignorant of aught, go
Save that her Maker being one who dwells
With gladness ever, willingly she turns
To whate’er yields her joy. Of some slight good
The flavour soon she tastes; and, snared by that,
With fondness she pursues it; if no guide
Recall, no rein direct her wandering course.
Hence it behoved, the law should be a curb;
A sovereign hence behoved, whose piercing view
Might mark at least the fortress and main tower
Of the true city. Laws indeed there are: 100
But who is he observes them? None; not he,
Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock,

178

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XVI

Who chews the cud but doth not cleave the hoof.
Therefore the multitude, who see their guide

Strike at the very good they covet most,

Feed there and look no further. Thus the cause

Is not corrupted nature in yourselves,

But ill-conducting, that hath turned the world

To evil. Rome, that turned it unto good,

Was wont to boast two suns, whose several beams IIO
Cast light on either way, the world’s and God’s.

One since hath quenched the other; and the sword

Is grafted on the crook; and, so conjoined,

Each must perforce decline to worse, unawed

By fear of other. If thou doubt me, mark

The blade: each herb is judged of by its seed.

That land, through which Adice and the Po

Their waters roll, was once the residence

Of courtesy and valour, ere the day

That frowned on Frederick ; now secure may pass 120
Those limits, whosoe’er hath left, for shame,

To talk with good men, or come near their haunts.

Three agéd ones are still found there, in whom

The old time chides the new: these deem it long

Ere God restore them to a better world:

The good Gherardo; of Palazzo he,

Conrad ; and Guido of Castello, named

In Gallic phrase more fitly the plain Lombard.

On this at last conclude. The church of Rome,

Mixing two governments that ill assort, i130
Hath missed her footing, fallen into the mire,

And there herself and burden much defiled.’

*“O Marco!’ I replied, ‘thine arguments
Convince me: and the cause I now discern,

Why of the heritage no portion came
To Levi’s offspring. But resolve me this:
Who that Gherardo is, that as thou say’st
Is left a sample of the perished race,
And for rebuke to this untoward age ?’

‘Either thy words,’ said he, ‘ deceive, or else 140
Are meant to try me; that thou, speaking Tuscan,
Appear’st not to have heard of good Gherardo ;

The sole addition that, by which I know him ;

Unless I borrowed from his daughter Gaia

Another name to grace him. God be with you.

I bear you company no more. Behold

The dawn with white ray glimmering through the mist.
I must away—the angel comes—ere he

Appear.’ He said, and would not hear me more.

Canto xvir] PURGATORY 179

CANTO XVII

ARGUMENT

The Poet issues from that thick vapour ; and soon after his fancy represents
to him in lively portraiture some noted examples of anger. This imagina-
tion is dissipated by the appearance of an angel, who marshals them on-
ward to the fourth cornice, on which the sin of gloominess or indifference
is purged ; and here Virgil shows him that this vice proceeds from a defect
of love, and that all love can be only of two sorts, either natural, or of the
soul; of which sorts the former is always right, but the latter may err
either in respect of object or of degree.

CALL to remembrance, reader, if thou e’er
Hast on an Alpine height been ta’en by cloud,
Through which thou saw’st no better than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene’er
The watery vapours dense began to melt
Into thin air, how faintly the sun’s sphere
Seemed wading through them: so thy nimble thought
May image, how at first I rebeheld
The sun, that bedward now his couch o’erhung.

Thus, with my leader’s feet still equalling pace, 10
From forth that cloud I came, when now expired
The parting beams from off the nether shores.

O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost
So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark
Though round about us thousand trumpets clang ;
What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light
Moves thee from heaven, spontaneous, self-informed ;
Or, likelier, gliding down with swift illapse
By will divine. Portrayed before me came
The traces of her dire impiety, 20
Whose form was changed into the bird, that most
Delights itself in song: and here my mind
Was inwardly so wrapped, it gave no place
To aught that asked admittance from without.
Next showered into my fantasy a shape
As of one crucified, whose visage spake
Fell rancour, malice deep, wherein he died ;
And round him Ahasuerus the great king ;
Esther his bride; and Mordecai the just,
Blameless in word and deed. As of itself 30
That unsubstantial coinage of the brain
Burst, like a bubble, when the water fails
That fed it; in my vision straight uprose
A damsel weeping loud, and cried, ‘O queen!
O mother! wherefore has intemperate ire
Driven thee to loathe thy being ? Not to lose
Lavinia, desperate thou hast slain thyself.

180

THE VISION OF DANTE

[CANTO XVII

Now hast thou lost me. I am she, whose tears

Mourn, ere I fall, a mother’s timeless end.’
E’en as a sleep breaks off, if suddenly
Now radiance strike upon the closéd lids,
The broken slumber quivering ere it dies ;
Thus, from before me, sunk that imagery,
Vanishing, soon as on my face there struck
The light, outshining far our earthly beam.
As round I turned me to survey what place

40

I had arrived at, ‘Here ye mount’: exclaimed

A voice, that other purpose left me none
Save will so eager to behold who spake,

I could not choose but gaze. As ’fore the sun, 50
That weighs our vision down, and veils his form

In light transcendent, thus my virtue failed
Unequal. ‘This is Spirit from above,
Who marshals us our upward way, unsought ;

And in his own light shrouds him. As a man

Doth for himself, so now is done for us.

For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need

Of his prompt aidance, sets himself prepared
For blunt denial, ere the suit be made.
Refuse we not to lend a ready foot

At such inviting: haste we to ascend,
Before it darken: for we may not then,

Till morn again return.’ So spake my guide ;
And to one ladder both addressed our steps ;

60

LINEs 38-113] PURGATORY 181

And the first stair approaching, I perceived

Near me as ’t were the waving of a wing,

That fanned my face, and whispered: ‘ Blesséd they,

The peacemakers: they know not evil wrath.’
Now to such height above our heads were raised

The last beams, followed close by hooded night, 70

That many a star on all sides through the gloom

Shone out. ‘Why partest from me, O my strength ?’

So with myself I communed ; for I felt

My o’ertoiled sinews slacken. We had reached

The summit, and were fixed like to a bark

Arrived at land. And waiting a short space,

If aught should meet mine ear in that new round,

Then to my guide I turned, and said: ‘ Loved sire!

Declare what guilt is on this circle purged.

If our feet rest, no need thy speech should pause.’ 80
He thus to me: ‘The love of good, whate’er

Wanted of just proportion, here fulfils.

Here plies afresh the oar, that loitered ill.

But that thou mayst yet clearlier understand,

Give ear unto my words; and thou shalt cull

Some fruit may please thee well, from this delay.
“Creator, nor created being, e’er,

My son,’ he thus began, ‘ was without love,

Or natural, or the free spirit’s growth.

Thou hast not that to learn. The natural still go

Is without error: but the other swerves,

If on ill object bent, or through excess

Of vigour, or defect. While e’er it seeks

The primal blessings, or with measure due

The inferior, no delight, that flows from it,

Partakes of ill. But let it warp to evil,

Or with more ardour than behoves, or less,

Pursue the good; the thing created then

Works ’gainst its Maker. Hence thou must infer,

That love is germin of each virtue in ye, 100

And of each act no less, that merits pain.

Now since it may not be, but love intend

The welfare mainly of the thing it loves,

All from self-hatred are secure; and since

No being can be thought to exist apart,

And independent of the first, a bar

Of equal force restrains from hating that.
‘Grant the distinction just; and it remains

The evil must be another’s, which is loved.

Three ways such love is gendered in your clay. 110

There is who hopes (his neighbour’s worth depressed)

Pre-eminence himself; and covets hence,

For his own greatness, that another fall.

182 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xvi

There is who so much fears the loss of power,
Fame, favour, glory (should his fellow mount

Above him), and so sickens at the thought,

He loves their opposite: and there is he,

Whom wrong or insult seems to gall and shame,
That he doth thirst for vengeance; and such needs

Must dote on other’s evil. Here beneath, 120

This threefold love is mourned. Of the other sort
Be now instructed ; that which follows good,
But with disordered and irregular course.
‘All indistinctly apprehend a bliss,
On which the soul may rest; the hearts of all
Yearn after it; and to that wished bourne
All therefore strive to tend. If ye behold,
Or seek it, with a love remiss and lax;
This cornice, after just repenting, lays

Its penal torment on ye. Other good 130

There is, where man finds not his happiness :
It is not true fruition; not that blest
Essence, of every good the branch and root.
The love too lavishly bestowed on this,
Along three circles over us, 1s mourned.
Account of that division tripartite

Expect not, fitter for thine own research.’

CANTO XVIII
ARGUMENT

Virgil discourses further concerning the nature of love. Then a multitude
of spirits rush by ; two of whom in van of the rest, record instances of
zeal and fervent affection, and another, who was abbot of San Zeno in
Verona, declares himself to Virgil and Dante; and lastly follow other
spirits, shouting forth memorable examples of the sin for which they
suffer. The Poet, pursuing his meditations, falls into a dreamy slumber.

THE teacher ended, and his high discourse
Concluding, earnest in my looks inquired

If I appeared content; and I, whom still

Unsated thirst to hear him urged, was mute,

Mute outwardly, yet inwardly I said:

*Perchance my too much questioning offends.’

But he, true father, marked the secret wish

By diffidence restrained ; and, speaking, gave

Me boldness thus to speak: ‘ Master! my sight
Gathers so lively virtue from thy beams, 10
That all, thy words convey, distinct is seen.
Wherefore I pray thee, father, whom this heart
Holds dearest, thou wouldst deign by proof to unfold

CANTO XVIII] PURGATORY 183

That love, from which, as from their source, thou bring’st
All good deeds and their opposite.’ He then:
‘To what I now disclose be thy clear ken
Directed ; and thou plainly shalt behold
How much those blind have erred, who make themselves
The guides of men. The soul, created apt
To love, moves versatile which way soe’er 20
Aught pleasing prompts her, soon as she is waked
By pleasure into act. Of substance true
Your apprehension forms its counterfeit ;
And, in you the ideal shape presenting,
Attracts the soul’s regard. If she, thus drawn,
Incline toward it; love is that inclining,
And a new nature knit by pleasure in ye.
Then, as the fire points up, and mounting seeks
His birthplace and his lasting seat, e’en thus
Enters the captive soul into desire, 30
Which is a spiritual motion, that ne’er rests
Before enjoyment of the thing it loves.
Enough to show thee, how the truth from those
Is hidden, who aver all love a thing
Praiseworthy in itself; although perhaps
Its matter seem still good. Yet if the wax
Be good, it follows not the impression must.’
‘What love is,’ I returned, ‘thy words, O guide!
And my own docile mind, reveal. Yet thence
New doubts have sprung. For, from without, if love 40
Be offered to us, and the spirit knows
No other footing ; tend she right or wrong,
Is no desert of hers.’ He answering thus:
‘What reason here discovers, I have power
To show thee: that which lies beyond, expect
From Beatrice, faith not reason’s task.
Spirit, substantial form, with matter joined,
Not in confusion mixed, hath in itself
Specific virtue of that union born,
Which is not felt except it work, nor proved 5°
But through effect, as vegetable life
By the green leaf. From whence his intellect
Deduced its primal notices of things,
Man therefore knows not, or his appetites
Their first affections; such in you, as zeal
In bees to gather honey; at the first,
Volition, meriting nor blame nor praise.
But o’er each lower faculty supreme,
That, as she list, are summoned to her bar,
Ye have that virtue in you, whose just voice 60
Uttereth counsel, and whose word should keep
The threshold of assent. Here is the source,

184 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvim

Whence cause of merit in you is derived ;
E’en as the affections, good or ill, she takes,
Or severs, winnowed as the chaff. Those men,
Who, reasoning, went to depth profoundest, marked
That innate freedom; and were thence induced
To leave their moral teaching to the world.
Grant then, that from necessity arise
All love that glows within you; to dismiss 70
Or harbour it, the power is in yourselves.
Remember, Beatrice, in her style,
Denominates free choice by eminence
The noble virtue; if in talk with thee
She touch upon that theme.’ The moon, wellnigh
To midnight hour belated, made the stars
Appear to wink and fade; and her broad disk
Seemed like a crag on fire, as up the vault
That course she journeyed, which the sun then warms ;
When they of Rome behold him at his set 80
Betwixt Sardinia and the Corsic isle.
And now the weight, that hung upon my thought,
Was lightened by the aid of that clear spirit,
Who raiseth Andes above Mantua’s name.
I therefore, when my questions had obtained
Solution plain and ample, stood as one
Musing in dreamy slumber; but not long
Slumbered ; for suddenly a multitude,
The steep already turning from behind,
Rushed on. With fury and like random rout, go
As echoing on their shores at midnight heard
Ismenus and Asopus, for his Thebes
If Bacchus’ help were needed ; so came these
Tumultuous, curving each his rapid step,
By eagerness impelled of holy love.

Soon they o’ertook us; with such swiftness moved
The mighty crowd. Two spirits at their head
Cried, weeping, ‘ Blessed Mary sought with haste
The hilly region. Caesar, to subdue
Ilerda, darted in Marseilles his sting, 100
And flew to Spain.’—‘ Oh, tarry not: away!’
The others shouted ; ‘let not time be lost
Through slackness of affection. Hearty zeal
To serve reanimates celestial grace.’

‘O ye! in whom intenser fervency
Haply supplies, where lukewarm erst ye failed,
Slow or neglectful, to absolve your part
Of good and virtuous; this man, who yet lives
(Credit my tale, though strange), desires to ascend,
So morning rise to light us. Therefore say 110
Which hand leads nearest to the rifted rock.’

Lines 63-138] PURGATORY 185

So spake my guide; to whom a shade returned :
‘Come after us, and thou shalt find the cleft.
We may not linger: such resistless will
Speeds our unwearied course. Vouchsafe us then
Thy pardon, if our duty seem to thee
Discourteous rudeness. In Verona I
Was abbot of San Zeno, when the hand
Of Barbarossa grasped Imperial sway,
That name ne’er uttered without tears in Milan. 120
And there is he, hath one foot in his grave,
Who for that monastery ere long shall weep,
Ruing his power misused: for that his son,

Of body ill compact, and worse in mind,

And born in evil, he hath set in place

Of its true pastor.’ Whether more he spake,
Or here was mute, I know not: he had sped
E’en now so far beyond us. Yet thus much
I heard, and in remembrance treasured it.

He then, who never failed me at my need, 130
Cried, ‘ Hither turn. Lo! two with sharp remorse
Chiding their sin.’ In rear of all the troop
These shouted: ‘ First they died, to whom the sea
Opened, or ever Jordan saw his heirs :

And they, who with Aeneas to the end
Endured not suffering, for their portion chose
Life without glory.’ Soon as they had fled
Past reach of sight, new thought within me rose

186 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvin

By others followed fast, and each unlike

Its fellow: till led on from thought to thought, 140
And pleasured with the fleeting train, mine eye

Was closed, and meditation changed to dream.

CANTO XIX

ARGUMENT

The Poet, after describing his dream, relates how, at the summoning of an
angel, he ascends with Virgil to the fifth cornice, where the sin of avarice
is cleansed, and where he finds Pope Adrian the Fifth.

Ir was the hour, when of diurnal heat

No reliques chafe the cold beams of the moon,
O’erpowered by earth, or planetary sway

Of Saturn; and the geomancer sees

His Greater Fortune up the east ascend,

Where grey dawn checkers first the shadowy cone ;
When, ’fore me in my dream, a woman’s shape
There came, with lips that stammered, eyes aslant,
Distorted feet, hands maimed, and colour pale.

I looked upon her: and, as sunshine cheers 10
Limbs numbed by nightly cold, e’en thus my look
Unloosed her tongue; next, in brief space, her form
Decrepit raised erect, and faded face
With love’s own hue illumed. Recovering speech,
She forthwith, warbling, such a strain began,
That I, how loath soe’er, could scarce have held
Attention from the song. ‘I,’ thus she sang,
‘IT am the Syren, she, whom mariners
On the wide sea are wildered when they hear:
Such fullness of delight the listener feels. 20
I, from his course, Ulysses by my lay
Enchanted drew. Whoe’er frequents me once,
Parts seldom: so I charm him, and his heart
Contented knows no void.’ Or ere her mouth
Was closed, to shame her, at my side appeared
A dame of semblance holy. With stern voice
She uttered: ‘Say, O Virgil! who is this?’
Which hearing, he approached, with eyes still bent
Toward that goodly presence: the other seized her,
And, her robes tearing, opened her before, 30
And showed the belly to me, whence a smell,
Exhaling loathsome, waked me. Round I turned
Mine eyes: and thus the teacher: ‘ At the least
Three times my voice hath called thee. Rise, begone.
Let us the opening find where thou mayst pass.’

I straightway rose. Now day, poured down from high,

CANTO xIx] PURGATORY 187

Filled all the circuits of the sacred mount ;
And, as we journeyed, on our shoulder smote
The early ray. I followed, stooping low
My focehead, as a man, o’ercharged with thought, 40
Who bends him to the likeness of an arch
That midway spans the flood; when thus I heard,
“Come, enter here,’ in tone so soft and mild,
As never met the ear on mortal strand.
With swan-like wings dispread and pointing up,
Who thus had spoken marshalled us along,
Where, each side of the solid masonry,
The sloping walls retired ; then moved his plumes,
And fanning us, affirmed that those, who mourn,
Are blesséd, for that comfort shall be theirs. 50
‘What aileth thee, that still thou look’st to earth ?’
Began my leader; while the angelic shape
A little over us his station took.
‘New vision,’ I replied, ‘hath raised in me
Surmisings strange and anxious doubts, whereon
My soul intent allows no other thought
Or room, or entrance.’—‘ Hast thou seen,’ said he,
‘That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone
The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen
How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. 60
Let thy heels spurn the earth; and thy raised ken
Fix on the lure, which heaven’s eternal King
Whirls in the rolling spheres.’ As on his feet
The falcon first looks down, then to the sky
Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food,
That wooes him thither; so the call I heard:
So onward, far as the dividing rock
Gave way, I journeyed, till the plain was reached.
On the fifth circle when I stood at large,
A race appeared before me, on the ground 70
All downward lying prone and weeping sore.
“My soul hath cleavéd to the dust,’ I heard
With sighs so deep, they well nigh choked the words.
“O ye elect of God! whose penal woes
Both hope and justice mitigate, direct
Towards the steep rising our uncertain way.’
“If ye approach secure from this our doom,
Prostration, and would urge your course with speed,
See that ye still to rightward keep the brink.’
So them the bard besought ; and such the words, 80
Beyond us some short space, in answer came.
I noted what remained yet hidden from them :
Thence to my liege’s eyes mine eyes I bent,
And he, forthwith interpreting their suit,
Beckoned his glad assent. Free then to act

188 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xrx

As pleased me, I drew near, and took my stand
Over that shade whose words I late had marked.
And, ‘Spirit!’ I said, ‘in whom repentant tears
Mature that blesséd hour when thou with God
Shalt find acceptance, for a while suspend go
For me that mightier care. Say who thou wast ;
Why thus ye grovel on your bellies prone ;

And if, in aught, ye wish my service there,
Whence living I am come.’ He answering spake :
‘The cause why Heaven our back toward his cope
Reverses, shalt thou know: but me know first,
The successor of Peter, and the name

And title of my lineage, from that stream

That *twixt Chiaveri and Siestri draws

His limpid waters through the lowly glen. 100
A month and little more by proof I learnt,

With what a weight that robe of sovereignty

Upon his shoulder rests, who from the mire

Would guard it; that each other fardel seems

But feathers in the balance. Late, alas !

Was my conversion: but, when I became

Rome’s pastor, I discerned at once the dream

And cozenage of life; saw that the heart

Rested not there, and yet no prouder height

Lured on the climber: wherefore, of that life IIO
No more enamoured, in my bosom love

Of purer being kindled. For till then

I was a soui in misery, alienate

From God, and covetous of all earthly things ;

Now, as thou seest, here punished for my doting.

Such cleansing from the taint of avarice,

CANTO xx] PURGATORY 189

Do spirits, converted, need. This mount inflicts
No direr penalty. E’en as our eyes
Fastened below, nor e’er to loftier clime
Were lifted ; thus hath justice levelled us, 120
Here on the earth. As avarice quenched our love
Of good, without which is no working ; thus
Here justice holds us prisoned, hand and foot
Chained down and bound, while heaven’s just Lord shall please,
So long to tarry, motionless, outstretched.’
My knees I stooped, and would have spoke ; but he,
Ere my beginning, by his ear perceived
I did him reverence ; and ‘ What cause’, said he,
‘Hath bowed thee thus ? ’>—‘ Compunction,’ I rejoined,
‘And inward awe of your high dignity.’ 130
‘Up,’ he exclaimed, ‘ brother! upon thy feet
Arise ; err not: thy fellow servant I,
(Thine and all others’) of one Sovereign Power.
If thou hast ever marked those holy sounds
Of gospel truth, “nor shall be given in marriage,”
Thou mayst discern the reasons of my specch.
Go thy ways now; and linger here no more.
Thy tarrying is a let unto the tears,
With which I hasten that whereof thou spakest.
I have on earth a kinswoman; her name 140
Alagia, worthy in herself, so ill
Example of our house corrupt her not:
And she is all remaineth of me there.’

CANTO XX

ARGUMENT

Among those on the fifth cornice, Hugh Capet records illustrious examples
of voluntary poverty and of bounty ; then tells who himself is, and speaks
of his descendants on the French throne; and, lastly, adds some noted
instances of avarice. When he has ended, the mountain shakes, and all
the spirits sing ‘ Glory to God ’.

Ix strives the will, ’gainst will more wise that strives :
His pleasure therefore to mine own preferred,
I drew the sponge yet thirsty from the wave.
Onward I moved: he also onward moved,
Who led me, coasting still, wherever place
Along the rock was vacant; as a man
Walks near the battlements on narrow wall.
For those on the other part, who drop by drop
Wring out their all-infecting malady,
Too closely press the verge. Accurst be thou, 10
Inveterate wolf! whose gorge ingluts more prey,

190 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XxX

Than every beast beside, yet is not filled ;
So bottomless thy maw.—Ye spheres of heaven !
To whom there are, as seems, who attribute
All change in mortal state, when is the day
Of his appearing, for whom fate reserves
To chase her hence ?—With wary steps and slow
We passed; and I attentive to the shades,
Whom piteously I heard lament and wail ;
And, ’midst the wailing, one before us heard 20
Cry out ‘O blessed Virgin!’ as a dame
In the sharp pangs of childbed ; and ‘ How poor
Thou wast,’ it added, ‘ witness that low roof
Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down.
O good Fabricius! thou didst virtue choose
With poverty, before great wealth with vice.’
The words so pleased me, that desire to know
The spirit, from whose lip they seemed te come,
Did draw me onward. Yet it spake the gift
Of Nicholas, which on the maidens he 30
Bounteous bestowed, to save their youthful prime
Unblemished. ‘Spirit! who dost speak of deeds
So worthy, tell me who thou wast,’ I said,
“And why thou dost with single voice renew
Memorial of such praise. That boon vouchsafed
Haply shall meet reward; if I return
To finish the short pilgrimage of life,
Still speeding to its close on restless wing.’
“TI,” answered he, ‘ will tell thee ; not for help,
Which thence I look for; but that in thyself 40
Grace so exceeding shines, before thy time
Of mortal dissolution. I was root
Of that ill plant whose shade such poison sheds
O’er all the Christian land, that seldom thence
Good fruit is gathered. Vengeance soon should come,
Had Ghent and Douai, Lille and Bruges power ;
And vengeance I of heaven’s great Judge implore.
Hugh Capet was I hight: from me descend
The Philips and the Louis, of whom France
Newly is governed: born of one, who plied 5°
The slaughterer’s trade at Paris. When the race
Of ancient kings had vanished (all save one
Wrapt up in sable weeds) within my grip
I found the reins of empire, and such powers
Of new acquirement, with full store of friends,
That soon the widowed circlet of the crown
Was girt upon the temples of my son,
He, from whose bones the anointed race begins.
Till the great dower of Provence had removed
The stains, that yet obscured our lowly blood, 60

LINEs 12-109] PURGATORY 191

Its sway indeed was narrow ; but howe’er
It wrought no evil: there, with force and lies,
Began its rapine: after, for amends,
Poitou it seized, Navarre and Gascony.
To Italy came Charles; and for amends,
Young Conradine, an innocent victim, slew ;
And sent the angelic teacher back to heaven,
Still for amends. I see the time at hand,
That forth from France invites another Charles
To make himself and kindred better known. 70
Unarmed he issues, saving with that lance,
Which the arch-traitor tilted with; and that
He carries with so home a thrust, as rives
The bowels of poor Florence. No increase
Of territory hence, but sin and shame
Shall be his guerdon; and so much the more
As he more lightly deems of such foul wrong.
I see the other (who a prisoner late
Had stepped on shore) exposing to the mart
His daughter, whom he bargains for, as do So
The Corsairs for their slaves. O avarice !
What canst thou more, who hast subdued our blood
So wholly to thyself, they feel no care
Of their own flesh ? To hide with direr guilt
Past ill and future, lo! the flower-de-luce
Enters Alagna; in his Vicar Christ
Himself a captive, and his mockery
Acted again. Lo! to his holy lip
The vinegar and gall once more applied ;
And he *twixt living robbers doomed to bleed. go
Lo! the new Pilate, of whose cruelty
Such violence cannot fill the measure up,
With no decree to sanction, pushes on
Into the temple his yet eager sails.
‘O sovereign Master! when shall I rejoice
To see the vengeance, which thy wrath, well-pleased,
In secret silence broods ?—While daylight lasts,
So long what thou didst hear of her, sole spouse
Of the Great Spirit, and on which thou turn’dst
To me for comment, is the general theme 100
Of all our prayers: but, when it darkens, then
A different strain we utter; then record
Pygmalion, whom his gluttonous thirst of gold
Made traitor, robber, parricide: the woes
Of Midas, which his greedy wish ensued,
Marked for derision to all future times:
And the fond Achan, how he stole the prey,
That yet he seems by Joshua’s ire pursued.
Sapphira with her husband next we blame ;

192 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xx

And praise the forefeet, that with furious ramp 110

Spurned Heliodorus. All the mountain round

Rings with the infamy of Thracia’s king,

Who slew his Phrygian charge: and last a shout

Ascends: ‘‘ Declare, O Crassus! for thou know’st,

The flavour of thy gold.’’ The voice of each

Now high, now low, as each his impulse prompts,

Is led through many a pitch, acute or grave.

Therefore, not singly, I erewhile rehearsed

That blessedness we tell of in the day:

But near me, none, beside, his accent raised.’ 120
From him we now had parted, and essayed

With utmost efforts to surmount the way ;

When I did feel, as nodding to its fall,

The mountain tremble ; whence an icy chill

Seized on me, as on one to death conveyed.

So shook not Delos, when Latona there

Couched to bring forth the twin-born eyes of heaven.
Forthwith from every side a shout arose

So vehement, that suddenly my guide

Drew near, and cried: ‘ Doubt not, while I conduct thee.’ 130

‘Glory!’ all shouted (such the sounds mine ear

Gathered from those, who near me swelled the sounds)

‘Glory in the highest be to God.’ We stood

Immovably suspended, like to those,

The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem’s field

That song: till ceased the trembling, and the sorg

CL EEE

CANTO XXII] PURGATORY 193

Was ended: then our hallowed path resumed,

Eyeing the prostrate shadows, who renewed

Their customed mourning. Never in my breast

Did ignorance so struggle with desire 140
Of knowledge, if my memory do not err,

As in that moment; nor through haste dared I

To question, nor myself could aught discern.

So on I fared, in thoughtfulness and dread.

CANTO XXI

ARGUMENT
The two Poets are overtaken by the spirit of Statius, who, being cleansed, is
on his way to Paradise, and who explains the cause of the mountain
shaking, and of the hymn; his joy at beholding Virgil.

THE natural thirst, ne’er quenched but from the well
Whereof the woman of Samaria craved,

Excited ; haste, along the cumbered path,

After my guide, impelled; and pity moved

My bosom for the ’vengeful doom though just.

When lo! even as Luke relates, that Christ
Appeared unto the two upon their way,

New-risen from his vaulted grave; to us

A shade appeared, and after us approached,
Contemplating the crowd beneath its feet. 10
We were not ware of it; so first it spake,

Saying, ‘God give you peace, my brethren!’ then
Sudden we turned: and Virgil such salute,

As fitted that kind greeting, gave; and cried:
‘Peace in the blessed council be thy lot,

Awarded by that righteous court which me

To everlasting banishment exiles.’

‘How!’ he exclaimed, nor from his speed meanwhile
Desisting ; ‘If that ye be spirits whom God
Vouchsafes not room above ; who up the height 20
Has been thus far your guide ?” To whom the bard:
“If thou observe the tokens, which this man,

Traced by the finger of the angel, bears ;

Tis plain that in the kingdom of the just

He needs must share. But sithence she, whose wheel
Spins day and night, for him not yet had drawn

That yarn, which on the fatal distaff piled,

Clotho apportions to each wight that breathes ;

His soul, that sister is to mine and thine,

Not of herself could mount ; for not like ours 30
Her ken: whence I, from forth the ample gulf

Of hell, was ta’en, to lead him, and will lead

194

THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canro xxr

Far as my lore avails. But, if thou know,

Instruct us for what cause, the mount erewhile

Thus shook, and trembled: wherefore all at once

Seemed shouting, even from his wave-washed foot.’
That questioning so tallied with my wish,

The thirst did feel abatement of its edge

E’en from expectance. He forthwith replied :

‘In its devotion, nought irregular 40

This mount can witness, or by punctual rule

Unsanctioned ; here from every change exempt,

Other than that, which heaven in itself

Doth of itself receive, no influence

Can reach us. Tempest none, shower, hail, or snow,

SAE

S = 2
ot
( j

Nee
(

SS = —- / = ee

Hoar frost, or dewy moistness, higher falls

Than that brief scale of threefold steps: thick clouds,
Nor scudding rack, are ever seen: swift glance

Ne’er lightens ; nor Thaumantian Iris gleams,

That yonder often shifts on each side heaven. 50
Vapour adust doth never mount above

The highest of the trinal stairs, whereon

Peter’s vicegerent stands. Lower perchance,

With various motion rocked, trembles the soil :

But here, through wind in earth’s deep hollow pent,

I know not how, yet never trembled: then

Trembles, when any spirit feels itself

So purified, that it may rise, or move

For rising ; and such loud acclaim ensues.

Purification, by the will alone, 60
Is proved, that free to change society

Linus 33-110] PURGATORY 195

Seizes the soul rejoicing in her will.
Desire of bliss is present from the first ;
But strong propension hinders, to that wish
By the just ordinance of heaven opposed :
Propension now as eager to fulfil
The allotted torment, as erewhile to sin.
And I, who in this punishment had lain
Five hundred years and more, but now have felt
Free wish for happier clime. Therefore thou felt’st = 70
The mountain tremble ; and the spirits devout
Heard’st, over all his limits, utter praise
To that liege Lord, whom I entreat their joy
To hasten.’ Thus he spake: and, since the draught
Is grateful ever as the thirst is keen,
No words may speak my fullness of content.

‘Now,’ said the instructor sage, ‘I see the net
That takes ye here; and how the toils are loosed ;
Why rocks the mountain, and why ye rejoice.
Vouchsafe, that from thy lips I next may learn 80
Who on the earth thou wast; and wherefore here,
So many an age, wert prostrate.—‘ In that time,
When the good Titus, with Heaven’s King to help,
Avenged those piteous gashes, whence the blood
By Judas sold did issue ; with the name
Most lasting and most honoured, there, was I
Abundantly renowned,’ the shade replied,
“Not yet with faith endued. So passing sweet
My vocal spirit; from Tolosa, Rome
To herself drew me, where I merited -go
A myrtle garland to inwreathe my brow.
Statius they name me still. Of Thebes I sang,
And next of great Achilles; but i the way
Fell with the second burthen. Of my flame
Those sparkles were the seeds, which I derived
From the bright fountain of celestial fire
That feeds unnumbered lamps; the song I mean
Which sounds Aeneas’ wanderings: that the breast
I hung at; that the nurse, from whom my veins
Drank inspiration: whose authority 100
Was ever sacred with me. To have lived
Coeval with the Mantuan, I would bide
The revolution of another sun
Beyond my stated years in banishment.’

The Mantuan, when he heard him, turned to me;
And holding silence, by his countenance
Enjoined me silence: but the power, which wills,
Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears
Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,
They wait not for the motions of the will 110

CARY I

196 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canro xxr

In natures most sincere. I did but smile,

As one who winks; and thereupon the shade

Broke off, and peered into mine eyes, where best

Our looks interpret. ‘So to good event

Mayst thou conduct such great emprise,’ he cried,

‘Say, why across thy visage beamed, but now,

The lightning of a smile.’ On either part

Now am I straitened ; one conjures me speak,

The other to silence binds me: whence a sigh

I utter, and the sigh is heard. ‘Speak on,’ 120

The teacher cried: ‘and do not fear to speak ;

But tell him what so earnestly he asks.’

Whereon I thus: ‘ Perchance, O ancient spirit !

Thou marvel’st at my smiling. There is room

For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken

On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom

Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.

If other cause thou deem’dst for which I smiled

Leave it as not the true one: and believe

Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause.’ 130
Now down he bent to embrace my teacher’s feet ;

But he forbade him: ‘ Brother! do it not:

Thou art a shadow, and behold’st a shade.’

He, rising, answered thus: ‘ Now hast thou proved

The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,

When I forget we are but things of air,

And, as a substance, treat an empty shade.’

CANTO XXII

ARGUMENT

Dante, Virgil, and Statius mount to the sixth cornice, where the sin of
gluttony is cleansed, the two Latin Poets discoursing by the way. Turn-
ing to the right, they find a tree hung with sweet-smelling fruit, and
watered by a shower that issues from the rock. Voices are heard to
proceed from among the leaves, recording examples of temperance.

Now we had left the angel, who had turned

To the sixth circle our ascending step ;

One gash from off my forehead razed ; while they,
Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth,
‘Blessed!’ and ended with ‘I thirst’: and I,
More nimble than along the other straits,

So journeyed, that, without the sense of toil,

| followed upward the swift-footed shades ;

When Virgil thus began: ‘ Let its pure flame
From virtue flow, and love can never fail IO
To warm another’s bosom, so the light

CaNTO xx] PURGATORY 194

Shine manifestly forth. Hence, from that hour,
When, ’mongst us in the purlieus of the deep,
Came down the spirit of Aquinum’s bard,
Who told of thine affection, my good will
Hath been for thee of quality as strong
As ever linked itself to one not seen.
Therefore these stairs will now seem short to me.
But tell me: and, if too secure, I loose
The rein with a friend’s licence, as a friend 20
Forgive me, and speak now as with a friend:
How chanced it covetous desire could find
Place in that bosom, ’midst such ample store
Of wisdom, as thy zeal had treasured there ?’

First somewhat moved to laughter by his words,
Statius replied: ‘ Each syllable of thine
Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear,
That minister false matter to our doubts,
When their true causes are removed from sight.
Thy question doth assure me, thou believest 30
I was on earth a covetous man; perhaps
Because thou found’st me in that circle placed.
Know then I was too wide of avarice :
And e’en for that excess, thousands of moons
Have waxed and waned upon my sufferings.
And were it not that I with heedful care
Noted, where thou exclaim’st as if in ire
With human nature, ‘‘ Why, thou curséd thirst
“ Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide
“The appetite of mortals ?”’ I had met 40
The fierce encounter of the voluble rock.
Then was I ware that, with too ample wing,
The hands may haste to lavishment ; and turned,
As from my other evil, so from this,
In penitence. How many from their grave
Shall with shorn locks arise, who living, ay,
And at life’s last extreme, of this offence,
Through ignorance, did not repent! And know,
The fault, which lies direct from any sin
In level opposition, here, with that, 50
Wastes its green rankness on one common heap.
Therefore, if I have been with those, who wail
Their avarice, to cleanse me; through reverse
Of their transgression, such hath been my lot.’

To whom the sovereign of the pastoral song:
‘While thou didst sing that cruel warfare waged
By the twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb,
From thy discourse with Clio there, it seems
As faith had not been thine ; without the which,
Good deeds suffice not. And if so, what sun 60

198 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxu

Rose on thee, or what candle pierced the dark,
That thou didst after see to hoise the sail,
And follow where the fisherman had led ?’
He answering thus: ‘ By thee conducted first,
I entered the Parnassian grots, and quaffed
Of the clear spring: illumined first by thee,
Opened mine eyes to God. Thou didst, as one,
Who, journeying through the darkness, bears a light
Behind, that profits not himself, but makes
His followers wise, when thou exclaimed’st, ‘‘ Lo! 70
A renovated world, Justice returned,
Times of primaeval innocence restored,
And a new race descended from above.”
Poet and Christian both to thee I owed.
That thou mayst mark more clearly what I trace,
My hand shall stretch forth to inform the lines
With livelier colouring. Soon o’er all the world,
By messengers from heaven, the true belief
Teemed now prolific; and that word of thine,
Accordant, to the new instructors chimed. 80
Induced by which agreement, I was wont
Resort to them; and soon their sanctity
So won upon me, that, Domitian’s rage
Pursuing them, I mixed my tears with theirs ;
And, while on earth I stayed, still succoured them ;
And their most righteous customs made me scorn
All sects besides. Before I led the Greeks,
In tuneful fiction, to the streams of Thebes,
I was baptized: but secretly, through fear,
Remained a Christian, and conformed long time go
To Pagan rites. Four centuries and more,
I, for that lukewarmness, was fain to pace
Round the fourth circle. Thou then, who hast raised
The covering which did hide such blessing from me,
Whilst much of this ascent is yet to climb,
Say, if thou know, where our old Terence bides,
Caecilius, Plautus, Varro: if condemned
They dwell, and in what province of the deep.’
‘These,’ said my guide, ‘ with Persius and myself,
And others many more, are with that Greek, 100
Of mortals, the most cherished by the nine,
In the first ward of darkness. There, oft-times,
We of that mount hold converse, on whose top
For ay our nurses live. We have the bard
Of Pella, and the Teian, Agatho,
Simonides, and many a Grecian else
Ingarlanded with laurel. Of thy train,
Antigone is there, Deiphile,
Argia, and as sorrowful as erst

LINEs 61-136] PURGATORY 199

Ismene, and who showed Langia’s wave: 110
Deidamia with her sisters there,

And blind Tiresias’ daughter, and the bride

Sea-born of Peleus.’ Either poet now

Was silent; and no longer by the ascent

Or the steep walls obstructed, round them cast

Inquiring eyes. Four handmaids of the day

Had finished now their office, and the fifth

Was at the chariot-beam, directing still

Its flamy point aloof; when thus my guide:

‘Methinks, it well behoves us to the brink 120
Bend the right shoulder, circuiting the mount,

As we have ever used.’ So custom there
Was usher to the road; the which we chose
Less doubtful, as that worthy shade complied.

They on before me went: I sole pursued,
Listening their speech, that to my thoughts conveyed
Mysterious lessons of sweet poesy.

But soon they ceased ; for midway of the road

A tree we found, with goodly fruitage hung,

And pleasant to the smell: and as a fir, 130
Upward from bough to bough, less ample spreads ;

So downward this less ample spread ; that none,
Methinks, aloft may climb. Upon the side,

That closed our path, a liquid crystal fell

From the steep rock, and through the sprays above
Streamed showering. With associate step the bards

200 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxu

Drew near the plant; and, from amidst the leaves,

A voice was heard: ‘ Ye shall be chary of me;’

And after added: ‘Mary took more thought

For joy and honour of the nuptial feast, 140
Than for herself, who answers now for you.

The women of old Rome were satisfied

With water for their beverage. Daniel fed

On pulse, and wisdom gained. The primal age

Was beautiful as gold: and hunger then

Made acorns tasteful; thirst, each rivulet

Run nectar. Honey and locusts were the food,

Whereon the Baptist in the wilderness

Fed, and that eminence of glory reached

And greatness, which the Evangelist records.’ 150

CANTO XXIII

ARGUMENT
They are overtaken by the spirit of Forese, who had been a friend of our

Poet’s on earth, and who now inveighs bitterly against the immodest
dress of their countrywomen at Florence.

On the green leaf mine eyes were fixed, like his
Who throws away his days in idle chase
Of the diminutive birds, when thus I heard
The more than father warn me: ‘Son! our time
Asks thriftier using. Linger not: away.’
Thereat my face and steps at once I turned
Toward the sages, by whose converse cheered
I journeyed on, and felt no toil: and lo!
A sound of weeping, and a song: ‘ My lips,
O Lord!’ and these so mingled, it gave birth 10
To pleasure and to pain. ‘O Sire beloved !
Say what is this I hear.’ Thus I inquired.
‘Spirits,’ said he, ‘ who, as they go, perchance,
Their debt of duty pay.’ As on their road
The thoughtful pilgrims, overtaking some
Not known unto them, turn to them, and look,
But stay not; thus, approaching from behind
With speedier motion, eyed us, as they passed,
A crowd of spirits, silent and devout.
The eyes of each were dark and hollow; pale 20
Their visage, and so lean withal, the bones
Stood staring through the skin. I do not think
Thus dry and meagre Erisicthon showed,
When pinched by sharp-set famine to the quick.
‘Lo!’ to myself I mused, ‘the race, who lost
Jerusalem, when Mary with dire beak

CANTO XXIII] PURGATORY 201

Preyed on her child.’ The sockets seemed as rings,
From which the gems were dropped. Who reads the name
Of man upon his forehead, there the M
Had traced most plainly. Who would deem, that scent 30
Of water and an apple could have proved
Powerful to generate such pining want,
Not knowing how it wrought ? While now I stood,
Wondering what thus could waste them (for the cause
Of their gaunt hollowness and scaly rind
Appeared not), lo! a spirit turned his eyes
In their deep-sunken cells, and fastened them
On me, then cried with vehemence aloud:
‘What grace is this vouchsafed me?’ By his looks
I ne’er had recognized him: but the voice 40
Brought to my knowledge what his cheer concealed.
Remembrance of his altered lineaments
Was kindled from that spark; and I agnized
The visage of Forese. ‘Ah! respect
This wan and leprous-withered skin,’ thus he
Suppliant implored, ‘this macerated flesh.
Speak to me truly of thyself. And who
Are those twain spirits, that escort thee there ?
Be it not said thou scorn’st to talk with me.’

‘That face of thine,’ I answered him, ‘which dead 50
I once bewailed, disposes me not less
For weeping, when I see it thus transformed.
Say then, by Heaven, what blasts ye thus? The whilst
I wonder, ask not speech from me: unapt
Is he to speak, whom other will employs.’

He thus: ‘The water and the plant, we passed,
With power are gifted, by the eternal will
Infused ; the which so pines me. Every spirit,
Whose song bewails his gluttony indulged
Too grossly, here in hunger and in thirst 60
Is purified. The odour, which the fruit,
And spray that showers upon the verdure, breathe,
Inflames us with desire to feed and drink.
Nor once alone, encompassing our route,
We come to add fresh fuel to the pain:
Pain, said I? solace rather: for that will,
To the tree, leads us, by which Christ was led
To call on Eli, joyful, when he paid
Our ransom from his vein.’ I answering thus:
‘Forese! from that day, in which the world 70
For better life thou changedst, not five years
Have circled. If the power of sinning more
Were first concluded in thee, ere thou knew’st
That kindly grief which re-espouses us
To God, how hither art thou come so soon ?

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxm

I thought to find thee lower, there, where time

Is recompense for time.’ He straight replied :

‘To drink up the sweet wormwood of affliction

I have been brought thus early, by the tears
Streamed down my Nella’s cheeks. Her prayers devout, 80
Her sighs have drawn me from the coast, where oft
Expectance lingers; and have set me free

From the other circles. In the sight of God

So much the dearer is my widow prized,

She whom I loved so fondly, as she ranks

More singly eminent for virtuous deeds.

The tract, most barbarous of Sardinia’s isle,

Hath dames more chaste, and modester by far,

Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother !

What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come go
Stands full within my view, to which this hour

Shall not be counted of an ancient date,

When from the pulpit shall be loudly warned

The unblushing dames of Florence, lest they bare
Unkerchiefed bosoms to the common gaze.

What savage women hath the world e’er seen,

What Saracens, for whom there needed scourge

Of spiritual or other discipline,

To force them walk with covering on their limbs ?

But did they see, the shameless ones, what Heaven 100
Wafts on swift wing toward them while I speak,

Their mouths were oped for howling: they shall taste
Of sorrow (unless foresight cheat me here)

Or e’er the cheek of him be clothed with down,

CANTO XXIV] PURGATORY 203

Who is now rocked with lullaby asleep.

Ah! now, my brother, hide thyself no more:

Thou seest how not I alone, but all,

Gaze, where thou veil’st the intercepted sun.’
Whence I replied: ‘If thou recall to mind

What we were once together, even yet 110

Remembrance of those days may grieve thee sore.

That I forsook that life, was due to him

Who there precedes me, some few evenings past,

When she was round, who shines with sister lamp

To his that glisters yonder,’ and I showed

The sun. ‘’Tis he, who through profoundest night

Of the true dead has brought me, with this flesh

As true, that follows. From that gloom the aid

Of his sure comfort drew me on to climb,

And, climbing, wind along this mountain-steep, 120

Which rectifies in you whate’er the world

Made crooked and depraved. I have his word,

That he will bear me company as far

As till I come where Beatrice dwells :

But there must leave me. Virgil is that spirit,

Who thus hath promised,’ and I pointed to him ;

‘The other is that shade, for whom so late

Your realm, as he arose, exulting, shook

Through every pendent cliff and rocky bound.’

CANTO XXIV

ARGUMENT

Forese points out several others by name who are here, like himself, purify-
ing themselves from the vice of gluttony ; and amongst the rest, Bona-
giunta of Lucca, with whom our Poet converses. Forese then predicts the
violent end of Dante’s political enemy, Corso Donati; and, when he has
quitted them, the Poet, in company with Statius and Virgil, arrives at
another tree, from whence issue voices that record ancient examples of
gluttony ; and proceeding forwards, they are directed by an angel which
way to ascend to the next cornice of the mountain.

Ovr journey was not slackened by our talk,

Nor yet our talk by journeying. Still we spake,
And urged our travel stoutly, like a ship

When the wind sits astern. The shadowy forms,
That seemed things dead and dead again, drew in
At their deep-delved orbs rare wonder of me,
Perceiving I had life; and I my words
Continued, and thus spake: ‘He journeys up
Perhaps more tardily than else he would,

For others’ sake. But tell me, if thou nance 10
Where is Piccarda? Tell me, if I see

204 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxiv

Any of mark, among this multitude
Who eye me thus.’—‘ My sister (she for whom,
*Twixt beautiful and good, I cannot say
Which name was fitter) wears e’en now her crown,
And triumphs in Olympus.’ Saying this,
He added: ‘Since spare diet hath so worn
Our semblance out, tis lawful here to name
Each one. This,’ and his finger then he raised,
‘Is Bonagiunta,—Bonagiunta, he 20
Of Lucca: and that face beyond him, pierced
Unto a leaner fineness than the rest,
Had keeping of the church; he was of Tours,
And purges by wan abstinence away
Bolsena’s eels and cups of muscadel.’
He showed me many others, one by one:
And all, as they were named, seemed well content ;
For no dark gesture I discerned in any.
I saw, through hunger, Ubaldino grind
His teeth on emptiness ; and Boniface, 30
That waved the crozier o’er a numerous flock:
I saw the Marquis, who had time erewhile
To swill at Forli with less drought; yet so,
Was one ne’er sated. I howe’er, like him
That, gazing ’midst a crowd, singles out one,
So singled him of Lucca; for methought
Was none amongst them took such note of me.
Somewhat I heard him whisper of Gentucca :
The sound was indistinct, and murmured there,
Where justice, that so strips them, fixed her sting. 40
‘Spirit!’ said I, ‘it seems as thou wouldst fain
Speak with me. Let me hear thee. Mutual wish
To converse prompts, which let us both indulge.’
He, answering, straight began: ‘ Woman is born,
Whose brow no wimple shades yet, that shall make
My city please thee, blame it as they may.
Go then with this forewarning. If aught false
My whisper too implied, the event shall tell.
But say, if of a truth I see the man
Of that new lay the inventor, which begins 50
With “ Ladies, ye that con the lore of love”’.’
To whom I thus: ‘Count of me but as one,
Who am the scribe of love; that, when he breathes,
Take up my pen, and, as he dictates, write.’
‘Brother!’ said he, ‘the hindrance, which once held
The notary, with Guittone and myself,
Short of that new and sweeter style I hear,
Is now disclosed: I see how ye your plumes
Stretch, as the inditer guides them; which, no question,
Ours did not. He that seeks a grace beyond, 60

LINES 12-109] PURGATORY 205

Sees not the distance parts one style from other.’
And, as contented, here he held his peace.

Like as the birds, that winter near the Nile,
In squaréd regiment direct their course,
Then stretch themselves in file for speedier flight ;
Thus all the tribe of spirits, as they turned
Their visage, faster fled, nimble alike
Through leanness and desire. And as a man,
Tired with the motion of a trotting steed,
Slacks pace, and stays behind his company, 70
Till his o’erbreathed lungs keep temperate time ;
F’en so Forese let that holy crew
Proceed, behind them lingering at my side,
And saying: ‘ When shall I again behold thee ? ’

‘How long my life may last,’ said I, ‘I know not:
This know, how soon soever I return,

My wishes will before me have arrived :

Sithence the place, where I am set to live,

Is, day by day, more scooped of all its good ;

And dismal ruin seems to threaten it.’ 80

‘Go now,’ he cried: ‘lo! he, whose guilt is most,
Passes before my vision, dragged at heels
Of an infuriate beast. Toward the vale,

Where guilt hath no redemption, on it speeds,

Each step increasing swiftness on the last ;

Until a blow it strikes, that leaveth him

A corse most vilely shattered. No long space

Those wheels have yet to roll’ (therewith his eyes
Looked up to heaven), ‘ere thou shalt plainly see

That which my words may not more plainly tell. go
I quit thee: time is precious here: I lose

Too much, thus measuring my pace with thine.’

As from a troop of well ranked chivalry,

One knight, more enterprising than the rest,
Pricks forth at gallop, eager to display

His prowess in the first encounter proved ;

So parted he from us, with lengthened strides ;
And left me on the way with those twain spirits,
Who were such mighty marshals of the world.

When he beyond us had so fled, mine eyes 100
No nearer reached him, than my thought his words ;
The branches of another fruit, thick hung,

And blooming fresh, appeared. E’en as our steps
Turned thither; not far off, it rose to view.
Beneath it were a multitude, that raised

Their hands, and shouted forth I know not what
Unto the boughs; like greedy and fond brats,
That beg, and answer none obtain from him,

Of whom they beg; but more to draw them on,

206

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxiv

He, at arm’s length, the object of their wish 110
Above them holds aloft, and hides it not.

At length, as undeceived, they went their way:
And we approach the tree, whom vows and tears
Sue to in vain; the mighty tree. ‘ Pass on,
And come not near. Stands higher up the wood,
Whereof Eve tasted: and from it was ta’en
This plant.’ Such sounds from midst the thickets came.
Whence I, with either bard, close to the side

That rose, passed forth beyond. ‘ Remember,’ next
We heard, ‘ those unblest creatures of the clouds, 120
How they their twyfold bosoms, overgorged,
Opposed in fight to Theseus: call to mind
The Hebrews, how, effeminate, they stooped
To ease their thirst ; whence Gideon’s ranks were thinned,
As he to Madian marched adown the hills.’
Thus near one border coasting, still we heard
The sins of gluttony, with woe erewhile
Reguerdoned. Then along the lonely path,
Once more at large, full thousand paces on
We travelled, each contemplative and mute. 130

CANTO Xxv]| PURGATORY 207

‘Why pensive journey so ye three alone ?’
Thus suddenly a voice exclaimed: whereat
I shook, as doth a scared and paltry beast ;
Then raised my head, to look from whence it came.
Was ne’er, in furnace, glass, or metal, seen
So bright and glowing red, as was the shape
I now beheld. ‘If ye desire to mount,’
He cried; ‘here must ye turn. This way he goes,
Who goes in quest of peace.’ His countenance
Had dazzled me; and to my guides I faced 140
Backward, like one who walks as sound directs.
As when, to harbinger the dawn, springs up
On freshened wing the air of May, and breathes
Of fragrance, all impregned with herb and flowers ;
E’en such a wind I felt upon my front
Blow gently, and the moving of a wing
Perceived, that, moving, shed ambrosial smell ;
And then a voice: ‘ Blessed are they, whom grace
Doth so illume, that appetite in them
Exhaleth no inordinate desire, 150
Still hungering as the rule of temperance wills.’

CANTO XXV

ARGUMENT

Virgil and Statius resolve some doubts that have arisen in the mind of Dante
from what he had just seen. They all arrive on the seventh and last
cornice, where the sin of incontinence is purged in fire ; and the spirits of
those suffering therein are heard to record illustrious instances of chastity.

It was an hour, when he who climbs, had need

To walk uncrippled: for the sun had now

To Taurus the meridian circle left,

And to the Scorpion left the night. As one,

That makes no pause, but presses on his road,

Whate’er betide him, if some urgent need

Impel; so entered we upon our way,

One before other; for, but singly, none

That steep and narrow scale admits to climb.
K’en as the young stork lifteth up his wing 10

Through wish to fly, yet ventures not to quit

The nest, and drops it; so in me desire

Of questioning my guide arose, and fell,

Arriving even to the act that marks

A man prepared for speech. Him all our haste

Restrained not; but thus spake the sire beloved:

‘Fear not to speed the shaft, that on thy lip

Stands trembling for its flight.’ Encouraged thus,

208 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxv

I straight began: ‘ How there can leanness come,
Where is no want of nourishment to feed ?’ 20
‘Tf thou,’ he answered, ‘ hadst remembered thee,
How Meleager with the wasting brand
Wasted alike, by equal fires consumed ;
This would not trouble thee: and hadst thou thought,
How in the mirror your reflected form
With mimic motion vibrates; what now seems
Hard, had appeared no harder than the pulp
Of summer-fruit mature. But that thy will
In certainty may find its full repose,
Lo Statius here! on him I call, and pray 30
That he would now be healer of thy wound.’
‘If, in thy presence, I unfold to him
The secrets of heaven’s vengeance, let me plead
Thine own injunction to exculpate me.’
So Statius answered, and forthwith began:
‘Attend my words, O son, and in thy mind
Receive them; so shall they be light to clear
The doubt thou offer’st. Blood, concocted well,
Which by the thirsty veins is ne’er imbibed,
And rests as food superfluous, to be ta’en 40
From the replenished table, in the heart
Derives effectual virtue, that informs
The several human limbs, as being that
Which passes through the veins itself to make them.
Yet more concocted it descends, where shame
Forbids to mention: and from thence distils
In natural vessel on another’s blood.
There each unite together ; one disposed
To endure, to act the other, through that power
Derived from whence it came; and being met, 50
It ’gins to work, coagulating first ;
Then vivifies what its own substance made
Consist. With animation now indued,
The active virtue (differing from a plant
No further, than that this is on the way,
And at its limit that) continues yet
To operate, that now it moves, and feels,
As sea-sponge clinging to the rock: and there
Assumes the organic powers its seed conveyed.
This is the moment, son! at which the virtue, 60
That from the generating heart proceeds,
Is pliant and expansive ; for each limb
Is in the heart by forgeful nature planned.
How babe of animal becomes, remains
For thy considering. At this point, more wise,
Than thou, has erred, making the soul disjoined
From passive intellect, because he saw

LINES 19-116] PURGATORY 209

No organ for the latter’s use assigned.
‘Open thy bosom to the truth that comes.

Know, soon as in the embryo, to the brain 70

Articulation is complete, then turns

The primal Mover with a smile of joy

On such great work of nature; and imbreathes

New spirit replete with virtue, that what here

Active it finds, to its own substance draws ;

And forms an individual soul, that lives,

And feels, and bends reflective on itself.

And that thou less mayst marvel at the word,

Mark the sun’s heat; how that to wine doth change,

Mixed with the moisture filtered through the vine. 80
‘When Lachesis hath spun the thread, the soul

Takes with her both the human and divine,

Memory, intelligence, and will, in act

Far keener than before; the other powers

Inactive all and mute. No pause allowed,

In wondrous sort self-moving, to one strand

Of those, where the departed roam, she falls:

Here learns her destined path. Soon as the place

Receives her, round the plastic virtue beams,

Distinct as in the living limbs before: ge

And as the air, when saturate with showers,

The casual beam refracting, decks itself

With many a hue; so here the ambient air

Weareth that form, which influence of the soul

Imprints on it: and like the flame, that where

The fire moves, thither follows; so, henceforth,

The new form on the spirit follows still :

Hence hath it semblance, and is shadow called,

With each sense, even to the sight, endued :

Hence speech is ours, hence laughter, tears, and sighs, 100

Which thou mayst oft have witnessed on the mount.

The obedient shadow fails not to present

Whatever varying passion moves within us.

And this the cause of what thou marvel’st at.’
Now the last flexure of our way we reached ;

And to the right hand turning other care

Awaits us. Here the rocky precipice

Hurls forth redundant flames; and from the rim

A blast up-blown, with forcible rebuff

Driveth them back, sequestered from its bound. IIO
Behoved us, one by one, along the side,

That bordered on the void, to pass; and I

Feared on one hand the fire, on the other feared

Headlong to fall: when thus the instructor warned ;

‘Strict rein must in this place direct the eyes.

A little swerving and the way is lost.’

210 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxv

Then from the bosom of the burning mass,
*“O God of mercy!’ heard I sung, and felt
No less desire to turn. And when I saw
Spirits along the flame proceeding, I 120
Between their footsteps and mine own was fain
To share by turns my view. At the hymn’s close
They shouted loud, ‘I do not know a man ;’
Then in low voice again took up the strain ;
Which once more ended, ‘ To the wood,’ they cried,

‘Ran Dian, and drave forth Callisto stung

With Cytherea’s poison:’ then returned

Unto their song; then many a pair extolled,

Who lived in virtue chastely and the bands

Of wedded love. Nor from that task, I ween, 130
Surcease they ; whilesoe’er the scorching fire

Enclasps them. Of such skill appliance needs,

To medicine the wound that healeth last.

CANTO XXVI

ARGUMENT

The spirits wonder at seeing the shadow cast by the body of Dante on the
flame as he passes it. This moves one of them to address him. It proves
to be Guido Guinicelli, the Italian poet, who points out to him the spirit
of Arnaut Daniel, the Provencgal, with whom he also speaks.

WHILE singly thus along the rim we walked,
Oft the good master warned me: ‘ Look thou well.
Avail it that I caution thee.’ The sun

CANTO XXvI] PURGATORY 211

Now all the western clime irradiate changed
From azure tinct to white; and, as I passed,
My passing shadow made the umbered flame
Burn ruddier. At so strange a sight I marked
That many a spirit marvelled on his way.

This bred occasion first to speak of me.
‘He seems,’ said they, ‘no insubstantial frame: ’ ro
Then, to obtain what certainty they might,
Stretched towards me, careful not to overpass
The burning pale. ‘O thou! who followest
The others, haply not more slow than they,
But moved by reverence; answer me, who burn
In thirst and fire: nor I alone, but these

All for thine answer do more thirst, than doth

Indian or Aethiop for the cooling stream.

Tell us, how is it that thou makest thyself

A wall against the sun, as thou not yet 20
Into the inextricable toils of death

Hadst entered?’ Thus spake one: and I had straight
Declared me, if attention had not turned

To new appearance. Meeting these, there came,

Midway the burning path, a crowd, on whom

EKarnestly gazing, from each part I view

The shadows all press forward, severally

Each snatch a hasty kiss, and then away.

E’en so the emmets, ’mid their dusky troops,

Peer closely one at other, to spy out 30
Their mutual road perchance, and how they thrive.

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxvi

That friendly greeting parted, ere dispatch
Of the first onward step, from either tribe
Loud clamour rises: those, who newly come,
Shout ‘Sodom and Gomorrah!’ these, ‘ The cow
Pasiphae entered, that the beast she wooed
Might rush unto her luxury.’ Then as cranes,
That part towards the Riphaean mountains fly,
Part towards the Lybic sands, these to avoid
The ice, and those the sun; so hasteth off 40
One crowd, advances the other; and resume
Their first song, weeping, and their several shout.
Again drew near my side the very same,
Who had erewhile besought me; and their looks
Marked eagerness to listen. I, who twice
Their will had noted, spake: ‘O spirits! secure,
Whene’er the time may be, of peaceful end ;
My limbs, nor crude, nor in mature old age,
Have I left yonder: here they bear me, fed
With blood, and sinew-strung. That I no more 50
May live in blindness, hence I tend aloft.
There is a dame on high, who wins for us
This grace, by which my mortal through your realm
I bear. But may your utmost wish soon meet
Such full fruition, that the orb of heaven,
Fullest of love, and of most ample space,
Receive you; as ye tell (upon my page
Henceforth to stand recorded) who ye are;
And what this multitude, that at your backs
Have passed behind us.’ As one, mountain-bred, 60
Rugged and clownish, if some city’s walls
He chance to enter, round him stares agape,
Confounded and struck dumb; e’en such appeared
Each spirit. But when rid of that amaze
(Not long the inmate of a noble heart),
He, who before had questioned, thus resumed :
“O blessed! who, for death preparing, takest
Experience of our limits, in thy bark ;
Their crime, who not with us proceed, was that
For which, as he did triumph, Caesar heard 70
The shout of “queen”, to taunt him. Hence their cry
Of “Sodom”, as they parted; to rebuke
Themselves, and aid the burning by their shame.
Our sinning was hermaphrodite: but we,
Because the law of human kind we broke,
Following like beasts our vile concupiscence,
Hence parting from them, to our own disgrace
Record the name of her, by whom the beast
In bestial tire was acted. Now our deeds
Thou know’st, and how we sinned. If thou by name 80

LINEs 32-129] PURGATORY

Wouldst haply know us, time permits not now

To tell so much, nor can I. Of myself

Learn what thou wishest. Guinicelli I;

Who having truly sorrowed ere my last,

Already cleanse me.’ With such pious joy,

As the two sons upon their mother gazed

From sad Lycurgus rescued ; such my joy

(Save that I more repressed it) when I heard

From his own lips the name of him pronounced,

Who was a father to me, and to those

My betters, who have ever used the sweet

And pleasant rhymes of love. So naught I heard,

Nor spake; but long time thoughtfully I went

Gazing on him; and, only for the fire,

Approached not nearer. When my eyes were fed

By looking on him; with such solemn pledge,

As forces credence, I devoted me

Unto his service wholly. In reply

He thus bespake me: ‘ What from thee I hear

Is graved so deeply on my mind, the waves

Of Lethe shall not wash it off, nor make

A whit less lively. But as now thy oath

Has sealed the truth, declare what cause impels

That love, which both thy looks and speech bewray.
‘Those dulcet lays,’ I answered; ‘ which, as long

As of our tongue the beauty does not fade,

Shall make us love the very ink that traced them.
‘Brother!’ he cried, and pointed at the shade

Before him, ‘there is one, whose mother speech

Doth owe to him a fairer ornament.

He in love ditties, and the tales of prose,

Without a rival stands; and lets the fools

Talk on, who think the songster of Limoges

O’ertops him. Rumour and the popular voice

They look to, more than truth; and so confirm

Opinion, ere by art or reason taught.

Thus many of the elder time cried up

Guittone, giving him the prize, till truth

By strength of numbers vanquished. If thou own

So ample privilege, as to have gained

Free entrance to the cloister, whereof Christ

Is Abbot of the college; say to him

One paternoster for me, far as needs

For dwellers in this world, where power to sin

No longer tempts us.’ Haply to make way

For one that followed next, when that was said,

He vanished through the fire, as through the wave

A fish, that glances diving to the deep.
I, to the spirit he had shown me, drew

>

>

213

go

100

IIo

120

214 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxvi

A little onward, and besought his name, 130
For which my heart, I said, kept gracious room.

He frankly thus began: ‘Thy courtesy

So wins on me, I have nor power nor will

To hide me. I am Arnaut; and with songs,

Sorely waymenting for my folly past,

Thorough this ford of fire I wade, and see

The day, I hope for, smiling in my view.

I pray ye by the worth that guides ye up

Unto the summit of the scale, in time

Remember ye my sufferings.’ With such words 140
He disappeared in the refining flame.

CANTO XXVII

ARGUMENT

An angel sends them forward through the fire to the last ascent, which leads
to the terrestrial Paradise, situated on the summit of the mountain. They
have not proceeded many steps on their way upward, when the fall of
night hinders them from going farther ; and our Poet, who has lain down
with Virgil and Statius to rest, beholds in a dream two females, figuring
the active and contemplative life. With the return of morning, they
reach the height ; and here Virgil gives Dante full liberty to use his own
pleasure and judgement in the choice of his way, till he shall meet with
Beatrice.

Now was the sun so stationed, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where streamed his Maker’s blood; while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro; and new fires,
Meridian, flash on Ganges’ yellow tide.

So day was sinking, when the angel of God
Appeared before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood upon the brink ;
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpassed our human, ‘ Blessed are the pure 10
In heart,’ he sang: then near him as we came,
‘Go ye not farther, holy spirits!’ he cried,
‘Ere the fire pierce you: enter in; and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence.’

I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasped,
And upward stretching, on the fire I looked ;
And busy fancy conjured up the forms
Erewhile beheld alive consumed in flames.

The escorting spirits turned with gentle looks 20
Toward me; and the Mantuan spake: ‘ My son,
Here torment thou mayst feel, but canst not death.
Remember thee, remember thee, if I

CaNnTO XXVII] PURGATORY

Safe e’en on Geryon brought thee; now I come
More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now ?
Of this be sure; though in its womb that flame

A thousand years contained thee, from thy head
No hair should perish. If thou doubt my truth,
Approach ; and with thy hands thy vesture’s hem
Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief.

Lay now all fear, oh! lay all fear aside.

Turn hither, and come onward undismayed..’

I still, though conscience urged, no step advanced.

When still he saw me fixed and obstinate,
Somewhat disturbed he cried: ‘Mark now, my son,
From Beatrice thou art by this wall
Divided.’ As at Thisbe’s name the eye
Of Pyramus was opened (when life ebbed
Fast from his veins), and took one parting glance,
While vermeil dyed the mulberry ; thus I turned
To my sage guide, relenting, when I heard
The name that springs for ever in my breast.

He shook his forehead ; and, ‘ How long,’ he said,
‘Linger we now ?’ then smiled, as one would smile
Upon a child that eyes the fruit and yields.

Into the fire before me then he walked ;
And Statius, who erewhile no little space
Had parted us, he prayed to come behind.

I would have cast me into molten glass
To cool me, when I entered; so intense
Raged the conflagrant mass. The sire beloved,

To comfort me, as he proceeded, still

Of Beatrice talked. ‘ Her eyes,’ saith he,

“E’en now I seem to view.’ From the other side
A voice, that sang, did guide us; and the voice
Following, with heedful ear, we issued forth,

215

30

40

50

There where the path led upward. ‘Come,’ we heard,

“Come, blessed of my Father.’ Such the sounds,

That hailed us from within a light, which shone

So radiant, I could not endure the view.

“The sun,’ it added, ‘hastes: and evening comes.

Delay not: ere the western sky is hung

With blackness, strive ye for the pass.” Our way

Upright within the rock arose, and faced

Such part of heaven, that from before my steps

The beams were shrouded of the sinking sun.
Nor many stairs were overpast, when now

By fading of the shadow we perceived

The sun behind us couched; and ere one face

Of darkness o’er its measureless expanse

Involved the horizon, and the night her lot

Held individual, each of us had made

60

7?

216 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvir

A stair his pallet; not that will, but power,
Had failed us, by the nature of that mount
Forbidden further travel. As the goats,
That late have skipped and wantoned rapidly
Upon the craggy cliffs, ere they had ta’en
Their supper on the herb, now silent lie

And ruminate beneath the umbrage brown,
While noonday rages; and the goatherd leans 80
Upon his staff, and leaning watches them :
And as the swain, that lodges out all night
In quiet by his flock, lest beast of prey
Disperse them: even so all three abode,

I as a goat, and as the shepherds they,
Close pent on either side by shelving rock.

A little glimpse of sky was seen above ;
Yet by that little I beheld the stars,
In magnitude and lustre shining forth
With more than wonted glory. As I lay, go
Gazing on them, and in that fit of musing,
Sleep overcame me, sleep, that bringeth oft
Tidings of future hap. About the hour,
As I believe, when Venus from the east
First lightened on the mountain, she whose orb
Seems alway glowing with the fire of love,
A lady young and beautiful, I dreamed,
Was passing o’er a lea; and, as she came,
Methought I saw her ever and anon
Bending to cull the flowers; and thus she sang: 100
‘Know ye, whoever of my name would ask,
That I am Leah: for my brow to weave
A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply.

LINES 73-143] PURGATORY 217

To please me at the crystal mirror, here
I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she
Before her glass abides the livelong day,
Her radiant eyes beholding, charmed no less,
Than I with this delightful task. Her joy
In contemplation, as in labour mine.’
And now as glimmering dawn appeared, that breaks 110
More welcome to the pilgrim still, as he
Sojourns less distant on his homeward way,
Darkness from all sides fled, and with it fled
My slumber; whence I rose, and saw my guide
Already risen. ‘That delicious fruit,
Which through so many a branch the zealous care
Of mortals roams in quest of, shall this day
Appease thy hunger.’ Such the words I heard
From Virgil’s lip; and never greeting heard,
So pleasant as the sounds. Within me straight 120
Desire so grew upon desire to mount,
Thenceforward at each step I felt the wings
Increasing for my flight. When we had run
O’er all the ladder to its topmost round,
As there we stood, on me the Mantuan fixed
His eyes, and thus he spake: ‘ Both fires, my son,
The temporal and eternal, thou hast seen ;
And art arrived, where of itself my ken
No farther reaches. I, with skill and art,
Thus far have drawn thee. Now thy pleasure take 130
For guide. Thou hast o’ercome the steeper way,
O’ercome the straiter. Lo! the sun, that darts
His beam upon thy forehead: lo! the herb,
The arborets and flowers, which of itself
This land pours forth profuse. Till those bright eyes
With gladness come, which, weeping, made me haste
To succour thee, thou mayst or seat thee down,
Or wander where thou wilt. Expect no more
Sanction of warning voice or sign from me,
Free of thy own arbitrament to choose, 140
Discreet, judicious. To distrust thy sense
Were henceforth error. I invest thee then
With crown and mitre, sovereign o’er thyself.’

218 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvii

CANTO XXVIII

ARGUMENT
Dante wanders through the forest of the terrestrial Paradise, till he is stopped
by a stream, on the other side of which he beholds a fair lady, culling
flowers. He speaks to her; and she, in reply, explains to him certain
things touching the nature of that place, and tells that the water, which
flows between them, is here called Lethe, and in another place has the
name of Eunoe.

TurouGH that celestial forest, whose thick shade
With lively greenness the new-springing day
Attempered, eager now to roam, and search
Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank ;
Along the champain leisurely my way
Pursuing, o’er the ground, that on all sides
Delicious odour breathed. A pleasant air,
That intermitted never, never veered,
Smote on my temples, gently, as a wind
Of softest influence: at which the sprays, 10
Obedient all, leaned trembling to that part
Where first the holy mountain casts his shade ;
Yet were not so disordered, but that still
Upon their top the feathered choristers
Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill
Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays
Kept tenour; even as from branch to branch,
Along the piny forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gathering melody, 20
When Aeolus hath from his cavern loosed
The dripping south. Already had my steps,
Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
Transported me, I could not ken the place
Where I had entered; when, behold! my path
Was bounded by a rill, which, to the left,
With little rippling waters bent the grass
That issued from its brink. On earth no wave,
How clean soe’er, that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compared with this, 30
Transpicuous clear; yet darkly on it rolled,
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne’er
Admits or sun or moonlight there to shine.

My feet advanced not; but my wondering eyes
Passed onward, o’er the streamlet, to survey
The tender may-bloom, flushed through many a hue,
In prodigal variety: and there,
As object, rising suddenly to view,
That from our bosom every thought beside

LINES 1-70] PURGATORY 219

With the rare marvel chases, I beheld 40
A lady all alone, who, singing, went,
And culling flower from flower, wherewith her way
Was all o’er painted. ‘ Lady beautiful !
Thou, who (if looks, that use to speak the heart,
Are worthy of our trust) with love’s own beam
Dost warm thee,’ thus to her my speech I framed ;
‘Ah! please thee hither towards the streamlet bend
Thy steps so near, that I may list thy song.
Beholding thee and this fair place, methinks,
I call to mind where wandered and how looked 50
Proserpine, in that season, when her child
The mother lost, and she the bloomy spring.’
As when a lady, turning in the dance,

Doth foot it featly, and advances scarce

One step before the other to the ground ;

Over the yellow and vermilion flowers

Thus turned she at my suit, most maiden-like,

Valing her sober eyes; and came so near,

That I distinctly caught the dulcet sound.

Arriving where the limpid waters now 60
Laved the green sward, her eyes she deigned to raise,
That shot such splendour on me, as I ween

Ne’er glanced from Cytherea’s, when her son

Had sped his keenest weapon to her heart.

Upon the opposite bank she stood and smiled ;

As through her graceful fingers shifted still

The intermingling dyes, which without seed

That lofty land unbosoms. By the stream

Three paces only were we sundered: yet,

The Hellespont, where Xerxes passed it o’er 7O

220 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvii

(A curb for ever to the pride of man),

Was by Leander not more hateful held

For floating, with inhospitable wave,

*Twixt Sestus and Abydos, than by me

That flood, because it gave no passage thence.
‘Strangers ye come; and haply in this place,

That cradled human nature in its birth,

Wondering, ye not without suspicion view

My smiles: but that sweet strain of psalmody,

“Thou, Lord! hast made me glad,” will give ye light, 80

Which may uncloud your minds. And thou, who stand’st

The foremost, and didst make thy suit to me,

Say if aught else thou wish to hear: for I

Came prompt to answer every doubt of thine.’
She spake; and I replied: ‘I know not how

To reconcile this wave, and rustling sound

Of forest leaves, with what I late have heard

Of opposite report.’ She answering thus:

‘I will unfold the cause, whence that proceeds,

Which makes thee wonder; and so purge the cloud go

That hath enwrapt thee. The First Good, whose joy

Is only in himself, created man,

For happiness; and gave this goodly place,

His pledge and earnest of eternal peace.

Favoured thus highly, through his own defect

He fell; and here made short sojourn; he fell,

And, for the bitterness of sorrow, changed

Laughter unblamed and ever-new delight.

That vapours none, exhaled from earth beneath,

Or from the waters (which, wherever heat 100

Attracts them, follow), might ascend thus far

To vex man’s peaceful state, this mountain rose

So high toward the heaven, nor fears the rage

Of elements contending ; from that part

Exempted, where the gate his limit bars.

Because the cireumambient air, throughout,

With its first impulse circles still, unless

Aught interpose to check or thwart its course ;

Upon the summit, which on every side

To visitation of the impassive air 110

Is open, doth that motion strike, and makes

Beneath its sway the umbrageous wood resound :

And in the shaken plant such power resides,

That it impregnates with its efficacy

The voyaging breeze, upon whose subtle plume

That, wafted, flies abroad; and the other land,

Receiving (as *tis worthy in itself,

Or in the clime, that warms it), doth conceive ;

And from its womb produces many a tree

CANTO xxx] PURGATORY 221

Of various virtue. This when thou hast heard, 120
The marvel ceases, if in yonder earth
Some plant, without apparent seed, be found
To fix its fibrous stem. And further learn,
That with prolific foison of all seeds
This holy plain is filled, and in itself
Bears fruit that ne’er was plucked on other soil.
‘The water, thou behold’st, springs not from vein,
Restored by vapour, that the cold converts ;
As stream that intermittently repairs
And spends his pulse of life; but issues forth 130
From fountain, solid, undecaying, sure:
And, by the will omnific, full supply
Feeds whatsoe’er on either side it pours ;
On this, devolved with power to take away
Remembrance of offence; on that, to bring
Remembrance back of every good deed done.
From whence its name of Lethe on this part ;
On the other, Eunoe: both of which must first
Be tasted, ere it work; the last exceeding
All flavours else. Albeit thy thirst may now 140
Be well contented, if I here break off,
No more revealing ; yet a corollary
I freely give beside: nor deem my words
Less grateful to thee, if they somewhat pass
The stretch of promise. They, whose verse of yore
The golden age recorded and its bliss,
On the Parnassian mountain, of this place
Perhaps had dreamed. Here was man guiltless; here
Perpetual spring, and every fruit; and this
The far-famed nectar.’ Turning to the bards, 150
When she had ceased, I noted in their looks
A smile at her conclusion ; then my face
Again directed to the lovely dame.

CANTO XXIX

ARGUMENT

The lady, who in a following Canto is called Matilda, moves along the side
of the stream in a contrary direction to the current, and Dante keeps
equal pace with her on the opposite bank. A marvellous sight, preceded
by music, appears in view.

SINGING, as if enamoured, she resumed

And closed the song, with ‘ Blessed they whose sins

Are covered.’ Like the wood-nymphs then, that tripped
Singly across the sylvan shadows; one

Eager to view, and one to escape the sun;

222 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xx1x

So moved she on, against the current, up
The verdant rivage. I, her mincing step
Observing, with as tardy step pursued.
Between us not an hundred paces trod,
The bank, on each side bending equally, 10
Gave me to face the orient. Nor our way
Far onward brought us, when to me at once
She turned, and cried: ‘ My brother ! look, and hearken.’
And lo! a sudden lustre ran across
Through the great forest on all parts, so bright,
I doubted whether lightning were abroad ;
But that, expiring ever in the spleen
That doth unfold it, and this during still,
And waxing still in splendour, made me question
What it might be: and a sweet melody 20
Ran through the luminous air. Then did I chide,
With warrantable zeal, the hardihood
Of our first parent; for that there, where earth
Stood in obedience to the heavens, she only,
Woman, the creature of an hour, endured not
Restraint of any veil, which had she borne
Devoutly, joys, ineffable as these,
Had from the first, and long time since, been mine.
While, through that wilderness of primy sweets
That never fade, suspense I walked, and yet 30
Expectant of beatitude more high ;
Before us, like a blazing fire, the air
Under the green boughs glowed; and, for a song,
Distinct the sound of melody was heard.
O ye thrice holy virgins! for your sakes
If e’er I suffered hunger, cold, and watching,
Occasion calls on me to crave your bounty.
Now through my breast let Helicon his stream
Pour copious, and Urania with her choir
Arise to aid me; while the verse unfolds 40
Things, that do almost mock the grasp of thought.
Onward a space, what seemed seven trees of gold
The intervening distance to mine eye
Falsely presented ; but, when I was come
So near them, that no lineament was lost
Of those, with which a doubtful object, seen
Remotely, plays on the misdeeming sense ;
Then did the faculty, that ministers
Discourse to reason, these for tapers of gold
Distinguish ; and i’ the singing trace the sound 50
‘Hosanna’. Above, their beauteous garniture
Flamed with more ample lustre, than the moon
Through cloudless sky at midnight, in her noon.
I turned me, full of wonder, to my guide ;

LinEs 6-81] PURGATORY 223

And he did answer with a countenance
Charged with no less amazement: whence my view
Reverted to those lofty things, which came
So slowly moving towards us, that the bride
Would have outstript them on her bridal day.
The lady called aloud: ‘Why thus yet burns 60
Affection in thee for these living lights,
And dost not look on that which follows them ?’
I straightway marked a tribe behind them walk,
As if attendant on their leaders, clothed
With raiment of such whiteness, as on earth
Was never. On my left, the watery gleam

Borrowed, and gave me back, when there I looked,
As in a mirror, my left side portrayed.
When I had chosen on the river’s edge
Such station, that the distance of the stream 70
Alone did separate me; there I stayed
My steps for clearer prospect, and beheld
The flames go onward, leaving, as they went,
The air behind them painted as with trail
Of liveliest pencils ; so distinct were marked
All those seven listed colours, whence the sun
Maketh his bow, and Cynthia her zone.
These streaming gonfalons did flow beyond
My vision; and ten paces, as I guess,
Parted the outermost. Beneath a sky 80
So beautiful, came four and twenty elders,

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxix

By two and two, with flower-de-luces crowned.
All sang one song: ‘ Blessed be thou among
The daughters of Adam! and thy loveliness
Blessed for ever!’ After that the flowers,
And the fresh herblets, on the opposite brink,
Were free from that elected race; as light
In heaven doth second light, came after them
Four animals, each crowned with verdurous leaf.
With six wings each was plumed; the plumage full — go
Of eyes; and the eyes of Argus would be such,
Were they endued with life. Reader! more rhymes
I will not waste in shadowing forth their form:
For other need so straitens, that in this
I may not give my bounty room. But read
Ezekiel; for he paints them, from the north
How he beheld them come by Chebar’s flood,
In whirlwind, cloud, and fire; and even such
As thou shalt find them charactered by him,
Here were they; save as to the pennons: there, 100
From him departing, John accords with me.
The space, surrounded by the four, enclosed
A car triumphal: on two wheels it came,
Drawn at a Gryphon’s neck; and he above
Stretched either wing uplifted, “tween the midst
And the three listed hues, on each side, three ;
So that the wings did cleave or injure none ;
And out of sight they rose. The members, far
As he was bird, were golden; white the rest,
With vermeil interveined. So beautiful 110
A car, in Rome, ne’er graced Augustus’ pomp,
Or Africanus’: e’en the sun’s itself
Were poor to this; that chariot of the sun,
Erroneous, which in blazing ruin fell
At Tellus’ prayer devout, by the just doom
Mysterious of all-seeing Jove. Three nymphs,
At the right wheel, came circling in smooth dance:
Tne one so ruddy, that her form had scarce
Been known within a furnace of clear flame ;
The next did look, as if the flesh and bones 120
Were emerald ; snow new-fallen seemed the third.
Now seemed the white to lead, the ruddy now ;
And from her song who led, the others took
Their measure, swift or slow. At the other wheel,
A band quaternion, each in purple clad,
Advanced with festal step, as, of them, one
The rest conducted ; one, upon whose front
Three eyes were seen. In rear of all this group,
Two old men I beheld, dissimilar
In raiment, but in port and gesture like, 130

ete in

CANTO xxx] PURGATORY 22

Or

Solid and mainly grave; of whom, the one
Did show himself some favoured counsellor
Of the great Coan, him, whom nature made
To serve the costliest creature of her tribe:
His fellow marked an opposite intent ;
Bearing a sword, whose glitterance and keen edge,
E’en as I viewed it with the flood between,
Appalled me. Next, four others I beheld
Ot humble seeming: and, behind them all,
One single old man, sleeping as he came, 140
With a shrewd visage. And these seven, each
Like the first troop were habited ; but wore
No braid of lilies on their temples wreathed.
Rather, with roses and each vermeil flower,
A sight, but little distant, might have sworn,
That they were all on fire above their brow.
Whenas the car was o’er against me, straight
Was heard a thundering, at whose voice it seemed
The chosen multitude were stayed; for there,
With the first ensigns, made they solemn halt. 150

CANTO XXX

ARGUMENT
Beatrice descends from heaven, and rebukes the Poet.

Soon as that polar light, fair ornament

Of the first heaven, which hath never known
Setting nor rising, nor the shadowy veil

Of other cloud than sin, to duty there

Each one convoying, as that lower doth

The steersman to his port, stood firmly fixed ;
Forthwith the saintly tribe, who in the van
Between the Gryphon and its radiance came,
Did turn them to the car, as to their rest:

And one, as if commissioned from above, 10
In holy chant thrice shouted forth aloud ;

“Come, spouse! from Libanus:’ and all the rest
Took up the song.—At the last audit, so

The blest shall rise, from forth his cavern each
Uplifting lightly his new-vested flesh ;

As, on the sacred litter, at the voice
Authoritative of that elder, sprang

A hundred ministers and messengers

Of life eternal. ‘ Blessed thou, who comest !’
And, ‘Oh!’ they cried, ‘from full hands scatter ye 20
Unwithering lilies:’ and, so saying, cast

Flowers over head and round them on all sides.

226 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxx

I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
The eastern clime all roseate; and the sky
Opposed, one deep and beautiful serene ;
And the sun’s face so shaded, and with mists
Attempered, at his rising, that the eye
Long while endured the sight: thus, in a cloud
Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
And down within and outside of the car 30
Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreathed,
A virgin in my view appeared, beneath
Green mantle, robed in hue of living flame:
And o’er my spirit, that so long a time
Had from her presence felt no shuddering dread,
Albeit mine eyes discerned her not, there moved
A hidden virtue from her, at whose touch
The power of ancient love was strong within me.
No sooner on my vision streaming, smote
The heavenly influence, which, years past, and e’en 40
In childhood, thrilled me, than towards Virgil I
Turned me to leftward; panting, like a babe,
That flees for refuge to his mother’s breast,
If aught have terrified or worked him woe:
And would have cried, ‘ There is no dram of blood,
That doth not quiver in me. The old flame
Throws out clear tokens of reviving fire.’
But Virgil had bereaved us of himself ;
Virgil, my best-loved father; Virgil, he
To whom I gave me up for safety: nor 50
All, our prime mother lost, availed to save
My undewed cheeks from blur of soiling tears.
‘Dante! weep not that Virgil leaves thee; nay,
Weep thou not yet: behoves thee feel the edge
Of other sword ; and thou shalt weep for that.’
As to the prow or stern, some admiral
Paces the deck, inspiriting his crew,
When ’mid the sail-yards all hands ply aloof ;
Thus, on the left side of the car, I saw
(Turning me at the sound of mine own name, 60
Which here I am compelled to register)
The virgin stationed, who before appeared
Veiled in that festive shower angelical.
Towards me, across the stream, she bent her eyes;
Though from her brow the veil descending, bound
With foliage of Minerva, suffered not
That I beheld her clearly: then with act
Full royal, still insulting o’er her thrall,
Added, as one who, speaking, keepeth back
The bitterest saying, to conclude the speech 7O
‘Observe me well. I am, in sooth, I am

LINES 23-99, PURGATORY 227

Beatrice. What! and hast thou deigned at last
Approach the mountain? Knewest not, O man!
Thy happiness is here?’ Down fell mine eyes

On the clear fount; but there, myself espying,
Recoiled, and sought the greensward; such a weight
Of shame was on my forehead. With a mien

Of that stern majesty, which doth surround

A mother’s presence to her awe-struck child,

She looked ; a flavour of such bitterness 80
Was mingled in her pity. There her words

Brake off; and suddenly the angels sang,

‘In thee, O gracious Lord! my hope hath been:’
But went no further than, ‘Thou, Lord! hast set

My feet in ample room.’ As snow, that lies,
Amidst the living rafters on the back
Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high
And closely piled by rough Sclavonian biasts ;
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,
And straightway melting it distils away, go
Like a fire-wasted taper: thus was I,
Without a sigh or tear, or ever these
Did sing, that, with the chiming of heaven’s sphere,
Still in their warbling chime: but when the strain
Of dulcet symphony expressed for me
Their soft compassion, more than could the words,
‘Virgin! why so consumest him?’ then, the ice,
Congealed about my bosom, turned itself
To spirit and water; and with anguish forth

CARY K

THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxx

Gushed, through the lips and eyelids, from the heart. 100
Upon the chariot’s same edge still she stood,

Immovable; and thus addressed her words

To those bright semblances with pity touched :

‘Ye in the eternal day your vigils keep ;

So that nor night nor slumber, with close stealth,

Conveys from you a single step, in all

The goings on of time: thence, with more heed

I shape mine answer, for his ear intended,

Who there stands weeping; that the sorrow now

May equal the transgression. Not alone IIo

Through operation of the mighty orbs,

That mark each seed to some predestined aim,

As with aspect or fortunate or ill

The constellations meet; but through benign

Largess of heavenly graces, which rain down

From such a height as mocks our vision, this man

Was, in the freshness of his being, such,

So gifted virtually, that in him

All better habits wondrously had thrived.

The more of kindly strength is in the soil, 120

So much doth evil seed and lack of culture

Mar it the more, and make it run to wildness.

These looks sometime upheld him; for I showed

My youthful eyes, and led him by their light

In upright walking. Soon as I had reached

The threshold of my second age, and changed

My mortal for immortal; then he left me,

And gave himself to others. When from flesh

To spirit I had risen, and increase

Of beauty and of virtue circled me, 130

I was less dear to him, and valued less.

His steps were turned into deceitful ways,

Following false images of good, that make

No promise perfect. Nor availed me aught

To sue for inspirations, with the which,

I, both in dreams of night, and otherwise,

Did call him back; of them, so little recked him

Such depth he fell, that all device was short

Of his preserving, save that he should view

The children of perdition. To this end 140

I visited the purlieus of the dead:

And one, who hath conducted him thus high,

Received my supplications urged with weeping.

It were a breaking of God’s high decree,

If Lethe should be passed, and such food tasted,

Without the cost of some repentant tear.

CaNnTO xxxI] PURGATORY 229

CANTO XXXI

ARGUMENT

Beatrice continues her reprehension of Dante, who confesses his error, and
falls to the ground: coming to himself again, he is by Matilda drawn
through the waters of Lethe, and presented first to the four virgins who
figure the cardinal virtues ; these in their turn lead him to the Gryphon,
a symbol of our Saviour; and the three virgins, representing the evan-
gelical virtues, intercede for him with Beatrice, that she would display to
him her second beauty.

‘O THov!’ her words she thus without delay
Resuming, turned their point on me, to whom
They, with but lateral edge, seemed harsh before :
‘Say thou, who stand’st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge, so grievous, needs
Thine own avowal.’ On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expired
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.
A little space refraining, then she spake:
‘What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave Io
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury.’ A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a ‘ Yea’ produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks,
In act to be discharged, a crossbow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o’erstretched ;
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark :
Thus, tears and sighs forth gushing, did I burst,
Beneath the heavy load: and thus my voice 20
Was slackened on its way. She straight began:
‘When my desire invited thee to love
The good, which sets a bound to our aspirings ;
What bar of thwarting foss or linkéd chain
Did meet thee, that thou so shouldst quit the hope
Of further progress ? or what bait of ease,
Or promise of allurement, led thee on
Elsewhere, that thou elsewhere shouldst rather wait ?’
A bitter sigh I drew, then scarce found voice
To answer; hardly to these sounds my lips 30
Gave utterance, wailing: ‘Thy fair looks withdrawn,
Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turned
My steps aside.’ She answering spake: ‘ Hadst thou
Been silent, or denied what thou avow’st,
Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more; such eye
Observes it. But whene’er the sinner’s cheek
Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears
Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxx1

Of justice doth run counter to the edge.

Howe’er, that thou mayst profit by thy shame 40
For errors past, and that henceforth more strength

May arm thee, when thou hear’si the Siren-voice ;

Lay thou aside the motive to this grief,

And lend attentive ear, while I unfold

How opposite a way my buried flesh

Should have impelled thee. Never didst thou spy,

In art or nature, aught so passing sweet,

As were the timbs that in their beauteous frame
Enclosed me, and are scattered now in dust.

If sweetest thing thus failed thee with my death, 50
What, afterward, of mortal, should thy wish

Have tempted ? When thou first hadst felt the dart
Of perishable things, in my departing
For better realms, thy wing thou shouldst have pruned
To follow me; and never stooped again,
To ’bide a second blow, for a slight girl,
Or other gaud as transient and as vain.
The new and inexperienced bird awaits,
Twice it may be, or thrice, the fowler’s aim ;
But in the sight of one whose plumes are full, 60
In vain the net is spread, the arrow winged.’
I stood, as children silent and ashamed
Stand, listening, with their eyes upon the earth,
Acknowledging their fault, and self-condemned.
And she resumed: ‘If, but to hear, thus pains thee ;
Raise thou thy beard, and lo! what sight shall do.’
With less reluctance yields a sturdy holm,

————————

LINES 39-101] PURGATORY 231

Rent from its fibres by a blast, that blows
From off the pole, or from Iarbas’ land,
Than I at her behest my visage raised : 70
And thus the face denoting by the beard,
I marked the secret sting her words conveyed.
No sooner lifted I mine aspect up,
Than I perceived those primal creatures cease
Their flowery sprinkling; and mine eyes beheld
(Yet unassured and wavering in their view)
Beatrice ; she, who toward the mystic shape,
That joins two natures in one form, had turned:
And, even under shadow of her veil,
And parted by the verdant rill that flowed 80
Between, in loveliness she seemed as much
Her former self surpassing, as on earth
All others she surpassed. Remorseful goads

Shot sudden through me. Each thing else, the more
Its love had late beguiled me, now the more
Was loathsome. On my heart so keenly smote
The bitter consciousness, that on the ground
O’erpowered I fell: and what my state was then,
She knows, who was the cause. When now my strength
Flowed back, returning outward from the heart, go
The lady, whom alone I first had seen,
I found above me. ‘ Loose me not,’ she cried :
‘Loose not thy hold:’ and lo! had dragged me high
As to my neck into the stream; while she,
Still as she drew me after, swept along,
Swift as a shuttle, bounding o’er the wave.

The blessed shore approaching, then was heard
So sweetly, ‘Tu asperges me,’ that I
May not remember, much less tell the sound.

The beauteous dame, her arms expanding, clasped — 100
My temples, and immerged me where ’twas fit

232 THE VISION OF DANTE § [Canto xxxr

The wave should drench me: and, thence raising up,
Within the fourfold dance of lovely nymphs
P-esented me so laved; and with their arm
They each did cover me. ‘ Here are we nymphs,
And in the heaven are stars. Or ever earth
Was visited of Beatrice, we,
Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her.
We to her eyes will lead thee: but the light
Of gladness, that is in them, well to scan, 110
Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours,
Thy sight shall quicken.’ Thus began their song:
And then they led me to the Gryphon’s breast,
Where, turned toward us, Beatrice stood.
‘Spare not thy vision. We have stationed thee
Before the emeralds, whence love, erewhile,
Hath drawn his weapons on thee.’ As they spake,
A thousand fervent wishes riveted
Mine eyes upon her beaming eyes, that stood,
Still fixed toward the Gryphon, motionless. 120
As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
Within those orbs the twyfold being shone ;
For ever varying, in one figure now
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wondrous in my sight it seemed, to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imaged semblance mutable.

Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul
Fed on the viand, whereof still desire
Grows with satiety; the other three, 130
With gesture that declared a loftier line,
Advanced: to their own carol, on they came
Dancing, in festive ring angelical.

‘Turn, Beatrice!’ was their song: “Oh! turn
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one,
Who, to behold thee, many a wearisome pace
Hath measured. Gracious at our prayer, vouchsafe
Unveil to him thy cheeks; that he may mark
Thy second beauty, now concealed.’ O splendour !
O sacred light eternal! who is he, 140
So pale with musing in Pierian shades,
Or with that fount so lavishly imbued,
Whose spirit should not fail him in the essay
To represent thee such as thou didst seem,
When under cope of the still-chiming heaven
Thou gavest to open air thy charms revealed ?

CANTO XxxI1] PURGATORY 233

CANTO XXXII

ARGUMENT

Dante is warned not to gaze too fixedly on Beatrice. The procession moves
on, accompanied by Matilda, Statius, and Dante, till they reach an ex:
ceeding lofty tree, where divers strange chances befall.

MINE eyes with such an eager coveting
Were bent to rid them of their ten years’ thirst,
No other sense was waking: and e’en they
Were fenced on either side from heed of aught ;
So tangled, in its customed toils, that smile
Of saintly brightness drew me to itself :
When forcibly, toward the left, my sight
The sacred virgins turned ; for from their lips
I heard the warning sounds: ‘Too fixed a gaze!’
Awhile my vision laboured ; as when late 10
Upon the o’erstrained eyes the sun hath smote:
But soon, to lesser object, as the view
Was now recovered (lesser in respect
To that excess of sensible, whence late
I had perforce been sundered), on their right
I marked that glorious army wheel, and turn,
Against the sun and sevenfold lights, their front.
As when, their bucklers for protection raised,
A well-ranged troop, with portly banners curled,
Wheel circling, ere the whole can change their ground : 20
EF’en thus the goodly regiment of heaven,
Proceeding, all did pass us ere the car
Had sloped his beam. Attendant at the wheels
The damsels turned; and on the Gryphon moved
The sacred burden, with a pace so smooth,
No feather on him trembled. The fair dame,
Who through the wave had drawn me, companied
By Statius and myself, pursued the wheel,
Whose orbit, rolling, marked a lesser arch.
Through the high wood, now void (the more her blame, 30
Who by the serpent was beguiled), I passed,
With step in cadence to the harmony
Angelic. Onward had we moved, as far,
Perchance, as arrow at three several flights
Full winged had sped, when from her station down
Descended Beatrice. With one voice
All murmured ‘ Adam’; circling next a plant
Despoiled of flowers and leaf, on every bough.
Its tresses, spreading more as more they rose,
Were such, as ’midst their forest wilds, for height, 40
The Indians might have gazed at. ‘ Blessed thou,
Gryphon! whose beak hath never plucked that tree

234 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro xxxu

Pleasant to taste: for hence the appetite

Was warped to evil.’ Round the stately trunk

Thus shouted forth the rest, to whom returned

The animal twice-gendered: ‘ Yea! for so

The generation of the just are saved.’

And turning to the chariot-pole, to foot

He drew it of the widowed branch, and bound

There, left unto the stock whereon it grew. 50
As when large floods of radiance from above

Stream, with that radiance mingled, which ascends

Next after setting of the scaly sign,

Our plants then burgeon, and each wears anew

His wonted colours, ere the sun have yoked

Beneath another star his flamy steeds ;

Thus putting forth a hue more faint than rose,

And deeper than the violet, was renewed

The plant, erewhile in all its branches bare.

Unearthly was the hymn, which then arose. 60

I understood it not, nor to the end

Endured the harmony. Had I the skill

To pencil forth how closed the unpitying eyes

Slumbering, when Syrinx warbled (eyes that paid

So dearly for their watching), then, like painter,

That with a model paints, I might design

The manner of my falling into sleep.

But feign who will the slumber cunningly,

I pass it by to when I waked; and tell,

How suddenly a flash of splendour rent 70

The curtain of my sleep, and one cries out,

‘Arise: what dost thou?’ As the chosen three,

On Tabor’s mount, admitted to behold

The blossoming of that fair tree, whose fruit

Is coveted of angels, and doth make

Perpetual feast in heaven; to themselves

Returning, at the word whence deeper sleeps

Were broken, they their tribe diminished saw ;

Both Moses and Elias gone, and changed

The stole their master wore; thus to myself 80

Returning, over me beheld I stand

The piteous one, who, cross the stream, had brought

My steps. ‘And where,’ all doubting, I exclaimed,

‘Is Beatrice ?’—‘ See her,’ she replied,

‘Beneath the fresh leaf, seated on its root.

Behold the associate choir, that circles her.

The others, with a melody more sweet

And more profound, journeying to higher realms,

Upon the Gryphon tend.’ If there her words

Were closed, I know not; but mine eyes had now go

Ta’en view of her, by whom all other thoughts

Lives 43-140] PURGATORY 235

Were barred admittance. On the very ground
Alone she sat, as she had there been left
A guard upon the wain, which I beheld
Bound to the twyform beast. The seven nymphs
Did make themselves a cloister round about her ;
And, in their hands, upheld those lights secure
From blast septentrion and the gusty south.
‘ A little while thou shalt be forester here ;
And citizen shalt be, for ever with me, 100
Of that true Rome, wherein Christ dwells a Roman.
To profit the misguided world, keep now
Thine eyes upon the car; and what thou seest,
Take heed thou write, returning to that place.’
Thus Beatrice: at whose feet inclined
Devout, at her behest, my thought and eyes,
I, as she bade, directed. Never fire,
With so swift motion, forth a stcrmy cloud
Leaped downward from the welkin’s farthest bound,
As I beheld the bird of Jove descend 1iC
Down through the tree; and, as he rushed, the rind
Disparting crush beneath him; buds much more,
And leaflets. On the car, with ail his might
He struck; whence, staggering, like a ship it recled,
At random driven, to starboard now, o’ercome,
And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves.
Next, springing up into the chariot’s womb,
A fox I saw, with hunger seeming pined
Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins
The saintly maid rebuking him, away 120
Scampering he turned, fast as his hide-bound corpse
Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came,
I saw the eagle dart into the hull
O’ the car, and leave it with his feathers lined:
And then a voice, like that which issues forth
From heart with sorrow rived, did issue forth
From heaven, and, ‘O poor bark of mine!’ it cried,
‘How badly art thou freighted.’ Then it seemed
That the earth opened, between either wheel ;
And I beheld a dragon issue thence, 130
That through the chariot fixed his forkéd train ;
And like a wasp, that draggeth back the sting,
So drawing forth his baleful train, he dragged
Part of the bottom forth; and went his way,
Exulting. What remained, as lively turf
With green herb, so did clothe itself with plumes,
Which haply had, with purpose chaste and kind,
Been offered ; and therewith were clothed the wheels,
Both one and other, and the beam, so quickly,
A sigh were not breathed sooner. Thus transformed, 140

236 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxu

The holy structure, through its several parts,

Did put forth heads; three on the beam, and one
On every side: the first like oxen horned ;

But with a single horn upon their front,

The four. Like monster, sight hath never seen.
O’er it methought there sat, secure as rock

On mountain’s lofty top, a shameless whore,

Whose ken roved loosely round her. At her side,

As *t were that none might bear her off, I saw

A giant stand; and ever and anon 150
They mingled kisses. But, her lustful eyes

Chancing on me to wander, that fell minion

Scourged her from head to foot all o’er; then full

Of jealousy, and fierce with rage, unloosed

The monster, and dragged on, so far across

The forest, that from me its shades alone

Shielded the harlot and the new-formed brute.

CaNTO XXXII] PURGATORY 20

CANTO XXXIII

ARGUMENT

After a hymn sung, Beatrice leaves the tree, and takes with her the seven
virgins, and Matilda, Statius, and Dante. She then darkly predicts to our
Poet some future events. Lastly, the whole band arrive at the fountain
from whence the two streams, Lethe and Eunoe, separating, flow different
ways; and Matilda, at the desire of Beatrice, causes our Poet to drink of
the latter stream.

‘THE heathen, Lord! are come:’ responsive thus,
The trinal now, and now the virgin band
Quaternion, their sweet psalmody began,
Weeping; and Beatrice listened, sad
And sighing, to the song, in such a mood,
That Mary, as she stood beside the cross,
Was scarce more changed. But when they gave her place
To speak, then, risen upright on her feet,
She, with a colour glowing bright as fire,
Did answer: ‘ Yet a little while, and ye 10
Shall see me not; and, my belovéd sisters !
Again a little while, and ye shall see me.’
Before her then she marshalled all the seven ;
And, beckoning only, motioned me, the dame,
And that remaining sage, to follow her.
So on she passed ; and had not set, I ween,
Her tenth step to the ground, when, with mine eyes,
Her eyes encountered ; and, with visage mild,
“So mend thy pace,’ she cried, ‘ that if my words
Address thee, thou mayst still be aptly placed 20
To hear them.’ Soon as duly to her side
I now had hastened: ‘ Brother!’ she began,
“Why makest thou no attempt at questioning,
As thus we walk together?’ Like to those
Who, speaking with too reverent an awe
Before their betters, draw not forth the voice
Alive unto their lips, befell me then
That I in sounds imperfect thus began :
‘Lady! what I have need of, that thou know’st ;
And what will suit my need.’ She answering thus: 30
‘Of fearfulness and shame, I will that thou
Henceforth do rid thee; that thou speak no more
As one who dreams. Thus far be taught of me:
The vessel which thou saw’st the serpent break,
Was, and is not: let him, who hath the blame,
Hope not to scare God’s vengeance with a sop.
Without an heir for ever shall not be
That eagle, he, who left the chariot plumed,
Which monster made it first and next a prey.

238 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxu1

Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars 40
E’en now approaching, whose conjunction, free
From all impediment and bar, brings on
A season, in the which, one sent from God
(Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out),
That foul one, and the accomplice of her guilt,
The giant, both, shall slay. And if perchance
My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx,
Fail to persuade thee (since like them it foils
The intellect with blindness), yet ere long
Events shall be the Naiads, that will solve 50
This knotty riddle; and no damage light
On flock or field. Take heed; and as these words
By me are uttered, teach them even so
To those who live that life, which is a race
To death: and when thou writest them, keep in mind
Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant,
That twice hath now been spoiled. This whoso robs,
This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed
Sins against God, who for his use alone
Creating hallowed it. For taste of this, 60
In pain and in desire, five thousand years
And upward, the first soul did yearn for him
Who punished in himself the fatal gust.

‘Thy reason slumbers, if it deem this height,
And summit thus inverted, of the plant,
Without due cause: and were not vainer thoughts,
As Elsa’s numbing waters, to thy soul,
And their fond pleasures had not dyed it dark
As Pyramus the mulberry; thou hadst seen,
In such momentous circumstance alone, 70
God’s equal justice morally implied
In the forbidden tree. But since I mark thee,
In understanding, hardened into stone,
And, to that hardness, spotted too and stained,
So that thine eye is dazzled at my word;
I will, that, if not written, yet at least
Painted thou take it in thee, for the cause,
That one brings home his staff inwreathed with palm.’

I thus: ‘As wax by seal, that changeth not —
Its impress, now is stamped my brain by thee. 80
But wherefore soars thy wished-for speech so high
Beyond my sight, that loses it the more,
The more it strains to reach it ?’—‘ To the end
That thou mayst know,’ she answered straight, ‘ the school,
That thou hast followed; and how far behind,
When following my discourse, its learning halts :
And mayst behold your art, from the divine
As distant, as the disagreement is

LINEs 40-116] PURGATORY 239

*Twixt earth and heaven’s most high and rapturous orb.’
“I not remember,’ I replied, ‘ that e’er go

I was estranged from thee; nor for such fault

Doth conscience chide me.’ Smiling she returned :

‘Tf thou canst not remember, call to mind

How lately thou hast drunk of Lethe’s wave ;

And, sure as smoke doth indicate a flame,

In that forgetfulness itself conclude

Blame from thy alienated will incurred.

From henceforth, verily. my words shall be

As naked, as will suit them to appear

In thy unpractised view.’ More sparkling now, 100

And with retarded course, the sun possessed

2 a
To

| LS

The circle of mid-day, that varies still

As the aspect varies of each several clime ;
When, as one, sent in vaward of a troop

For escort, pauses, if perchance he spy

Vestige of somewhat strange and rare; so paused
The sevenfold band, arriving at the verge

Of a dun umbrage hoar, such as is seen,

Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches, oft
To overbrow a bleak and alpine cliff. 110
And, where they stood, before them, as it seemed,
I, Tigris and Euphrates both, beheld

Forth from one fountain issue; and, like friends,
Linger at parting. ‘O enlightening beam!

O glory of our kind! beseech thee say

What water this, which, from one source derived,

240 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxxnr

Itself removes to distance from itself ?’
To such entreaty answer thus was made:
Entreat Matilda, that she teach thee this.’
And here, as one who clears himself of blame 120
Imputed, the fair dame returned: ‘ Of me
He this and more hath learnt; and I am safe
That Lethe’s water hath not hid it from him.’
And Beatrice: ‘Some more pressing care,
That oft the memory ’reaves, perchance hath made
His mind’s eye dark. But lo, where Eunoe flows !
Lead thither; and, as thou art wont, revive
His fainting virtue.’ As a courteous spirit,
That proffers no excuses, but as soon
As he hath token of another’s will, 130
Makes it his own; when she had ta’en me, thus
The lovely maiden moved her on, and called
To Statius, with an air most ladylike:
“Come thou with him.’ Were further space allowed,
Then, Reader! might I sing, though but in part,
That beverage, with whose sweetness I had ne’er
Been sated. But, since all the leaves are full,
Appointed for this second strain, mine art
With warning bridle checks me. I returned
From the most holy wave, regenerate, 140
E’en as new plants renewed with foliage new,
Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars.

PARADISE

CANTO I

ARGUMENT

The Poet ascends with Beatrice towards the first heaven; and is, by her,
resolved of certain doubts which arise in his mind.

His glory, by whose might all things are moved,
Pierces the universe, and in one part
Sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heaven,
That largeliest of his light partakes, was I,
Witness of things, which, to relate again,
Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence ;
For that, so near approaching its desire,
Our intellect is to such depth absorbed,
That memory cannot follow. Nathless all,
That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm 10
Could store, shall now be matter of my song.

Benign Apollo! this last labour aid ;
And make me such a vessel of thy worth,
As thy own laurel claims, of me beloved.
Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus’ brows
Sufficed me; henceforth, there is need of both
For my remaining enterprise. Do thou
Enter into my bosom, and there breathe
So, as when Marsyas by thy hand was dragged
Forth from his limbs, unsheathed. O power divine! 20
If thou to me of thine impart so much,
That of that happy realm the shadowed form
Traced in my thoughts I may set forth to view ;
Thou shalt behold me of thy favoured tree
Come to the foot, and crown myself with leaves:
For to that honour thou, and my high theme
Will fit me. If but seldom, mighty Sire!
To grace his triumph, gathers thence a wreath
Caesar, or bard (more shame for human wills
Depraved), joy to the Delphic god must spring 30
From the Peneian foliage, when one breast
Is with such thirst inspired. From a small spark
Great flame hath risen: after me, perchance,
Others with better voice may pray, and gain,
From the Cirrhaean city, answer kind.

ho
ne
bo

THE VISION OF DANTE [Canro I

Through divers passages, the world’s bright lamp
Rises to mortals ; but through that which joins
Four circles with the threefold cross, in best
Course, and in happiest constellation set,

He comes; and, to the worldly wax, best gives 40
Its temper and impression. Morning there,

Here eve was wellnigh by such passage made ;

And whiteness had o’erspread that hemisphere,
Blackness the other part: when to the left

I saw Beatrice turned, and on the sun

Gazing, as never eagle fixed his ken.

As from the first a second beam is wont

To issue, and reflected upwards rise,

Even as a pilgrim bent on his return ;
So of her act, that through the eyesight passed 50
Into my fancy, mine was formed: and straight,
Beyond our mortal wont, I fixed mine eyes
Upon the sun. Much is allowed us there,
That here exceeds our power; thanks to the place
Made for the dwelling of the human kind.
I suffered it not long; and yet so long,
That I beheld it bickering sparks around,
As iron that comes boiling from the fire.
And suddenly upon the day appeared
A day new-risen; as he, who hath the power, 60
Had with another sun bedecked the sky.
Her eyes fast fixed on the eternal wheels,
Beatrice stood unmoved; and I with ken

LINES 36-112] PARADISE 243

Fixed upon her, from upward gaze removed,

At her aspect, such inwardly became

As Glaucus, when he tasted of the herb

That made him peer among the ocean gods:

Words may not tell of that transhuman change ;

And therefore let the example serve, though weak,

For those whom grace hath better proof in store. 70
If I were only what thou didst create,

Then newly, Love! by whom the heaven is ruled ;

Thou know’st, who by thy light didst bear me up.

Whenas the wheel which thou dost ever guide,

Desiréd Spirit! with its harmony,

Tempered of thee and measured, charmed mine ear,

Then seemed to me so much of heaven to blaze

With the sun’s flame, that rain or flood ne’er made

A lake so broad. The newness of the sound,

And that great light, inflamed me with desire, 80

Keener than e’er was felt, to know their cause.
Whence she, who saw me, clearly as myself,

To calm my troubled mind, before I asked,

Opened her lips, and gracious thus began:

‘With false imagination thou thyself

Makest dull; so that thou seest not the thing,

Which thou hadst seen, had that been shaken off.

Thou art not on the earth as thou believest ;

For lightning, scaped from its own proper place,

Ne’er ran, as thou hast hither now returned.’ 90
Although divested of my first-raised doubt

By those brief words accompanied with smiles,

Yet in new doubt was I entangled more,

And said: ‘ Already satisfied, I rest

From admiration deep; but now admire

How I above those lighter bodies rise.’
Whence, after utterance of a piteous sigh,

She towards me bent her eyes, with such a look,

As on her frenzied child a mother casts;

Then thus began: ‘ Among themselves all things 100

Have order; and from hence the form, which makes

The universe resemble God. In this

The higher creatures see the printed steps

Of that eternal worth, which is the end

Whither the line is drawn. All natures lean,

In this their order, diversely ; some more,

Some less approaching to their primal source.

Thus they to different havens are moved on

Through the vast sea of being, and each one

With instinct given, that bears it in its course: 110

This to the lunar sphere directs the fire ;

This moves the hearts of mortal animals ;

244 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto I

This the brute earth together knits, and binds.
Nor only creatures, void of intellect,
Are aimed at by this bow; but even those,
That have intelligence and love, are pierced.
That Providence, who so well orders all,
With her own light makes ever calm the heaven,
In which the substance, that hath greatest speed,
Is turned: and thither now, as to our seat 120
Predestined, we are carried by the force
Of that strong cord, that never looses dart
But at fair aim and glad. Yet it is true,
That as, oft-times, but ill accords the form
To the design of art, through sluggishness
Or unreplying matter; so this course
Is sometimes quitted by the creature, who
Hath power, directed thus, to bend elsewhere ;
As from a cloud the fire is seen to fall,
From its original impulse warped to earth, 130
By vicious fondness. Thou no more admire
Thy soaring (if I rightly deem), than lapse
Of torrent downwards from a mountain’s height.
There would in thee for wonder be more cause,
If, free of hindrance, thou hadst stayed below,
As living fire unmoved upon the earth.’
So said, she turned toward the heaven her face.

CANTO II

ARGUMENT

Dante and his celestial guide enter the moon. The cause of the spots or
shadows, which appear in that body, is explained to him.

ALL ye, who in small bark have following sailed,
Eager to listen, on the adventurous track

Of my proud keel, that singing cuts her way,
Backward return with speed, and your own shores
Revisit ; nor put out to open sea,

Where losing me, perchance ye may remain
Bewildered in deep maze. The way I pass,

Ne’er yet was run: Minerva breathes the gale ;
Apollo guides me; and another Nine,

To my rapt sight, the arctic beams reveal. 10
Ye other few who have outstretched the neck
Timely for food of angels, on which here

They live, yet never know satiety ;

Through the deep brine ye fearless may put out
Your vessel; marking well the furrow broad
Before you in the wave, that on both sides

CANTO IT| PARADISE 245

Equal returns. Those, glorious, who passed o’er
To Colchos, wondered not as ye will do,
When they saw Jason following the plough.

The increate perpetual thirst, that draws 20
Toward the realm of God’s own form, bore us
Swift almost as the heaven ye behold.

Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her;

And in such space as on the notch a dart

Is placed, then loosened flies, I saw myself
Arrived, where wondrous thing engaged my sight.
Whence she, to whom no care of mine was hid,
Turning to me, with aspect glad as fair,

Bespake me: ‘Gratefully direct thy mind

To God, through whom to this first star we come.’ 30
Meseemed as if a cloud had covered us,

Translucent, solid, firm, and polished bright,

Like adamant, which the sun’s beam had smit.

Within itself the ever-during pearl

Received us; as the wave a ray of light

Receives, and rests unbroken. If I then

Was of corporeal frame, and it transcend

Our weaker thought, how one dimension thus

Another could endure, which needs must be

If body enter body; how much more 40

Must the desire inflame us to behold

That essence, which discovers by what means

God and our nature joined! There will be seen

That, which we hold through faith; not shown by proof,

246 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto 4

But in itself intelligibly plain,

E’en as the truth that man at first believes.
I answered: ‘Lady! I with thoughts devout,

Such as I best can frame, give thanks to him,

Who hath removed me from the mortal world.

But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots 50

Upon this body, which below on earth

Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint ?’
Sbe somewhat smiled, then spake: ‘If mortals err

In their opinion, when the key of sense

Unlocks not, surely wonder’s weapon keen

Ought not to pierce thee: since thou find’st, the wings

Of reason to pursue the senses’ flight

Are short. But what thy own thought is, declare.’
Then I: ‘What various here above appears,

Is caused, I deem, by bodies dense or rare.’ 69
She then resumed: ‘ Thou certainly wilt see

In falsehood thy belief o’erwhelmed, if well

Thou listen to the arguments which I

Shall bring to face it. The eighth sphere displays

Numberless lights, the which, in kind and size,

May be remarked of different aspects :

If rare or dense of that were cause alone,

One single virtue then would be in all;

Alike distributed, or more, or less.

Different virtues needs must be the fruits 70

Of formal principles; and these, save one,

Will by thy reasoning be destroyed. Beside,

If rarity were of that dusk the cause,

Which thou inquirest, either in some part

That planet must throughout be void, nor fed

With its own matter; or, as bodies share

Their fat and leanness, in like manner this

Must in its volume change the leaves. The first,

If it were true, had through the sun’s eclipse

Been manifested, by transparency 80

Of light, as through aught rare beside effused.

But this is not. Therefore remains to see

The other cause: and, if the other fall,

Erroneous so must prove what seemed to thee.

If not from side to side this rarity

Pass through, there needs must be a limit, whence

Its contrary no farther lets it pass.

And hence the beam, that from without proceeds,

Must be poured back; as colour comes, through glass

Reflected, which behind it lead conceals. go

Now wilt thou say, that there of murkier hue,

Than, in the other part, the ray is shown,

By being thence refracted farther back.

LINES 45-142] PARADISE 247

From this perplexity will free thee soon
Experience, if thereof thou trial make,
The fountain whence your arts derive their streams.
Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove
From thee alike; and more remote the third,
Betwixt the former pair, shall meet thine eyes:
Then turned toward them, cause behind thy back 100
A light to stand, that on the three shall shine,
And thus reflected come to thee from all.
Though that, beheld most distant, do not stretch
A space so ample, yet in brightness thou
Wilt own it equalling the rest. But now,
As under snow the ground, if the warm ray
Smites it, remains dismantled of the hue
And cold, that covered it before; so thee,
Dismantled in thy mind, I will inform
With light so lively, that the tremulous beam 110
Shall quiver where it falls. Within the heaven,
Where peace divine inhabits, circles round
A body, in whose virtue lies the being
Of all that it contains. The following heaven,
That hath so many lights, this being divides,
Through different essences, from it distinct,
And yet contained within it. The other orbs
Their separate distinctions variously
Dispose, for their own seed and produce apt.
Thus do these organs of the world proceed, 120
As thou beholdest now, from step to step ;
Their influences from above deriving,
And thence transmitting downwards. Mark me well;
How through this passage to the truth I ford,
The truth thou lovest; that thou henceforth, alone,
Mayst know to keep the shallows, safe, untold.
‘The virtue and motion of the sacred orbs,
As mallet by the workman’s hand, must needs
By blessed movers be inspired. This heaven,
Made beauteous by so many luminaries, 130
From the deep spirit, that moves its circling sphere,
Its image takes and impress as a seal:
And as the soul, that dwells within your dust,
Through members different, yet together formed,
In different powers resolves itself; e’en so
The intellectual efficacy unfolds
Its goodness multiplied throughout the stars ;
On its own unity revolving still.
Different virtue compact different
Makes with the precious body it enlivens, 140
With which it knits, as life in you is knit.
From its original nature full of joy,

248 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto II

The virtue mingled through the body shines,

As joy through pupil of the living eye.

From hence proceeds that which from light to light
Seems different, and not from dense or rare.

This is the formal cause, that generates,
Proportioned to its power, the dusk or clear.’

CANTO III

ARGUMENT

In the moon Dante meets with Piccarda, the sister of Forese, who tells him
that this planet is allotted to those, who, after having made profession of
chastity and a religious life, had been compelled to violate their vows ;
and she then points out to him the spirit of the Empress Costanza.

THAT sun, which erst with love my bosom warmed,
Had of fair truth unveiled the sweet aspect,

By proof of right, and of the false reproof ;

And I, to own myself convinced and free

Of doubt, as much as needed, raised my head
Erect for speech. But soon a sight appeared,
Which, so intent to mark it, held me fixed,

That of confession I no longer thought.

As through translucent and smooth glass, or wave
Clear and unmoved, and flowing not so deep 10
As that its bed is dark, the shape returns
So faint of our impictured lineaments,

That, on white forehead set, a pearl as strong

Comes to the eye; such saw I many a face,

All stretched to speak ; from whence I straight conceived,
Delusion opposite to that, which raised,

Between the man and fountain, amorous flame.

Sudden, as I perceived them, deeming these
Reflected semblances, to see of whom
They were, I turned mine eyes, and nothing saw 20
Then turned them back, directed on the light
Of my sweet guide, who, smiling, shot forth beams
From her celestial eyes. ‘Wonder not thou,’

She cried, ‘at this my smiling, when I see
Thy childish judgement; since not yet on truth
It rests the foot, but, as it still is wont,
Makes thee fall back in unsound vacancy.
True substances are these, which thou behold’st,
Hither through failure of their vow exiled.
But speak thou with them; listen, and believe, 30
That the true light, which fills them with desire,
Permits not from its beams their feet to stray.’
Straight to the shadow, which for converse seemed

CANTO mT] PARADISE 249

Most earnest, I addressed me: and began

As one by over-eagerness perplexed :

*O spirit, born for joy! who in the rays

Of life eternal, of that sweetness know’st

The flavour, which, not tasted, passes far

All apprehension ; me it well would please,

If thou wouldst tell me of thy name, and this 40
Your station here.’ Whence she with kindness prompt,
And eyes glistering with smiles: ‘Our charity,

To any wish by justice introduced,

Bars not the door; no more than she above,

Who would have all her court be like herself.

I was a virgin sister in the earth:

|

i

And if thy mind observe me well, this form,
With such addition graced of loveliness,
Will not conceal me long; but thou wilt know
Piccarda, in the tardiest sphere thus placed, 50
Here ’mid these other blessed also blest.
Our hearts, whose high affections burn alone
With pleasure from the Holy Spirit conceived,
Admitted to his order, dwell in joy.
And this condition, which appears so low,
Is for this cause assigned us, that our vows
Were, in some part, neglected and made void.’
Whence I to her replied: ‘Something divine
Beams in your countenances wondrous fair ;
From former knowledge quite transmuting you. 60
Therefore to recollect was I so slow.
But what thou sayst hath to my memory

250 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO IIL

Given now such aid, that to retrace your forms
Is easier. Yet inform me, ye, who here
Are bappy; long ye for a higher place,
More to behold, and more in love to dwell ?’
She with those other spirits gently smiled ;
Then answered with such gladness, that she seemed
With love’s first flame to glow: ‘ Brother! our will
Is, in composure, settled by the power 79
Of charity, who makes us will alone
What we possess, and naught beyond desire:
If we should wish to be exalted more,
Then must our wishes jar with the high will
Of him, who sets us here; which in these orbs
Thou wilt confess not possible, if here
To be in charity must needs befall,
And if her nature well thou contemplate.
Rather it is inherent in this state
Of blessedness, to keep ourselves within 80
The divine will, by which our wills with his
Are one. So that as we, from step to step,
Are placed throughout this kingdom, pleases all,
Even as our King, who in us plants his will;
And in his will is our tranquillity :
It is the mighty ocean, whither tends
Whatever it creates and nature makes.’
Then saw I clearly how each spot in heaven
Is Paradise, though with like gracious dew
The supreme virtue shower not over all. go
But as it chances, if one sort of food
Hath satiated, and of another still
The appetite remains, that this is asked,
And thanks for that returned; e’en so did I,
In word and motion, bent from her to learn
What web it was, through which she had not drawn
The shuttle to its point. She thus began:
‘ Exalted worth and perfectness of life
The Lady higher up enshrine in heaven,
By whose pure laws upon your nether earth 100
The robe and veil they wear; to that intent,
That e’en till death they may keep watch, or sleep,
With their great bridegroom, who accepts each vow,
Which to his gracious pleasure love conforms.
1 from the world, to follow her, when young
Escaped ; and, in her vesture mantling me,
Made promise of the way her sect enjoins.
Thereafter men, for ill than good more apt,
Forth snatched me from the pleasant cloister’s pale.
God knows how, after that, my life was framed. 110
This other splendid shape, which thou behold’st

CANTO IV] PARADISE 251

At my right side, burning with all the light

Of this our orb, what of myself I tell

May to herself apply. From her, like me

A sister, with like violence were torn

The saintly folds, that shaded her fair brows.

F’en when she to the world again was brought

In spite of her own will and better wont,

Yet not for that the bosom’s inward veil

Did she renounce. This is the luminary 120

Of mighty Constance, who from that loud blast,

Which blew the second over Suabia’s realm,

That power produced, which was the third and last.’
She ceased from further talk, and then began

‘Ave Maria’ singing; and with that song

Vanished, as heavy substance through deep wave.
Mine eye, that, far as it was capable,

Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost,

Turned to the mark where greater want impelled,

And bent on Beatrice all its gaze. 130

But she, as lightning, beamed upon my looks ;

So that the sight sustained it not at first.

Whence I to question her became less prompt.

CANTO IV

ARGUMENT

While they still continue in the moon, Beatrice removes certain aoubts
which Dante had conceived respecting the place assigned to the blessed,
and respecting the will absolute or conditional. He inquires whether it is
possible to make satisfaction for a vow broken.

BETWEEN two kinds of food, both equally
Remote and tempting, first a man might die
Of hunger, ere he one could freely choose.
F’en so would stand a lamb between the maw
Of two fierce wolves, in dread of both alike:
E’en so between two deer a dog would stand.
Wherefore, if I was silent, fault nor praise

I to myself impute; by equal doubts

Held in suspense; since of necessity

It happened. Silent was I, yet desire 10
Was painted in my looks; and thus I spake
My wish more earnestly than language could.

As Daniel, when the haughty king he freed
From ire, that spurred him on to deeds unjust
And violent; so did Beatrice then.

‘Well I discern,’ she thus her words addressed,
‘How thou art drawn by each of these desires ;

252 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO IV

So that thy anxious thought is in itself
Bound up and stifled, nor breathes freely forth.
Thou arguest: if the good intent remain ; 20
What reason that another’s violence
Should stint the measure of my fair desert ?
‘Cause too thou find’st for doubt, in that it seems,
That spirits to the stars, as Plato deemed,
Return. These are the questions which thy will
Urge equally; and therefore I, the first,
Of that will treat which hath the more of gall.
Of seraphim he who is most enskyed,
Moses and Samuel, and either John,

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Choose which thou wilt, nor even Mary’s seli, 30
Have not in any other heaven their seats,

Than have those spirits which so late thou saw’st ;

Nor more or fewer years exist; but all

Make the first circle beauteous, diversely

Partaking of sweet life, as more or less

Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them.

Here were they shown thee, not that fate assigns

This for their sphere, but for a sign to thee

Of that celestial farthest from the height.

Thus needs, that ye may apprehend, we speak : 40
Since from things sensible alone ye learn

That, which, digested rightly, after turns

To intellectual. For no other cause

The Scripture, condescending graciously

LINEs 18-93] PARADISE 253

To your perception, hands and feet to God
Attributes, nor so means: and holy church
Doth represent with human countenance
Gabriel, and Michael, and him who made
Tobias whole. Unlike what here thou seest,
The judgement of Timaeus, who affirms 50
Each soul restored to its particular star ;
Believing it to have been taken thence,
When nature gave it to inform her mould:
Yet to appearance his intention is
Not what his words declare: and so to shun
Derision, haply thus he hath disguised
His true opinion. If his meaning be,
That to the influencing of these orbs revert
The honour and the blame in human acts,
Perchance he doth not wholly miss the truth. 60
This principle, not understood aright,
Erewhile perverted wellnigh all the world ;
So that it fell to fabled names of Jove,
And Mercury, and Mars. That other doubt,
Which moves thee, is less harmful; for it brings
No peril of removing thee from me.
‘That, to the eye of man, our justice seems
Unjust, is argument for faith, and not
For heretic declension. But, to the end
This truth may stand more clearly in your view, 70
I will content thee even to thy wish.
‘If violence be, when that which suffers, naught
Consents to that which forceth, not for this
These spirits stood exculpate. For the will,
That wills not, still survives unquenched, and doth,
As nature doth in fire, though violence
Wrest it a thousand times; for, if it yield
Or more or less, so far it follows force.
And thus did these, when they had power to seek
The hallowed place again. In them, had will 8o
Been perfect, such as once upon the bars
Held Laurence firm, or wrought in Scaevola
To his own hand remorseless; to the path,
Whence they were drawn, their steps had hastened back,
When liberty returned: but in too few,
Resolve, so steadfast, dwells. And by these words,
If duly weighed, that argument is void,
Which oft might have perplexed thee still. But now
Another question thwarts thee, which, to solve,
Might try thy patience without better aid. go
I have, no doubt, instilled into thy mind,
That blessed spirit may not lie; since near
The source of primal truth it dwells for aye:

254 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Iv

And thou mightst after of Piccarda learn
That Constance held affection to the veil:

So that she seems to contradict me here.

Not seldom, brother, it hath chanced for men
To do what they had gladly left undone ;
Yet, to shun peril, they have done amiss:
EF’en as Alemaeon, at his father’s suit 100
Slew his own mother; so made pitiless,

Not to lose pity. On this point bethink thee,
That force and will are blended in such wise
As not to make the offence excusable.
Absolute will agrees not to the wrong ;

But inasmuch as there is fear of woe

From non-compliance, it agrees. Of will
Thus absolute, Piccarda spake, and I

Of the other; so that both have truly said.’

Such was the flow of that pure rill, that welled 110
From forth the fountain of all truth; and such
The rest, that to my wandering thoughts I found.

‘O thou, of primal love the prime delight,
Goddess!’ I straight replied, ‘ whose lively words
Still shed new heat and vigour through my soul ;
Affection fails me to requite thy grace
With equal sum of gratitude: be his
To recompense, who sees and can reward thee.

Well I discern, that by that truth alone

Enlightened, beyond which no truth may roam, 120
Our mind can satisfy her thirst to know:

Therein she resteth, e’en as in his lair

The wild beast, soon as she hath reached that bound.
And she hath power to reach it; else desire

Were given to no end. And thence doth doubt

Spring, like a shoot, around the stock of truth ;

And it is nature which, from height to height,

On to the summit prompts us. This invites,

This doth assure me, Lady! reverently

To ask thee of another truth, that yet 130
Is dark to me. I fain would know, if man

By other works well done may so supply

The failure of his vows, that in your scale

They lack not weight.’ I spake; and on me straight
Beatrice looked, with eyes that shot forth sparks

Of love celestial, in such copious stream,

That, virtue sinking in me overpowered,

I turned ; and downward bent, confused, my sight.

Or

CANTO Vv] PARADISE 25

CANTO V

ARGUMENT

The question proposed in the last Canto is answered. Dante ascends with
Beatrice to the planet Mercury, which is the second heaven; and here he
finds a multitude of spirits, one of whom offers to satisfy him of anything
he may desire to know from them,

‘Ir beyond earthly wont, the flame of love
Illume me, so that I o’ercome thy power
Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause
In that perfection of the sight, which, soon
As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach
The good it apprehends. I well discern,
How in thine intellect already shines
The light eternal, which to view alone
Ne’er fails to kindle love; and if aught else
Your love seduces, ’tis but that it shows 10
Some ill-marked vestige of that primal beam.
‘This wouldst thou know: if failure of the vow
By other service may be so supplied,
As from self-question to assure the soul.’
Thus she her words, not heediess of my wish,
Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off
Discourse, continued in her saintly strain.
‘Supreme of gifts, which God, creating, gave
Of his free bounty, sign most evident
Of goodness, and in his account most prized, 20
Was liberty of will; the boon, wherewith
All intellectual creatures, and them sole,
He hath endowed. Hence now thou mayst infer
Of what high worth the vow, which so is framed,
That when man offers, God well-pleased accepts :
For in the compact between God and him,
This treasure, such as I describe it to thee,
He makes the victim; and of his own act.
What compensation therefore may he find ?
If that, whereof thou hast oblation made, 30
By using well thou think’st to consecrate,
Thou wouldst of theft do charitable deed.
Thus I resolve thee of the greater point.
‘But forasmuch as holy church, herein
Dispensing, seems to contradict the truth
I have discovered to thee, yet behoves
Thou rest a little longer at the board,
Ere the crude aliment which thou hast ta’en,
Digested fitly, to nutrition turn.
Open thy mind to what I now unfold ; 40

256 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO V

And give it inward keeping. Knowledge comes
Of learning well retained, unfruitful else.
‘This sacrifice, in essence, of two things
Consisteth ; one is that, whereof ’tis made;
The covenant, the other. For the last,
It ne’er is cancelled, if not kept: and hence
I spake, erewhile, so strictly of its force.
For this it was enjoined the Israelites,
Though leave were given them, as thou know’st, to change
The offering, still to offer. The other part, 50
The matter and the substance of the vow,
May well be such, as that, without offence,
It may for other substance be exchanged.
But, at his own discretion, none may shift
The burden on his shoulders; unreleased
By either key, the yellow and the white.
Nor deem of any change, as less than vain,
If the last bond be not within the new
Included, as the quatre in the six.
No satisfaction therefore can be paid 60
For what so precious in the balance weighs,
That all in counterpoise must kick the beam.
Take then no vow at random: ta’en, with faith
Preserve it; yet not bent, as Jephthah once,
Blindly to execute a rash resolve,
Whom better it had suited to exclaim,
“I have done ill,” than to redeem his pledge
By doing worse: or, not unlike to him
In folly, that great leader of the Greeks ;
Whence, on the alter, Iphigenia mourned 70
Her virgin beauty, and hath since made mourn
Both wise and simple, even all, who hear
Of so fell sacrifice. Be ye more staid,
O Christians! not, like feather, by each wind
Removable ; nor think to cleanse yourselves
In every water. Either testament,
The old and new, is yours: and for your guide,
The shepherd of the church. Let this suffice
To save you. When by evil lust enticed,
Remember ye be men, not senseless beasts ; 80
Nor let the Jew, who dwelleth in your streets,
Hold you in mockery. Be not, as the lamb,
That, fickle wanton, leaves its mother’s milk,
To dally with itself in idle play.’
Such were the words that Beatrice spake :
These ended, to that region, where the world
Is liveliest, full of fond desire she turned.
Though mainly prompt new question to propose,
Her silence and changed look did keep me dumb.

LINEs 41-118] PARADISE 257

And as the arrow, ere the cord is still, gc
Leapeth unto its mark; so on we sped
Into the second realm. There I beheld
The dame, so joyous, enter, that the orb
Grew brighter at her smiles; and, if the star
Were moved to gladness, what then was my cheer,
Whom nature hath made apt for every change !
As in a quiet and clear lake the fish,
If aught approach them from without, do draw
Towards it, deeming it their food ; so drew
Full more than thousand splendours towards us ; 10c
And in each one was heard: ‘Lo! one arrived
To multiply our loves!’ and as each came,

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The shadow, streaming forth cfiulgence new,
Witnessed augmented joy. Here, Reader! think,
If thou didst miss the sequel of my tale,
To know the rest how sorely thou wouldst crave ;
And thou shalt see what vehement desire
Possessed me, soon as these had met my view,
To know their state. ‘ O born in happy hour!
Thou, to whom grace vouchsafes, or e’er thy close IIc
Of fleshly warfare, to behold the thrones
Of that eternal triumph; know, to us
The light communicated, which through heaven
Expatiates without bound. Therefore, if aught
Thou of our beams wouldst borrow for thine aid,
Spare not; and, of our radiance, take thy fill.’
Thus of those piteous spirits one bespake me ;
And Beatrice next: ‘Say on; and trust

258 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO V

As unto gods.’—‘ How in the light supreme

Thou harbour’st, and from thence the virtue bring’st 120
That, sparkling in thine eyes, denotes thy joy,

I mark; but, who thou art, am still to seek ;

Or wherefore, worthy spirit! for thy lot

This sphere assigned, that oft from mortal ken

Is veiled by other’s beams.’ I said; and turned
Toward the lustre, that with greeting kind

Erewhile had hailed me. Forthwith, brighter far

Than erst, it waxed: and, as himself the sun

Hides through excess of light, when his warm gaze
Hath on the mantle of thick vapours preyed ; 130
Within its proper ray the saintly shape

Was, through increase of gladness, thus concealed ;

And, shrouded so in splendour, answered me,

E’en as the tenor of my song declares.

CANTO VI

ARGUMENT
The spirit, who had offered to satisfy the inquiries of Dante, declares him-

self to be the Emperor Justinian ; and after speaking of his own actions,
recounts the victories, before him, obtained under the Roman Eagle. He
then informs our Poet that the soul of Romeo the pilgrim is in the same
star.

‘ AFTER that Constantine the eagle turned

Against the motions of ihe heaven, that rolled

Consenting with its course, when he of yore,

Lavinia’s spouse, was leader of the flight ;

A hundred years twice told and more, his seat

At Europe’s extreme point, the bird of Jove

Held, near the mountains, whence he issued first ;

There under shadow of his sacred plumes

Swaying the world, till through successive hands

To mine he came devolved. Caesar I was; IO

And am Justinian; destined by the will

Of that prime love, whose influence I feel,

From vain excess to clear the encumbered laws.

Or e’er that work engaged me, I did hold

In Christ one nature only: with such faith

Contented. But the blessed Agapete,

Who was chief shepherd, he with warning voice

To the true faith recalled me. I believed

His words: and what he taught, now plainly see,

As thou in every contradiction seest 20

The true and false opposed. Soon as my feet

Were to the church reclaimed, to my great task,

CaNnTO VI] PARADISE 259

By inspiration of God’s grace impelled,
I gave me wholly; and consigned mine arms
To Belisarius, with whom Heaven’s right hand
Was linked in such conjointment, ’twas a sign
That I should rest. To thy first question thus
I shape mine answer, which were ended here,
But that its tendency doth prompt perforce
To some addition; that thou well mayst mark, 30
What reason on each side they have to plead,
By whom that holiest banner is withstood,
Both who pretend its power and who oppose.
‘ Beginning from that hour, when Pallas died
To give it rule, behold the valorous deeds
Have made it worthy reverence. Not unknown
To thee, how for three hundred years and more
It dwelt in Alba, up to those fell lists
Where, for its sake, were met the rival three ;
Nor aught unknown to thee, which it achieved 40
Down from the Sabines’ wrong to Lucrece’ woe ;
With its seven kings conquering the nations round ;
Nor all it wrought, by Roman worthies borne
’°Gainst Brennus and the Epirot prince, and hosts
Of single chiefs, or states in league combined
Of social warfare: hence, Torquatus stern,
And Quintius named of his neglected locks,
The Decii, and the Fabii hence acquired
Their fame, which I with duteous zeal embalm.
By it the pride of Arab hordes was quelled, te)
When they, led on by Hannibal, o’erpassed
The Alpine rocks, whence glide thy currents, Po !
Beneath its guidance, in their prime of days
Scipio and Pompey triumphed ; and that hill
Under whose summit thou didst see the light,
Rued its stern bearing. After, near the hour,
When Heaven was minded that o’er all the world
His own deep calm should brood, to Caesar’s hand
Did Rome consign it; and what then it wrought
From Var unto the Rhine, saw Isere’s flood, 60
Saw Loire and Seine, and every vale, that fills
The torrent Rhone. What after that it wrought,
When from Ravenna it came forth, and leaped
The Rubicon, was of so bold a flight,
That tongue nor pen may follow it. Towards Spain
It wheeled its bands, then toward Dyrrachium smote,
And on Pharsalia, with so fierce a plunge,
E’en the warm Nile was conscious to the pang ;
Its native shores Antandros, and the streams
Of Simois revisited, and there 79°
Where Hector lies; then ill for Ptolemy
CARY L

260 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VI

His pennons shook again; lightening thence fell
On Juba; and the next, upon your west,
At sound of the Pompeian trump, returned.
‘What following, and in its next bearer’s grip,
It wrought, is now by Cassius and Brutus
Barked of in hell; and by Perugia’s sons,
And Modena’s, was mourned. Hence weepeth still
Sad Cleopatra, who, pursued by it,
Took from the adder black and sudden death. 80
With him it ran e’en to the Red Sea coast ;
With him composed the world to such a peace,
That of his temple Janus barred the door.
‘But all the mighty standard yet had wrought,
And was appointed to perform thereafter,
Throughout the mortal kingdom which it swayed,
Falls in appearance dwindled and obscured,
If one with steady eye and perfect thought
On the third Caesar look; for to his hands,
The living Justice, in whose breath I move, yo
Committed glory, e’en into his hands,
To execute the vengeance of its wrath.
‘Hear now, and wonder at, what next I tell.
After with Titus it was sent to wreak
Vengeance for vengeance of the ancient sin.
And, when the Lombard tooth, with fang impure,
Did gore the bosom of the holy church,
Under its wings, victorious Charlemagne
Sped to her rescue. Judge then for thyself
Of those, whom I erewhile accused to thee, 100
What they are, and how grievous their offending,
Who are the cause of all your ills. The one
Against the universal ensign rears
The yellow lilies; and with partial aim,
That, to himself, the other arrogates :
So that ’tis hard to see who most offends.
Be yours, ye Ghibellines, to veil your hearts
Beneath another standard: ill is this
Followed of him, who severs it and Justice:
And let not with his Guelphs the new-crowned Charles 110
Assail it; but those talons hold in dread,
Which from a lion of more lofty port
Have rent the casing. Many a time ere now
The sons have for the sire’s transgression wailed :
Nor let him trust the fond belief, that heaven
Will truck its armour for his lilied shield.
‘This little star is furnished with good spirits,
Whose mortal lives were busied to that end,
That honour and renown might wait on them:
And, when desires thus err in their intention, 120

Links 72-144] PARADISE 261

True love must needs ascend with slacker beam.

But it is part of our delight, to measure

Our wages with the merit ; and admire

The close proportion. Hence doth heavenly justice

Temper so evenly affection in us,

It ne’er can warp to any wrongfulness.

Of diverse voices is sweet music made:

So in our life the different degrees

Render sweet harmony among these wheels.
‘Within the pearl, that now encloseth us, 130

Shines Romeo’s light, whose goodly deed and fair

Met ill acceptance. But the Provencals,

That were his foes, have little cause for mirth.

Ill shapes that man his course, who makes his wrong
Of other’s worth. Four daughters were there born
To Raymond Berenger ; and every one

Became a queen: and this for him did Romeo,
Though of mean state and from a foreign land.

Yet envious tongues incited him to ask

A reckoning of that just one, who returned 140
Twelve fold to him for ten. Aged and poor

He parted thence: and if the world did know

The heart he had, begging his life by morsels,
*Twould deem the praise, it yields him, scantly dealt.’

262 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO vir

CANTO VII

ARGUMENT

In consequence of what had been said by Justinian, who together with the
other spirits have now disappeared, some doubts arise in the mind of
Dante respecting the human redemption. These difficulties are fully
explained by Beatrice.

‘Hosanna Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
Superillustrans claritate tua

Felices ignes horum malahoth.’

Thus chanting saw I turn that substance bright,
With fourfold lustre to its orb again,
Revolving ; and the rest, unto their dance,
With it, moved also; and, like swiftest sparks,
In sudden distance from my sight were veiled.

Me doubt possessed; and ‘Speak’, it whispered me,
“Speak, speak unto thy lady; that she quench 10
Thy thirst with drops of sweetness.’ Yet blank awe,
Which lords it o’er me, even at the sound
Of Beatrice’s name, did bow me down
As one in slumber held. Not long that mood
Beatrice suffered: she, with such a smile,

As might have made one blest amid the flames,
Beaming upon me, thus her words began :

‘Thou in thy thought art pondering (as I deem,

And what I deem is truth) how just revenge

Could be with justice punished: from which doubt = 20
I soon will free thee; so thou mark my words ;

For they of weighty matter shall possess thee.

Through suffering not a curb upon the power

That willed in him, to his own profiting,

That man, who was unborn, condemned himself ;

And, in himself, all, who since him have lived,

His offspring: whence, below, the human kind

Lay sick in grievous error many an age;

Until it pleased the Word of God to come

Amongst them down, to his own person joining 30
The nature from its Maker far estranged,

By the mere act of his eternal love.

Contemplate here the wonder I unfold.

The nature with its Maker thus conjoined,

Created first was blameless, pure and good ;

But, through itself alone, was driven forth

From Paradise, because it had eschewed

The way of truth and life, to evil turned.

Ne’er then was penalty so just as that

Inflicted by the cross, if thou regard 40
The nature in assumption doomed; ne’er wrong

LINES 1-68] PARADISE 263

So great, in reference to him, who took

Such nature on him, and endured the doom.

So different effects flowed from one act:

For by one death God and the Jews were pleased ;
And heaven was opened, though the earth did quake.
Count it not hard henceforth, when thou dost hear
That a just vengeance was, by righteous court,
Justly revenged. But yet I see thy mind,

By thought on thought arising, sore perplexed ; 50
And, with how vehement desire, it asks

Solution of the maze. What I have heard,

Is plain, thou say’st: but wherefore God this way

For our redemption chose, eludes my search.
‘Brother! no eye of man not perfected,

Nor fully ripened in the flame of love,

May fathom this decree. It is a mark,

In sooth, much aimed at, and but little kenned:

And I will therefore show thee why such way

Was worthiest. The celestial love, that spurns — 6o

All envying in its bounty, in itself

With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth

All beauteous things eternal. What distils

Immediate thence, no end of being knows ;

Bearing its seal immutably impressed.

Whatever thence immediate falls, is free,

Free wholly, uncontrollable by power

Of each thing new: by such conformity

264 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VII

More grateful to its author, whose bright beams,
Though all partake their shining, yet in those 70
Are liveliest, which resemble him the most.
These tokens of pre-eminence on man
Largely bestowed, if any of them fail,
He needs must forfeit his nobility,
No longer stainless. Sin alone is that,
Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike
To the chief good; for that its light in him
Is darkened. And to dignity thus lost
Is no return; unless, where guilt makes void,
He for ill pleasure pay with equal pain. 80
Your nature, which entirely in its seed
Transgressed, from these distinctions fell, no less
Than from its state in Paradise; nor means
Found of recovery (search all methods out
As strictly as thou may) save one of these,
The only fords were left through which to wade :
Either that God had of his courtesy
Released him merely ; or else man himself
For his own folly by himself atoned.
‘Fix now thine eye, intently as thou canst, go
On the everlasting counsel ; and explore,
Instructed by my words, the dread abyss.
‘Man in himself had ever lacked the means
Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop
Obeying, in humility so low,
As high, he, disobeying, thought to soar :
And, for this reason, he had vainly tried,
Out of his own sufficiency, to pay
The rigid satisfaction. Then behoved
That God should by his own ways lead him back 100
Unto the life, from whence he fell, restored :
By both his ways, I mean, or one alone.
But since the deed is ever prized the more,
The more the doer’s good intent appears ;
Goodness celestial, whose broad signature
Is on the universe, of all its ways
To raise ye up, was fain to leave out none.
Nor aught so vast or so magnificent,
Either for him who gave or who received,
Between the last night and the primal day, 110
Was or can be. For God more bounty showed,
Giving himself to make man capable
Of his return to life, than had the terms
Been mere and unconditional release.
And for his justice, every method else
Were all too scant, had not the Son of God
Humbled himself to put on mortal flesh.

Canto vit] PARADISE 265

‘Now, to content thee fully, I revert ;

And further in some part unfold my speech,

That thou mayst see it clearly as myself, 120
‘I see, thou sayst, the air, the fire I see,

The earth and water, and all things of them

Compounded, to corruption turn, and soon

Dissolve. Yet these were also things create.

Because, if what were told me, had been true,

They from corruption had been therefore free.
‘The angels, O my brother! and this clime

Wherein thou art, impassible and pure,

I call created, even as they are

In their whole being. But the elements, 130

Which thou hast named, and what of them is made,

Are by created virtue informed: create,

Their substance ; and create, the informing virtue

In these bright stars, that round them circling move.

The soul of every brute and of each plant,

The ray and motion of the sacred lights,

Draw from complexion with meet power endued.

But this our life the eternal good insnires

Immediate, and enamours of itself ;

So that our wishes rest for ever here. 140
‘And hence thou mayst by inference conclude

Our resurrection certain, if thy mind

Consider how the human flesh was framed,

When both our parents at the first were made.’

CANTO VIII

ARGUMENT

The Poet ascends with Beatrice to the third heaven, which is the planet
Venus; and here finds the soul of Charles Martel, king of Hungary, who
had been Dante’s friend on earth, and who now, after speaking of the
realms to which he was heir, unfolds the cause why children differ in dis-
position from their parents.

THE world was, in its day of peril dark,
Wont to believe the dotage of fond love,
From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls

In her third epicycle, shed on men

By stream of potent radiance: therefore they
Of elder time, in their old error blind,

Not her alone with sacrifice adored

And invocation, but like honours paid

To Cupid and Dione, deemed of them

Her mother, and her son, him whom they feigned 10
To sit in Dido’s bosom: and from her,

266 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO vin

Whom I have sung preluding, borrowed they
The appellation of that star, which views
Now obvious, and now averse, the sun.
I was not ’ware that I was wafted up
Into its orb; but the new loveliness,
That graced my lady, gave me ample proof
That we had entered there. And as in flame
A sparkle is distinct, or voice in voice
Discerned, when one its even tenor keeps, 20
The other comes and goes; so in that light
I other luminaries saw, that coursed
In circling motion, rapid more or less,
As their eternal vision each impels.
Never was blast from vapour charged with cold,
Whether invisible to eye or no,
Descended with such speed, it had not seemed
To linger in dull tardiness, compared
To those celestial lights, that towards us came,
Leaving the circuit of their joyous ring, 30
Conducted by the lofty seraphim.
And after them, who in the van appeared,
Such an Hosanna sounded as hath left
Desire, ne’er since extinct in me, to hear
Renewed the strain. Then, parting from the rest,
One near us drew, and sole began: ‘ We all
Are ready at thy pleasure, well disposed
To do thee gentle service. We are they
To whom thou in the world erewhile didst sing ;
“O ye! whose intellectual ministry 40
** Moves the third heaven:” and in one orb we roll,
One motion, one impulse, with those who rule
Princedoms in heaven; yet are of love so full,
That to please thee *twill be as sweet to rest.’
After mine eyes had with meek reverence
Sought the celestial guide, and were by her
Assured, they turned again unto the light,
Who had so largely promised ; and with voice
That bare the lively pressure of my zeal,
‘Tell who ye are,’ I cried. Forthwith it grew 50
Yn size and splendour, through augmented joy ;
And thus it answered: ‘ A short date, below,
The world possessed me. Had the time been more,
Much evil, that will come, had never chanced.
My gladness hides thee from me, which doth shine
Around, and shroud me, as an animal
In its own silk enswathed. Thou lovedst me well,
And hadst good cause; for had my sojourning
Been longer on the earth, the love I bare thee
Had put forth more than blossoms. The left bank, 60

Linus 12-87] PARADISE 267

That Rhone, when he hath mixed with Sorga, laves,
In me its lord expected, and that horn
Of fair Ausonia, with its boroughs old,
Bari, and Croton, and Gaeta piled,
From where the Trento disembogues his waves,
With Verde mingled, to the salt-sea flood.
Already on my temples beamed the crown,
Which gave me sovereignty over the land
By Danube washed, whenas he strays beyond
The limits of his German shores. The realm, 70
Where, on the gulf by stormy Eurus lashed,
Betwixt Pelorus and Pachynian heights,
< SS SSN

The beautiful Trinacria lies in gloom

(Not through Typhoeus, but the vapoury cloud
Bituminous upsteamed), that too did look

To have its sceptre wielded by a race

Of monarchs, sprung through me from Charles and Rodolph;
Had not ill-lording, which doth desperate make

The people ever, in Palermo raised

The shout of “death”, re-echoed loud and long. 80
Had but my brother’s foresight kenned as much,

He had been warier, that the greedy want

Of Catalonia might not work his bale.

And truly need there is that he forecast,

Or other for him, lest more freight be laid

On his already overladen bark.

Nature in him, from bounty fallen to thrift,

THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO VIII

Would ask the guard of braver arms, than such
As only care to have their coffers filled.’
‘My liege! it doth enhance the joy thy words go
Infuse into me, mighty as it is,
To think my gladness manifest to thee,
As to myself, who own it, when thou look’st
Into the source and limit of all good,
There, where thou markest that which thou dost speak,
Thence prized of me the more. Glad thou hast made me:
Now make intelligent, clearing the doubt
Thy speech hath raised in me; for much I muse,
How bitter can spring up, when sweet is sown.’
I thus inquiring; he forthwith replied : 100
‘Tf I have power to show one truth, soon that
Shall face thee, which thy questioning declares
Behind thee now concealed. The Good, that guides
And blessed makes this realm which thou dost mount,
Ordains its providence to be the virtue
In these great bodies: nor the natures only
The all-perfect mind provides for, but with them
That which preserves them too; for naught, that lies
Within the range of that unerring bow,
But is as level with the destined aim, IID
As ever mark to arrow’s point opposed.
Were it not thus, these heavens, thou dost visit,
Would their effect so work, it would not be
Art, but destruction ; and this may not chance,
If the intellectual powers, that move these stars,
Fail not, and who, first faulty made them, fail.
Wilt thou this truth more clearly evidenced ? ’
To whom I thus: ‘It is enough: no fear,
T see, lest nature in her part should tire.’
He straight rejoined: ‘Say, were it worse for man, 120
If he lived not in fellowship on earth ?’
‘Yea,’ answered I; ‘nor here a reason needs.’
‘And may that be, if different estates
Grow not of different duties in your life?
Consult your teacher, and he tells you “no”’.’
Thus did he come, deducing to this point,
And then concluded: ‘ For this cause behoves,
The roots, from whence your operations come,
Must differ. Therefore one is Solon born ;
Another, Xerxes; and Melchisedec I
A third; and he a fourth, whose airy voyage
Cost him his son. In her circuitous course,
Nature, that is the seal to mortal wax,
Doth well her art, but no distinction owns
>Twixt one or other household. Hence befalls
That Esau is so wide of Jacob: hence

Ww
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CANTO Ix] PARADISE 269

Quirinus of so base a father springs,

He dates from Mars his lineage. Were it not

That Providence celestial overruled,

Nature, in generation, must the path 140
Traced by the generator still pursue

Unswervingly. Thus place I in thy sight

That, which was late behind thee. But, in sign

Of more affection for thee, *tis my will

Thou wear this corollary. Nature ever

Finding discordant fortune, like all seed

Out of its proper climate, thrives but ill.

And were the world below content to mark

And work on the foundation nature lays,

It would not lack supply of excellence. 150
But ye perversely to religion strain

Him, who was born to gird on him the sword,

And of the fluent phraseman make your king:

Therefore your steps have wandered from the path.’

CANTO IX

ARGUMENT

The next spirit, who converses with our Poet in the planet Venus, is the
amorous Cunizza. To her succeeds Folco, or Folques, the Provencal
bard, who declares that the soul of Rahab the harlot is there also ; and
then, blaming the Pope for his neglect of the Holy Land, prognosticates
some reverse to the papal power.

AFTER solution of my doubt, thy Charles,
O fair Clemenza, of the treachery spake,
That must befall his seed: but, ‘ Tell it not,’
Said he, ‘and let the destined years come round.’
Nor may I tell thee more, save that the meed
Of sorrow well-deserved shall quit your wrongs.
And now the visage of that saintly light
Was to the sun, that fills it, turned again,
As to the good, whose plenitude of bliss
Sufficeth all. O ye misguided souls! 10
Infatuate, who from such a good estrange
Your hearts, and bend your gaze on vanity,
Alas for you !—And lo! toward me, next,
Another of those splendent forms approached,
That, by its outward brightening, testified
The will it had to pleasure me. The eyes
Of Beatrice, resting, as before,
Firmly upon me, manifested forth
Approval of my wish. ‘ And O,’ I cried,
* Blest spirit! quickly be my will performed ; 20

270 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto Ix

And prove thou to me, that my inmost thoughts
I can reflect on thee.’ Thereat the light,

That yet was new to me, from the recess,
Where it before was singing, thus began,

As one who joys in kindness: ‘In that part

Of the depraved Italian land, which lies
Between Rialto and the fountain-springs

Of Brenta and of Piava, there doth rise,

But to no lofty eminence, a hill,

From whence erewhile a firebrand did descend, 30
That sorely shent the region. From one root

I and it sprang; my name on earth Cunizza:
And here I glitter, for that by its light

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This star o’ercame me. Yet I naught repine,
Nor grudge myself the cause of this my lot:
Which haply vulgar hearts can scarce conceive.
‘This jewel, that is next me in our heaven,
Lustrous and costly, great renown hath left,
And not to perish, ere these hundred years
Five times absolve their round. Consider thou, 40
If to excel be worthy man’s endeavour,
When such life may attend the first. Yet they
Care not for this, the crowd that now are girt
By Adice and Tagliamento, still
Impenitent, though scourged. The hour is near
When for their stubbornness, at Padua’s marsh
The water shall be changed, that laves Vicenza.
And where Cagnano meets with Sile, one

LINES 21-97] PARADISE 271

Lords it, and bears his head aloft, for whom
The web is now a-warping. Feltro too 5°
Shall sorrow for its godless shepherd’s fault,
Of so deep stain, that never, for the like,
Was Malta’s bar unclosed. Too large should be
The skillet that would hold Ferrara’s blood,
And wearied he, who ounce by ounce would weigh it,
The which this priest, in show of party-zeal,
Courteous will give; nor will the gift ill suit
The country’s custom. We descry above
Mirrors, ye call them thrones, from which to us
Reflected shine the judgements of our God: 60
Whence these our sayings we avouch for good.’
She ended ; and appeared on other thoughts
Intent, re-entering on the wheel she late
Had left. That other joyance meanwhile waxed
A thing to marvel at, in splendour glowing,
Like choicest ruby stricken by the sun.
For, in that upper clime, effulgence comes
Of gladness, as here laughter: and below,
As the mind saddens, murkier grows the shade.
‘God seeth all: and in him is thy sight,’ 70
Said I, ‘ blest spirit! Therefore will of his
Cannot to thee be dark. Why then delays
Thy voice to satisfy my wish untold ;
That voice, which joins the inexpressive song,
Pastime of heaven, the which those ardours sing,
That cowl them with six shadowing wings outspread ?
I would not wait thy asking, wert thou known
To me, as throughly I to thee am known.’
He, forthwith answering, thus his words began :
‘The valley of waters, widest next to that 80
Which doth the earth engarland, shapes its course,
Between discordant shores, against the sun
Inward so far, it makes meridian there,
Where was before the horizon. Of that vale
Dwelt I upon the shore, ’twixt Ebro’s stream
And Macra’s, that divides with passage brief
Genoan bounds from Tuscan. East and west
Are nearly one to Begga and my land
Whose haven erst was with its own blood warm.
Who knew my name, were wont to call me Folco ; go
And I did bear impression of this heaven,
That now bears mine: for not with fiercer flame
Glowed Belus’ daughter, injuring alike
Sichaeus and Creusa, than did I,
Long as it suited the unripened down
That fledged my cheek; nor she of Rhodope,
That was beguiled of Demophoon ;

272 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Ix

Nor Jove’s son, when the charms of Iole

Were shrined within his heart. And yet there bides

No sorrowful repentance here, but mirth, Tete)
Not for the fault (that doth not come to mind),

But for the virtue, whose o’erruling sway

And providence have wrought thus quaintly. Here

The skill is looked into, that fashioneth

With such effectual working, and the good

Discerned, accruing to the lower world

From this above. But fully to content

Thy wishes all that in this sphere have birth,

Demands my further parle. Inquire thou wouldst,

Who of this light is denizen, that here 1IO
Beside me sparkles, as the sunbeam doth

On the clear wave. Know then, the soul of Rahab

Is in that gladsome harbour; to our tribe

United, and the foremost rank assigned.

She to this heaven, at which the shadow ends

Of your sublunar world, was taken up,

First, in Christ’s triumph, of all souls redeemed :

For well behoved, that, in some part of heaven,

She should remain a trophy, to declare

The mighty conquest won with either palm ; 120
For that she favoured first the high exploit

Of Joshua on the Holy Land, whereof

The Pope recks little now. Thy city, plant

Of him, that on his Maker turned the back,

And of whose envying so much woe hath sprung,
Engenders and expands the cursed flower,

That hath made wander both the sheep and lambs,
Turning the shepherd to a wolf. For this,

The gospel and great teachers laid aside,

The decretals, as their stuffed margins show, 130
Are the sole study. Pope and Cardinals,

Intent on these, ne’er journey but in thought

To Nazareth, where Gabriel oped his wings.

Yet it may chance, ere long, the Vatican,

And other most selected parts of Rome,

That were the grave of Peter’s soldiery,

Shall be delivered from the adulterous bond.’

CanTOo x] PARADISE 273

CANTO X

ARGUMENT

Their next ascent carries them into the sun, which is the fourth heaven.
Here they are encompassed with a wreath of blessed spirits, twelve in
number. Thomas Aquinas, who is one of these, declares the names and
endowments of the rest.

LOOKING into his first-born with the love,
Which breathes from both eternal, the first Might
Ineffable, wherever eye or mind
Can roam, hath in such order all disposed,
As none may see and fail to enjoy. Raise, then,
O reader! to the lofty wheels, with me,
Thy ken directed to the point, whereat
One motion strikes on the other. There begin
Thy wonder of the mighty Architect,
Who loves his work so inwardly, his eye 10
Doth ever watch it. See, how thence oblique
Brancheth the circle, where the planets roll
To pour their wished influence on the world ;
Whose path not bending thus, in heaven above
Much virtue would be lost, and here on earth
All power wellnigh extinct: or, from direct
Were its departure distant more or less,
I’ the universal order, great defect
Must, both in heaven and here beneath, ensue.
Now rest thee, reader! on thy bench, and muse 20
Anticipative of the feast to come ;
So shall delight make thee not feel thy toil.
Lo! I have set before thee ; for thyself
Feed now: the matter I indite, henceforth
Demands entire my thought. Joined with the part,
Which late we told of, the great minister
Of nature, that upon the world imprints
The virtue of the heaven, and doles out
Time for us with his beam, went circling on
Along the spires, where each hour sooner comes ; 30
And I was with him, weetless of ascent,
But as a man, that weets his thought, ere thinking.
For Beatrice, she who passeth on
So suddenly from good to better, time
Counts not the act, oh then how great must needs
Have been her brightness! What there was i’ th’ sun
(Where I had entered), not through change of hue,
But light transparent—did I summon up
Genius, art, practice—I might not so speak,
It should be e’er imagined: yet believed 40
It may be, and the sight be justly craved.

274 THE VISION OF DANTE [CanTo

And if our fantasy fail of such height,

What marvel, since no eye above the sun

Hath ever travelled ? Such are they dwell here,

Fourth family of the Omnipotent Sire,

Who of his spirit and of his offspring shows ;

And holds them still enraptured with the view.

And thus to me Beatrice: ‘ Thank, oh thank

The Sun of angels, him, who by his grace

To this perceptible hath lifted thee.’ 50
Never was heart in such devotion bound,

And with complacency so absolute

Disposed to render up itself to God,

As mine was at those words: and so entire
The love for Him, that held me, it eclipsed
Beatrice in oblivion. Naught displeased

Was she, but smiled thereat so joyously,
That of her laughing eyes the radiance brake
And scattered my collected mind abroad.

Then saw I a bright band, in liveliness 60
Surpassing, who themselves did make the crown,
And us their centre: yet more sweet in voice,
Than, in their visage, beaming. Cinctured thus,
Sometime Latona’s daughter we behold,

When the impregnate air retains the thread
That weaves her zone. In the celestial court,
Whence I return, are many jewels found,

So dear and beautiful, they cannot brook

LINES 42-117] PARADISE 275

Transporting from that realm: and of these lights

Such was the song. Who doth not prune his wing 70
To soar up thither, let him look from thence

For tidings from the dumb. When, singing thus,

Those burning suns had circled round us thrice,

As nearest stars around the fixed pole ;

Then seemed they like to ladies, from the dance

Not ceasing, but suspense, in silent pause,

Listening, till they have caught the strain anew:
Suspended so they stood: and, from within,

Thus heard I one, who spake: ‘Since with its beam
The grace, whence true love lighteth first his flame, 80
That after doth increase by loving, shines

So multiplied in thee, it leads thee up

Along this ladder, down whose hallowed steps

None e’er descend, and mount them not again ;

Who from his phial should refuse thee wine

To slake thy thirst, no less constrainéd were,

Than water flowing not unto the sea.

Thou fain wouldst hear, what plants are these, that bloom
In the bright garland, which, admiring, girds

This fair dame round, who strengthens thee for heaven. 90
I, then, was of the lambs, that Dominic

Leads, for his saintly flock, along the way

Where well they thrive, not swoln with vanity.

He, nearest on my right hand, brother was,

And master to me: Albert of Cologne

Is this; and, of Aquinum, Thomas I.

If thou of all the rest wouldst be assured,

Let thine eye, waiting on the words I speak,

In circuit journey round the blessed wreath.

That next resplendence issues from the smile 100
Of Gratian, who to either forum lent

Such help, as favour wins in Paradise.

The other, nearest, who adorns our choir,

Was Peter, he that with the widow gave

To holy church his treasure. The fifth light,

Goodliest of all, is by such love inspired,

That all your world craves tidings of his doom:

Within, there is the lofty light, endowed

With sapience so profound, if truth be truth,

That with a ken of such wide amplitude 110
No second hath arisen. Next behold

That taper’s radiance, to whose view was shown.
Clearliest, the nature and the ministry

Angelical, while yet in flesh it dwelt.

In the other little light serenely smiles

That pleader for the Christian temples, he,

Who did provide Augustine of his lore.

276 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto x

Now, if thy mind’s eye pass from light to light,

Upon my praises following, of the eighth

Thy thirst is next. The saintly soul, that shows 120
The world’s deceitfulness, to all who hear him,

Is, with the sight of all the good that is,

Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie

Down in Cieldauro ; and from martyrdom

And exile came it here. Lo! farther on,

Where flames the ardurous spirit of Isidore ;

Of Bede; and Richard, more than man, erewhile,

In deep discernment. Lastly this, from whom

Thy look on me reverteth, was the beam

Of one, whose spirit, on high musings bent, 130
Rebuked the lingering tardiness of death.

It is the eternal light of Sigebert

Who escaped not envy, when of truth he argued,
Reading in the straw-littered street.’ Forthwith,

As clock, that calleth up the spouse of God

To win her bridegroom’s love at matin’s hour,

Each part of other fitly drawn and urged,

Sends out a tinkling sound, of note so sweet,

Affection springs in well-disposéd breast ;

Thus saw I move the glorious wheel; thus heard 140
Voice answering voice, so musical and soft,

It can be known but where day endless shines.

CANTO XI

ARGUMENT

Thomas Aquinas enters at large into the life and character of St. Francis ;
and then solves one of two difficulties, which he perceived to have risen in
Dante’s mind from what he had heard in the last Canto.

O FOND anxiety of mortal men!

How vain and inconclusive arguments

Are those, which make thee beat thy wings below.

For statutes one, and one for aphorisms

Was hunting; this the priesthood followed ; that,

By force or sophistry, aspired to rule ;

To rob, another; and another sought,

By civil business, wealth ; one, moiling, lay

Tangled in net of sensual delight ;

And one to wistless indolence resigned ; 10

What time from all these empty things escaped,

With Beatrice, I thus gloriously

Was raised aloft, and made the guest of heaven.
They of the circle to that point, each one,

Where erst it was, had turned; and steady glowed,

As candle in his socket. Then within

CanTo XI] PARADISE 277

The lustre, that erewhile bespake me, smiling
With merer gladness, heard I thus begin:
‘E’en as his beam illumes me, so I look
Into the eternal light, and clearly mark 20
Thy thoughts, from whence they rise. Thou art in doubt,
And wouldst that I should bolt my words afresh
In such plain open phrase, as may be smooth
To thy perception, where I told thee late
That ‘‘ well they thrive” ; and that “‘no second such
Hath risen,’ which no small distinction needs.
‘The Providence, that governeth the world,
In depth of counsel by created ken
Unfathomable, to the end that she,

Who with loud cries was ’spoused in precious blood, 30
Might keep her footing towards her well-beloved,
Safe in herself and constant unto him,
Hath two ordained, who should on either hand
In chief escort her: one, seraphic all
In fervency ; for wisdom upon earth,
The other, splendour of cherubic light.
I but of one will tell: he tells of both,
Who one commendeth, which of them soe’er
Be taken: for their deeds were to one end.
‘Between Tupino, and the wave that falls 40
From blest Ubaldo’s chosen hill, there hangs
Rich slope of mountain high, whence heat and cold
Are wafted through Perugia’s eastern gate:
And Nocera with Gualdo, in its rear,

278 THE VISION OF DANTE [CanrTo xI

Mourn for their heavy yoke. Upon that side,

Where it doth break its steepness most, arose

A sun upon the world, as duly this

From Ganges doth: therefore let none, who speak

Of that place, say Ascesi; for its name

Were lamely so delivered ; but the East, 50
To call things rightly, be it henceforth styled.

He was not yet much distant from his rising,

When his good influence ’gan to bless the earth.

A dame, to whom none openeth pleasure’s gate

More than to death, was, ’gainst his father’s will,

His stripling choice: and he did make her his,

Before the spiritual court, by nuptial bonds,

And in his father’s sight: from day to day,

Then loved her more devoutly. She, bereaved

Of her first husband, slighted and obscure, 60
Thousand and hundred years and more, remained
Without a single suitor, till he came.

Nor aught availed, that, with Amyclas, she

Was found unmoved at rumour of his voice,

Who shook the world: nor aught her constant boldness
Whereby with Christ she mounted on the cross,

When Mary stayed beneath. But not to deal

Thus closely with thee longer, take at large

The lovers’ titles—Poverty and Francis.

Their concord and glad looks, wonder and love, 70
And sweet regard gave birth to holy thoughts,

So much, that venerable Bernard first

Did bare his feet, and, in pursuit of peace

So heavenly, ran, yet deemed his footing slow.

O hidden riches! O prolific good!

Egidius bares him next, and next Sylvester,

And follow, both, the bridegroom: so the bride

Can please them. Thenceforth goes he on his way,

The father and the master, with his spouse,

And with that family, whom now the cord 8o
Girt humbly: nor did abjectness of heart

Weigh down his eyelids, for that he was son

Of Pietro Bernardone, and by men

In wondrous sort despised. But royally

His hard intention he to Innocent

Set forth ; and, from him, first received the seal

On his religion. Then, when numerous flocked

The tribe of lowly ones, that traced his steps,

Whose marvellous life deservedly were sung

In heights empyreal ; through Honorius’ hand go
A second crown, to deck their Guardian’s virtues,

Was by the eternal Spirit inwreathed: and when

He had, through thirst of martyrdom, stood up

CANTO XIT] PARADISE 279

In the proud Soldan’s presence, and there preached
Christ and his followers, but found the race
Unripened for conversion; back once more
He hasted (not to intermit his toil),
And reaped Ausonian lands. On the hard rock,
*Twixt Arno and the Tiber, he from Christ
Took the last signet, which his limbs two years 100
Did carry. Then, the season come that he,
Who to such good had destined him, was pleased
To advance him to the meed, which he had earned
By his self-humbling ; to his brotherhood,
As their just heritage, he gave in charge
His dearest lady: and enjoined their love
And faith to her; and, from her bosom, willed
His goodly spirit should move forth, returning
To its appointed kingdom ; nor would have
His body laid upon another bier. 110
‘Think now of one, who were a fit colleague
To keep the bark of Peter, in deep sea,
Helmed to right point; and such our Patriarch was.
Therefore who follow him as he enjoins,
Thou mayst be certain, take good lading in.
But hunger of new viands tempts his flock ;
So that they needs into strange pastures wide
Must spread them: and the more remote from him
The stragglers wander, so much more they come
Home, to the sheepfold, destitute of milk. 120
There are of them, in truth, who fear their harm,
And to the shepherd cleave ; but these so few,
A little stuff may furnish out their cloaks.
“Now, if my words be clear; if thou have ta’en
Good heed ; if that, which I have told, recall
To mind; thy wish may be in part fulfilled :
For thou wilt see the plant from whence they split ;
And he shall see, who girds him, what that means,
“That well they thrive, not swoln with vanity.” ’

CANTO XII

ARGUMENT

A second circle of glorified souls encompasses the first. Bonaventura, who
is one of them, celebrates the praises of Saint Dominic, and informs Dante
who the other eleven are, that are in this second circle or garland.

Soon as its final word the blessed flame

Had raised for utterance, straight the holy mill
Began to wheel; nor yet had once revolved,
Or e’er another, circling, compassed it,

280 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xII

Motion to motion, song to song, conjoining ;
Song, that as much our muses doth excel,
Our Sirens with their tuneful pipes, as ray
Of primal splendour doth its faint reflex.
As when, if Juno bid her handmaid forth,
Two arches parallel, and tricked alike, Io
Span the thin cloud, the outer taking birth
From that within (in manner of that voice
Whom love did melt away, as sun the mist)
And they who gaze, presageful call to mind
The compact, made with Noah, of the world
No more to be o’erflowed ; about us thus,
Of sempiternal roses, bending, wreathed
Those garlands twain; and to the innermost
E’en thus the external answered. When the footing,

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And other great festivity, of song, 20
And radiance, light with light accordant, each

Jocund and blithe, had at their pleasure stilled

(E’en as the eyes, by quick volition moved,

Are shut and raised together), from the heart

Of one amongst the new lights moved a voice,

That made me seem like needle to the star,

In turning to its whereabout ; and thus

Began: ‘ The love, that makes me beautiful,

Prompts me to tell of the other guide, for whom

Such good of mine is spoken. Where one is, 30
The other worthily should also be ;

That as their warfare was alike, alike

Should be their glory. Slow, and full of doubt,

And with thin ranks, after its banner moved

The army of Christ (which it so dearly cost

To reappoint), when its imperial Head,

Who reigneth ever, for the drooping host

Lings 5-86] PARADISE 281

Did make provision, thorough grace alone,

And not through its deserving. As thou heard’st,

Two champions to the succour of his spouse 40
He sent, who by their deeds and words might join
Again his scattered people. In that clime

Where springs the pleasant west-wind to unfold

The fresh leaves, with which Europe sees herself
New-garmented ; nor from those billows far,

Beyond whose chiding, after weary course,

The sun doth sometimes hide him; safe abides

The happy Callaroga, under guard

Of the great shield, wherein the lion lies

Subjected and supreme. And there was born 50
The loving minion of the Christian faith,

The hallowed wrestler, gentle to his own,

And to his enemies terrible. So replete

His soul with lively virtue, that when first

Created, even in the mother’s womb,

It prophesied. When, at the sacred font,

The spousals were complete ’twixt faith and him,

Where pledge of mutual safety was exchanged,

The dame, who was his surety, in her sleep

Beheld the wondrous fruit, that was from him 60
And from his heirs to issue. And that such

He might be construed, as indeed he was,

She was inspired to name him of his owner,

Whose he was wholly; and so called him Dominic.

And I speak of him, as the labourer,

Whom Christ in his own garden chose to be

His helpmate. Messenger he seemed, and friend
Fast-knit to Christ; and the first love he showed,

Was after the first counsel that Christ gave.

Many a time his nurse, at entering, found 70
That he had risen in silence, and was prostrate,

As who should say, ‘ My errand was for this.”

O happy father! Felix rightly named.

O favoured mother! rightly named Joanna ;

If that do mean, as men interpret it.

Not for the world’s sake, for which now they toil

Upon Ostiense and Taddeo’s lore,

But for the real manna, soon he grew

Mighty in learning ; and did set himself

To go about the vineyard, that soon turns 80
To wan and withered, if not tended well:

And from the see (whose bounty to the just

And needy is gone by, not threugh its fault,

But his who fills it basely) he besought

No dispensation for commuted wrong,

Nor the first vacant fortune, nor the tenths

282 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto x1

That to God’s paupers rightly appertain,

But, ’gainst an erring and degenerate world,

Licence to fight, in favour of that seed

From which the twice twelve scions gird thee round.

Then, with sage doctrine and good will to help,

Forth on his great apostleship he fared,

Like torrent bursting from a lofty vein ;

And, dashing ’gainst the stocks of heresy,

Smote fiercest, where resistance was most stout.

Thence many rivulets have since been turned,

Over the garden catholic to lead

Their living waters, and have fed its plants.
‘If such, one wheel of that two-yokeéd car,

Wherein the holy church defended her,

And rode triumphant through the civil broil ;

Thou canst not doubt its fellow’s excellence,

Which Thomas, ere my coming, hath declared

So courteously unto thee. But the track,

Which its smooth fellies made, is now deserted :

That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees.

His family, that wont to trace his path,

Turn backward, and invert their steps; ere long

To rue the gathering in of their ill crop,

When the rejected tares in vain shall ask

Admittance to the barn. I question not

But he, who searched our volume, leaf by leaf,

Might still find page with this inscription on’t,

““T am as I was wont.” Yet such were not

From Acquasparta nor Casale, whence,

Of those who come to meddle with the text,

One stretches and another cramps its rule.

Bonaventura’s life in me behold,

From Bagnoregio; one, who, in discharge

Of my great offices, still laid aside

All sinister aim. Illuminato here,

And Agostino join me: two they were,

Among the first of those barefooted meek ones,

Who sought God’s friendship in the cord: with them

Hugues of Saint Victor; Pietro Mangiadore ;

And he of Spain in his twelve volumes shining ;

Nathan the prophet; Metropolitan

Chrysostom ; and Anselmo; and, who deigned

To put his hand to the first art, Donatus.

Raban is here; and at my side there shines

Calabria’s abbot, Joachim, endowed

With soul prophetic. The bright courtesy

Of friar Thomas and his goodly lore,

Have moved me to the blazon of a peer

So worthy ; and with me have moved this throng.’

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CANTO XIII] PARADISE 283

CANTO XIII

ARGUMENT
Thomas Aquinas resumes his speech. He solves the other of those doubts
which he discerned in the mind of Dante, and warns him earnestly against
assenting to any proposition without having duly examined it.
Let him, who would conceive what now I saw,
Imagine (and retain the image firm
As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak),
Of stars, fifteen, from midst the ethereal host
Selected, that, with lively ray serene,
O’ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine
The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky,
Spins ever on its axle night and day,
With the bright summit of that horn, which swells
Due from the pole, round which the first wheel rolls, 10
To have ranged themselves in fashion of two signs
In heaven, such as Ariadne made,
When death’s chill seized her; and that one of them
Did compass in the other’s beam; and both
In such sort whirl around, that each should tend
With opposite motion: and, conceiving thus,
Of that true constellation, and the dance
Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain
As ’twere the shadow ; for things there as much
Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heaven 20
Is swifter than the Chiana. There was sung
No Bacchus, and no Io Paean, but
Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one
Person that nature and the human joined.
The song and round were measured: and to us
Those saintly lights attended, happier made
At each new ministering. Then silence brake
Amid the accordant sons of Deity,
That luminary, in which the wondrous life
Of the meek man of God was told to me; 30
And thus it spake: ‘One ear o’ the harvest threshed,
And its grain safely stored, sweet charity
Invites me with the other to like toil.
‘Thou know’st, that in the bosom, whence the rib
Was ta’en to fashion that fair cheek, whose taste
All the world pays for; and in that, which pierced
By the keen lance, both after and before
Such satisfaction offered as outweighs
Each evil in the scale; whate’er of light
To human nature is allowed, must all 40
Have by his virtue been infused, who formed
Both one and other: and thou thence admirest

284 THE VISION OF DANTE _ [Canto xu

In that I told thee, of beatitudes,

A second there is none to him enclosed

In the fifth radiance. Open now thine eyes

To what I answer thee; and thou shalt see
Thy deeming and my saying meet in truth,

As centre in the round. That which dies not,
And that which can die, are but each the beam
Of that idea, which our Sovereign Sire 50
Engendereth loving; for that lively light,
Which passeth from his splendour, not disjoined
From him, nor from his love triune with them,
Doth, through his bounty, congregate itself,

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Mirrored, as ’twere, in new existences ;
Itself unalterable, and ever one.
‘Descending hence unto the lowest powers,
Its energy so sinks, at last it makes
But brief contingencies; for so I name
Things generated, which the heavenly orbs 6c
Moving, with seed or without seed, produce.
Their wax, and that which moulds it, differ much :
And thence with lustre, more or less, it shows
The ideal stamp imprest: so that one tree,
According to his kind, hath better fruit,
And worse: and, at your birth, ye, mortal men,
Are in your talents various. Were the wax
Moulded with nice exactness, and the heaven
In its disposing influence supreme,
The brightness of the seal should be complete : 7O

LINES 43-119] PARADISE 285

But nature renders it imperfect ever ;
Resembling thus the artist, in her work,
Whose faltering hand is faithless to his skill.
Therefore, if fervent love dispose, and mark
The lustrous image of the primal virtue,
There all perfection is vouchsafed ; and such
The clay was made, accomplished with each gift,
That life can teem with; such the burden filled
The Virgin’s bosom: so that I commend
Thy judgement, that the human nature ne’er Bo
Was, or can be, such as in them it was.
‘Did I advance no further than this point ;
““ How then had he no peer?” thou might’st reply.
But, that what now appears not, may appear
Right plainly, ponder, who he was, and what
(When he was bidden “ Ask’’) the motive, swayed
To his requesting. I have spoken thus,
That thou mayst see, he was a king, who asked
For wisdom, to the end he might be king
Sufficient: not, the number to search out go
Of the celestial movers; or to know,
If necessary with contingent e’er
Have made necessity ; or whether that
Be granted, that first motion is; or if,
Of the mid circle, can by art be made
Triangle, with its corner blunt or sharp.
‘Whence, noting that, which I have said, and this,
Thou kingly prudence and that ken mayst learn,
At which the dart of my intention aims.
And, marking clearly, that I told thee, “ Risen,” 100
Thou shalt discern it only hath respect
To kings, of whom are many, and the good
Are rare. With this distinction take my words;
And they may well consist with that which thou
Of the first human father dost believe,
And of our well-belovéd. And let this
Henceforth be lead unto thy feet, to make
Thee slow in motion, as a weary man,
Both to the “ yea” and to the “nay” thou seest not.
For he among the fools is down full low, IIo
Whose affirmation, or denial, is
Without distinction, in each case alike.
Since it befalls, that in most instances
Current opinion leans to false: and then
Affection bends the judgement to her ply.
‘Much more than vainly doth he loose from shore,
Since he returns not such as he set forth,
Who fishes for the truth and wanteth skill.
And open proofs of this unto the world

286 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xm

Have been afforded in Parmenides, 120
Melissus, Bryso, and the crowd beside,
Who journeyed on, and knew not whither: so did
Sabellius, Arius, and the other fools,
Who, like to scimitars, reflected back
The scripture-image by distortion marred.
‘Let not the people be too swift to judge ;
As one who reckons on the blades in field,
Or e’er the crop be ripe. For I have seen
The thorn frown rudely all the winter long,
And after bear the rose upon its top ; 130
And bark, that all her way across the sea
Ran straight and speedy, perish at the last
F’en in the haven’s mouth. Seeing one steal,
Another bring his offering to the priest,
Let not Dame Birtha and Sir Martin thence
Into heaven’s counsels deem that they can pry:
For one of these may rise, the other fall.’

CANTO XIV

ARGUMENT

Solomon, who is one of the spirits in the inner circle, declares what the
appearance of the blest will be after the resurrection of the body. Beatrice
and Dante are translated into the fifth heaven, which is that of Mars; and
here behold the souls of those, who had died fighting for the true faith,
ranged in the sign of a cross, athwart which the spirits move to the sound
of a melodious hymn.

From centre to the circle, and so back

From circle to the centre, water moves

In the round chalice, even as the blow

Impels it, inwardly, or from without.

Such was the image glanced into my mind,

As the great spirit of Aquinum ceased ;

And Beatrice, after him, her words

Resumed alternate: ‘Need there is (though yet

He tells it to you not in words, nor e’en

In thought) that he should fathom to its depth fe)
Another mystery. Tell him, if the light,

Wherewith your substance blooms, shall stay with you
Eternally, as now; and, if it doth,

How, when ye shall regain your visible forms,

The sight may without harm endure the change,

That also tell.’ As those, who in a ring

Tread the light measure, in their fitful mirth

Raise loud the voice, and spring with gladder bound ;
Thus, at the hearing of that pious suit,

The saintly circles, in their tourneying 20

CANTO XIv] PARADISE

And wondrous note, attested new delight.
Whoso laments, that we must doff this garb
Of frail mortality, thenceforth to live
Immortally above; he hath not seen
The sweet refreshing of that heavenly shower.
Him, who lives ever, and for ever reigns
In mystic union of the Three in One,
Unbounded, bounding all, each spirit thrice
Sang, with such melody, as, but to hear,
For highest merit were an ample meed.
And from the lesser orb the goodliest light,
With gentle voice and mild, such as perhaps
The angel’s once to Mary, thus replied :
‘Long as the joy of Paradise shall last,
Our love shall shine around that raiment, bright
As fervent; fervent as, in vision, blest ;
And that as far, in blessedness, exceeding,
As it hath grace, beyond its virtue, great.
Our shape, regarmented with glorious weeds
Of saintly flesh, must, being thus entire,
Show yet more gracious. Therefore shall increase
Whate’er, of light, gratuitous imparts
The Supreme Good ; light, ministering aid,
The better to disclose his glory: whence,
The vision needs increasing, must increase
The fervour, which it kindles; and that too
The ray, that comes from it. But as the gleed
Which gives out flame, yet in its whiteness shines
More livelily than that, and so preserves
Its proper semblance ; thus this circling sphere
Of splendour shall to view less radiant seem,
Than shall our fleshly robe, which yonder earth
Now covers. Nor will such excess of light
O’erpower us, in corporeal organs made
Firm, and susceptible of all delight.’
So ready and so cordial an ‘ Amen’
Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke
Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance
Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear,
Mothers and sires, and those whom best they loved,
Ere they were made imperishable flame.
And lo! forthwith there rose up round about
A lustre, over that already there ;
Of equal clearness, like the brightening up
Of the horizon. As at evening hour
Of twilight, new appearances through heaven
Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried ;
So, there, new substances, methought, began
To rise in view beyond the other twain,

287

30

40

50

288 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xiv

And wheeling, sweep their ampler circuit wide. 70
O genuine glitter of eternal Beam!

With what a sudden whiteness did it flow,

O’erpowering vision in me. But so fair,

So passing lovely, Beatrice showed,

Mind cannot follow it, nor words express

Her infinite sweetness. Thence mine eyes regained

Power to look up; and I beheld myself,

Sole with my lady, to more lofty bliss

Translated: for the star, with warmer smile

Impurpled, well denoted our ascent. 80
With all the heart, and with that tongue which speaks

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The same in all, an holocaust I made

To God, betitiing the new grace vouchsafed.

And from my bosom had not yet upsteam’d

The fuming of that incense, when I knew

The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen

And mantling crimson, in two listed rays

The splendours shot before me, that I cried,

‘God of Sabaoth! that dost prank them thus!’
As leads the galaxy from pole to pole, go

Distinguished into greater lights and less,

Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell ;

So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars,

Those rays described the venerable sign,

That quadrants in the round conjoining frame.
Here memory mocks the toil of genius. Christ

CANTO xv] PARADISE 289

Beamed on that cross; and pattern fails me now.
But whoso takes his cross, and follows Christ,
Will pardon me for that I leave untold,
Wken in the fleckered dawning he shall spy 100
The glitterance of Christ. From horn to horn,
And ’tween the summit and the base, did move
Lights, scintillating, as they met and passed.
Thus oft are seen with ever-changeful glance,
Straight or athwart, now rapid and now slow,
The atomies of bodies, long or short,
To move along the sunbeam, whose slant line
Chequers the shadow interposed by art
Against the noontide heat. And as the chime
Of minstrel music, dulcimer, and harp 110
With many strings, a pleasant dinning makes
To him, who heareth not distinct the note ;
So from the lights, which there appeared to me,
Gathered along the cross a melody,
That, indistinctly heard, with ravishment
Possessed me. Yet I marked it was a hymn
Of lofty praises; for there came to me
‘Arise’, and *‘ Conquer’, as to one who hears
And comprehends not. Me such ecstasy
O’ercame, that never, till that hour, was thing 120
That held me in so sweet imprisonment.
Perhaps my saying overbold appears,
Accounting less the pleasure of those eyes,
Whereon to look fulfilleth all desire.
But he, who is aware those living seals
Of every beauty work with quicker force,
The higher they are risen; and that there
I had not turned me to them; he may well
Excuse me that, whereof in my excuse
I do accuse me, and may own my truth ; 130
That holy pleasure here not yet revealed,
Which grows in transport as we mount aloof.

CANTO XV

ARGUMENT

The spirit of Cacciaguida, our Poet’s ancestor, glides rapidly to the foot of
the cross ; tells who he is; and speaks of the simplicity of the Florentinee
in his days, since’then much corrupted.

TRUE love, that ever shows itself as clear

In kindness, as loose appetite in wrong,

Silenced that lyre harmonious, and stilled

The sacred chords, that are by heaven’s right hand

290 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xv

Unwound and tightened. How to righteous prayers
Should they not hearken, who, to give me will
For praying, in accordance thus were mute ?
He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief,
Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not,
Despoils himself for ever of that love. 10
As oft along the still and pure serene,
At nightfall, glides a sudden trail of fire,
Attracting with involuntary heed
The eye to follow it, erewhile at rest ;
And seems some star that shifted place in heaven,
Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost,
And it is soon extinct: thus from the horn,
That on the dexter of the cross extends,
Down to its foot, one luminary ran
From mid the cluster shone there ; yet no gem 20
Dropped from its foil: and through the beamy list,
Like flame in alabaster, glowed its course.
So forward stretched him (if of credence aught
Our greater muse may claim) the pious ghost
Of old Anchises, in the Elysian bower,
When he perceived his son. ‘O thou, my blood!
O most exceeding grace divine! to whom,
As now to thee, hath twice the heavenly gate
Been e’er unclosed ?’ So spake the light: whence I
Turned me toward him; then unto my dame 30
My sight directed: and on either side
Amazement waited me; for in her eyes
Was lighted such a smile, I thought that mine
Had dived unto the bottom of my grace
And of my bliss in Paradise. Forthwith,
To hearing and to sight grateful alike,
The spirit to his proem added things
I understood not, so profound he spake :
Yet not of choice, but through necessity,
Mysterious: for his high conception soared 40
Beyond the mark of mortals. When the flight
Of holy transport had so spent its rage,
That nearer to the level of our thought
The speech descended ; the first sounds I heard
Were, ‘ Blest be thou, Triunal Deity !
That hast such favour in my seed vouchsafed.’
Then followed: ‘No unpleasant thirst, though long,
Which took me reading in the sacred book,
Whose leaves or white or dusky never change,
Thou hast allayed, my son! within this light, 50
From whence my voice thou hear’st: more thanks to her,
Who, for such lofty mounting, has with plumes
Begirt thee. Thou dost deem thy thoughts to me

LINES 5-102] PARADISE 291

From Him transmitted, who is first of all,
E’en as all numbers ray from unity ;
And therefore dost not ask me who I am,
Or why to thee more joyous I appear,
Than any other in this gladsome throng.
The truth is as thou deem’st ; for in this life
Both less and greater in that mirror look, 60
In which thy thoughts, or e’er thou think’st, are shown.
But, that the love, which keeps me wakeful ever,
Urging with sacred thirst of sweet desire,
May be contented fully; let thy voice,
Fearless, and frank, and jocund, utter forth
Thy will distinctly, utter forth the wish,
Whereto my ready answer stands decreed.’
I turned me to Beatrice ; and she heard
Ere I had spoken, smiling an assent,
That to my will gave wings; and I began: 7°
‘To each among your tribe, what time ye kenned
The nature, in whom naught unequal dwells,
Wisdom and love were in one measure dealt ;
For that they are so equal in the sun,
From whence ye drew your radiance and your heat,
As makes all likeness scant. But will and means,
In mortals, for the cause ye well discern,
With unlike wings are fledged. A mortal, I
Experience inequality like this;
And therefore give no thanks, but in the heart, 80
For thy paternal greeting. This howe’er
I pray thee, living topaz! that ingemm’st
This precious jewel; let me hear thy name.’
‘I am thy root, O leaf! whom to expect
Even, hath pleased me.’ Thus the prompt reply
Prefacing, next it added: ‘ He, of whom
Thy kindred appellation comes, and who,
These hundred years and more, on its first ledge
Hath circuited the mountain, was my son,
And thy great-grandsire. Well befits, his long go
Endurance should be shortened by thy deeds.
‘Florence, within her ancient limit-mark,
Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon,
Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace.
She had no armlets and no head-tires then ;
No purfled dames; no zone, that caught the eye
More than the person did. Time was not yet,
When at his daughter’s birth the sire grew pale,
For fear the age and dowry should exceed,
On each side, just proportion. House was none 100
Void of its family: nor yet had come
Sardanapalus, to exhibit feats
CARY M

292 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO Xv

Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet

O’er our suburban turret rose ; as much

To be surpassed in fall, as in its rising.

I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad

In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone ;

And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks,

His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw

Of Nerli, and of Vecchio, well content 110
With unrobed jerkin ; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax: O happy they!

Each sure of burial in her native land,

And none left desolate a-bed for France.

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One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it
With sounds that lulled the parent’s infancy :
Another, with her maidens, drawing off
The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
Old tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome.
A Salterello and Cianghella we
Had held as strange a marvel, as ye would
A Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.

‘In such composed and seemly fellowship,
Such faithful and such fair equality,
In so sweet household, Mary at my birth
Bestowed me, called an with loud cries; and there,
In your old baptistery, I was made
Christian at once and Cacciaguida ; as were
My brethren Eliseo and Moronto.

120

CaNnTO XvI] PARADISE 293

“From Val di Pardo came to me my spouse ; 130
And hence thy surname grew. I followed then
The Emperor Conrad: and his knighthood he
Did gird on me; in such good part he took
My valiant service. After him I went
To testify against that evil law,
Whose people, by the shepherd’s fault, possess
Your right usurped. There I by that foul crew
Was disentangled from the treacherous world
Whose base affection many a spirit soils ;
And from the martyrdom came to this peace.’ 140

CANTO XVI

ARGUMENT

Cacciaguida relates the time of his birth; and, describing the extent of
Florence when he lived there, recounts the names of the chief families
who then inhabited it. Its degeneracy, and subsequent disgrace, he
attributes to the introduction of families from the neighbouring country
and villages, and to their mixture with the primitive citizens.

O sLicuT respect of man’s nobility!
I never shall account it marvellous,
That our infirm affection here below
Thou movest to boasting; when I could not choose,
E’en in that region of unwarped desire,
In heaven itself, but make my vaunt in thee.
Yet cloak thou art soon shortened ; for that Time,
Unless thou be eked out from day to day,
Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then,
With greeting such as Rome was first to bear, 10
But since hath disaccustomed, I began :
And Beatrice, that a little space
Was severed, smiled ; reminding me of her,
Whose cough emboldened (as the story holds)
To first offence the doubting Guenever.

‘You are my sire,’ said 1: ‘you give me heart
Freely to speak my thought: above myself
You raise me. Through so many streams with joy
My soul is filled, that gladness wells from it ;
So that it bears the mighty tide, and bursts not. 20
Say then, my honoured stem! what ancestors
Were those you sprang from, and what years were marked
In your first childhood ? Tell me of the fold,
That hath Saint John for guardian, what was then
Its state, and who in it were highest seated !’

As embers, at the breathing of the wind,
Their flame enliven; so that light I saw

294 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xvi

Shine at my blandishments; and, as it grew

More fair to look on, so with voice more sweet,

Yet not in this our modern phrase, forthwith 30
It answered: ‘ From the day, when it was said

“ Hail Virgin!” to the throes by which my mother,
Who now is sainted, lightened her of me

Whom she was heavy with, this fire had come

Five hundred times and fourscore, to relume

Its radiance underneath the burning foot

Of its own lion. They, of whom I sprang,

And I, had there our birth-place, where the last
Partition of our city first is reached

By him that runs her annual game. Thus much 40

—

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Suffice of my forefathers: who they were,

And whence they hither came, more honourable
It is to pass in silence than to tell.

All those, who at that time were there, betwixt
Mars and the Baptist, fit to carry arms,

Were but the fifth, of them this day alive.

But then the citizen’s blood, that now is mixed
From Campi and Certaldo and Fighine,

Ran purely through the last mechanic’s veins.

O how much better were it, that these people 50
Were neighbours to you; and that at Galluzzo
And at Trespiano ye should have your boundary ;
Than to have them within, and bear the stench
Of Aguglione’s hind, and Signa’s, him,

That hath his eye already keen for bartering.

LInEs 28-104] PARADISE 295

Had not the people, which of all the world

Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Caesar,

But, as a mother to her son, been kind,

Such one, as hath become a Florentine,

And trades and traffics, had been turned adrift 60
To Simifonti, where his grandsire plied

The beggar’s craft: the Conti were possessed

Of Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still

Were in Acone’s parish: nor had haply

From Valdigreve passed the Buondelmonti.

The city’s malady hath ever source

In the confusion of its persons, as

The body’s, in variety of food :

And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge,

Than the blind lamb: and oftentimes one sword 70
Doth more and better execution,

Than five. Mark Luni; Urbisaglia mark ;

How they are gone; and after them how go

Chiusi and Sinigaglia: and ’twill seem

No longer new, or strange to thee, to hear

That families fail, when cities have their end.

All things that appertain to ye, like yourselves,

Are mortal: but mortality in some

Ye mark not; they endure so long, and you

Pass by so suddenly. And as the moon 80
Doth, by the rolling of her heavenly sphere,

Hide and reveal the strand unceasingly ;

So fortune deals with Florence. Hence admire not

At what of them I tell thee, whose renown

Time covers, the first Florentines. I saw

The Ughi, Catellini, and Filippi,

The Alberichi. Greci, and Ormanni,

Now in their wane, illustrious citizens ;

And great as ancient, of Sannella him,

With him of Arca saw, and Soldanieri, go
And Ardinghi, and Bostichi. At the poop

That now is laden with new felony

So cumbrous it may speedily sink the bark,

The Ravignani sat, of whom is sprung

The County Guido, and whoso hath since

His title from the famed Bellincion ta’en.

Fair governance was yet an art well prized .

By him of Pressa: Galigaio showed

The gilded hilt and pommel, in his house :

The column, clothed with verrey, still was seen 109
Unshaken ; the Sacchetti still were great,

Giuochi, Sifanti, Galli, and Barucci,

With them who blush to hear the bushel named-

Of the Calfucci still the branchy trunk

296 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO XVI

Was in its strength: and, to the curule chairs,
Sizii and Arrigucci yet were drawn.
How mighty them I saw, whom, since, their pride
Hath undone! And in all their goodly deeds
Florence was, by the bullets of bright gold,
O’erflourished. Such the sires of those, who now, 110
As surely as your church is vacant, flock
Into her consistory, and at leisure
There stall them and grow fat. The o’erweening brood,
That plays the dragon after him that flees,
But unto such as turn and show the tooth,
Aye or the purse, is gentle as a lamb,
Was on its rise, but yet so slight esteemed,
That Ubertino of Donati grudged
His father-in-law should yoke him to its tribe.
Already Caponsacco had descended 120
Into the mart from Fiesole: and Giuda
And Infangato were good citizens.
A thing incredible I tell, though true:
The gateway, named from those of Pera, led
Into the narrow circuit of your walls.
Each one, who bears the sightly quarterings
Of the great Baron (he whose name and worth
The festival of Thomas still revives),
His knighthood and his privilege retained ;
Albeit one, who borders them with gold, 130
This day is mingled with the common herd.
In Borgo yet the Gualterotti dwelt,
And Importuni: well for its repose,
Had it still lacked of newer neighbourhood.
The house, from whence your tears have had their spring,
Through the just anger, that hath murdered ye
And put a period to your gladsome days,
Was honoured ; it, and those consorted with it.
O Buondelmonti! what ill counselling
Prevailed on thee to break the plighted bond ? 140
Many, who now are weeping, would rejoice,
Had God to Ema given thee, the first time
Thou near our city camest. But so was doomed:
Florence ! on that maimed stone which guards the bridge,
The victim, when thy peace departed, fell.
‘With these and others like to them, I saw
Florence in such assured tranquillity,
She had no cause at which to grieve: with these
Saw her so glorious and so just, that ne’er
The lily from the lance had hung reverse, 150
Or through division been with vermeil dyed.’

CANTO XvI1] PARADISE 297

CANTO XVII

ARGUMENT

Cacciaguida predicts to our Poet his exile and the calamities he had to
suffer ; and, lastly, exhorts him to write the present poem.

Sucu as the youth, who came to Clymene,
To certify himself of that reproach
Which had been fastened on him (he whose end
Still makes the fathers chary to their sons),
E’en such was I; nor unobserved was such
Of Beatrice, and that saintly lamp,
Who had erewhile for me his station moved ;
When thus my lady: ‘Give thy wish free vent,
That it may issue, bearing true report
Of the mind’s impress: not that aught thy words 10
May to our knowledge add, but to the end
That thou mayst use thyself to own thy thirst,
And men may mingle for thee when they hear.’

‘O plant, from whence I spring! revered and loved !
Who soar’st so high a pitch, that thou as clear,
As earthly thought determines two obtuse
In one triangle not contained, so clear
Dost see contingencies, ere in themselves
Existent, looking at the point whereto
All times are present; I, the whilst I scaled 20
With Virgil the soul-purifying mount
And visited the nether world of woe,
Touching my future destiny have heard
Words grievous, though I feel me on all sides
Well squared to fortune’s blows. Therefore my will
Were satisfied to know the lot awaits me.
The arrow, seen beforehand, slacks his flight.’

So said I to the brightness, which erewhile
To me had spoken; and my will declared,
As Beatrice willed, explicitly. 30
Nor with oracular response obscure,
Such as, or e’er the Lamb of God was slain,
Beguiled the credulous nations: but, in terms
Precise, and unambiguous lore, replied
The spirit of paternal love, enshrined,
Yet in his smile apparent ; and thus spake:
‘Contingency, whose verge extendeth not
Beyond the tablet of your mortal mould,
Is all depictured in the eternal sight ;
But hence deriveth not necessity, 40
More than the tall ship, hurried down the flood,
Is driven by the eye that looks on it.

298 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvi

From thence, as to the ear sweet harmony

From organ comes, so comes before mine eye

The time prepared for thee. Such as driven out

From Athens, by his cruel stepdame’s wiles,

Hippolytus departed ; such must thou

Depart from Florence. This they wish, and this

Contrive, and will ere long effectuate, there,

Where gainful merchandise is made of Christ 50

Throughout the live-long day. The common cry,

Will, as *tis ever wont, affix the blame

Unto the party injured: but the truth

Shall, in the vengeance it dispenseth, find

A faithful witness. Thou shalt leave each thing

Beloved most dearly: this is the first shaft

Shot from the bow of exile. Thou shalt prove

How salt the savour is of other’s bread ;

How hard the passage, to descend and climb

By other’s stairs. But that shall gall thee most, 60

Will be the worthless and vile company,

With whom thou must be thrown into these straits.

For all ungrateful, impious all, and mad,

Shall turn ’gainst thee: but in a little while,

Theirs, and not thine, shall be the crimsoned brow,

Their course shall so evince their brutishness,

To have ta’en thy stand apart shall well become thee.
‘First refuge thou must find, first place of rest,

In the great Lombard’s courtesy, who bears,

Upon the ladder perched, the sacred bird. 70

He shall behold thee with such kind regard,

That *twixt ye two, the contrary to that

Which ’falls ’*twixt other men, the granting shall

Forerun the asking. With him shalt thou see

That mortal, who was at his birth impressed

So strongly from this star, that of his deeds

The nations shall take note. His unripe age

Yet holds him from observance ; for these wheels

Only nine years have compassed him about.

But, ere the Gascon practise on great Harry, 8a

Sparkles of virtue shall shoot forth in him.

In equal scorn of labours and of gold.

His bounty shall be spread abroad so widely,

As not to let the tongues, e’en of his foes,

Be idle in its praise. Look thou to him,

And his beneficence: for he shall cause

Reversal of their lot to many people ;

Rich men and beggars interchanging fortunes.

And thou shalt bear this written in thy soul,

Of him, but tell it not: and things he told gc

Incredible to those who witness them ;

LINEs 43-119] PARADISE 299

Then added: ‘So interpret thou, my son,

What hath been told thee.—Lo! the ambushment

That a few circling seasons hide for thee.

Yet envy not thy neighbours: time extends

Thy span beyond their treason’s chastisement.’
Soon as the saintly spirit, by silence, marked

Completion of that web, which I had stretched

Before it, warped for weaving; I began,

As one, who in perplexity desires 100

Counsel of other, wise, benign, and friendly:

‘My father! well 1 mark how time spurs on

Toward me, ready to inflict the blow,

Which falls most heavily on him who most

Abandoneth himself. Therefore ’tis good
I should forecast, that, driven from the place
Most dear to me, I may not lose myself
All other by my song. Down through the world
Of infinite mourning ; and along the mount,
From whose fair height my lady’s eyes did lift me; 110
And, after, through this heaven, from light to light ;
Have I learnt that, which if I tell again,
It may with many wofully disrelish :
And, if I am a timid friend to truth,
I fear my life may perish among those,
To whom these days shall be of ancient date.’
The brightness, where enclosed the treasure smiled,
Which I had found there, first shone glisteringly,
Like to a golden mirror in the sun ;

300 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvn

Next answered: ‘Conscience, dimmed or by its own 120
Or other’s shame, will feel thy saying sharp.

Thou, notwithstanding, all deceit removed,

See the whole vision be made manifest.

And let them wince, who have their withers wrung.
What though, when tasted first, thy voice shall prove
Unwelcome: on digestion, it will turn

To vital nourishment. The cry thou raisest,

Shall, as the wind doth, smite the proudest summits ;
Which is of honour no light argument.

For this, there only have been shown to thee, 130
Throughout these orbs, the mountain, and the deep,
Spirits, whom fame hath note of. For the mind

Of him, who hears, is loath to acquiesce

And fix its faith, unless the instance brought

Be palpable, and proof apparent urge.’

CANTO XVIII

ARGUMENT

Dante sees the souls of many renowned warriors and crusaders in the planet
Mars; and then ascends with Beatrice to Jupiter, the sixth heaven, in
which he finds the souls of those who had administered justice rightly in
the world, so disposed, as to form the figure of an eagle. The Canto con-
cludes with an invective against the avarice of the clergy, and especially
of the Pope.

Now in his word, sole, ruminating, joyed
That blessed spirit: and I fed on mine,
Tempering the sweet with bitter. She meanwhile,
Who led me unto God, admonished: ‘ Muse
On other thoughts: bethink thee, that near Him
I dwell, who recompenseth every wrong.’

At the sweet sounds of comfort straight I turned ;
And, in the saintly eyes what love was seen,
I leave in silence here, nor through distrust
Of my words only, but that to such bliss 10
The mind remounts not without aid. Thus much
Yet may I speak; that, as I gazed on her,
Affection found no room for other wish.
While the everlasting pleasure, that did full
On Beatrice shine, with second view
From her fair countenance my gladdened soul
Contented ; vanquishing me with a beam
Of her soft smile, she spake: ‘ Turn thee, and list.
These eyes are not thy only Paradise.’

As here, we sometimes in the looks may see 20
The affection marked, when that its sway hath ta’en

CANTO XviI1] PARADISE 301

The spirit wholly ; thus the hallowed light,
To whom I turned, flashing, bewrayed its will
To talk yet further with me, and began:
‘On this fifth lodgement of the tree, whose life
Is from its top, whose fruit is ever fair
And leaf unwithering, blessed spirits abide,
That were below, ere they arrived in heaven,
So mighty in renown, as every muse
Might grace her triumph with them. On the horns 30
Look, therefore, of the cross: he whom I name,
Shall there enact, as doth in summer cloud
Its nimble fire. Along the cross I saw,
At the repeated name of Joshua,
A splendour gliding ; nor, the word was said,
Ere it was done: then, at the naming, saw,
Of the great Maccabee, another move
With whirling speed; and gladness was the scourge
Unto that top. The next for Charlemagne
And for the peer Orlando, two my gaze 40
Pursued, intently, as the eye pursues
A falcon flying. Last, along the cross,
William, and Renard, and Duke Godfrey drew
My ken, and Robert Guiscard. And the soul
Who spake with me, among the other lights
Did move away, and mix; and with the quire
Of heavenly songsters proved his tuneful skill.
To Beatrice on my right I bent,
Looking for intimation, or by word
Or act, what next behoved; and did descry 50
Such mere effulgence in her eyes, such joy,
It passed all former wont. And, as by sense
Of new delight, the man, who perseveres
In good deeds, doth perceive, from day to day,
His virtue growing; I e’en thus perceived,
Of my ascent, together with the heaven,
The circuit widened ; noting the increase
Of beauty in that wonder. Like the change
In a brief moment on some maiden’s cheek,
Which, from its fairness, doth discharge the weight 60
Of pudency, that stained it; such in her,
And to mine eyes so sudden was the change,
Through silvery whiteness of that temperate star,
Whose sixth orb now enfolded us. I saw,
Within that Jovial cresset, the clear sparks
Of love, that reigned there, fashion to my view
Our language, And as birds from river banks
Arisen, now in round, now lengthened troop,
Array them in their flight, greeting, as seems,
Their new-found pastures; so, within the lights, 70

302 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xvm

The saintly creatures flying, sang; and made

Now D, now I, now L, figured i the air.

First singing to their notes they moved; then, one
Becoming of these signs, a little while

Did rest them, and were mute. O nymph divine,
Of Pegasean race! who souls, which thou
Inspirest, makest glorious and long-lived, as they
Cities and realms by thee; thou with thyself
Inform me; that I may set forth the shapes,

As fancy doth present them: be thy power 80
Displayed in this brief song. The characters,

Vocal and consonant, were fivefold seven.

In order, each, as they appeared, I marked

Diligite Justitiam, the first,

Both verb and noun all blazoned; and the extreme,
Qui judicatis terram. In the M

Of the fifth word they held their station ;

Making the star seem silver streaked with gold.

And on the summit of the M, I saw

Descending other lights, that rested there, go

LINES 71-132] PARADISE 303

Singing, methinks, their bliss and primal good.
Then, as at shaking of a lighted brand,

Sparkles innumerable on all sides

Rise scattered, source of augury to the unwise ;
Thus more than thousand twinkling lustres hence
Seemed reascending; and a higher pitch

Some mounting, and some less, e’en as the sun,
Which kindleth them, decreed. And when each one
Had settled in his place; the head and neck

Then saw I of an eagle, livelily 100
Graved in that streaky fire. Who painteth there,
Hath none to guide Him: of Himself he guides:
And every line and texture of the nest

Doth own from Him the virtue fashions it.

The other bright beatitude, that seemed

Erewhile, with lilied crowning, well content

To over-canopy the M, moved forth,

Following gently the impress of the bird.

Sweet star! what glorious and thick-studded gems
Declared to me our justice on the earth IIO
To be the effluence of that heaven, which thou,
Thyself a costly jewel, dost inlay.

Therefore I pray the Sovereign Mind, from whom
Thy motion and thy virtue are begun,

That He would look from whence the fog doth rise,
To vitiate thy beam; so that once more

He may put forth his hand ’gainst such, as drive
Their traffic in that sanctuary, whose walls

With miracles and martyrdoms were built.

Ye host of heaven, whose glory I survey! 120

Oh beg ye grace for those, that are, on earth,

All after ill example gone astray.

War once had for his instrument the sword :

But now ’tis made, taking the bread away,

Which the good Father locks from none.—And thou,
That writest but to cancel, think, that they,

Who for the vineyard, which thou wastest, died,
Peter and Paul, live yet, and mark thy doings.
Thou hast good cause to cry, ‘My heart so cleaves
To him, that lived in solitude remote, 130
And for a dance was dragged to martyrdom,

I wist not of the fisherman nor Paul.’

304 THE VISION OF DANTE [CANTO xIx

CANTO XIX

ARGUMENT

The eagle speaks as with one voice proceeding from a multitude of spirits,
that compose it; and declares the cause for which it is exalted to that
state of glory. It then solves a doubt which our Poet had entertained,
respecting the possibility of salvation without belief in Christ; exposes
the inefficacy of a mere profession of such belief ; and prophesies the evil
appearance that many Christian potentates will make at the day of
judgement.

BEFORE my sight appeared, with open wings,

The beauteous image; in fruition sweet,

Gladdening the thronged spirits. Each did seem

A little ruby, whereon so intense

The sunbeam glowed, that to mine eyes it came

In clear refraction. And that, which next

Befalls me to portray, voice hath not uttered,

Nor hath ink written, nor in fantas

Was e’er conceived. For I beheld and heard

The beak discourse ; and, what intention formed 10

Of many, singly as of one express,

Beginning: ‘For that I was just and piteous,

I am exalted to this height of glory,

The which no wish exceeds: and there on earth

Have I my memory left, e’en by the bad

Commended, while they leave its course untrod.’
Thus is one heat from many embers felt ;

As in that image many were the loves,

And one the voice, that issued from them all:

Whence I addressed them: ‘O perennial flowers 20

Of gladness everlasting! that exhale

In single breath your odours manifold ;

Breathe now: and let the hunger be appeased,

That with great craving long hath held my soul,

Finding no food on earth. This well I know;

That if there be in heaven a realm, that shows

In faithful mirror the celestial Justice,

Yours without veil reflects it. Ye discern

The heed, wherewith I do prepare myself

To hearken; ye, the doubt, that urges me 30

With such inveterate craving.’ Straight I saw,

Like to a falcon issuing from the hood,

That rears his head, and claps him with his wings,

His beauty and his eagerness bewraying ;

So saw I move that stately sign, with praise

Of grace divine inwoven, and high song

Of inexpressive joy. ‘He,’ it began,

‘Who turned his compass on the world’s extreme,

Lrinzs 1-59] PARADISE

And in that space so variously hath wrought,
Both openly and in secret ; in such wise

Could not, through all the universe, display
Impression of his glory, that the Word

Of his omniscience should not still remain

In infinite excess. In proof whereof,

He first through pride supplanted, who was sum
Of each created being, waited not

For light celestial; and abortive fell.

Whence needs each lesser nature is but scant

Receptacle unto that Good, which knows

No limit, measured by itself alone.

Therefore your sight, of the omnipresent Mind
A single beam, its origin must own

Surpassing far its utmost potency.

The ken, your world is gifted with, descends

In the everlasting Justice as low down,

As eye doth in the sea; which, though it mark
The bottom from the shore, in the wide main
Discerns it not; and ne’ertheless it is;

But hidden through its deepness. Light is none,

305

40

THE VISION OF DANTE [CaNTo xIx

Save that which cometh from the pure serene 60
Of ne’er disturbed ether: for the rest,
’Tis darkness all; or shadow of the flesh,
Or else its poison. Here confess revealed
That covert, which hath hidden from thy search
The living justice, of the which thou madest
Such frequent question; for thou said’st—“‘ A man
“Is born on Indus’ banks, and none is there
“Who speaks of Christ, nor who doth read nor write ;
** And all his inclinations and his acts,
‘““ As far as human reason sees, are good ; 70
“And he offendeth not in word or deed:
‘“ But unbaptized he dies, and void of faith.
“Where is the justice that condemns him? where
** His blame, if he believeth not ?’’—What then,
And who art thou, that on the stool wouldst sit
To judge at distance of a thousand miles
With the short-sighted vision of a span ?.
To him, who subtilizes thus with me,
There would assuredly be room for doubt
Even to wonder, did not the safe word 80
Of Scripture hold supreme authority.
*O animals of clay! O spirits gross!
The primal will, that in itself is good,
Hath from itself, the chief Good, ne’er been moved.
Justice consists in consonance with it,
Derivable by no created good,
Whose very cause depends upon its beam.’
As on her nest the stork, that turns about
Unto her young, whom lately she hath fed,
Whiles they with upward eyes do look on her; go
So lifted I my gaze; and, bending so,
The ever-blessed image waved its wings,
Labouring with such deep counsel. Wheeling round
It warbled, and did say: ‘As are my notes
To thee, who understand’st them not; such is
The eternal judgement unto mortal ken.’
Then still abiding in that ensign ranged,
Wherewith the Romans overawed the world,
Those burning splendours of the Holy Spirit
Took up the strain; and thus it spake again: 100
‘None ever hath ascended to this realm,
Who hath not a believer been in Christ,
Either before or after the blest limbs
Were nailed upon the wood. But lo! of those
Who call “ Christ, Christ’, there shall be many found,
In judgement, farther off from him by far,
Than such to whom his name was never known.
Christians like these the Aethiop shall condemn :

LinEs 60-145] PARADISE 307

When that the two assemblages shall part ;

One rich eternally, the other poor. 1B fe)
‘What may the Persians say unto your kings,

When they shall see that volume, in the which

All their dispraise is written, spread to view ?

There amidst Albert’s works shall that be read,

Which will give speedy motion to the pen,

When Prague shall mourn her desolated realm.

There shall be read the woe, that he doth work

With his adulterate money on the Seine,

Who by the tusk will perish: there be read

The thirsting pride, that maketh fool alike 120

The English and Scot, impatient of their bound.

There shall be seen the Spaniard’s luxury ;

The delicate living there of the Bohemian,

Who still to worth has been a willing stranger.

The halter of Jerusalem shall see

A unit for his virtue; for his vices,

No less a mark than million. He, who guards

The isle of fire by old Anchises honoured,

Shall find his avarice there and cowardice ;

And better to denote his littleness, 130

The writing must be letters maimed, that speak

Much in a narrow space. All there shall know

His uncle and his brother’s filthy doings,

Who so renowned a nation and two crowns

Have bastardized. And they, of Portugal

And Norway, there shall be exposed, with him

Of Ratza, who hath counterfeited ill

The coin of Venice. O blest Hungary!

If thou no longer patiently abidest

Thy ill-entreating: and, O blest Navarre! 140

If with thy mountainous girdle thou wouldst arm thee.

In earnest of that day, e’en now are heard

Wailings and groans in Famagosta’s streets

And Nicosia’s, grudging at their beast,

Who keepeth even footing with the rest.’

308 THE VISION OF DANTE [CaNnTOo xx

CANTO XX

ARGUMENT

The eagle celebrates the praise of certain kings, whose glorified spirits form
the eye of the bird. In the pupil is David; and, in the circle round it,
Trajan, Hezekiah, Constantine, William I1 of Sicily, and Ripheus. It
explains to our Poet, how the souls of those whom he supposed to have had
no means of believing in Christ, came to be in heaven; and concludes
with an admonition against presuming to fathom the counsels of God.

WHEN, disappearing from our hemisphere,
The world’s enlightener vanishes, and day
On all sides wasteth ; suddenly the sky,
Erewhile irradiate only with his beam,

Is yet again unfolded, putting forth
Innumerable tights wherein one shines.

Of such vicissitude in heaven I thought ;

As the great sign, that marshalleth the world
And the world’s leaders, in the blessed beak
Was silent: for that all those living lights, 10
Waxing in splendour, burst forth into songs,
Such as from memory glide and fall away.

Sweet Love, that dost apparel thee in smiles!
How lustrous was thy semblance in those sparkles,
Which merely are from holy thoughts inspired.

After the precious and bright beaming stones,
That did ingem the sixth light, ceased the chiming
Of their angelic bells; methought I heard
The murmuring of a river, that doth fall
From rock to rock transpicuous, making known 20
The richness of his spring-head: and as sound
Of cittern, at the fret-board, or of pipe,

Is, at the wind-hole, modulate and tuned ;

Thus up the neck, as it were hollow, rose

That murmuring of the eagle; and forthwith
Voice there assumed; and thence along the beak
Issued in form of words, such as my heart

Did look for, on whose tables I inscribed them.

‘The part in me, that sees and bears the sun
In mortal eagles,’ it began, ‘must now 30
Be noted steadfastly: for, of the fires,

That figure me, those, glittering in mine eye,
Are chief of all the greatest. This, that shines
Midmost for pupil, was the same who sang

The Holy Spirit’s song, and bare about

The ark from town to town: now doth he know
The merit of his soul-impassioned strains

By their well-fitted guerdon. Of the five,

That make the circle of the vision, he,

LinEs 1-67] PARADISE 309

Who to the beak is nearest, comforted 40
The widow for her son: now doth he know,

How dear it costeth not to follow Christ:

Both from experience of this pleasant life,

And of its opposite. He next, who follows

In the circumference, for the over-arch,

By true repenting slacked the pace of death:

Now knoweth he, that the decrees of heaven

Alter not, when, through pious prayer below,

To-day is made to-morrow’s destiny.

The other following, with the laws and me, 50
To yield the shepherd room, passed o’er to Greece ;
From good intent, producing evil fruit :

Now knoweth he, how all the ill, derived

From his well doing, doth not harm him aught ;
Though it have brought destruction on the world.
That, which thou seest in the under bow,

Was William, whom that land bewails, which weeps
For Charles and Frederick living: now he knows,
How well is loved in heaven the righteous king ;
Which he betokens by his radiant seeming. 60
Who, in the erring world beneath, would deem
That Trojan Ripheus, in this round, was set,

Fifth of the saintly splendours ? now he knows
Enough of that, which the world cannot see ;

The grace divine: albeit e’en his sight

Reach not its utmost depth.’ Like to the lark,
That warbling in the air expatiates long,

310 THE VISION OF DANTE [CanTo xx

Then, trilling out his last sweet melody,
Drops, satiate with the sweetness; such appeared:
That image, stamped by the everlasting pleasure, 70
Which fashions, as they are, all things that be.
I, though my doubting were as manifest,
As is through glass the hue that mantles it,
In silence waited not; for to my lips
‘What things are these ?’ involuntary rushed,
And forced a passage out: whereat I marked
A sudden lightening and new revelry.
The eye was kindled; and the blessed sign,
No more to keep me wondering and suspense,
Replied: ‘I see that thou believest these things, 80
Because I tell them, but discern’st not how;
So that thy knowledge waits not on thy faith:
As one, who knows the name of thing by rote,
But is a stranger to its properties,
Till other’s tongue reveal them. Fervent love,
And lively hope, with violence assail
The kingdom of the heavens, and overcome
The will of the Most High; not in such sort
As man prevails o’er man; but conquers it,
Because ’tis willing to be conquered ; still, go
Though conquered, by its mercy, conquering.
‘Those, in the eye who live the first and fifth,
Cause thee to marvel, in that thou behold’st
The region of the angels decked with them.
They quitted not their bodies, as thou deem’st,
Gentiles, but Christians; in firm rooted faith,
This, of the feet in future to be pierced,
That, of feet nailed already to the cross.
One from the barrier of the dark abyss,
Where never any to good will returns, 100
Came back unto his bones. Of lively hope
Such was the meed; of lively hope, that winged
The prayers sent up to God for his release,
And put power into them to bend his will.
The glorious Spirit, of whom I speak to thee,
A little while returning to the flesh,
Believed in him, who had the means to help;
And, in believing, nourished such a flame
Of holy love, that at the second death
He was made sharer in our gamesome mirth. 110
The other, through the riches of that grace,
Which from so deep a fountain doth distil,
As never eye created saw its rising,
Placed all his love below on just and right:
Wherefore, of grace, God oped in him the eye
To the redemption of mankind to come ;

CANTO XXxI] PARADISE 311

Wherein believing, he endured no more

The filth of Paganism, and for their ways

Rebuked the stubborn nations. The three nymphs,

Whom at the right wheel thou beheld’st advancing, 120

Were sponsors for him, more than thousand years

Before baptizing. O how far removed,

Predestination! is thy root from such

As see not the First Cause entire: and ye,

O mortal men! be wary how ye judge:

For we, who see our Maker, know not yet

The number of the chosen; and esteem

Such scantiness of knowledge our delight :

For all our good is, in that primal good,

Concentrate ; and God’s will and ours are one.’ 130
So, by that form divine, was given to me

Sweet medicine to clear and strengthen sight.

And, as one handling skilfully the harp,

Attendant on some skilful songster’s voice

Bids the chord vibrate; and therein the song

Acquires more pleasure: so the whilst it spake,

It doth remember me, that I beheld

The pair of blessed luminaries move,

Like the accordant twinkling of two eyes,

Their beamy circlets, dancing to the sounds. 140

CANTO XXI

ARGUMENT

Dante ascends with Beatrice to the seventh heaven, which is the planet
Saturn; wherein is placed a ladder, so lofty, that the top of it is out of
his sight. Here are the souls of those who had passed their life in holy
retirement and contemplation. Piero Damiano comes near them, and
answers questions put to him by Dante; then declares who he was on
earth ; and ends by declaiming against the luxury of pastors and prelates
in those times.

AGAIN mine eyes were fixed on Beatrice ;

And, with mine eyes, my soul that in her looks

Found all contentment. Yet no smile she wore:

And, ‘ Did I smile,’ quoth she, ‘thou wouldst be straight
Like Semele when into ashes turned :

For, mounting these eternal palace-stairs,

My beauty, which the loftier it climbs,

As thou hast noted, still doth kindle more,

So shines, that, were no tempering interposed,

Thy mortal puissance would from its rays 10
Shrink, as the leaf doth. from the thunderbolt.

Into the seventh splendour are we wafted,

That, underneath the burning lion’s breast,

312 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xx1

Beams, in this hour, commingled with his might.
Thy mind be with thine eyes; and, in them, mirrored
The shape, which in this mirror shall be shown.’
Whoso can deem, how fondly I had fed
My sight upon her blissful countenance,
May know, when to new thoughts I changed, what joy
To do the bidding of my heavenly guide ; 20
In equal balance, poising either weight.
Within the crystal, which records the name
(As its remoter circle girds the world)
Of that loved monarch, in whose happy reign
No ill had power to harm, I saw reared up,
In colour like to sun-illumined gold,

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A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain,

So lofty was the summit; down whose steps

I saw the splendours in such multitude

Descending, every light in heaven, methought, 30
Was shed thence. As the rooks, at dawn of day,
Bestirring them to dry their feathers chill,

Some speed their way a-field; and homeward some,
Returning, cross their flight ; while some abide,

And wheel around their airy lodge: so seemed

That glitterance, wafted on alternate wing,

As upon certain stair it came, and clashed

Its shining. And one, lingering near us, waxed

So bright, that in my thought I said: ‘The love,
Which this betokens me, admits no doubt.’ 40

LINES 14-89] PARADISE

Unwillingly from question I refrain ;
To her, by whom my silence and my speech
Are ordered, looking for a sign: whence she,
Who in the sight of Him, that seeth all,
Saw wherefore I was silent, prompted me
To indulge the fervent wish; and I began:
‘I am not worthy, of my own desert,
That thou shouldst answer me: but for her sake,
Who hath vouchsafed my asking, spirit blest,
That in thy joy art shrouded! say the cause,
Which bringeth thee so near: and wherefore, say,
Doth the sweet symphony of Paradise
Keep silence here, pervading with such sounds
Of rapt devotion every lower sphere ?’
‘Mortal art thou in hearing, as in sight ;’
Was the reply: ‘and what forbade the smile
Of Beatrice interrupts our song.
Only to yield thee gladness of my voice,
And of the light that vests me, I thus far
Descend these hallowed steps: not that more love
Invites me; for, lo! there aloft, as much
Or more of love is witnessed in those flames:
But such my lot by charity assigned,
That makes us ready servants, as thou seest,
To execute the counsel of the Highest.’

‘That in this court,’ said I, ‘O sacred lamp!
Love no compulsion needs, but follows free
The eternal Providence, I well discern :
This harder find to deem: why, of thy peers,
Thou only, to this office wert foredoomed.’

I had not ended, when, like rapid mill,
Upon its centre whirled the light; and then
The love that did inhabit there, replied :
‘Splendour eternal, piercing through these folds,
Its virtue to my vision knits; and thus
Supported, lifts me so above myself,
That on the sovereign essence, which it wells from,
I have the power to gaze: and hence the joy,
Wherewith I sparkle, equalling with my blaze
The keenness of my sight. But not the soul,
That is in heaven most lustrous, nor the seraph,
That hath his eyes most fixed on God, ‘shall solve
What thou hast asked: for in the abyss it lies
Of the everlasting statute sunk so low,
That no created ken may fathom it.
And, to the mortal world when thou return’st,
Be this reported: that none henceforth dare
Direct his footsteps to so dread a bourn.
The mind, that here is radiant, on the earth

313

60

7O

80

ol4 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xx1

Is wrapped in mist. Look then if she may do go
Below, what passeth her ability
When she is ta’en to heaven.’ By words like these
Admonished, I the question urged no more ;
And of the spirit humbly sued alone
To instruct me of its state. ‘’Twixt either shore
Of Italy, nor distant from thy land,
A stony ridge ariseth ; in such sort,
The thunder doth not lift his voice so high.
They call it Catria: at whose foot, a cell
Is sacred to the lonely Eremite ; 100
For worship set apart and holy rites.’
A third time thus it spake; then added: ‘ There
So firmly to God’s service I adhered,
That with no costlier viands than the juice
Of olives, easily I passed the heats
Of summer and the winter frosts; content
In heavenward musings. Rich were the returns
And fertile, which that cloister once was used
To render to these heavens: now ’tis fallen
Into a waste so empty, that ere long IIO
Detection must lay bare its vanity.
Pietro Damiano there was I yclept:
Pietro the sinner, when before I dwelt,
Beside the Adriatic, in the house
Of our blest Lady. Near upon my close
Of mortal life, through much importuning
I was constrained to wear the hat, that still
From bad to worse is shifted.—Cephas came ;
He came, who was the Holy Spirit’s vessel ;
Barefoot and lean; eating their bread, as chanced, 120
At the first table. Modern shepherds need
Those who on either hand may prop and lead them,
So burly are they grown; and from behind,
Others to hoist them. Down the palfrey’s sides
Spread their broad mantles, so as both the beasts
Are covered with one skin. O patience! thou
That look’st on this, and dost endure so long.’
I at those accents saw the splendours down
From step to step alight, and wheel, and wax,
Each circuiting, more beautiful. Round this 130
They came, and stayed them; uttered then a shout
So loud, it hath no likeness here: nor I
Wist what it spake, so deafening was the thunder.

CANTO xx] PARADISE 315

CANTO XXII

ARGUMENT

He beholds many other spirits of the devout and contemplative ; and
amongst these is addressed by St. Benedict, who, after disclosing his own
name and the names of certain of bis companions in bliss, replies to the
request made by our Poet that he might look on the form of the saint,
without that covering of splendour, which then invested it; and then
proceeds, lastly, to inveigh against the corruption of the monks. Next,
Dante mounts with his heavenly conductress to the eighth heaven, or
that of the fixed stars, which he enters at the constellation of the Twins ;
and thence looking back, reviews all the space he has passed between his
present station and the earth.

ASTOUNDED, to the guardian of my steps

I turned me, like the child, who always runs
Thither for succour, where he trusteth most:
And she was like the mother, who her son

-

(TES
is my

Beholding pale and breathless, with her voice

Soothes him, and he is cheered; for thus she spake,
Soothing me: ‘ Know’st not thou, thou art in heaven ?
And know’st not thou, whatever is in heaven,

Is holy; and that nothing there is done,

But is done zealously and well? Deem now, 10
What change in thee the song, and what my smile

Had wrought, since thus the shout had power to move thee ;
In which, couldst thou have understood their prayers,
The vengeance were already known to thee,

Which thou must witness ere thy mortal hour.

The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite,

Nor yet doth linger; save unto his seeming,

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxu

Who, in desire or fear, doth look for it.

But elsewhere now I bid thee turn thy view ;
So shalt thou many a famous spirit behold.’
Mine eyes directing, as she willed, I saw

A hundred little spheres, that fairer grew
By interchange of splendour. I remained,
As one, who fearful of o’er-much presuming,
Abates in him the keenness of desire,

Nor dares to question; when, amid those pearls,

One largest and most lustrous onward drew,

That it might yield contentment to my wish ;

And, from within it, these the sounds I heard.
“If thou, like me, beheld’st the charity

That burns amongst us; what thy mind conceives,

Were uttered. But that, ere the lofty bound
Thou reach, expectance may not weary thee ;
I will make answer even to the thought,
Which thou hast such respect of. In old days,
That mountain, at whose side Cassino rests,
Was, on its height, frequented by a race
Deceived and ill-disposed: and I it was,

Who thither carried first the name of Him,
Who brought the soul-subliming truth to man.
And such a speeding grace shone over me,
That from their impious worship I reclaimed
The dwellers round about, who with the world
Were in delusion lost. These other flames,
The spirits of men contemplative, were all
Enlivened by that warmth, whose kindly force
Gives birth to flowers and fruits of holiness.
Here is Macarius; Romoaldo here ;

And here my brethren, who their steps refrained

Within the cloisters, and held firm their heart.’

I answering thus: ‘Thy gentle words and kind,

And this the cheerful semblance I behold,
Not unobservant, beaming in ye all,

Have raised assurance in me; wakening it
Full-blossomed in my bosom, as a rose
Before the sun, when the consummate flower
Has spread to utmost amplitude. Of thee
Therefore intreat I, father, to declare

If I may gain such favour, as to gaze

Upon thine image by no covering veiled.’

‘Brother!’ he thus rejoined, ‘in the last sphere

Expect completion of thy lofty aim:

For there on each desire completion waits,
And there on mine; where every aim is found
Perfect, entire, and for fulfilment ripe.

There all things are as they have ever been:

20

30

40

60

Lines 18-115] PARADISE

For space is none to bound; nor pole divides.
Our ladder reaches even to that clime ;
And so, at giddy distance, mocks thy view.
Thither the patriarch Jacob saw it stretch
Its topmost round; when it appeared to him
With angels laden. But to mount it now
None lifts his foot from earth: and hence my rule
Is left a profitless stain upon the leaves ;
The walls, for abbey reared, turned into dens ;
The cowls, to sacks choked up with musty meal.
Foul usury doth not more lift itself
Against God’s pleasure, than that fruit, which makes
The hearts of monks so wanton: for whate’er
Is in the church’s keeping, all pertains
To such, as sue for heaven’s sweet sake; and not
To those, who in respect of kindred claim,
Or on more vile allowance. Mortal flesh
Is grown so dainty, good beginnings last not
From the oak’s birth unto the acorn’s setting.
His convent Peter founded without gold
Or silver; I, with prayers and fasting, mine ;
And Francis, his in meek humility.
And if thou note the point, whence each proceeds,
Then look what it hath erred to; thou shalt find
The white grown murky. Jordan was turned back:
And a less wonder, than the refluent sea,
May, at God’s pleasure, work amendment here.’
So saying, to his assembly back he drew:
And they together clustered into one ;
Then all rolled upward, like an eddying wind.
The sweet dame beckoned me to follow them:
And, by that influence only, so prevailed
Over my nature, that no natural motion,
Ascending or descending here below,
Had, as I mounted, with my pennon vied.
So, reader, as my hope is to return
Unto the holy triumph, for the which
I oft-times wail my sins, and smite my breast ;
Thou hadst been longer drawing out and thrusting
Thy finger in the fire, than I was, ere
The sign, that followeth Taurus, I beheld,
And entered its precinct. O glorious stars!
O light impregnate with exceeding virtue !
To whom whate’er of genius lifteth me
Above the vulgar, grateful I refer ;
With ye the parent of all mortal life
Arose and set, when I did first inhale
The Tuscan air; and afterward, when grace
Vouchsafed me entrance to the lofty wheel

317

7O

So

go

10d

Ilo

318 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxn

That in its orb impels ye, fate decreed

My passage at your clime. To you my soul
Devoutly sighs, for virtue, even now,

To meet the hard emprize that draws me on.

‘Thou art so near the sum of blessedness,’ 120
Said Beatrice, ‘that behoves thy ken
Be vigilant and clear. And, to this end,

Or ever thou advance thee farther, hence

Look downward, and contemplate, what a world
Already stretched under our feet there lies:

So as thy heart may, in its blithest mood,

Present itself to the triumphal throng,

Which, through the ethereal concave, comes rejoicing.’

I straight obeyed; and with mine eye returned
Through all the seven spheres; and saw this globe 130
So pitiful of semblance, that perforce
It moved my smiles: and him in truth I hold
For wisest, who esteems it least; whose thoughts
Elsewhere are fixed, him worthiest call and best.

I saw the daughter of Latona shine

Without the shadow, whereof late I deemed

That dense and rare were cause. Here I sustained

The visage, Hyperion, of thy son;

And marked, how near him with their circles, round
Move Maia and Dione; here discerned 140
Jove’s tempering ’twixt his sire and son; and hence,
Their changes and their various aspects,

Distinctly scanned. Nor might I not descry

Of all the seven, how bulky each, how swift ;

Nor, of their several distances, not learn.

This petty area (o’er the which we stride

So fiercely), as along the eternal Twins

I wound my way, appeared before me all,

Forth from the havens stretched unto the hills.

Then, to the beauteous eyes, mine eyes returned. 150

CANTO XXIII

ARGUMENT

He sees Christ triumphing with his church. The Saviour ascends, followed
by his Virgin Mother. The others remain with St. Peter.

E’EeN as the bird, who midst the leafy bower
Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night,
With her sweet brood; impatient to descry
Their wished looks, and to bring home their food,
In the fond quest unconscious of her toil:

She, of the time prevenient, on the spray,

CaNnTO XXIII] PARADISE 319
That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze
Expects the sun; nor ever, till the dawn,
Removeth from the east her eager ken:
So stood the dame erect, and bent her glance 10

Wistfully on that region, where the sun

Abateth most his speed; that, seeing her

Suspense and wondering, I became as one,

In whom desire is wakened, and the hope

Of somewhat new to come fills with delight.
Short space ensued; I was not held, I say,

Long in expectance, when I saw the heaven

Wax more and more resplendent; and, ‘ Behold,’

Cried Beatrice, ‘the triumphal hosts

Mt

=|
——

De

)

Of Christ, and all the harvest gathered in, 20
Made ripe by these revolving spheres.’ Meseemed,
That, while she spake, her image all did burn ;
And in her eyes such fullness was of joy,
As I am fain to pass unconstrued by.
As in the calm full moon, when Trivia smiles,
In peerless beauty, ‘mid the eternal nymphs,
That paint through all its gulfs the blue profound ;
In bright pre-eminence so saw I there
O’er million lamps a sun, from whom all drew
Their radiance, as from ours the starry train: 30
And, through the living light, so lustrous glowed
The substance, that my ken endured it not.
O Beatrice! sweet and precious guide,

320 THE VISION OF DANTE § [Canto xxi

Who cheered me with her comfortable words:
‘ Against the virtue, that o’erpowereth thee,
Avails not to resist. Here is the Might,
And here the Wisdom, which did open lay
The path, that had been yearnéd for so long,
Betwixt the heaven and earth.’ Like to the fire,
That, in a cloud imprisoned, doth break out 40
Expansive, so that from its womb enlarged,
It falleth against nature to the ground ;
Thus, in that heavenly banqueting, my soul
Outgrew herself ; and, in the transport lost,
Holds now remembrance none of what she was.
“Ope thou thine eyes, and mark me: thou hast seen
Things, that empower thee to sustain my smile.’
I was as one, when a forgotten dream
Doth come across him, and he strives in vain
To shape it in his fantasy again: 50
Whenas that gracious boon was proffered me,
Which never may be cancelled from the book
Wherein the past is written. Now were all
Those tongues to sound, that have, on sweetest milk
Of Polyhymnia and her sisters, fed
And fattened ; not with all their help to boot,
Unto the thousandth parcel of the truth,
My song might shadow forth that saintly smile,
How merely, in her saintly looks, it wrought.
And, with such figuring of Paradise, 60
The sacred strain must leap, like one that meets
A sudden interruption to his road.
But he, who thinks how ponderous the theme,
And that ’tis laid upon a mortal shoulder,
May pardon, if it tremble with the burden.
The track, our venturous keel must furrow, brooks
No unribbed pinnace, no self-sparing pilot.
‘Why doth my face,’ said Beatrice, ‘ thus
Enamour thee, as that thou dest not turn
Unto the beautiful garden, blossoming 70
Beneath the rays of Christ ? Here is the rose,
Wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate ;
And here the lilies, by whose odour known
The way of life was followed.’ Prompt I heard
Her bidding, and encountered once again
The strife of aching vision. As, erewhile,
Through glance of sunlight, streamed through broken cloud,
Mine eyes a flower-besprinkled mead have seen ;
Though veiled themselves in shade: so saw I there
Legions of splendours, on whom burning rays 80
Shed lightnings from above ; yet saw I not
The fountain whence they flowed. O gracious virtue!

LINEs 34-131] PARADISE 321

Thou, whose broad stamp is on them, higher up
Thou didst exalt thy glory, to give room
To my oerlaboured sight; when at the name
Of that fair flower, whom duly I invoke
Both morn and eve, my soul with all her might
Collected, on the goodliest ardour fixed.
And, as the bright dimensions of the star
In heaven excelling, as once here on earth, go
Were, in my eyeballs livelily portrayed ;
Lo! from within the sky a cresset fell,
Circling in fashion of a diadem ;
And girt the star; and, hovering, round it wheeled.
Whatever melody sounds sweetest here,
And draws the spirit most unto itself,
Might seem a rent cloud, when it grates the thunder ;
Compared unto the sounding of that lyre,
Wherewith the goodliest sapphire, that inlays
The floor of heaven, was crowned. ‘Angelic Love — 100
I am, who thus with hovering flight enwheel
The lofty rapture from that womb inspired,
Where our desire did dwell: and round thee so,
Lady of Heaven! will hover; long as thou
Thy Son shalt follow, and diviner joy
Shall from thy presence gild the highest sphere.’
Such close was to the circling melody:
And, as it ended, all the other lights
Took up the strain, and echoed Mary’s name.
The robe, that with its regal folds enwraps 110
The world, and with the nearer breath of God
Doth burn and quiver, held so far retired
Its inner hem and skirting over us,
That yet no glimmer of its majesty
Had streamed unto me: therefore were mine eyes
Unequal to pursue the crowned flame,
That towering rose, and sought the seed it bore.
And like to babe, that stretches forth its arms
For very eagerness toward the breast,
After the milk is taken; so outstretched 120
Their wavy summits all the fervent band,
Through zealous love to Mary: then, in view,
There halted; and ‘ Regina Coeli’ sang
So sweetly, the delight hath left me never.
Oh! what o’erflowing plenty is up-piled
In those rich-laden coffers, which below
Sowed the good seed, whose harvest now they keep.
Here are the treasures tasted, that with tears
Were in the Babylonian exile won,
When gold had failed them. Here, in synod high 130
Of ancient council with the new convened,

322 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxm

Under the Son of Mary and of God,
Victorious he his mighty triumph holds,
To whom the keys of glory were assigned.

CANTO XXIV

ARGUMENT
St. Peter examines Dante touching Faith, and is contented with his answers.
‘QO YE! in chosen fellowship advanced

To the great supper of the blessed Lamb,
Whereon who feeds hath every wish fulfilled ;

oe "annie
Se a
[Koss

If to this man through God’s grace be vouchsafed
Foretaste of that, which from your table falls,

Or ever death his fated term prescribe ;

Be ye not heedless of his urgent will:

But may some influence of your sacred dews
Sprinkle him. Of the fount ye alway drink,
Whence flows what most he craves.’ Beatrice spake ; 10
And the rejoicing spirits, like to spheres

On firm-set poles revolving, trailed a blaze

Of comet splendour: and as wheels, that wind
Their circles in the horologe, so work

The stated rounds, that to the observant eye

The first seems still, and as it flew, the last :

CaNTO XXIV] PARADISE 323

E’en thus their carols weaving variously,
They, by the measure paced, or swift, or slow,
Made me to rate the riches of their joy.
From that, which I did note in beauty most 20
Excelling, saw I issue forth a flame
So bright, as none was left more goodly there.
Round Beatrice thrice it wheeled about,
With so divine a song, that fancy’s ear
Records it not; and the pen passeth on,
And leaves a blank: for that our mortal speech,
Nor e’en the inward shaping of the brain,
Hath colours fine enough to trace such folds.
*O saintly sister mine! thy prayer devout
Is with so vehement affection urged, 39
Thou dost unbind me from that beauteous sphere.’
Such were the accents towards my lady breathed
From that blest ardour, soon as it was stayed 3
To whom she thus: ‘O everlasting light
Of him, within whose mighty grasp our Lord
Did leave the keys, which of this wondrous bliss
He bare below! tent this man as thou wilt
With lighter probe or deep, touching the faith,
By the which thou didst on the billows walk.
If he in love, in hope, and in belief, 40
Be steadfast, is not hid from thee: for thou
Hast there thy ken, where all things are beheld
In liveliest portraiture. But since true faith
Has peopled this fair realm with citizens ;
Meet is, that to exalt its glory more,
Thou, in his audience, shouldst thereof discourse.’
Like to the bachelor, who arms himself,
And speaks not, till the master have proposed
The question, to approve, and not to end it;
So I, in silence, armed me, while she spake, 50
Summoning up each argument to aid ;
As was behoveful for such questioner,
And such profession: ‘ As good Christian ought,
Declare thee, what is faith?’ Whereat I raised
My forehead to the light, whence this had breathed ;
Then turned to Beatrice ; and in her looks
Approval met, that from their inmost fount
I should unlock the waters. ‘May the grace,
That giveth me the captain of the church
For confessor,’ said I, *‘ vouchsafe to me 60
Apt utterance for my thoughts;’ then added: ‘Sire!
E’en as set down by the unerring style
Of thy dear brother, who with thee conspired
To bring Rome in unto the way of life,
Faith of things hoped is substance, and the proof
CARY N

324 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxiv

Of things not seen; and herein doth consist

Methinks its essence.—‘ Rightly hast thou deemed,’

Was answered; ‘if thou well discern, why first

He hath defined it substance, and then proof.’
‘The deep things,’ I replied, ‘ which here I scan 70

Distinctly, are below from mortal eye

So hidden, they have in belief alone

Their being ; on which credence, hope sublime

Is built: and, therefore substance, it intends.

And inasmuch as we must needs infer

From such belief our reasoning, all respect

To other view excluded ; hence of proof

The intention is derived.’ Forthwith I heard:

‘Tf thus, whate’er by learning men attain,

Were understood ; the sophist would want room 80

To exercise his wit.’ So breathed the flame

Of love; then added: ‘ Current is the coin

Thou utter’st, both in weight and in alloy.

But tell me, if thou hast it in thy purse.’
‘Even so glittering and so round,’ said I,

‘IT not a whit misdoubt of its assay.’
Next issued from the deep-imbosomed splendour :

‘Say, whence the costly jewel, on the which

Is founded every virtue, came to thee.’
‘The flood,’ I answered, ‘from the Spirit of God — go

Rained down upon the ancient bond and new,—

Here is the reasoning, that convinceth me

So feelingly, each argument beside

Seems blunt, and forceless, in comparison.’

Then heard I: ‘ Wherefore holdest thou that each,

The elder proposition and the new,

Which so persuade thee, are the voice of heaven ?’
‘The works, that followed, evidence their truth ;’

I answered: ‘ Nature did not make for these

The iron hot, or on her anvil mould them.’ 100
‘Who voucheth to thee of the works themselves,’

Was the reply, ‘that they in very deed

Are that they purport ? None hath sworn so to thee.’
‘That all the world,’ said I, ‘should have been turned

To Christian, and no miracle been wrought,

Would in itself be such a miracle,

The rest were not an hundredth part so great.

E’en thou went’st forth in poverty and hunger

To set the goodly plant, that, from the vine

It once was, now is grown unsightly bramble.’ 110
That ended, through the high celestial court

Resounded all the spheres, ‘ Praise we one God!’

In song of most unearthly melody.

And when that Worthy thus, from branch to branch,

CANTO xxv] PARADISE 325

Examining, had led me, that we now
Approached the topmost bough; he straight resumed :
‘The grace, that holds sweet dalliance with thy soul,
So far discreetly hath thy lips unclosed ;
That, whatsoe’er has passed them, I commend.
Behoves thee to express, what thou believest, 120
The next; and, whereon, thy belief hath grown.’
‘O saintly sire and spirit!’ I began,
‘Who seest that, which thou didst so believe,
As to outstrip feet younger than thine own,
Toward the sepulchre ; thy will is here,
That I the tenor of my creed unfold ;
And thou, the cause of it, hast likewise asked.
And I reply: I in one God believe ;
One sole eternal Godhead, of whose love
All heaven is moved, himself unmoved the while. 130
Nor demonstration physical alone,
Or more intelligential and abstruse,
Persuades me to this faith: but from that truth
It cometh to me rather, which is shed
Through Moses; the rapt Prophets; and the Psalms ;
The Gospel; and what ye yourselves did write,
When ye were gifted of the Holy Ghost.
In three eternal Persons I believe ;
Essence threefold and one; mysterious league
Of union absolute, which, many a time, 140
The word of gospel lore upon my mind
Imprints: and from this germ, this firstling spark
The lively flame dilates; and, like heaven’s star,
Doth glitter in me.’ As the master hears,
Well pleased, and then enfoldeth in his arms
The servant, who hath joyful tidings brought,
And having told the errand keeps his peace ;
Thus benediction uttering with song,
Soon as my peace I held, compassed me thrice
The apostolic radiance, whose behest 150
Had oped my lips: so well their answer pleased.

CANTO XXV

ARGUMENT

St. James questions our Poet concerning Hope. Next St. John appears;
and, on perceiving that Dante looks intently on him, informs him that
he, St. John, had left his body resolved into earth, upon the earth; and
that Christ and the Virgin alone had come with their bodies into heaven.

Ir e’er the sacred poem, that hath made
Both heaven and earth copartners in its toil,
And with lean abstinence, through many a year,

326 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxv

Faded my brow, be destined to prevail
Over the cruelty, which bars me forth
Of the fair sheep-fold, where, a sleeping lamb,
The wolves set on and fain had worried me ;
With other voice, and fleece of other grain,
I shall forthwith return; and, standing up
At my baptismal font, shall claim the wreath 10
Due to the poet’s temples: for I there
First entered on the faith, which maketh souls
Acceptable to God: and, for its sake,
Peter had then circled my forehead thus.
Next from the squadron, whence had issued forth
The first fruit of Christ’s vicars on the earth,
Toward us moved a light, at view whereof
My Lady, full of gladness, spake to me:
“Lo! lo! behold the peer of mickle might,
That makes Galicia thronged with visitants.’ 20
As when the ring-dove by his mate alights ;
In circles, each about the other wheels,
And, murmuring, coos his fondness: thus saw I
One, of the other great and glorious prince,
With kindly greeting, hailed; extolling, both,
Their heavenly banqueting: but when an end
Was to their gratulation, silent, each,
Before me sat they down, so burning bright,
I could not look upon them. Smiling then,
Beatrice spake: ‘O life in glory shrined! 30
Who didst the largess of our kingly court
Set down with faithful pen; let now thy voice,
Of hope the praises, in this height resound.
For well thou know’st, who figurest it as oft,
As Jesus, to ye three, more brightly shone.’
‘Lift up thy head; and be thou strong in trust:
For that, which hither from the mortal world
Arriveth, must be ripened in our beam.’
Such cheering accents from the second flame
Assured me; and mine eyes I lifted up 40
Unto the mountains, that had bowed them late
With over-heavy burden. ‘Sith our Liege
Wills of his grace, that thou, or e’er thy death,
In the most secret council with his lords
Shouldst be confronted, so that having viewed
The glories of our court, thou mayst therewith
Thyself, and all who hear, invigorate
With hope, that leads to blissful end; declare,
What is that hope ? how it doth flourish in thee ?
And whence thou hadst it?’ Thus, proceeding still, 50
The second light: and she, whose gentle love
My soaring pennons in that lofty flight

LINEs 4-79] PARADISE

Escorted, thus preventing me, rejoined :

‘Among her sons, not one more full of hope,
Hath the church militant: so ’tis of him
Recorded in the sun, whose liberal orb
Enlighteneth all our tribe: and ere his term

Of warfare, hence permitted he is come,

From Egypt to Jerusalem, to see.

The other points, both which thou hast inquired,
Not for mcre knowledge, but that he may tell
How dear thou hold’st the virtue; these to him
Leave I: for he may answer thee with ease,
And without boasting, so God give him grace.’

Like to the scholar, practised in his task,
Who, willing to give proof of diligence,
Seconds his teacher gladly; ‘ Hope,’ said I,
‘Is of the joy to come a sure expectance,
The effect of grace divine and merit preceding.
This light from many a star, visits my heart ;
But flowed to me, the first, from him who sang
The songs of the Supreme; himself supreme
Among his tuneful brethren. ‘ Let all hope
In thee,” so spake his anthem, ‘‘ who have known

327

60

79

Thy name;” and, with my faith, who know not that ?

From thee, the next, distilling from his spring,
In thine epistle, fell on me the drops

So plenteously, that I on others shower

The influence of their dew.’ Whileas I spake,

328

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxv

A lamping, as of quick and volleyed lightning,
Within the bosom of that mighty sheen

Played tremulous; then forth these accents breathed :

‘Love for the virtue, which attended me
E’en to the palm, and issuing from the field,
Glows vigorous yet within me; and inspires
To ask of thee, whom also it delights,
What promise thou from hope, in chief, dost win.’
‘Both scriptures, new and ancient,’ I replied,
‘Propose the mark (which even now I view)
For souls beloved of God. Isaias saith,
“That, in their own land, each one must be clad
In twofold vesture;”’ and their proper land
Is this delicious life. In terms more full,
And clearer far, thy brother hath set forth
This revelation to us, where he tells
Of the white raiment destined to the saints.’
And, as the words were ending, from above,
“They hope in thee!’ first heard we cried: whereto
Answered the carols all. Amidst them next,
A light of so clear amplitude emerged,
That winter's month were but a single day,
Were such a crystal in the Cancer’s sign.
Like as a virgin riseth up, and goes,
And enters on the mazes of the dance ;
Though gay, yet innocent of worse intent,
Than to do fitting honour to the bride:
So I beheld the new effulgence come
Unto the other two, who in a ring
Wheeled, as became their rapture. In the dance,
And in the song, it mingled. And the dame
Held on them fixed her looks; e’en as the spouse,
Silent, and moveless. ‘This is he, who lay
Upon the bosom of our pelican :
This he, into whose keeping, from the cross,
The mighty charge was given.’ Thus she spake:
Yet therefore naught the more removed her sight
From marking them: or e’er her words began,
Or when they closed. As he, who looks intent,
And strives with searching ken, how he may see
The sun in his eclipse, and, through desire
Of seeing, loseth power of sight; so I
Peered on that last resplendence, while I heard :
“Why dazzlest thou thine eyes in seeking that,
Which here abides not? Earth my body is,
In earth; and shall be, with the rest, so long,
As till our number equal the decree
Of the Most High. The two that have ascended,
In this our blessed cloister, shine alone

80

99

100

Ilo

120

CANTO XXxvT] PARADISE 329

With the two garments. So report below.’
As when, for ease of labour, or to shun 130
Suspected peril, at a whistle’s breath,
The oars, erewhile dashed frequent in the wave,
All rest: the flamy circle at that voice
So rested; and the mingling sound was still,

Which from the trinal band, soft-breathing, rose.
I turned, but ah! how trembled in my thought,
When, looking at my side again to see

Beatrice, I descried her not; although,

Not distant, on the happy coast she stood.

CANTO XXVI

ARGUMENT

St. John examines our Poet touching Charity. Afterwards Adam tells
when he was created, and placed in the terrestrial Paradise ; how long he
remained in that state ; what was the occasion of his fall; when he was
admitted into heaven ; and what language he spake.

WirtH dazzled eyes, whilst wondering I remained ;
Forth of the beamy flame, which dazzled me,

Issued a breath, that in attention mute

Detained me; and these words it spake: ‘’Twere well,
That, long as till thy vision, on my form

O’erspent, regain its virtue, with discourse

Thou compensate the brief delay. Say then,

330 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxv

Beginning, to what point thy soul aspires:

And meanwhile rest assured, that sight in thee

Is but o’erpowered a space, not wholly quenched ; 10

Since thy fair guide and lovely, in her look

Hath potency, the like to that, which dwelt

In Ananias’ hand.’ I answering thus:

‘Be to mine eyes the remedy, or late

Or early, at her pleasure; for they were

The gates, at which she entered, and did light

Her never-dying fire. My wishes here

Are centred: in this palace is the weal,

That Alpha and Omega is, to all

The lessons love can read me.’ Yet again 20

The voice, which had dispersed my fear when dazed

With that excess, to converse urged, and spake:

‘Behoves thee sift more narrowly thy terms ;

And say, who levelled at this scope thy bow.’
‘Philosophy,’ said I, ‘hath arguments,

And this place hath authority enough,

To imprint in me such love: for, of constraint,

Good, inasmuch as we perceive the good,

Kindles our love; and in degree the more,

As it comprises more of goodness in ’t. 30

The essence then, where such advantage is,

That each good, found without it, is naught else

But of his light the beam, must needs attract

The soul of each one, loving, who the truth

Discerns, on which this proof is built. Such truth

Learn I from him, who shows me the first love

Of all intelligential substances

Eternal: from his voice I learn, whose word

Is truth; that of himself to Moses saith,

“T will make all my good before thee pass: ” 40

Lastly, from thee I learn, who chief proclaim’st

E’en at the outset of thy heralding,

In mortal ears the mystery of heaven.’
‘Through human wisdom, and the authority

Therewith agreeing,’ heard I answered, ‘ keep

The choicest of thy love for God. But say,

If thou yet other cords within thee feel’st,

That draw thee towards him; so that thou report

How many are the fangs, with which this love

Is grappled to thy soul.’ I did not miss, 5°

To what intent the eagle of our Lord

Had pointed his demand; yea, noted well

The avowal which he led to; and resumed:

‘ All grappling bonds, that knit the heart to God,

Confederate to make fast our charity.

The being of the world; and mine own being ;

LINES 8-105] PARADISE 331

The death which He endured, that I should live ;
And that, which all the faithful hope, as I do;
To the forementioned lively knowledge joined ;
Have from the sea of ill love saved my bark, 60
And on the coast secured it of the right.
As for the leaves, that in the garden bloom,
My love for them is great, as is the good
Dealt by the eternal hand, that tends them all.’
I ended: and therewith a song most sweet
Rang through the spheres; and * Holy, holy, holy,’
Accordant with the rest, my lady sang.
And as a sleep is broken and dispersed
Through sharp encounter of the nimble light,
With the eye’s spirit running forth to meet 70
The ray, from membrane on to membrane urged ;
And the upstartled wight loathes that he sees ;
So, at his sudden waking, he misdeems
Of all around him, till assurance waits
On better judgement: thus the saintly dame
Drove from before mine eyes the motes a\ay,
With the resplendence of her own, that cast
Their brightness downward, thousand miles below.
Whence I my vision, clearer than before,
Recovered ; and wellnigh astounded, asked 80
Of a fourth light, that now with us I saw.
And Beatrice: ‘The first living soul,
That ever the first virtue framed, admires
Within these rays his Maker.’ Like the leaf,
That bows its lithe top till the blast is blown ;
By its own virtue reared, then stands aloof:
So I, the whilst she said, awe-stricken bowed.
Then eagerness to speak emboldened me ;
And I began: ‘O fruit! that wast alone
Mature, when first engendered ; ancient father ! go
That doubly seest in every wedded bride
Thy daughter, by affinity and blood ;
Devoutly as I may, I pray thee hold
Converse with me: my will thou seest: and I,
More speedily to hear thee, tell it not.’
It chanceth oft some animal bewrays,
Through the sleek covering of his furry coat,
The fondness, that stirs in him, and conforms
His outside seeming to the cheer within:
And in like guise was Adam’s spirit moved 100
To joyous mood, that through the covering shone,
Transparent, when to pleasure me it spake:
‘No need thy will be told, which I untold
Better discern, than thou whatever thing
Thou hold’st most certain: for that will I see

332 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxv1

In Him, who is truth’s mirror; and Himself,

Parhelion unto all things, and naught else,

To Him. This wouldst thou hear: how long since, God
Placed me in that high garden, from whose bounds

She led me up this ladder, steep and long ; 110
What space endured my season of delight ;

Whence truly sprang the wrath that banished me ;

And what the language, which I spake and framed.

Not that I tasted of the tree, my son,

Was in itself the cause of that exile,

But only my transgressing of the mark

Assigned me. There, whence at thy lady’s hest

The Mantuan moved him, still was I debarred

This council, till the sun had made complete,

Four thousand and three hundred rounds and twice, 120
His annual journey; and, through every light

In his broad pathway, saw I him return,

Thousand save seventy times, the whilst I dwelt

Upon the earth. The language I did use

Was worn away, or ever Nimrod’s race

Their unaccomplishable work began.

For naught, that man inclines to, e’er was lasting ;

Left by his reason free, and variable

As is the sky that sways him. That he speaks,

Is nature’s prompting: whether thus, or thus, 130
She leaves to you, as ye do most affect it.

Ere I descended into hell’s abyss,

El was the name on earth of the Chief Good,

Whose joy enfolds me: Eli then twas called.

And so beseemeth: for, in mortals, use

Is as the leaf upon the bough: that goes,

And other comes instead. Upon the mount

Most high above the waters, all my life,

Both innocent and guilty, did but reach

From the first hour, to that which cometh next 140
(As the sun changes quarter) to the sixth.’

CANTO XXVII

ARGUMENT

St. Peter bitterly rebukes the covetousness of his successors in the apostolic
see, while all the heavenly host sympathize in his indignation : they then
vanish upwards. Beatrice bids Dante again cast his view below. After-
wards they are borne into the ninth heaven, of which she shows him the
nature and properties; blaming the perverseness of man, who places his
will on low and perishable things.

THEN ‘Glory to the Father, to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit,’ rang aloud
Throughout all Paradise; that with the song

CANTO XXVIT] PARADISE 333

My spirit reeled, so passing sweet the strain.
And what I saw was equal ecstasy :
One universal smile it seemed of all things ;
Joy past compare; gladness unutterable ;
Imperishable life of peace and love ;
Exhaustless riches, and unmeasured. bliss.

Before mine eyes stood the four torches lit: 10
And that, which first had come, began to wax
In brightness; and, in semblance, such became,
As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds,
And interchanged their plumes. Silence ensued,
Through the blest choir; by Him, who here appoints
Vicissitude of ministry, enjoined ;

When thus I heard: ‘Wonder not, if my hue

Be changed ; for, while I speak, these shalt thou see

All in like manner change with me. My place

He who usurps on earth (my place, aye, mine, 20
Which in the presence of the Son of God

Is void), the same hath made my cemetery

A common sewer of puddle and of blood:

The more below his triumph, who from hence

Malignant fell.’ Such colour, as the sun,

At eve or morning, paints an adverse cloud,

Then saw I sprinkled over all the sky.

And as the unblemished dame, who, in herself

Secure of censure, yet at bare report

Of other’s failing, shrinks with maiden fear; 30

334 THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxvir

So Beatrice, in her semblance changed:

And such eclipse in heaven, methinks, was seen,
When the Most Holy suffered. Then the words
Proceeded, with voice, altered from itself

So clean, the semblance did not alter more.

‘Not to this end was Christ’s spouse with my blood,
With that of Linus, and of Cletus, fed ;

That she might serve for purchase of base gold.
But for the purchase of this happy life,

Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed, 40
And Urban; they, whose doom was not without
Much weeping sealed. No purpose was of ours,
That on the right hand of our successors,

Part of the Christian people should be set,

And part upon their left; nor that the keys,

Which were vouchsafed me, should for ensign serve
Unto the banners, that do levy war

On the baptized: nor I, for sigil-mark,

Set upon sold and lying privileges:

Which makes me oft to bicker and turn red. 50
In shepherd’s clothing, greedy wolves below

Range wide o’er all the pastures. Arm of God!
Why longer sleepest thou ? Cahorsines and Gascons
Prepare to quaff our blood. O good beginning !

To what a vile conclusion must thou stoop.

But the high providence, which did defend,

Through Scipio, the world’s empery for Rome,

Will not delay its succour: and thou, son,

Who through thy mortal weight shalt yet again
Return below, open thy lips, nor hide 60
What is by me not hidden.’ As a flood

Of frozen vapours streams adown the air,

What time the she-goat with her skyey horn
Touches the sun; so saw I there stream wide

The vapours, who with us had lingered late,

And with glad triumph deck the ethereal cope.
Onward my sight their semblances pursued ;

So far pursued, as till the space between

From its reach severed them: whereat the guide
Celestial, marking me no more intent 70
On upward gazing, said, ‘Look down, and sce

What circuit thou hast compassed.’ From the hour
When I before had cast my view beneath,

All the first region overpast I saw,

Which from the midmost to the boundary winds ;
That onward, thence, from Gades, I beheld

The unwise passage of Laertes’ son ;

And hitherward the shore, where thou, Europa,
Madest thee a joyful burden; and yet more

LINEs 31-128] PARADISE 335

Of this dim spot had seen, but that the sun, 80
A constellation off and more, had ta’en
His progress in the zodiac underneath.
Then by the spirit, that doth never leave
Its amorous dalliance with my lady’s looks,
Back with redoubled ardour were mine eyes
Led unto her: and from her radiant smiles,
Whenas I turned me, pleasure so divine
Did lighten on me, that whatever bait
Or art or nature in the human flesh,
Or in its limned resemblance, can combine go
Through greedy eyes to take the soul withal,
Were, to her beauty, nothing. Its boon influence
From the fair nest of Leda rapt me forth,
And wafted on into the swiftest heaven.
What place for entrance Beatrice chose,
I may not say; so uniform was all,
Liveliest and loftiest. She my secret wish
Divined ; and, with such gladness, that God’s love
Seemed from her visage shining, thus began :
* Here is the goal, whence motion on his race 100
Starts: motionless the centre, and the rest
All moved around. Except the soul divine,
Place in this heaven is none; the soul divine,
Wherein the love, which ruleth o’er its orb,
Is kindled, and the virtue, that it sheds:
One circle, light and love, enclasping it,
As this doth clasp the others; and to Him,
Who draws the bound, its limit only known.
Measured itself by none, it doth divide
Motion to all, counted unto them forth, 110
As by the fifth or half ye count forth ten.
The vase, wherein time’s roots are plunged, thou seest :
Look elsewhere for the leaves. O mortal lust !
That canst not lift thy head above the waves
Which whelm and sink thee down. The will in man
Bears goodly blossoms; but its ruddy promise
Is, by the dripping of perpetual rain,
Made mere abortion: faith and innocence
Are met with but in babes; each taking leave,
re cheeks with down are sprinkled: he, that fasts 120
While yet a stammerer, with his tongue let loose
Gluts every food alike in every moon:
One, yet a babbler, loves and listens to
His mother; but no sooner hath free use
Of speech, than he doth wish her in her grave.
So suddenly doth the fair child of him,
Whose welcome is the morn and eve his parting,
To negro blackness change her virgin white.

336 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvi

‘Thou, to abate thy wonder, note, that none
Bears rule in earth; and its frail family 130
Are therefore wanderers. Yet before the date,
When, through the hundredth in his reckoning dropped,
Pale January must be shoved aside
From winter’s calendar, these heavenly spheres
Shall roar so loud, that fortune shall be fain
To turn the poop, where she hath now the prow ;
So that the fleet run onward: and true fruit,
Expected long, shall crown at last the bloom.’

CANTO XXVIII

ARGUMENT

Still in the ninth heaven, our Poet is permitted to behold the divine essence ;
and then sees, in three hierarchies, the nine choirs of angels. Beatrice
clears some difficulties which occur to him on this occasion.

So she, who doth imparadise my soul,

Had drawn the veil from off our present life,

And bared the truth of poor mortality :

When lo! as one who, in a mirror, spies

The shining of a flambeau at his back,

Lit sudden ere he deem of its approach,

And turneth to resolve him, if the glass

Have told him true, and sees the record faithful

As note is to its metre; even thus,

I well remember, did befall to me, ite)
Looking upon the beauteous eyes, whence love

Had made the leash to take me. As I turned:

And that which none, who in that volume looks,

Can miss of, in itself apparent, struck

My view; a point I saw, that darted light

So sharp, no lid, unclosing, may bear up

Against its keenness. The least star we ken

From hence, had seemed a moon; set by its side,

As star by side of star. And so far off,

Perchance, as is the halo from the light 20
Which paints it, when most dense the vapour spreads ;
There wheeled about the point a circle of fire,

More rapid than the motion which surrounds,
Speediest, the world. Another this enringed ;

And that a third; the third a fourth, and that

A fifth encompassed ; which a sixth next bound ;

And over this, a seventh, following, reached
Circumference so ample, that its bow,

Within the span of Juno’s messenger,

CANTO XXVIIT]

PARADISE

Had scarce been held entire. Beyond the seventh,
Ensued yet other two. And every one,

As more in number distant from the first,

Was tardier in motion: and that glowed

With flame most pure, that to the sparkle of truth,
Was nearest; as partaking most, methinks,

Of its reality. The guide beloved

Saw me in anxious thought suspense, and spake:
‘Heaven, and all nature, hangs upon that point.
The circle thereto most conjoined observe ;

And know, that by intenser love its course
Is, to this swiftness, winged.’ To whom I thus:

(li,

>

=
~
=
—
—
~
=
=

//) Y
se Pin ee Au
SED a iz OES Ty BAR ROSARY?

‘It were enough; nor should I further seek,

Had I but witnessed order, in the world

Appointed, such as in these wheels is seen.

But in the sensible world such difference ts,

That in each round shows more divinity,

As each is wider from the centre. Hence,

If in this wondrous and angelic temple,

That hath, for confine, only light and love,

My wish may have completion, I must know

Wherefore such disagreement is between

The exemplar and its copy: for myself,

Contemplating, I fail to pierce the cause.’
“It is no marvel, if thy fingers foiled

Do leave the knot untied: so hard ’tis grown

337

30

5°

338 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxvm

For want of tenting. Thus she said: ‘ But take,’
She added, ‘if thou wish thy cure, my words,
And entertain them subtly. Every orb,
Corporeal, doth proportion its extent
Unto the virtue through its parts diffused. 60
The greater blessedness preserves the more.
The greater is the body (if all parts
Share equally) the more is to preserve.
Therefore the circle, whose swift course enwheels
The universal frame, answers to that
Which is supreme in knowledge and in love.
Thus by the virtue, not the seeming breadth
Of substance, measuring, thou shalt see the heavens,
Each to the intelligence that ruleth it,
Greater to more, and smaller unto less, 70
Suited in strict and wondrous harmony.’

As when the north blows from his milder cheek
A blast, that scours the sky, forthwith our air,
Cleared of the rack that hung on it before,
Glitters ; and, with his beauties all unveiled,
The firmament looks forth serene, and smiles:
Such was my cheer, when Beatrice drove
With clear reply the shadows back, and truth
Was manifested, as a star in heaven.
And when the words were ended, not unlike 80
To iron in the furnace, every cirque,
Ebullient, shot forth scintillating fires :
And every sparkle shivering to new blaze,
In number did outmillion the account
Reduplicate upon the chequered board.
Then heard I echoing on, from choir to choir,
‘Hosanna,’ to the fixed point, that holds,
And shall for ever hold them to their place,
From everlasting, irremovable.

Musing awhile I stood: and she, who saw go
My inward meditations, thus began :
‘In the first circles, they, whom thou beheld’st,
Are seraphim and cherubim. Thus swift
Follow their hoops, in likeness to the point,
Near as they can, approaching; and they can
The more, the loftier their vision. Those
That round them fleet, gazing the Godhead next,
Are thrones; in whom the first trine ends. And all
Are blessed, even as their sight descends
Deeper into the truth, wherein rest is Too
For every mind. Thus happiness hath root
In seeing, not in loving, which of sight
Is aftergrowth. And of the seeing such
The meed, as unto each, in due degree,

CANTO xxIx] PARADISE 339

Grace and goodwill their measure have assigned.

The other trine, that with still opening buds

In this eternal springtide blossom fair,

Fearless of bruising from the nightly ram,

Breathe up in warbled melodies threefold

Hosannas, blending ever; from the three, 110
Transmitted, hierarchy of gods, for ay

Rejoicing ; dominations first; next them,

Virtues ; and powers the third; the next to whom

Are princedoms and archangels, with glad round

To tread their festal ring; and last, the band

Angelical, disporting in their sphere.

All, as they circle in their orders, look

Aloft; and, downward, with such sway prevail,

That all with mutual impulse tend to God.

These once a mortal view beheld. Desire, 120
In Dionysius, so intensely wrought,

That he, as I have done, ranged them; and named

Their orders, marshalled in his thought. From him,
Dissentient, one refused his sacred read ;

But soon as in this heaven his doubting eyes

Were opened, Gregory at his error smiled.

Nor marvel, that a denizen of earth

Should scan such secret truth; for he had learnt

Both this and much beside of these our orbs,

From an eye-witness to heaven’s mysteries.’ 130

CANTO XXIX

ARGUMENT

Beatrice beholds, in the mirror of divine truth, some doubts which had
entered the mind of Dante. These she resolves; and then digresses into
a vehement reprehension of certain theologians and preachers in those
days, whose ignorance or avarice induced them to substitute their own
inventions for the pure word of the Gospel.

No longer, than what time Latona’s twins
Covered of Libra and the fleecy star,

Together both, girding the horizon hang ;

In even balance, from the zenith poised ;

Till from that verge, each, changing hemisphere,
Part the nice level; e’en so brief a space

Did Beatrice’s silence hold. A smile

Sat painted on her cheek; and her fixed gaze
Bent on the point, at which my vision failed :
When thus, her words resuming, she began : 10
‘I speak, nor what thou wouldst inquire, demand ;
For I have marked it, where all time and place

340 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxix

Are present. Not for increase to himself

Of good, which may not be increased, but forth
To manifest his glory by its beams ;

Inhabiting his own eternity,

Beyond time’s limit or what bound soe’er

To circumscribe his being; as he willed,

Into new natures, like unto himself,

Eternal love unfolded: nor before, 20
As if in dull inaction, torpid, lay ;

For, not in process of before or aft,

Upon these waters moved the Spirit of God.
Simple and mixed, both form and substance, forth

To perfect being started, like three darts

Shot from a bow three-corded. And as ray

In crystal, glass, and amber, shines entire,

E’en at the moment of its issuing; thus

Did, from the eternal Sovereign, beam entire

His threefold operation, at one act 3c
Produced coeval. Yet, in order, each

Created his due station knew: those highest,

Who pure intelligence were made; mere power,
The lowest; in the midst, bound with strict league,
Intelligence and power, unsevered bond.

Long tract of ages by the angels passed,

Ere the creating of another world,

Described on Jerome’s pages, thou hast seen.

But that what I disclose to thee is true,

LInEs 13-88] PARADISE 341

Those penmen, whom the Holy Spirit moved, 40
In many a passage of their sacred book,
Attest; as thou by diligent search shalt find :
And reason, in some sort, discerns the same,
Who scarce would grant the heavenly ministers,
Of their perfection void, so long a space.
Thus when and where these spirits of love were made,
Thou knowest, and how: and, knowing, hast allayed
Thy thirst, which from the triple question rose.
Ere one had reckoned twenty, e’en so soon,
Part of the angels fell: and, in their fall, 50
Confusion to your elements ensued.
The others kept their station: and this task,
Whereon thou look’st, began, with such delight,
That they surcease not ever, day nor night,
Their circling. Of that fatal lapse the cause
Was the curst pride of him, whom thou hast seen
Pent with the world’s encumbrance. Those, whom here
Thou seest, were lowly to confess themselves
Of his free bounty, who had made them apt
For ministries so high: therefore their views 60
Were, by enlightening grace and their own merit,
Exalted ; so that in their will confirmed
They stand, nor fear to fall. For do not doubt,
But to receive the grace, which Heaven vouchsafes,
Is meritorious, even as the soul
With prompt affection welcometh the guest.
Now, without further help, if with good heed
My words thy mind have treasured, thou henceforth
This consistory round about mayst scan,
And gaze thy fill. But, since thou hast on earth 70
Heard vain disputers, reasoners in the schools,
Canvass the angelic nature, and dispute
Its powers of apprehension, memory, choice ;
Therefore, ’tis well thou take from me the truth,
Pure and without disguise; which they below,
Equivocating, darken and perplex.
‘Know thou, that, from the first, these substances,
Rejoicing in the countenance of God,
Have held unceasingly their view, intent
Upon the glorious vision, from the which 80
Naught absent is nor hid: where then no change
Of newness, with succession, interrupts,
Remembrance, there, needs none to gather up
Divided thought and images remote.
‘So that men, thus at variance with the truth,
Dream, though their eyes be open; reckless some
Of error; others well aware they err,
To whom more guilt and shame are justly due.

342 THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canro xxix

Each the known track of sage philosophy
Deserts, and has a by-way of his own: go
So much the restless eagerness to shine,
And love of singularity, prevail.
Yet this, offensive as it is, provokes
Heaven’s anger less, than when the book of God
Is forced to yield to man’s authority,
Or from its straightness warped: no reckoning made
What blood the sowing of it in the world
Has cost; what favour for himself he wins,
Who meekly clings to it. The aim of all
Is how to shine: e’en they, whose office is 100
To preach the Gospel, let the Gospel sleep,
And pass their own inventions off instead.
One tells, how at Christ’s suffering the wan moon
Bent back her steps, and shadowed o’er the sun
With intervenient disk, as she withdrew:
Another, how the light shrouded itself
Within its tabernacle, and left dark
The Spaniard, and the Indian, with the Jew.
Such fables Florence in her pulpit hears,
Bandied about more frequent, than the names IIo
Of Bindi and of Lapi in her streets.
The sheep, meanwhile, poor witless ones, return
From pasture, fed with wind: and what avails
For their excuse, they do not see their harm ?
Christ said not to his first conventicle,
‘“*Go forth and preach impostures to the world,”
But gave them truth to build on; and the sound
Was mighty on their lips: nor needed they,
Beside the Gospel, other spear or shield,
To aid them in their warfare for the faith. 120
The preacher now provides himself with store
Of jests and gibes; and, so there be no lack
Of laughter, while he vents them, his big cowl
Distends, and he has won the meed he sought:
Could but the vulgar catch a glimpse the while
Of that dark bird which nestles in his hood,
They scarce would wait to hear the blessing said,
Which now the dotards hold in such esteem,
That every counterfeit, who spreads abroad
The hands of holy promise, finds a throng 130
Of credulous fools beneath. Saint Anthony
Fattens with this his swine, and others worse
Than swine, who diet at his lazy board,
Paying with unstamped metal for their fare.
‘But (for we far have wandered) let us seek
The forward path again; so as the way
Be shortened with the time. No mortal tongue,

CaNTO Xxx] PARADISE 343

Nor thought of man, hath ever reached so far,

That of these natures he might count the tribes.

What Daniel of their thousands hath revealed, 140
With finite number, infinite conceals.

The fountain, at whose source these drink their beams,
With light supplies them in as many modes,

As there are splendours that it shines on: each
According to the virtue it conceives,

Differing in love and sweet affection.

Look then how lofty and how huge in breadth

The eternal might, which, broken and dispersed

Over such countless mirrors, yet remains

Whole in itself and one, as at the first.’ 150

CANTO XXX

ARGUMENT

Dante is taken up with Beatrice into the Empyrean ; and there having his
sight strengthened by her aid, and by the virtue derived from looking on
the river of light, he sees the triumph of the angels and of the souls of the
blessed.

Noon’s fervid hour perchance six thousand miles
From hence is distant; and the shadowy cone
Almost to level on our earth declines ;
When, from the midmost of this blue abyss,
By turns some star is to our vision lost.
And straightway as the handmaid of the sun
Puts forth her radiant brow, all, light by light,
Fade; and the spangled firmament shuts in,
F’en to the loveliest of the glittering throng.
Thus vanished gradually from my sight 10
The triumph, which plays ever round the point,
That overcame me, seeming (for it did)
Engirt by that it girdeth. Wherefore love,
With loss of other object, forced me bend
Mine eyes on Beatrice once again.

If all, that hitherto is told of her,
Were in one praise concluded, ’twere too weak
To furnish out this turn. Mine eyes did look
On beauty, such, as I believe in sooth,
Not merely to exceed our human; but, 20
That save its Maker, none can to the full
Enjoy it. At this point o’erpowered I fail ;
Unequal to my theme; as never bard
Of buskin or of sock hath failed before.
For as the sun doth to the feeblest sight,

344

THE VISION OF DANTE — [Canto xxx

E’en so remembrance of that witching smile
Hath dispossessed my spirit of itself.

Not from that day, when on this earth I first
Beheld her charms, up to that view of them,
Have I with song applausive ever ceased

To follow; but now follow them no more;
My course here bounded, as each artist’s is,
When it doth touch the limit of his skill.

She (such as I bequeath her to the bruit
Of louder trump than mine, which hasteneth on,
Urging its arduous matter to the close)

Her words resumed, in gesture and in voice

30

Resembling one accustomed to command:

‘Forth from the last corporeal are we come

Into the heaven, that is unbodied light ;

Light intellectual, replete with love ;

Love of true happiness, replete with joy;

Joy, that transcends all sweetness of delight.

Here shalt thou look on either mighty host

Of Paradise; and one in that array,

Which in the final judgement thou shalt see.’
As when the lightning, in a sudden spleen

Unfolded, dashes from the blinding eyes

The visive spirits, dazzled and bedimmed ;

So, round about me, fulminating streams

Of living radiance played, and left me swathed

And veiled in dense impenetrable blaze.

40

LINEs 26-101] PARADISE 345

Such weal is in the love, that stills this heaven ;
For its own flame the torch thus fitting ever.
No sooner to my listening ear had come
The brief assurance, than I understood
New virtue into me infused, and sight
Kindled afresh, with vigour to sustain
Excess of light however pure. I looked ;
And, in the likeness of a river, saw 60
Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves
Flashed up effulgence, as they glided on
*Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring,
Incredible how fair: and, from the tide,
There ever and anon, outstarting, flew
Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flowers
Did set them, like to rubies chased in gold:
Then, as if drunk with odours, plunged again
Into the wondrous flood; from which, as one
Re-entered, still another rose. ‘The thirst 70
Of knowledge high, whereby thou art inflamed,
To search the meaning of what here thou seest,
The more it warms thee, pleases me the more.
But first behoves thee of this water drink,
Or e’er that longing be allayed.’ So spake
The day-star of mine eyes: then thus subjoined :
‘This stream; and these, forth issuing from its gulf,
And diving back, a living topaz each ;
With all this laughter on its bloomy shores ;
Are but a preface, shadowy of the truth 80
They emblem: not that, in themselves, the things
Are crude; but on thy part is the defect,
For that thy views not yet aspire so high.’
Never did babe that had outslept his wont.
Rush, with such eager straining, to the milk,
As I toward the water; bending me,
To make the better mirrors of mine eyes
In the refining wave: and as the eaves
Of mine eyelids did drink of it, forthwith
Seemed it unto me turned from length to round. go
Then as a troop of maskers, when they put
Their vizors off, look other than before ;
The counterfeited semblance thrown aside:
So into greater jubilee were changed
Those flowers and sparkles; and distinct I saw,
Before me, either court of heaven displayed.
O prime enlightener! thou who gavest me strength
On the high triumph of thy realm to gaze ;
Grant virtue now to utter what I kenned.
There is in heaven a light, whose goodly shine 100
Makes the Creator visible to all

THE VISION OF DANTE = [Canto xxx

Created, that in seeing him alone

Have peace; and in a circle spreads so far,
That the circumference were too loose a zone
To girdle in the sun. All is one beam,
Reflected from the summit of the first,

That moves, which being hence and vigour takes.
And as some cliff, that from the bottom eyes
His image mirrored in the crystal flood,

As if to admire his brave apparelling

Of verdure and of flowers; so, round about,
Eyeing the light, on more than million thrones,
Stood, eminent, whatever from our earth

Has to the skies returned. How wide the leaves,
Extended to their utmost, of this rose,

Whose lowest step embosoms such a space

Of ample radiance! Yet, nor amplitude

Nor height impeded, but my view with ease
Took in the full dimensions of that joy.

Near or remote, what there avails, where God
Immediate rules, and Nature, awed, suspends
Her sway? Into the yellow of the rose
Perennial, which, in bright expansiveness,

Lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent

Of praises to the never-wintering sun,

As one, who fain would speak yet holds his peace,
Beatrice led me; and, ‘ Behold,’ she said,

‘This fair assemblage; stoles of snowy white,
How numberless. The city, where we dwell,
Behold how vast; and these our seats so thronged,
Few now are wanting here. In that proud stall,
On which, the crown, already o’er its state
Suspended, holds thine eyes—or e’er thyself
Mayst at the wedding sup,—shall rest the soul
Of the great Harry, he who, by the world
Augustus hailed, to Italy must come,

Before her day be ripe. But ye are sick,

And in your tetchy wantonness as blind,

As is the bantling, that of hunger dies,

And drives away the nurse. Nor may it be,
That he, who in the sacred forum sways,
Openly or in secret, shall with him

Accordant walk: whom God will not endure

l the holy office long; but thrust him down
To Simon Magus, where Alagna’s priest

Will sink beneath him: such will be his meed.’

Ilo

120

130

140

CANTO Xxxt1] PARADISE 347

SANTO XXXI

ARGUMENT

The Poet expatiates further on the glorious vision described in the last Canto.
On looking round for Beatrice, he finds that she has left him, and that
an old man is at his side. This proves to be St. Bernard, who shows
him that Beatrice has returned to her throne, and then points out to him
the blessedness of the Virgin Mother.

In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
Before my view the saintly multitude,
Which in his own blood Christ espoused. Meanwhile,
That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
Hovered around ; and, like a troop of bees,
Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
Flew downward to the mighty flower, or rose
From the redundant petals, streaming back 10
Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold:
The rest was whiter than the driven snow;
And, as they flitted down into the flower,
From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
Whispered the peace and ardour, which they won
From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast
Interposition of such numerous flight
Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view
Obstructed aught. For, through the universe, 20
Wherever merited, celestial light
Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.

All there, who reign in safety and in bliss,
Ages long past or new, on one sole mark
Their love and vision fixed. O trinal beam
Of individual star, that charm’st them thus!
Vouchsafe one glance to gild our storm below.

If the grim brood, from Arctic shores that roamed
(Where Helice for ever, as she wheels,
Sparkles a mother’s fondness on her son), 30
Stood in mute wonder ’mid the works of Rome,
When to their view the Lateran arose
In greatness more than earthly; I, who then
From human to divine had passed, from time
Unto eternity, and out of Florence
To justice and to truth, how might I choose
But marvel too? °*Twixt gladness and amaze,

348 THE VISION OF DANTE § [Canto xxx1

In sooth no will had I to utter aught

Or hear. And, as a pilgrim, when he rests

Within the temple of his vow, looks round 40

In breathless awe, and hopes some time to tell

Of all its goodly state; een so mine eyes

Coursed up and down along the living light,

Now low, and now aloft, and now around,

Visiting every step. Looks I beheld,

Where charity in soft persuasion sat ;

Smiles from within, and radiance from above ;

And, in each gesture, grace and honour high.
So roved my ken, and in its general form

All Paradise surveyed: when round I turned 50

With purpose of my lady to inquire

Once more of things, that held my thought suspense,

But answer found from other than I weened ;

For, Beatrice when I thought to see,

I saw instead a senior, at my side,

Robed, as the rest, in glory. Joy benign

Glowed in his eye, and o’er his cheek diffused,

With gestures such as spake a father’s love.

And, ‘ Whither is she vanished ?’ straight I asked.
‘By Beatrice summoned,’ he replied, 60

“I come to aid thy wish. Looking aloft

To the third circle from the highest, there

Behold her on the throne, wherein her merit

Hath placed her.’ Answering not, mine eyes I raised,

And saw her, where aloof she sat, her brow

A wreath reflecting of eternal beams.

Not from the centre of the sea so far

Unto the region of the highest thunder,

As was my ken from hers; and yet the form

Came through that medium down, unmixed and pure. 70
‘O lady! thou in whom my hopes have rest ;

Who, for my safety, hast not scorned, in hell

To leave the traces of thy footsteps marked ;

For all mine eyes have seen, I to thy power

And goodness, virtue owe and grace. Of slave

Thou hast to freedom brought me: and no means,

For my deliverance apt, hast left untried.

Thy liberal bounty still toward me keep:

That, when my spirit, which thou madest whole,

Is loosened from this body, it may find 80

Favour with thee.’ So I my suit preferred :

And she, so distant, as appeared, looked down,

And smiled; then towards the eternal fountain turned,
And thus the senior, holy and revered :

‘That thou at length mayst happily conclude

Thy voyage (to which end I was dispatched,

Lines 38-114] PARADISE 349

By supplication moved and holy love),

Let thy upsoaring vision range, at large,

This garden through: for so, by ray divine
Kindled, thy ken a higher flight shall mount ; go
And from heaven’s queen, whom fervent I adore,
All gracious aid befriend us; for that I

Am her own faithful Bernard.’ Like a wight,
Who haply from Croatia wends to see

Our Veronica; and the while ’tis shown,

Hangs over it with never-sated gaze,

And, all that he hath heard revolving, saith
Unto himself in thought: ‘ And didst thou look
E’en thus, O Jesus, my true Lord and God ?

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And was this semblance thine?’ So gazed I then 100
Adoring; for the charity of him,

Who musing, in this world that peace enjoyed,

Stood livelily before me. ‘Child of grace!’

Thus he began: ‘thou shalt not knowledge gain

Of this glad being, if thine eyes are held

Still in this depth below. But search around

The circles, to the farthest, till thou spy

Seated in state, the queen, that of this realm

Is sovereign.’ Straight mine eyes I raised; and bright,
As, at the birth of morn, the eastern clime I1O
Above the horizon, where the sun declines ;

So to mine eyes, that upward, as from vale

To mountain sped, at the extreme bound, a part
Excelled in lustre all the front opposed.

350

THE VISION OF DANTE § [Canto xxxr

And as the glow burns ruddiest o’er the wave,
That waits the ascending team, which Phaéton
Ill knew to guide, and on each part the light
Diminished fades, intensest in the midst ;
So burned the peaceful oriflamme, and slacked
On every side the living flame decayed.
And in that midst their sportive pennons waved
Thousands of angeis; in resplendence each
Distinct, and quaint adornment. At their glee
And carol, smiled the Lovely One of heaven,
That joy was in the eyes of all the blest.

Had I a tongue in eloquence as rich,
As is the colouring in fancy’s loom,
’Twere all too poor to utter the least part
Of that enchantment. When he saw mine eyes
Intent on her, that charmed him; Bernard gazed
With so exceeding fondness, as infused
Ardour into my breast, unfelt before.

CANTO XXXIT
ARGUMENT

120

St. Bernard shows him, on their several thrones, the other blessed souls,
both of the Old and New Testament ; explains to him that their places are
assigned them by grace, and not according to merit ; and lastly, tells him
that if he would obtain power to descry what remained of the heavenly
vision, he must unite with him in supplication to Mary.

FREELY the sage, though wrapped in musings high,

Assumed the teacher’s part, and mild began:
‘The wound, that Mary closed, she opened first,
Who sits so beautiful at Mary’s feet.

The third in order, underneath her, lo!
Rachel with Beatrice: Sarah next ;

Judith; Rebecca; and the gleaner-maid,
Meek ancestress of him, who sang the songs
Of sore repentance in his sorrowful mood.
All, as I name them, down from leaf to leaf,
Are, in gradation, thronéd on the rose.

And from the seventh step, successively,
Adown the breathing tresses of the flower,
Still doth the file of Hebrew dames proceed.
For these are a partition wall, whereby

The sacred stairs are severed, as the faith

In Christ divides them. On this part, where blooms

Each leaf in full maturity, are set
Such as in Christ, or e’er he came, believed.

Io

CANTO XXXII] PARADISE 351

On the other, where an intersected space 20
Yet shows the semicircle void, abide

All they, who looked to Christ already come.

And as our Lady on her glorious stool,

And they who on their stools beneath her sit,

This way distinction make; e’en so on his,

The mighty Baptist that way marks the line

(He who endured the desert, and the pains

Of martyrdom, and, for two years, of hell,

Yet still continued holy), and beneath,

Augustine; Francis; Benedict; and the rest, 30
Thus far from round to round. So heaven’s decree

Forecasts, this garden equally to fill,
With faith in either view, past or to come.
Learn too, that downward from the step, which cleaves,
Midway, the twain compartments, none there are
Who place obtain for merit of their own,
But have through others’ merit been advanced,
On set conditions; spirits all released,
Ere for themselves they had the power to choose.
And, if thou mark and listen to them well, 40
Their childish looks and voice declare as much.
‘Here, silent as thou art, I know thy doubt ;
And gladly will I loose the knot, wherein
Thy subtle thoughts have bound thee. From this realm
Excluded, chance no entrance here may find ;
No more than hunger, thirst, or sorrow can.

352 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxx

A law immutable hath ’stablished all ;
Nor is there aught thou seest, that doth not fit,
Exactly, as the finger to the ring.
It is not, therefore, without cause, that these, 50
O’erspeedy comers to immortal life,
Are different in their shares of excellence.
Our Sovereign Lord, that settleth this estate
In love and in delight so absolute,
That wish can dare no further, every soul
Created in his joyous sight to dwell,
With grace, at pleasure, variously endows.
And for a proof the effect may well suffice.
And ’tis moreover most expressly marked
In holy Scripture, where the twins are said 60
To have struggled in the womb. Therefore, as grace
Inweaves the coronet, so every brow
Weareth its proper hue of orient light.
And merely in respect to his prime gift,
Not in reward of meritorious deed,
Hath each his several degree assigned.
In early times with their own innocence
More was not wanting, than the parents’ faith,
To save them: those first ages past, behoved
That circumcision in the males should imp 70
The flight of innocent wings: but since the day
Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites
In Christ accomplished, innocence herself
Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view
Unto the visage most resembling Christ :
For, in her splendour only, shalt thou win
The power to look on him.’ Forthwith I saw
Such floods of gladness on her visage showered,
From holy spirits, winging that profound ;
That, whatsoever I had yet beheld, 80
Had not so much suspended me with wonder,
Or shown me such similitude of God.
And he, who had to her descended, once,
On earth, now hailed in heaven; and on poised wing,
‘Ave, Maria, Gratia Plena,’ sang:
To whose sweet anthem all the blissful court,
From all parts answering, rang: that holier joy
Brooded the deep serene. ‘ Father revered !
Who deign’st, for me, to quit the pleasant place
Wherein thou sittest, by eternal lot ; go
Say, who that angel is, that with such glee
Beholds our queen, and so enamoured glows
Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems.’
So [ again resorted to the lore
Of my wise teacher, he, whom Mary’s charms

LINES 47-136] PARADISE 353

Embellished, as the sun the morning star ;
Who thus in answer spake: ‘In him are summed,
Whate’er of buxomness and free delight
May be in spirit, or in angel, met:
And so beseems: for that he bare the palm 100
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God
Vouchsafed to clothe him in terrestrial weeds.
Now let thine eyes wait heedful on my words ;
And note thou of this just and pious realm
The chiefest nobles. Those, highest in bliss,
The twain, on each hand next our empress throned,
Are as it were two roots unto this rose:
He to the left, the parent, whose rash taste
Proves bitter to his seed; and, on the right,
That ancient father of the holy church, 110
Into whose keeping Christ did give the keys
Of this sweet flower; near whom behold the seer,
That, ere he died, saw all the grievous times
Of the fair bride, who with the lance and nails
Was won. And, near unto the other, rests
The leader, under whom, on manna, fed
The ungrateful nation, fickle and perverse.
On the other part, facing to Peter, lo!
Where Anna sits, so well content to look
On her loved daughter, that with moveless eye 120
She chants the loud hosanna: while, opposed
To the first father of your mortal kind,
Is Lucia, at whose hest thy lady sped,
When on the edge of ruin closed thine eye.
‘But (for the vision hasteneth to an end)
Here break we off, as the good workman doth,
That shapes the cloak according to the cloth ;
And to the primal love our ken shall rise ;
That thou mayst penetrate the brightness, far
As sight can bear thee. Yet, alas! in sooth 130
Beating thy pennons, thinking to advance,
Thou backward fall’st. Grace then must first be gained ;
Her grace, whose might can help thee. Thou in prayer
Seek her: and, with affection, whilst I sue,
Attend, and yield me all thy heart.’ He said ;
And thus the saintly orison began.

354 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xxx

CANTO XXXIII

ARGUMENT

St. Bernard supplicates the Virgin Mary that Dante may have grace given
him to contemplate the brightness of the Divine Majesty, which is accord-
ingly granted ; and Dante then himself prays to God for ability to show
forth some part of the celestial glory in his writings. Lastly, he is admitted
to a ae of the great mystery; the Trinity, and the Union of Man
with God.

“O Virein Mother, daughter of thy Son!

Created beings all in lowliness

Surpassing, as in height above them all;

Term by the eternal counsel pre-ordained ;

Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced

In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn,

To make himself his own creation ;

For in thy womb rekindling shone the love

Revealed, whose genial influence makes now

This flower to germine in eternal peace: 10

Here thou to us, of charity and love,

Art, as the noonday torch; and art, beneath,

To mortal men, of hope a living spring.

So mighty art thou, lady, and so great,

That he, who grace desireth, and comes not

To thee for aidance, fain would have desire

Fly without wings. Not only him, who asks,

Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft

Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be

Of excellence in creature, pity mild, 20

Relenting mercy, large munificence,

Are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one,

Who of all spirits hath reviewed the state,

From the world’s lowest gap unto this height.

Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace

For virtue yet more high, to lift his ken

Toward the bliss supreme. And I, who ne’er

Coveted sight, more fondly, for myself,

Than now for him, my prayers to thee prefer

(And pray they be not scant), that thou wouldst drive 30

Each cloud of his mortality away,

Through thine own prayers, that on the sovereign joy

Unveiled he gaze. This yet, I pray thee, Queen,

Who canst do what thou wilt; that in him thou

Wouldst, after all he hath beheld, preserve

Affection sound, and human passions quell.

Lo! where, with Beatrice, many a saint

Stretch their clasped hands, in furtherance of my suit.’
The eyes, that heaven with love and awe regards,

Lines 1-88] PARADISE 355

Fixed on the suitor, witnessed, how benign 40
She looks on pious prayers: then fastened they
On the everlasting light, wherein no eye
Of creature, as may well be thought, so far
Can travel inward. I, meanwhile, who drew
Near to the limit, where all wishes end,
The ardour of my wish (for so behoved)
Ended within me. Beckoning smiled the sage,
That I should look aloft: but, ere he bade,
Already of myself aloft I looked ;
For visual strength, refining more and more, 50
Bare me into the ray authentical
Of sovereign light. Thenceforward, what I saw,
Was not for words to speak, nor memory’s self
To stand against such outrage on her skill.
As one, who from a dream awakened, straight,
All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains
Impression of the feeling in his dream ;
E’en such am I: for all the vision dies,
As ’twere, away; and yet the sense of sweet,
That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart. 60
Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unsealed ;
Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost
The Sibyl’s sentence. O eternal beam !
(Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar ?”)
Yield me again some little particle
Of what thou then appearedst ; give my tongue
Power, but to leave one sparkle of thy glory,
Unto the race to come, that shall not lose
Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught
Of memory in me, and endure to hear 70
The record sound in this unequal strain.
Such keenness from the living ray I met,
That, if mine eyes had turned away, methinks,
I had been lost; but, so emboldened, on
I passed, as I remember, till my view
Hovered the brink of dread infinitude.
O grace, unenvying of thy boon! that gavest
Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken
On the everlasting splendour, that I looked,
While sight was unconsumed ; and, in that depth, 80
Saw in one volume clasped of love, whate’er
The universe unfolds; all properties
Of substance and of accident, beheld,
Compounded, yet one individual light
The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw
The universal form; for that whene’er
I do but speak of it, my soul dilates
Beyond her proper self; and, till I speak,

CARY Oo

356 THE VISION OF DANTE ([Canvro xxxm

One moment seems a longer lethargy,
Than five-and-twenty ages had appeared go
To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder
At Argo’s shadow darkening on his flood.
With fixed heed, suspense and motionless,
Wondering I gazed; and admiration still
Was kindled as I gazed. It may not be,
That one, who looks upon that light, can turn
To other object, willingly, his view.
For all the good, that will may covet, there
Is summed; and all, elsewhere defective found,
Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more feYo)

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Pree _ ge vuln Ms z
~ SS > “> My, Lz - eee
TS. theses 4 CZe
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= = = =; ? @ 22 EZ =
=== 5 Ti = EE: ,
sae Ste a=
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SS ZEA Gy ss SS = =
LE Gy ~S WS =
— B iy “py <os ss = ~
2G “my, ww LP SS
Lp Vy ig S
» <e
re ' “ny >. MU Ws xS
LE zy M1 My, \\s
Ke 4 Myer, HAR N

E’en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe’s,
That yet is moistened at his mother’s breast.

Not that the semblance of the living light

Was changed (that ever as at first remained),

But that my vision quickening, in that sole
Appearance, still new miracles descried,

And toiled me with the change. In that abyss

Of radiance, clear and lofty, seemed, methought,
Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound ;

And, from another, one reflected seemed, 110
As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third

Seemed fire, breathed equally from both. O speech!
How feeble and how faint art thou, to give
Conception birth. Yet this to what I saw

Is less than little. O eternal light !

LINEs 89-135] PARADISE 357

Sole in thyself that dwellest ; and of thyself
Sole understood, past, present, or to come ;
Thou smiledst, on that circling, which in thee
Seemed as reflected splendour, while I mused ;
For I therein, methought, in its own hue 120
Beheld our image painted: steadfastly
I therefore pored upon the view. As one,
Who versed in geometric lore, would fain
Measure the circle; and, though pondering long
And deeply, that beginning, which he needs,
Finds not: e’en such was I, intent to scan
The novel wonder, and trace out the form,
How to the circle fitted, and therein
How placed: but the flight was not for my wing ;
Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, 130
And, in the spleen, unfolded what it sought.
Here vigour failed the towering fantasy :
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel
In even motion, by the love impelled,
That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.

) beens a ‘heme
ddquedties alsa 1 eh

“ ybobadikip teahen ao Dindet

sit nogiohereg orolwteds E .

Wel ain begitogs tt Meevor od

i halaittototio alt Stealth .

| taea eid at evel dusbtiwitqoob, bath

Mariette it Th) sees: rh Bae lates nas 900) abatil |

pleke, | titebted satya ede} henyabaoe Maven ofl 16

stivend at bot elotis ott of wolf
7 Rain yor tol) toda a ott dud: bonglq we | >"

OFT ss ibaa % | An pauls if, bets egy dealt a Jor beh » |
\ Juiguoe 4° if fury if. Hable yLlitiye dian lie. ad} ai af ah: .
it ae ict vat) odd Jonnfluids uOniv ost Y |
Pere YY i ea] Free pe Phy | ive ol? dor sett }
: . Delt bestia: it avor aiid vd otter neve mi. ,
eye 201 Ye hoe meveed oi tue pddé-aices tate
ms
won pele i 91h) thy Than
ya Leahy ‘ next reas
i the amelie vy divhia! ;
Chane dyn vents,
bhi V Hie QG fesee) tA rd
i ee ad oa il aid y un
bel be eek Se a” whe: 16 Chas Shen Sa
; 4 Le ? |
: vd cheat id? “Pode Thelin) Yas
iO) Tie hus, oliph ie fie tte til, eto
feney. analy Lnekodt, Mivavdad | sf
soe, ve CO eer ia RR mn ein ee ei shld
if J FA ai vemat jute m,- Fa on is wis mths ini Pevith.. i i”
ae eB bendy reli we ix art Dy
1) eco chun, ete sail 1 lai
a) ; Ear A Ms

’ ‘tad micas q

NOTES

HELL

CANTO I

Line 1. In the midway.| That the era of the poem is intended by
these words to be fixed to the thirty-fifth year of the poet’s age,
A. D. 1300, will appear more plainly in Canto X XI, where that date is
explicitly marked. In his Convito (IV, xxiii), human life is compared
to an arch or bow, the highest point of which is, in those well framed
by nature, at their thirty-fifth year.

1. 6. Which to remember.| ‘ Even when I remember J am afraid,
and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.’ Job xxi. 6.

]. 16. That planet's beam.| The sun.

1.19. My heart's recesses.| Nel lago del cuor. Lombardi cites an
imitation of this by Redi in his Ditirambo :

IT buon vini son quegli, che acquetano
Le procelle si fosche e rubelle,
Che nel lago del cuor l anime inquietano.

]. 23. Turns.] So in our Poet’s second psalm :

Come colui, che andando per lo bosco,
Da spino punto, a quel si volge e guarda.

Even as one, in passing through a wood,
Pierced by a thorn, at which he turns and looks.

], 29. The hinder foot.| It is to be remembered, that in ascending
a hill the weight of the body rests on the hinder foot.

1. 30. A panther.| Pleasure or luxury.

]. 36. With those stars.| The sun was in Aries, in which sign he
supposes it to have begun its course at the creation.

1. 39. The gay skin.| A late editor of the Divina Commedia, Signor
Zotti, has spoken of the present translation as the only one that has
rendered this passage rightly: but Mr. Hayley had shown me the
way, in his very skilful version of the first three Cantos of the Inferno,
inserted in the notes to his Essay on Epic Poetry :

I now was raised to hope sublime
By these bright omens of my fate benign,
The beauteous beast and the sweet hour of prime.

|

_ All the commentators whom I have seen, understand our Poet to

| say that the season of the year and the hour of the day induced him

| to hope for the gay skin of the panther; and there is something in
the sixteenth Canto, verse 107, which countenances their interpreta-

| tion, although that which I have followed still appears to me the
more probable.

_ 1. 43. A lon.] Pride or ambition.

360 NOTES

1. 45. A she-wolf.| Avarice. It cannot be doubted that the image
of these three beasts coming against him is taken by our author from
the prophet Jeremiah, v. 6: ‘ Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall
slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard
shall watch over their cities.’ Rossetti, following Dionisi and other
later commentators, interprets Dante’s leopard to denote Florence,
his lion the king of France, and his wolf the Court of Rome. It is
far from improbable that our author might have had a second alle-
gory of this sort in his view; even as Spenser in the introductory
letter to his poem, tells us that in the Faerie Queene he meant Glory
in his general intention, but in his particular he conceived the most
excellent and glorious person of his sovereign the Queen. ‘ And
yet,’ he adds, ‘ in some places else I do otherwise shadow her.’ Such
involution of allegorical meanings may well be supposed to have been
frequently present to the mind of Dante throughout the composition
of this poem. Whether his acute and eloquent interpreter, Rossetti,
may not have been carried much too far in the pursuit of a favourite
hypothesis, is another question; and I must avow my disbelief of
the secret jargon imputed to our Poet and the other writers of that
time in the Comment on the Divina Commedia and in the Spirito
Antipapale, the latter of which works is familiarized to the English
reader in Miss Ward’s faithful translation.

]. 56. Where the sun in silence rests. |

The sun to me is dark,

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Milton, Sam. Agon.

The same metaphor will recur, Canto V, verse 29.
Into a place I came
Where light was silent all.
1. 65. When the power of Julius.)
Nacqui sub Julio, ancorché fosse tardi.
This is explained by the commentators: ‘ Although it were rather
late with respect to my birth, before Julius Caesar assumed the
supreme authority, and made himself perpetual dictator.’ Virgil

indeed was born twenty-five years before that event.
1.71. llium’s haughty towers. ]

Ceciditque superbum
Ilium. Virgil, Aen. Lib. III. 3
1.81. My master thou, and guide.)

Tu se’ lo mio maestro, e il mio autore,
Tu se’ solo colui.
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou.
Milton, P. L., Book IT, 864.
]. 95. Still after food.) So Frezzi :
La voglia sempre ha fame, e mai non s’ empie,
Ed al pit pasto pit riman digiuna.
Il Quadriregio, Lib. II, cap. xi.
Venturi observes that the verse in the original is borrowed by Berni.

HELL, CANTO I 361

]. 98. That greyhound.| This passage has been commonly under-
stood as an eulogium on the liberal spirit of his Veronese patron, Can
Grande della Scala.

]. 102. ?T'wiat either Feltro.| Verona, the country of Can della
Scala, is situated between Feltro, a city in the Marca Trivigiana, and
Monte Feltro, a city in the territory of Urbino. But Dante perhaps
does not merely point out the place of Can Grande’s nativity, for he
may allude further to a prophecy, ascribed to Michael Scott, which
imported that the ‘Dog of Verona would be lord of Padua and of all
the Marca Trivigiana.’ It was fulfilled in the year 1329, a little
before Can Grande’s death. See G. Villani, Hist., 1. x, cap. cv. and
exli, and some lively criticism by Gasparo Gozzi, entitled * Giudizio
degli Antichi Poeti’, &c., printed at the end of the Zatta edition of
Dante, t. iv. part il. p. 15. The prophecy, it is likely, was a forgery ;
for Michael] died before 1300, when Can Grande was only nine years
old. See Hell, XX. 114, and Par. XVII. 75. Troya has given a new
interpretation to Dante’s prediction, which he applies to Uguccione
della Faggiola, whose country also was situated between two Feltros.
See the Veltro Allegorico di Dante, p. 110. But after all the pains he
has taken, this very able writer fails to make it clear that Uguccione,
though he acted a prominent part as a Ghibelline leader, is intended
here or in Purgatory, Canto XX XIII. 38. The main proofs rest on an
ambiguous report mentioned by Boccaccio of the Inferno being
dedicated to him, and on a suspicious letter attributed to a certain
friar Ilario, in which the friar describes Dante addressing him as
a stranger, and desiring him to convey that portion of the poem to
Uguccione. There is no direct allusion to him throughout the Divina
Commedia, as there is to the other chief public protectors of our Poet
during his exile.

1. 103. Italia’s plains.| ‘ Umile Italia,’ from Virgil, Aen. Lib. III.
522.

Humilemque videmus
Italiam.

]. 114. A second death.| ‘ And in those days shall men seek death,
and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee
from them.’—Rev. ix. 6.

]. 115. Content in fire.| The spirits in Purgatory.

]. 118. A spirit worthier.| Beatrice, who conducts the Poet through
Paradise.

]. 130. Saint Peter's gate.| The gate of Purgatory, which the
Poet feigns to be guarded by an angel placed on that station by
St. Peter.

CANTO II

1.1. Now was the day.} Acompendium of Virgil’s description,
Aen., Lib. 1V. 522. Compare Apollonius Rhodius, Lib. III. 744, and
Lib. IV. 1058.

The day gan failen; and the derke night,
That reveth bestes from hir besinesse,
Berafte me my book, &c.
Chaucer, Parlement of Foules, 85.

362 NOTES

1. 8. O mind. |

O thought! that wroot al that I mette,
And in the tresorie hit shette
Of my brayn! now shal men see
If any vertu in thee be.
Chaucer, Hous of Fame, Book IT, 1. 15.

1. 14. Silvius’ sire.] Aeneas.
1.30. The chosen vessel.| St. Paul. Acts ix. 15. ‘ But the Lord
said unto him, Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto me.’
There.| This refers to ‘the immortal tribes’, v. 15. St. Paul
having been caught up to heaven. 2 Cor. xii. 2.
1. 46. Thy soul is by vile fear assailed. |

L’ anima tua é da viltate offesa.

Soin Berni, Orl. Inn. Lib. ITI, c. i, st. 53. ‘Se P alma avete offesa da
viltate.’

]. 54. Who rest suspended.| The spirits in Limbo, neither admitted
to a state of glory nor doomed to punishment.

1. 60. As nature lasts.] Quanto’] moto lontana. ‘Mondo’, instead
of ‘moto’, which Lombardi claims as a reading peculiar to the
Nidobeatina edition and some MSS., is also in Landino’s edition of
1484. Of this Monti was not aware. See his Proposta, under the
word ‘ Lontanare ’.

1. 61. A friend, not of my fortune but myself.) ‘Se non fortunae sed
hominibus solere esse amicum.’ Cornelii Nepotis Attici Vitae, ec. ix.

Caetera fortunae, non mea turba, fuit.
Ovid, Trist. Lib. I. v. 34.

My Fortune and my seeming destiny
He made the bond, and broke it not with me.
Coleridge’s Death of Wallenstein, Act 1, se. vii.

]. 71. Beatrice.| The daughter of Folco Portinari, who is here in-
vested with the character of celestial wisdom or theology. See the
‘ Life of Dante’ prefixed.

1. 77. Whatever is contained.| Every other thing comprised within
the lunar heaven, which, being the lowest of all, has the smallest
circle.

1. 98. A blessed dame.| The Divine Mercy.

1. 97. Lucia.] The enlightening Grace of Heaven; as it is com-
monly explained. But Lombardi has well observed, that as our
Poet places her in the Paradise, Canto XXXII, amongst the souls
of the blessed, so it is probable that she, like Beatrice, had a real
existence; and he accordingly supposes her to have been Saint
Lucia the martyr, although she is here representative of an abstract
idea.

]. 124. Three maids.] The Divine Mercy, Lucia, and Beatrice.

1.127. As florets.]

Come fioretto dal notturno gelo
Chinato e chiuso, poi che il sol P imbianca,
S’ apre e si leva dritto sopra il stelo.
Boccaccio, Jl Filostrato, p. iii, st. xiii.

HELL, CANTO II 363

But right as floures thorugh the colde of night
Y-closed, stoupen on hir stalkes lowe,
Redressen hem a-yein the sonne bright,
And spreden on hir kinde cours by rowe, &c.
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book II, st. 139.

It is from Boccaccio rather than Dante that Chaucer has taken this
simile, which he applies to Troilus on the same occasion as Boccaccio
has done. He appears indeed to have imitated or rather paraphrased
the Filostrato in his Troilus and Criseyde ; for it is not yet known who
that Lollius is, from whom he professes to take the poem, and who
is again mentioned in the Hous of Fame, Book III. The simile in
the text has been imitated by many others ; among whom see Berni,
Orl. Inn., Lib. I, c. xii, st. 86; Marino, Adone, c. xvii, st. 63, and Son.
‘Donna vestita di nero,’ and Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Book IV, c. xii,
st. 34, and Book VI, c. ii, st. 35, and Boccaccio again in the Teseide,
Lib. IX, st. 28.

CANTO III

Ed. ———Power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primaeval love.]

The three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
]. 9. All hope abandon.) Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’ entrate.
So Berni, Orl. Inn., Lib. I, c. viii, st. 53.

Lascia pur della vita ogni speranza.
1.18. And when his hand.]

With that my hond in his he took anoon;
Of which I comfort caughte, and wente in faste.
Chaucer, Purlement of Foules, 169.

]. 21. Here sighs.| ‘ Post haec omnia ad loca tartarea, et ad os
infernalis baratri deductus sum, qui simile videbatur puteo, loca vero
eadem horridis tenebris, faetoribus exhalantibus, stridoribus quoque
et nimiis plena erant eiulatibus, iuxta quem infernum vermis erat
infinitae magnitudinis, ligatus maxima catena.’ Alberict Visio, § 9.

}, 29. Like to the sand.|

Unnumbered as the sands

Of Barca or Cyrene’s torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise
Their lighter wings.

Milton, P. L., Book IT. 903.

]. 30. With error.| Instead of ‘error’, Vellutello’s edition of 1544
has ‘ orror’, a reading remarked also by Landino, in his notes. So
much mistaken is the collator of the Monte Cassino MS. in calling it
‘Jezione da niuno notata’ ; ‘a reading which no one has observed.’

1, 40. Lest the accursed tribe.| Lest the rebellious angels should
exult at seeing those who were neutral, and therefore less guilty,
condemned to the same punishment with themselves. Rossetti, in
a long note on this passage, has ably exposed the plausible interpreta-
tion of Monti, who would have ‘alcuna gloria’ mean ‘no glory’

364 NOTES

and thus make Virgil say ‘ that the evil ones would derive no honour
from the society of the neutral’. A similar mistake in the same
word is made elsewhere by Lombardi. See my note on Canto XII,

¥. oO:
1.47. Fame. ]

Cancelled from heaven and sacred memory,
Nameless in dark oblivion let them dwell.
Milton, P. L., Book VI. 380.

Therefore eternal silence be their doom.
Ibid. 385.
EbOl A fags) oe
All the grisly legions that troop
Under the sooty flag of Acheron.
Milton, Comus.
Who to base fear

Yielding, abjured his high estate. ]

This is commonly understood of Celestine the Fifth, who abdicated
the papal power in 1294. Venturi mentions a work written by
Innocenzio Barcellini, of the Celestine order, and printed at Milan in
1701, in which an attempt is made to put a different interpretation on
this passage. Lombardi would apply it to someone of Dante’s fellow-
citizens, who, refusing, through avarice or want of spirit, to support
the party of the Bianchi at Florence, had been the main occasion of
the miseries that befell them. But the testimony of Fazio degli
Uberti, who lived so near the time of our author, seems almost de-
cisive on this point. He expressly speaks of the Pope Celestine as
being in hell. See the Dittamondo, Lib. IV, cap. xxi. The usual
interpretation is further confirmed in a passage in Canto X XVII,
v. 101. Petrarch, while he passes a high encomium on Celestine for
his abdication of the papal power, gives us to understand that there
were others who thought it a disgraceful act. See the De Vita Solit.,
Book II, sect. iii, c. 18.
1. 70. Through the blear light.| Lo fioco lume. So Filicaja, canz. vi,
st. 12: Qual fioco lume.
1. 77. An old man.]

Portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina servat

Terribili squalore Charon, cui plurima mento

Canities inculta iacet; stant lumina flamma.

Virgil, Aen. Lib. VI. 298.

i. 56.

1. 82. In fierce heat and in ice.|
The bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth.

Milton, P. L., Book II. 601

The delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice.
Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 11. i. 119.

See note to Canto XX XII, 23.

HELL, CANTO III 365

]. 87. A nimbler boat.) He perhaps alludes to the bark ‘ swift and
light’, in which the Angel conducts the spirits to Purgatory. See
Purg., Canto IT, 40.

1.92. The livid lake.| Vada livida. Virgil, Aen. Lib. VI. 320.

Totius ut lacus putidaeque paludis
Lividissima, maximeque est profunda vorago.
Catullus, xvii. 10.

]. 102. With eyes of burning coal. |
His looks were dreadful, and his fiery eyes,

Like two great beacons, glared bright and wide.
Spenser, F. Q., Book VI, c. vii, st. 42.

]. 104. As fall off the light autumnal leaves.

Quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo
Lapsa cadunt folia. Virgil, Aen. Lib. VI. 309.

Thick as autumnal leaves, that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarched imbower. Milton, P. L., Book I. 302.

Compare Apoll. Rhod. Lib. IV, p. 214.

1. 109. As falcon at his call.| This is Vellutello’s explanation, and
seems preferable to that commonly given: ‘as a bird that is enticed
to the cage by the call of another.’

CANTO IV

1. 8. A thundrous sound.| Imitated, as Mr. Thyer has remarked, by
Milton, P. L., Book VIII. 242:

But long, ere our approaching, heard
Noise, other than the sound of dance or song,
Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage.

]. 34. Portal.| ‘ Porta della fede.’ This was an alteration made in
the text by the Academicians della Crusca, on the authority, as it
would appear, of only two MSS. The other reading is ‘ parte della
fede’ ; ‘ part of the faith.’

1. 39. Desiring without hope.

And with desire to languish without hope.
Milton, P. L., Book X. 995.

1. 48. Secret purport.| Lombardi well observes, that Dante seems
to have been restrained by awe and reverence from uttering the name
of Christ in this place of torment ; and that for the same cause, pro-
bably, it does not occur once throughout the whole of this first part
of the poem.

1.50. A puissant one.| Our Saviour.

1.52. He forth.| The author of the Quadriregio has introduced
a sublime description into his imitation of this passage :—

Pose le reni 14 dove si serra;
Ma Cristo lui e ’] catarcion d’ acciajo
E queste porte allora getto a terra.

366 NOTES

Quando in la grotta entrd *] lucido rajo,
Adamo disse: questo é lo splendore
Che mi spiro in faccia da primajo.
Venuto se’ aspettato Signore. Lib. II, cap. 3.
Satan hung writhing round the bolt; but him,
The huge portcullis, and those gates of brass,
Christ threw to earth. As down the cavern streamed
The radiance: ‘ Light,’ said Adam, ‘this, that breathed
First on me. Thou art come, expected Lord !’

Much that follows is closely copied by Frezzi from our Poet.

1. 75. Honour the bard sublime.) Onorate l altissimo poeta. So
Chiabrera, Canz. Erioche., 32. Onorando | altissimo poeta.

]. 79. Of semblance neither sorrowful nor glad.

She nas to sobre ne to glad.
Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 880.

1. 90. The monarch of sublimest song.) Homer. It appears from
a passage in the Convito, that there was no Latin translation of
Homer in Dante’s time. ‘Sappia ciascuno, &c., I. vii. ‘ Every
one should know, that nothing, harmonized by musical enchainment,
can be transmuted from one tongue into another without breaking
all its sweetness and harmony. And this is the reason why Homer
has never been turned from Greek into Latin, as the other writers
we have of theirs.’ This sentence, I fear, may well be regarded as
conclusive against the present undertaking. Yet would I willingly
bespeak for it at least so much indulgence as Politian claimed for
himself when, in the Latin translation which he afterwards made of
Homer, but which has since unfortunately perished, he ventured on
certain liberties both of phraseology and metre, for which the nicer
critics of his time thought fit to call him to an account: ‘ Ego vero
tametsi rudis in primis non adeo tamen obtusi sum pectoris in ver-
sibus maxime faciundis, ut spatia ista morasque non sentiam. Vero
cum mihi de Graeco paene ad verbum forent antiquissima inter-
pretanda carmina, fateor affectavi equidem ut in verbis obsoletam
vetustatem, sic in mensura ipsa et numero gratam quandam ut
speravi novitatem.’ Ep. Lib. I, Baptistae Guarino.

]. 100. Fitter left untold.| Che il tacere é bello.
So our Poet, in Canzone 20: La vide in parte che il tacere é bello.
Ruccellai, Le Apt, 789: Ch’ a dire é brutto ed a tacerlo é bello.
And Bembo: Vie piu bello é il tacerle, che il favellarne. Gli Asol.,
Lib. I.

1. 114. Green enamel.| ‘ Verde smalto.’ Dante here uses a meta-
phor that has since become very common in poetry.

O’er the smooth enamelled green.
Milton, Arcades.

‘Enamelling, and perhaps pictures in enamel, were common in the
middle ages, &c.’ Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. i, ¢. xiii, p. 376.
‘This art flourished most at Limoges, in France. So early as the
year 1197, we have duas tabulas aeneas superauratas de labore
Limogiae. Chart. ann. 1197 apud Ughelin. tom. vii, Jtal. Sacr.,
p. 1274.2 Warton, ibid., Additions to vol. i, printed in vol. ii. Com-
pare Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting in England, vol. i, ¢. ii.

HELL, CANTO IV 367

]. 117. Electra.] The daughter of Atlas, and mother of Dardanus
the founder of Troy. See Virgil, Aen. Lib. VIII. 134, as referred to by
Dante in the treatise De Monarchia, Lib. II. iii. ‘ Electra, scilicet, nata
magni nominis regis Atlantis, ut de ambobus testimonium reddit
poeta noster in octavo, ubi Aeneas ad Evandrum sic ait, “ Dar-
danus Iliacae,” &e.’

1.125. Julia.) The daughter of Julius Caesar, and wife of
Pompey.

}. 126. The Soldan fierce.| Saladin, or Salaheddin, the rival of
Richard Coeur de Lion. See D’Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., the Life of
Saladin, by Bohao’edin Ebn Shedad, published by Albert Schultens,
with a Latin translation, and Knolles’s Hist. of the Turks, p. 57 to
73. ‘About this time (1193) died the great Sultan Saladin, the
greatest terror of the Christians, who, mindful of man’s fragility and
the vanity of worldly honours, commanded at the time of his death
no solemnity to be used at his burial, but only his shirt, in manner
of an ensign, made fast unto the point of a lance, to be carried before
his dead body as an ensign, a plain priest going before, and crying
aloud unto the people in this sort, “‘ Saladin, Conqueror of the East,
of all the greatness and riches he had in his life, carrieth not with him
anything more than his shirt.” A sight worthy so great a king, as
wanted nothing to his eternal commendation more than the true
knowledge of his salvation in Christ Jesus. He reigned about six-
teen years with great honour.’ He is introduced by Petrarch in the
Triumph of Fame, ec. ii; and by Boccaccio in the Decameron, G. x.
INGO.

1. 128. The master of the sapient throng.| Maestro di color che
sanno. Aristotle.—Petrarch assigns the first place to Plato. See
Triumph of Fame, e. iii.

Volsimi da man manca, e vidi Plato
Che ’n quella schiera andd pit presso al segno
A qual aggiunge, a chi dal cielo é dato.
Aristotile poi pien d’ alto ingegno.

Pulci, in his Morgante Maggiore, c. xviii, says,
Tu se’ il maestro di color che sanno.

The reverence in which the Stagirite was held by our author, canr ot
be better shown than by a passage in his Convito, IV. vi: ‘Che
Aristotile sia degnissimo, &c.’ ‘That Aristotle is most worthy of
trust and obedience, may be thus proved. Amongst the workmen
or artificers of different arts and operations, which are in order to
some final art or operation, he, who is the artist or operator in that,
ought chiefly to be obeyed and trusted by the rest, as being the one
who alone considers the ultimate end of all the other ends. Thus
he, who exercises the occupation of a knight, ought to be obeyed by
the sword-cutler, the bridle-maker, the armourer, and by all those
trades which are in order to the occupation of a knight. And because
all human operations respect a certain end, which is that of human
life, to which man, inasmuch as he is man, is ordained, the master
or artist, who considers of and teaches us that, ought chiefly to be
obeyed and trusted : now this is no other than Aristotle; and he is
therefore the most deserving of trust and obedience.’

368 NOTES

I. 132. Democritus,
Who sets the world at chance.)

Democritus, who maintained the world to have been formed by the
fortuitous concourse of atoms.

1. 140. Avicen.| See D’Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., article ‘Sina’. He
died in 1050. Pulci here again imitates our Poet :

Avicenna quel che il sentimento
Intese di Aristotile e i segreti,
Averrois che fece il gran comento.
Morg. Mag., c. xxv.

Chaucer, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, makes the Doctour
of Phisike familiar with
—— Avicen,
Averrois.
Sguarda Avicenna mio con tre corone,

Ch’ egli fu Prence, e di scienza pieno,
E util tanto all’ umane persone.
Frezzi, [1 Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 9.

Fuit Avicenna vir summi ingenii, magnus Philosophus, excellens
medicus, et summus apud suos Theologus. Sebastian Scheffer,
Introd. in Artem Medicam, p. 63, as quoted in the Historical Observa-
tions on the Quadriregio. Ediz. 1725.

]. 140. — Him who made
That commentary vast, Averroes. |
Il gran Platone, e l altro che sta attento
Mirando il cielo, e sta a lui a lato
Averrois, che fece il gran comento.
Frezzi, Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 9.

Averroes, called by the Arabians Roschd, translated and commented
the works of Aristotle. According to Tiraboschi (Storia della Lett.
Ital., t. v, 1. 1i, e. ii, sect. 4) he was the source of modern philosophical
impiety. The critic quotes some passages from Petrarch (Senil.,
l. v, ep. iii, et Oper. v. ii, p. 1143) to show how strongly such senti-
ments prevailed in the time of that poet, by whom they were held in
horror and detestation. He adds, that this fanatic admirer of
Aristotle translated his writings with that felicity, which might be
expected from one who did not know a syllable of Greek, and who
was therefore compelled to avail himself of the unfaithful Arabic
versions. D’ Herbelot, on the other hand, informs us, that ‘ Averroes
was the first who translated Aristotle from Greek into Arabic, before
the Jews had made their translation ; and that we had for a long
time no other text of Aristotle, except that of the Latin translation,
which was made from this Arabic version of this great philosopher
(Averroes), who afterwards added to it a very ample commentary, of
which Thomas Aquinas, and the other scholastic writers, availed
themselves, before the Greek originals of Aristotle and his com-
mentators were known to us in Europe.’ According to D’ Herbelot,
he died i in 1198; but Tiraboschi places that event about 1206. ‘ Aver-
Toes, says Warton, ‘ as the Asiatic schools decayed by the indolence
of the Caliphs, was one of those philosophers who adorned the Moorish
schools erected in Africa and Spain. He was a professor in the

HELL, CANTO IV 369

University of Morocco. He wrote a commentary on all Aristotle’s
works. He wasstyled the most Peripatetic of all the Arabian writers.
He was born at Cordova, of an ancient Arabic family.’ Hust. of Lng.
Poetry, vol. i, sect. xvii, p. 441.

CANTO V

1.1. From the first circle.| Chiabrera’s twenty-first sonnet is on
a painting, by Cesare Corte, from this Canto. Mr. Fuseli, a much
greater name, has lately employed his wonder-working pencil on the
same subject.

1.5. Grinning with ghastly feature.| Hence Milton :

Death
Grinned horrible a ghastly smile.
P. L., Book IT. 845.

1. 46. As cranes.| This simile is imitated by Lorenzo de’ Medici, in
his ‘ Ambra’, a poem, first published by Mr. Roscoe, in the Appendix
to his Life of Lorenzo:

Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried ;
And each with outstretched neck his rank maintains,
In marshalled order through the ethereal void.
Roscoe, v. i, c. v, p. 257, 4to edit.

Compare Homer, Jl. iii. 3. Virgil, Aen. Lib. X, 264. Oppian,
Halieut., Lib. I. 620. Ruccellai, Le Api, 942, and Dante’s Purgatory,
XXIV. 63.

]. 55. Liking.| His lustes were al lawe in his decree.

Chaucer, Monkes Tale. Nero.

). 58. That she succeeded Ninus her espoused. |

Che succedette a Nino e fu sua sposa.

M. Artaud, in his Histoire de Dante, p. 589, mentions a manuscript
work called Attacanti’s ‘ Quadragesimale de reditu peccatoris ad
Deum’, in which the line is thus cited :

Che sugger dette a Nino e fu sua sposa.
‘Who suckled Ninus, and was his wife.’

This remarkable reading had been before noticed by Federici, [n-
torno ad alcune variant: nel testo della Divina Commedia, Ed.
Milan, 1836. See the Biblioteca Italiana, Tom. 82, p. 282. It
appears from the treatise De Monarchia (Lib. II) that Dante derived
his knowledge of Assyrian history from his favourite author Orosius
(Lib. I,c.iv), who relates that Semiramis both succeeded Ninus through
the artifice of personating her son, and that she committed incest
with her son; but as the name of her husband Ninus only is there
recorded, and as other historians call the son Ninias, it is probable
that the common reading is right.

1. 88. Element obscure.| ‘L’ aer perso.’ Much is said by the com-
mentators concerning the exact sense of the word ‘ perso’. It cannot
be explained in clearer terms than those used by Dante himself in

370 NOTES

his Convito : ‘ I] persoé un colore misto di purpureo e di nero, ma vince
il nero, IV. xx. ‘It is a colour mixed of purple and black, but the
black prevails.’ The word recurs several times in this poem. Chaucer
also uses it, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Doctour of
Phisike :

In sangwin and in pers he clad was al.

1. 96. The land.| Ravenna.
1.99. Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt.]

Amor, che al cor gentil ratto s’ apprende.

A line taken by Marino, Adone, c. exli, st. 251.

That the reader of the original may not be misled as to the exact
sense of the word ‘s’ apprende’, which I have rendered ‘is learnt’,
it may be right to apprise him that it signifies ‘is caught’, and that
it is a metaphor from a thing taking fire. Thus it is used by Guido
Guinicelli, whom indeed our Poet seems here to have had in view :

Foco @ Amore in gentil cor s’ apprende,
Como vertute in pietra preziosa.

Sonetti, &c., di diversi Antichi Toscanit. Ediz. Giunti, 1527, 1. ix,
p. 107.
The fire of love in gentle heart is caught,
As virtue in the precious stone.

]. 102. Love, that denial takes from none beloved. |
Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona.
So Boccaccio, in his Filocopo, 1. 1.
Amore mai non perdond I amore a nullo amato.
And Pulci, in the Morgante Maggiore, c. iv.

E perché amor mal volontier perdona,
Che non sia al fin sempre amato chi ama.

Indeed many of the Italian poets have repeated this verse.

1. 105. Caina.| The place to which murderers are doomed.

1. 113. Francesca.| Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord
of Ravenna, was given by her father in marriage to Lanciotto, son of
Malatesta, lord of Rimini, a man of extraordinary courage, but de-
formed in his person. His brother Paolo, who unhappily possessed
those graces which the husband of Francesca wanted, engaged her
affections ; and being taken in adultery, they were both put to
death by the enraged Lanciotto. See Notes to Canto X XVII, v. 38
and 43. Troya relates, that they were buried together; and that
three centuries after, the bodies were found at Rimini, whither they
had been removed from Pesaro, with the silken garments yet fresh.
Veltro Allegorico di Dante, Ediz. 1826, p. 33. The whole of this
passage is alluded to by Petrarch, in his Triwmph of Love, e. iii:

Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni,
Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri erranti:
Onde convien che ’] vulgo errante agogni ;
Vedi Ginevra, Isotta e I altre amanti;

E la coppia d’ Arimino che ’nsieme
Vanne facendo dolorosi pianti.

HELL, CANTO V 371

Mr. Leigh Hunt has expanded the present episode into a beautiful
poem, in his Story of Rimini.
1. 118. No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand.]|

Imitated by Chaucer :

For of Fortunes sharp adversitee

The worst kinde of infortune is this,

A man to have ben in prosperitee,

And it remembren, whan it passed is.

Troilus and Criseyde, Book III. st. 233.

By Marino :

Che non ha doglia il misero maggiore,

Che ricordar la gioia entro il dolore.

Adone, c. xiv, st. 100.

And by Fortiguerra :

Rimembrare il ben perduto
Fa piu meschino lo presente stato.
Ricciardetto, c. xi, st. 83.

The original, perhaps, was in Boethius, de Consol. Philosoph., ‘In omni
adversitate fortunae infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem
et non esse,’ 1.2, pr. 4. Boethius, and Cicero, de Amicitia, were the
two first books that engaged the attention of Dante, as he himself
tells us in the Convito, IL. xiii.

]. 124. Lancelot.| One of the Knights of the Round Table, and
the lover of Ginevra, or Guinever, celebrated in romance. The in-
cident alluded to seems to have made a strong impression on the
imagination of Dante, who introduces it again, in the Paradise,
Canto XVI.

1. 128. At one point. ]

Questo quel punto fi, che sol mi vinse.
Tasso, /1 Torrismondo, a. i, 8. 3.

1. 134.

In its leaves that day
We read no more. |

Nothing can exceed the delicacy with which Francesca in these words
intimates her guilt.

1. 138. And like a corse fell to the ground. |
E caddi, come corpo morto cade.

So Pulci: E cadde come morto in terra cade.
Morgante Maggiore, c. xxii.

And Ariosto: E cada, come corpo morto cade.
Orl. Fur.,; ¢::ii, at. '55.

‘And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.’ Revelationi. 17.

372 NOTES

CANTO VI

1.1. My sense reviving. ]

Al tornar della mente, che si chiuse,
Dinanzi alla pieta de’ due cognati.

Berni has made asportive application of these lines, in his Orl. Inn.,
Lib. III, c. viii, st. 1.
1. 21. That great worm.| Juxta—infernum vermis erat infinitae
magnitudinis ligatus maxima catena. Alberici Visio, § 9.
In Canto XXXIV Lucifer is called
The abhorred worm that boreth through the world.

This is imitated by Ariosto, Orl. Fur.,c. xlvi, st. 76. Shakespeare,
Milton, and Cowper, who well understood that the most common
words are often the most impressive, have used the synonymous
term in our language with the best effect ; as Pindar has done in
Greek :

amd Tavyérov pey Adkavay
ént Onoot Kiva Tpéxerv TUKLwWTATOY EpTeETor.

Heyne’s Pindar. Fragm. Epinic. ii. 2. In Hieron.

]. 52. Ciacco.| So called from his inordinate appetite ; Ciacco, in
Italian, signifying a pig. The real name of this glutton has not been
transmitted to us. He is introduced in Boccaccio’s Decameron, Giorn.
ix, Nov. 8.

1. 61. The divided city.| The city of Florence, divided into the
Bianchi and Neri factions.

]. 65. The wild party from the woods.| So called, because it was
headed by Veri de’ Cerchi, whose family had lately come into the
city from Acone, and the woody country of the Val di Nievole.

]. 66. The other.| The opposite party of the Neri, at the head of
which was Corso Donati.

1. 67. This must fall.| The Bianchi.

]. 68. Three solar circles.| Three years.

1. 69. Of one, who under shore
Now rests. |

Charles of Valois, by whose means the Neri were replaced.

1. 73. The just are two in number.| Who these two were, the com-
mentators are not agreed. Some understand them to be Dante
himself and his friend Guido Cavalcanti. But this would argue
a presumption, which our Poet himself elsewhere contradicts ; for,
in the Purgatory, he owns his consciousness of not being exempted
from one at least of ‘ the three fatal sparks, which had set the hearts
of all on fire’. See Canto XIII, 126. Others refer the encomium to
Barduccio and Giovanni Vespignano, adducing the following passage
from Villani in support of their opinion: ‘In the year 1331 died in
Florence two just and good men, of holy life and conversation, and
bountiful in almsgiving, although laymen. The one was named
Barduccio, and was buried in S. Spirito, in the place of the Frati
Romitani: the other, named Giovanni da Vespignano, was buried
in S. Pietro Maggiore. And by each, God showed open miracles,
in healing the sick and lunatic after divers manners; and for each

HELL, CANTO VI 373

there was ordained a solemn funeral, and many images of wax set up
in discharge of vows that had been made.’ G. Villani, Lib. X,
cap. clxxix.
1. 74. Avarice, envy, pride. |
Invidia, superbia ed avarizia
Vedea moltiplicar tra miei figliuoli.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. I, cap. xxix.

1. 79. Of Farinata and Tegghiaio.| See Canto X and Notes, and
Canto XVI and Notes.
1. 80. Jacopo.| Giacopo Rusticucci. See Canto XVI and Notes.
1. 81. Arrigo, Mosca.) Of Arrigo, who is said by the commentators
to have been of the noble family of the Fifanti, no mention after-
wards occurs. Mosca degli Uberti, or de’ Lamberti, is introduced in
Canto XXVIII.
1. 100. Resume.| Imitated by Frezzi :—
Allor ripiglieran la carne e I ossa ;
Li rei oscuri, e i buon con splendori
Per la virtu della divina possa.
Il Quadr., Lib. IV, cap. xv.

]. 104. Touching.) Conversing, though in a slight and superficial
manner, on the life to come.

]. 108. Consult thy knowledge.| We are referred to the following
passage in St. Augustine :—‘ Cum fiet resurrectio carnis, et bonorum
gaudia et malorum tormenta maiora erunt.’-—‘ At the resurrection
of the flesh, both the happiness of the good and the torments of the
wicked will be increased.’

CANTO VII

1.1. Ah me! O Satan! Satan !]
Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe.

Pape issaid by the commentators to be the same as the Latin word
papae / ‘strange!’ Of aleppe they do not give a more satisfactory
account. See the Life of Benvenuto Cellini, translated by Dr. Nugent,
v. ii, b. iii, c. vii, p. 113, where he mentions * having heard the words
Paix, paix, Satan! allez, paix! in the courts of justice at Paris.
I recollected what Dante said, when he with his master Virgil entered
the gates of hell: for Dante, and Giotto the painter, were together
in France, and visited Paris with particular attention, where the
court of justice may be considered as hell. Hence it is that Dante,
who was likewise perfect master of the French, made use of that
expression ; and I have often been surprised that it was never under-
stood in that sense.’

1.12. The first adulterer proud.| Satan. The word ‘fornication’,
or ‘adultery’, ‘strupo,’ is here used for a revolt of the affections
from God, according to the sense in which it is often applied in
Scripture. But Monti, following Grassi’s Essay on Synonyms, sup-
poses ‘strupo’ to mean ‘troop’; the word ‘strup’ being still used
in the Piemontese dialect for ‘a flock of sheep’, and answering to
‘troupeau’ in French. In that case, ‘ superbo strupo’ would signify
‘the troop of rebel angels who sinned through pride’.

374 NOTES

]. 19. In what store thou heap’ st.| Some understand ‘ chi stipa’ to
mean either ‘ who can imagine ’, or ‘ who can describe the torments’,
&e. I have followed Landino, whose words, though very plain,
seem to have been mistaken by Lombardi: ‘Chi stipa, chi accumula,
ed insieme raccoglie; quasi dica, tu giustizia aduni tanti supplicii.’

]. 22. E’en as a billow.]

As when two billows in the Irish sounds,
Forcibly driven with contrary tides,
Do meet together, each aback rebounds
With roaring rage, and dashing on all sides,
That filleth all the sea with foam, divides
The doubtful current into divers ways.
Spenser, F. Q., Book IV, c. i, st. 42.

]. 48. Popes and Cardinals.| Ariosto having personified Avarice as
a strange and hideous monster, says of her—

Peggio facea nella Romana corte,
Che v’ avea uccisi Cardinali e Papi.
Onl, Hur .es XxVis Staooe

Worse did she in the Court of Rome, for there
She had slain Popes and Cardinals.

1. 65. Not all the gold.| Tutto Y oro ch’ é sotto la luna.

For al the gode under the colde mone.
Chaucer, Legend of Hypermnestra, 77.

1. 73. He, whose transcendent wisdom.| Compare Frezzi :

Dio é primo prince in ogni parte
Sempre e di tutto, &e.
Il Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. ii.

1. 75. Each part.) Each hemisphere of the heavens shines upon
that hemisphere of the earth which is placed under it.

1. 80. General minister.| Lombardi cites an apposite passage from
Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Lib. V :—‘ Nos eas causas, quae dicuntur
fortuitae (unde etiam fortuna nomen accepit) non dicimus nullas,
sed latentes, easque tribuimus, vel veri Dei, vel quorumlibet spiri-
tuum voluntati.’

1. 91. By necessity.] This sentiment called forth the reprehension
of Francesco Stabili, commonly called Cecco d’ Ascoli, in his Acerba,
Bib. 45 'e3 1

In cid peccasti, O Fiorentin poeta,
Ponendo che li ben della fortuna
Necessitati sieno con lor meta.

Non é fortuna, cui ragion non vinca,
Or pensa Dante, se prova nessuna

Si pud pit fare che questa convinca.

Herein, O bard of Florence, didst thou err,
Laying it down that fortune’s largesses

Are fated to their goal. Fortune is none,

That reason cannot conquer. Mark thou, Dante,
If any argument may gainsay this.

HELL, CANTO VII 375

1.101. Each star.| So Boccaccio: ‘ Git ogni stella a cader comincid,
che salia.’ Dec., G. 3, at the end.

]. 109. A different track.| Una via diversa. Some understand this
‘a strange path’; as the word is used in the preceding Canto ;
‘ fiera crudele e diversa,’ ‘monster fierce and strange ;’ and in the
Vita Nuova, ‘ visi diversi ed orribili a vedere,’ ‘ visages strange and
horrible to see.’

CANTO VIII

l. 1. My theme pursuing.| It is related by some of the early com-
mentators, that the seven preceding Cantos were found at Florence
after our Poet’s banishment, by some one who was searching over
his papers, which were left in that city; that by this person they
were taken to Dino Frescobaldi; and that he, being much delighted
with them, forwarded them to the Marchese Morello Malaspina, at
whose entreaty the poem was resumed. This account, though very
circumstantially related, is rendered improbable by the prophecy of
Ciacco in the sixth Canto, which must have been written after the
events to which it alludes. The manner, in which the present Canto
opens, furnishes no proof of the truth of the report ; for, as Maffei
remarks in his Osservaziont Letterarie, tom. ii, p. 249, referred to by
Lombardi, it might as well be affirmed that Ariosto was interrupted
in his Orlando Furioso, because he begins c. xvi.

Dico la bella storia ripigliando.
And ec. xxii. Ma tornando al Javor, che vario ordisco.
]. 18. Phlegyas.| Phlegyas, who was so incensed against Apollo,
for having violated his daughter Coronis, that he set fire to the
temple of that deity, by whose vengeance he was cast into Tartarus.

See Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 618.
1. 30. While we our course. |

Solcando noi per quella morta gora.
Frezzi, 11 Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. 7.

cis In whom

Thou wast conceived. |

‘Chein tes’incinse.’ Several of the commentators have stumbled at
this word, which is the same as ‘ enceinte’ in French, and ‘inciens’
in Latin. For many instances, in which it is thus used, see the
notes on Boccaccio’s Decameron, p. 101, in the Giunti edition, 1573.
1. 59. Filippo Argenti.| Boccaccio tells us, ‘he was a man remark-
able for the large proportions and extraordinary vigour of his bodily
frame, and the extreme waywardness and irascibility of his temper.’
Decam., G. ix, N. 8.
]. 66. The city, that of Dis is named.| So Ariosto, Orl. Fur., c. xl,
st. 32:
Fatto era un stagno piu sicuro e brutto,
Di quel che cinge la citta di Dite.

1. 80.

From heaven
Were showered.| Da’ ciel piovuti.

376 NOTES

Thus Frezzi:

Li maladetti piovuti da cielo
Il Quadr., Lib. IV, cap. 4.

And Pulci, in the passage cited in the note to Canto XXI, 117.

]. 94. Seven times.] The commentators, says Venturi, perplex
themselves with the inquiry what seven perils these were from which
Dante had been delivered by Virgil. Reckoning the beasts in the
first Canto as one of them, and adding Charon, Minos, Cerberus,
Plutus, Phlegyas, and Filippo Argenti, as so many others, we shall
have the number; and if this be not satisfactory, we may suppose
a determinate to have been put for an indeterminate number.

1. 109. At war, *twiat will and will not.]

Che’l si e’] no nel capo mi tenzona.
Thus our Poet in his sixteenth Canzone :

Ché *1] si, e’] no tututto in vostra mano
Ha posto amore.

And Boccaccio, Ninf. Fiesol., st. 233 :
Il si e il no nel capo gli contende.

The words [I have adopted as a translation are Shakespeare’s,
Measure for Measure, i. ii. 33.

]. 112. Pellmell.| A prova. ‘Certatim.” ‘A lDenvi.’ I had
before translated ‘To trial’; and have to thank Mr. Carlyle for
detecting the error.

]. 122. This their insolence, not new.| Virgil assures our Poet, that
these evil spirits had formerly shown the same insolence when our
Saviour descended into hell. They attempted to prevent him from
entering at the gate, over which Dante had read the fatal inscription.
‘ That gate which,’ says the Roman poet, ‘an angel had just passed,
by whose aid we shall overcome this opposition, and gain admittance
into the city.’

CANTO IX

1. 1. The hue.] Virgil, perceiving that Dante was pale with fear,
restrained those outward tokens of displeasure which his own coun-
tenance had betrayed.

]. 24. Hrictho.] Erictho, a Thessalian sorceress, according to Lucan,
Pharsal., |. vi, was employed by Sextus, son of Pompey the Great, to
conjure up a spirit, who should inform him of the issue of the civil
wars between his father and Caesar.

], 25. —————— No long space my flesh
Was naked of me.]

Quae corpus complexa animae tam fortis inane.
Ovid, Met. 1. xiii, fab. 2.

Dante appears to have fallen into an anachronism. Virgil’s death
did not happen till long after this period. But Lombardi shows, in
opposition to the other commentators, that the anachronism is only
apparent. Erictho might well have survived the battle of Pharsalia

HELL, CANTO IX 377

long enough to be employed in her magical practices at the time of
Virgil’s decease.
]. 42. Adders and cerastes. |

Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.
Virgil, Aen. Lib. VI. 281.

ppane Nee eranenee cerastae

at torial dipsas
Et gravis in geminum vergens caput amphisbaena.
Lucan, Pharsal. |. ix. 719.
So Milton :

Scorpion and asp, and amphisbaena dire,
Cerastes horned, hydrus and elops drear,
And dipsas. POE Book x024:

]. 63. The lore.| The Poet probably intends to call the reader’s
attention to the allegorical and mystic sense of the present Canto,
and not, as Venturi supposes, to that of the whole work. Landino
supposes this hidden meaning to be, that in the case of those
vices which proceed from incontinence and intemperance, reason,
which is figured under the person of Virgil, with the ordinary
grace of God, may be a sufficient safeguard; but that in the in-
stance of more heinous crimes, such as those we shall hereafter see
punished, a special grace, represented by the angel, is requisite for
our defence.

]. 67. A wind.] Imitated by Berni:

Com’ un gruppo di vento in la marina
L’ onde, e le navi sottosopra caccia,
Ed in terra con furia repentina
Gli arbori abbatte, sveglie, sfronda e straccia,
Smarriti fuggon 1 lavoratori
E per le selve le fiere e’ pastori.
Orl Inn, Lib: 1. e. 11; st. 6:

]. 71. Afar.] ‘ Porta i fiori,’ ‘ carries away the blossoms,’ is the
common reading. ‘ Porta fuori,’ which is the right reading, adopted
by Lombardi in his edition from the Nidobeatina, for which he claims
it exclusively, I had also seen in Landino’s edition of 1484, and
adopted from thence, long before it was my chance to meet with
Lombardi.

1. 88. With his wand.]

She with her rod did softly smite the rail,
Which straight flew ope.
Spenser, F. Q., Book IV, e. ili, st. 46.

1. 97. Your Cerberus.| Cerberus is feigned to have been dragged
by Hercules, bound with a threefold chain, of which, says the angel,
he still bears the marks. Lombardi blames the other interpreters
for having supposed that the angel attributes this exploit to Hercules,
a fabulous hero, rather than to our Saviour. It would seem as if the
good father had forgotten that Cerberus is himself no less a creature
of the imagination than the hero who encountered him.

378 NOTES

1. 111. The plains of Arics.| In Provence. See Ariosto, Orl. Fur.,
CG. 5eRie BE. 2:
Fu da ogni parte in quest’ ultima guerra
(Benché la cosa non fu ugual divisa,
Ch’ assai pit andar dei Saracin sotterra
Per man di Bradamante e di Marfisa),
Se ne vede ancor segno in quella terra,
Che presso ad Arli, ove il Rodano stagna,
Piena di sepolture é la campagna.

These sepulchres are mentioned in the Life of Charlemagne, which
goes under the name of Archbishop Turpin, cap. 28 and 30, and by
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, L. iv, cap. xxi.

]. 112. At Pola.| A city of Istria, situated near the gulf of Quar-
naro, in the Adriatic sea.

1,117. They burned.| Mr. Darley observes, that in the Incantation
of Hervor (v. Northern Antiquities, vol. ii) the spirit of Angantyr lies
in a tomb ‘all on fire’.

CANTO X

1. 12. Josaphat.| It seems to have been a common opinion among
the Jews, as well as among many Christians, that the general judge-
ment will be held in the valley of Josaphat, or Jehoshaphat: ‘I will
also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of
Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people, and for
my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations,
and parted my land.’ Joel iii. 2.

1.18. The wish.| The wish, that Dante had not expressed, was to
see and converse with the followers of Epicurus; among whom, we
shall see, were Farinata degli Uberti and Calvalcante Cavalcanti.

]. 32. Farinata.| Farinata degli Uberti, a noble Florentine, was the
leader of the Ghibelline faction, when they obtained a signal victory
over the Guelfi at Montaperto, near the river Arbia. Macchiavelli
calls him ‘a man of exalted soul, and great military talents’. Hist.
of Flor., Book II. His grandson, Bonifacio, or, as he is commonly
called, Fazio degli Uberti, wrote a poem, entitled the Dittamondo,
in imitation of Dante. I shall have frequent occasion to refer to it
throughout these notes. At the conclusion of cap. 27, 1. ii, he makes
mention of his ancestor Farinata. See note 8 to ‘Life of Dante,’

Fo.o4p

1. 47. T'wice.| The first time in 1248, when they were driven out
by Frederick the Second. See G. Villani, Lib. VI, c. xxxiv; and
the second time in 1260. See note to 1. 83.

]. 52. A shade.) The spirit of Cavalcante Cavalcanti, a noble
Florentine, of the Guelph party.

1. 59. My son.) Guido, the son of Cavalcante Cavalcanti; ‘he
whom I call the first of my friends,’ says Dante in his Vita Nuova,
where the commencement of their friendship is related. From the
character given of him by contemporary writers, his temper was well
formed to assimilate with that of our Poet. ‘ He was,’ according to
G. Villani, Lib. VIII, c. xli, ‘ of a philosophical and elegant mind, if
he had not been too delicate and fastidious.’ And Dino Compagni

HELL, CANTO X 379

terms him ‘a young and noble knight, brave and courteous, but of

a lofty, scornful spirit, much addicted to solitude and study’. Mura-

tori, Rer. Ital. Script., t. 9, Lib. I, p. 481. He died, either in exile

at Serrazana, or soon after his return to Florence, December, 1300,

during the spring of which year the action of this poem is supposed

to be passing.
1. 62,

Guido thy son
Had in contempt.|

Guido Cavalcanti, being more given to philosophy than poetry, was
perhaps no great admirer of Virgil. Some poetical compositions by
Guido are, however, still extant ; and his reputation for skill in the
art was such as to eclipse that of his predecessor and namesake Guido
Guinicelli ; as we shall see in the Purgatory, Canto XI, in the notes
to which the reader will find specimens of the poems that have been
left by each of these writers. His Canzone sopra il Terreno Amore
was thought worthy of being illustrated by numerous and ample
commentaries. Crescimbeni, Jst. della Volg. Poes.. Lib. V. Our
author addressed him in a playful sonnet, of which the following
spirited translation is found in the notes to Hayley’s Essay on Epic
Poetry, Ep. iii:
Henry! I wish that you, and Charles, and I,
By some sweet spell within a bark were placed,
A gallant bark with magic virtue graced,
Swift at our will with every wind to fly ;
So that no changes of the shifting sky,
No stormy terrors of the watery waste,
Might bar our course, but heighten still our taste
Of sprightly joy, and of our social tie:
Then that my Lucy, Lucy fair and free,
With those soft nymphs, on whom your souls are bent,
The kind magician might to us convey,
To talk of love throughout the live-long day ;
And that each fair might be as well content,
As I in truth believe our hearts would be.

The two friends, here called Henry and Charles, are, in the original,
Guido and Lapo, concerning the latter of whom see the ‘ Life of Dante’
prefixed: and Lucy is Monna Bice. A more literal version of the
sonnet may be found in the Canzoniere of Dante, translated by Charles
Lyell, Esq., 8vo, Lond. 1835, p. 407.

1. 66. Said’st thou, he had ?| In Aeschylus, the shade of Darius is
represented as inquiring with similar anxiety after the fate of his
son Xerxes.

Atossa. povaéa dé Zépénv épnudv pac ov rod\A@v péeTaA—

Darius. m@s te 57 Kat wot TeAevTaY ; EoTL Tis GwTNpia;

TMIEPZAI 734.

Atossa. Xerxes astonished, desolate, alone—
Ghost of Dar. How will thisend? Nay, pause not. Is he safe ?
The Persians, Potter’s Translation.

1. 77. Not yet fifty times.] ‘Not fifty months shall be passed,
before thou shalt learn, by woeful experience, the difficulty of re-
turning from banishment to thy native city.’

380 NOTES

1. 78. Queen of this realm.| The moon, one of whose titles in heathen
mythology, was Proserpine, queen of the shades below
1. 80. So to the pleasant world mayst thou return.)

E se tu mai nel dolce mondo regge.

Lombardi would construe this: ‘And if thou ever remain in the
pleasant world.’ His chief reasons for thus departing from the
common interpretation, are, first that ‘se’ in the sense of ‘so’
cannot be followed by ‘ mai’, any more than in Latin ‘sic’ can be
followed by ‘unquam’; and next, that ‘regge’ is too unlike ‘ riedi’
to be put for it. A more intimate acquaintance with the early
Florentine writers would have taught him that ‘ mai’ is used in other
senses than those which ‘ unquam’ appears to have had, particularly
in that of ‘pur’, ‘ yet”; as may be seen in the notes to the De-
cameron, p. 43, Ed. Giunti, 1573; and that the old writers both of
prose and verse changed ‘ riedo’ into ‘ reggio’, as of ‘ fiedo’ they
made ‘feggio’. Inf., xv. 39, and xvii. 75. See pace 98 of the
same notes to the Decameron, where a poet before Dante’s time
is said to have translated ‘ Redeunt flores’, ‘ Reggiono i fiori.’

]. 83. The slaughter.| ‘By means of Farinata degli Uberti, the
Guelfi were conquered by the army of king Manfredi, near the river
Arbia, with so great a slaughter, that those who escaped from that
defeat took refuge, not in Florence, which city they considered as
lost to them, but in Lucca.’ Macchiavelli, Hist. of Flor., Book II,
and G. Villani, Lib. VI, c. Ixxx and lxxxi.

1. 86. Such orisons.| This appears to allude to certain prayers
which were offered up in the churches of Florence, for deliverance
from the hostile attempts of the Uberti: or, it may be, that the
public councils being held in churches, the speeches delivered in
them against the Uberti are termed ‘ orisons’, or prayers.

1]. 90. Singly there I stood.| Guido Novello assembled a council of
the Ghibellini at Empoli; where it was agreed by all, that, in order
to maintain the ascendancy of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, it
was necessary to destroy Florence, which could serve only (the people
of that city being Guelfi) to enable the party attached to the church to
recover itsstrength. This cruel sentence, passed upon so noble a city,
met with no opposition from any of its citizens or friends, except
Farinata degli Uberti, who openly and without reserve forbade the
measure; affirming, that he had endured so many hardships, and en-
countered so many dangers, with no other view than that of being able
to pass his daysin hisowncountry. Macchiavelli, Hist. of Flor., Book II.

1. 93. So may thy lineage. |

Deh, se riposi mai vostra semenza.

Here Lombardi is again mistaken, as at v.80, above. Let me take
this occasion to apprise the reader of Italian poetry, that one not
well versed in it is very apt to misapprehend the word ‘se’, as
I think Cowper has done in translating Milton’s Italian verses.
A good instance of the different meanings in which it is used is
afforded in the following lines by Bernardo Capello :

E tu, che dolcemente i fiori e l erba
Con lieve corso mormorando bagni,
Tranquillo fiume di vaghezza pieno ;

HELL, CANTO X 381

Se *] cielo al mar si chiaro t’? accompagni ;
Se punto di pietade in te si serba:
Le mie lagrime accogli entro al tuo seno.

Here the first ‘se’ signifies ‘so’, and the second ‘ if’.

]. 98. We view.] ‘The departed spirits know things past and to
come; yet are ignorant of things present. Agamemnon foretells
what should happen unto Ulysses, yet ignorantly inquires what is
become of his own son.” Browne, On Urn Burial, chap. iv.

1. 108. My fault.) Dante felt remorse for not having returned
an immediate answer to the inquiry of Cavalcante, from which
delay he was led to believe that his son Guido was no longer
living.

]. 120. Frederick.| The Emperor Frederick the Second, who died
in 1250. See notes to Canto XITI.

]. 123. The Lord Cardinal.| Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a Florentine,
made cardinal in 1245, and deceased about 1273. On account of his
great influence, he was generally known by the appellation of ‘ the Car-
dinal’. It is reported of him, that he declared, if there were any
such thing as a human soul, he had lost his for the Ghibellini. ‘I
know not,’ says Tiraboschi, ‘ whether it is on sufficient grounds that
Crescimbeni numbers among the poets of this age the Cardinal
Uttaviano, or Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a Florentine, archdeacon
and procurator of the church of Bologna, afterwards made Cardinal
by Innocent IV in 1245, and employed in the most important public
affairs, wherein, however, he showed himself, more than became his
character, a favourer of the Ghibellines. He died, not in the year
1272, as Ciaconio and other writers have reported, but at soonest
after the July of 1273, at which time he was in Mugello with Pope
Gregory X.’ Tiraboschi, Della Poes. It., Mr. Mathias’s Edit., t. i,
p- 140.

|. 132. Her gracious beam.| Beatrice.

CANTO XI

1.9. Pope Anastasius.| The commentators are not agreed concern-
ing the person who is here mentioned as a follower of the heretical
Photinus. By some he is supposed to have been Anastasius the
Second; by others, the Fourth of that name; while a third set,
jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that our Poet has
confounded him with Anastasius I, Emperor of the East. Fazio
degli Uberti, like our author, makes him a pope:

Anastasio papa in quel tempo era,
Di Fotin vago a mal grado de sui.
Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap. xiv.

1. 17. My son.] The remainder of the present Canto may be con-
sidered as a syllabus of the whole of this part of the poem.

], 25. Hither by force or fraud.| ‘Cum autem duobus modis, id est,
aut vi, aut fraude, fiat iniuria . . . utrumque homini alienissimum ;
sed fraus odio digna maiore.’ Cic. de Off. Lib. I, ce. xiii.

]. 48. And sorrows.| This fine moral, that not to enjoy our being is

382 NOTES

to be ungrateful to the Author of it, is well expressed in Spenser,
F. Q., Book IV, c. viii, st. 15.

For he whose days in wilful woe are worn,

The grace of his Creator doth despise,

That will not use his gifts for thankless nigardise.

1, 53. Cahors.) A city of Guienne, much frequented by usurers.

]. 83. Thy ethic page.) He refers to Aristotle's Ethics: Mera 62
Tavta AexTéov, GAAnY ToLnOapévous GPXNV, OTL TAV TEpt TA HOn pevATaY
Tpia éoriv ¢idn, Kaxia, axpagia, Onpiotns. Ethic. Nicomach. Lib. VII,
c. 1. ‘In the next place, entering on another division of the subject,
let it be defined, that respecting morals there are three sorts of
things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness.’

], 104. Her laws.] Aristotle’s Physics —‘‘H reyvn pupetrae tiv
vow,’ Arist. PYS. AKP. Lib. II, c. 2. ‘ Art imitates nature.’—See
the Coltiwazione of Alamanni, Lib. I.

P arte umana

Altro non é da dir ch’ un dolce sprone,
Un corregger soave, un pio sostegno,
Uno esperto imitar, comporre accorto
Un sollecito attar con studio e’ngegno
La cagion natural, |’ effetto, e P opra.

]. 109. Second in descent. |
Si che vostr’ arte a Dio quasi é nepote.

So Frezzi :—
Giustizia fu da cielo, e di Dio é figlia,
E ogni bona legge a Dio é€ nipote.
Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 2.

]. 111. Creation’s holy book.| Gen. ii. 15: ‘ And the Lord God
took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it. And Gen. iii. 19: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread.’

]. 116. Placing elsewhere his hope.| The usurer, trusting in the pro-
duce of his wealth lent out on usury, despises nature directly, be-
cause he does not avail himself of her means for maintaining or en-
riching himself ; and indirectly, because he does not avail himself of
the means which art, the follower and imitator o/ nature, would afford
him for the same purposes.

1.119. Lhe Wain.] The constellation Ursa Major, or Charles’s Wain.

CANTO XII

]. 4. Adice’s stream.| After a great deal having been said on the
subject, it still appears very uncertain at what part of the river this
fall of the mountain happened.

1. 9. Some passage.| Lombardi erroneously, I think, understands
by ‘alcuna via’ ‘no passage’ ; in which sense ‘ alcuno’ is certainly
sometimes used by some old writers. Monti, as usual, agrees with
Lombardi. See note to Canto III, v. 40.

1. 13. The infamy of Crete.| The Minotaur.

HELL, CANTO XII 383

]. 14. The feigned hetfer.] Pasiphae.

]. 17. The King of Athens.| Theseus, who was enabled by the in-
struction of Ariadne, the sister of the Minotaur, to destroy that
monster. ‘ Duca d’ Atene.’ So Chaucer calls Theseus :

Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duk, that highte Theseus.
The Knighte’s Tale.
And Shakespeare :

Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke.
Midsummer-Night’s Dream, I. i. 20.

‘This is in reality,’ observes Mr. Douce, ‘no misapplication of
a modern title, as Mr. Stevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the
word in its primitive Latin sense of leader, and so itisoften used in
the Bible. Shakespeare might have found Duke Theseus in the Book
of Troy, or in Turberville’s Ovid’s Epistles. See the argument to that
of Phaedra and Hippolytus.’ Douce’s Illustrations of Shakespeare,
8vo, 1807, vol. 1, p. 179.

1.19. Thy sisters art.) Ariadne.

]. 21. Like to a buill.]

ws 8 O7 ay dgdy Exwy méXEKuy ai€nios avnp,
Kovas efdmibev Kepawy Boos dypavAaco,
iva Tapy bia macay, b 5é mpoPopway épimnaty.
Homer, //. xvii. 520.

As when some vigorous youth with sharpened axe
A pastured bullock smites behind the horns,

And hews the muscle through; he at the stroke
Springs forth and falls.

Cowper's Translation.
]. 29. To weight.]

—— Incumbent on the dusky air
That felt unusual weight.
Milton, P. L., Book I. 226.

]. 36. He arrived.| Our Saviour, who, according to Dante, when
he ascended from hell, carried with him the souls of the Patriarchs,
and of other just men, out of the first circle. See Canto IV.

]. 42. Been into chaos turned.| This opinion is attributed to Empe-
docles.

1.44. The river of blood.| Deinde vidi locum (Qu. lacum ?) magnum
totum, ut mihi videbatur, plenum sanguine. Sed dixit mihi Apo-
stolus, sed non sanguis, sed ignis est ad concremandos homicidas, et
odiosos deputatus. Hanc tamen similitudinem propter sanguinis
effusionem retinet. Alberict Visio, § 7.

]. 66. And wrought himself revenge.| Nessus, when dying by the
hand of Hercules, charged Deianira to preserve the gore from his
wound ; for that if the affections of Hercules should at any time be
estranged from her, it would act as a charm, and recallthem. Deianira
had occasion to try the experiment; and the venom acting, as
Nessus had intended, caused Hercules to expire in torments. See
the T'rachiniae of Sophocles.

1. 71. Hmerge.| Multos in eis vidi usque ad talos demergi, alios

384 NOTES

usque ad genua, vel femora, alios usque ad pectus iuxta peccati vidi
modum: alios vero qui maioris criminis noxa tenebantur in ipsis
summitatibus supersedere conspexi. Alberict Visio, § 3.

1. 96. Nessus.) Our Poet was probably induced, by the following
line in Ovid, to assign to Nessus the task of conducting them over the
ford:

Nessus adit membrisque valens scitusque vadorum.
Metam. |. ix.

And Ovid’s authority was Sophocles, who says of this Centaur—

ds Tov Babvppovy Totapov Evnvov Bpotous
puoOov ’mépeve xEpoly ovTE TOpTipas

, > , a , , h ar
KwTats €pecowv, ovTe Aaideoty vews. Trach. 559.

He in his arms, across Evenus’ stream
Deep-flowing, bore the passenger for hire,
Without or sail or billow-cleaviny oar.

1. 110. Azzolino.] Azzolino, or Ezzolino di Romano, a most cruel
tyrant in the Marca Trivigiana, Lord of Padua, Vicenza, Verona,
and Brescia, who died in 1260. His atrocities form the subject of
a Latin tragedy, called Eecerinis, by Albertino Mussato, of Padua,
the contemporary of Dante, and the most elegant writer of Latin
verse of that age. See also the Paradise, Canto IX. Berni, Orl.
Inn., Lib. It; ec. xxv, st. 50. Ariosto, Orl. Fur., c. il, st. 33, and
Tassoni, Secchia Rapita, c. viii, st. 11.

}. 111. Obizzo of Este.] Marquis of Ferrara and of the Marca
d’ Ancona, was murdered by his own son (whom, for that most un-
natural act, Dante calls his step-son) for the sake of the treasures
which his rapacity had amassed. See Ariosto, Orl. Fur., c. iii, st. 32.
He died in 1293, according to Gibbon, Ant. of the House of Brunswick,
Posth. Works, vol. ii, 4to.

1. 119. He.| ‘ Henrie, the brother of this Edmund, and son to the
foresaid king of Almaine (Richard, brother of Henry III of England),
as he returned from Affrike, where he had been with Prince Edward,
was slain at Viterbo in Italy (whither he was come about business
which he had to do with the Pope) by the hand of Guy de Montfort,
the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the
same Simon’s death. The murther was committed afore the high
altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service.’
A.D. 1272. Holinshed’s Chron., p. 275. Seealso Giov. Villani, Hvst.,
Lib. VII, c. xl, where it is said ‘that the heart of Henry was put
into a golden cup, and placed on a pillar at London bridge over the
river Thames, for a memorial to the English of the said outrage.’
Lombardi suggests that ‘ ancor si cola’ in the text may mean, not
that ‘the heart was still honoured’, but that it was put into a per-
forated cup in order that the blood dripping from it might excite the
spectators to revenge. This is surely too improbable.

Un poco prima dove pit si stava
Sicuro Enrico, il conte di Monforte
VL’ alma del corpo col coltel gli cava.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, |. ii, cap. xxix.

1.135. On Sextus and on Pyrrhus.| Sextus, either the son of Tarquin
the Proud, or of Pompey the Great ; and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus.

HELL, CANTO XII 385
Li37: The Rinieri, of Corneto this,
Pazzo the other named. ]

Two noted marauders, by whose depredations the public ways in
Italy were infested. The latter was of the noble family of Pazzi in
Florence.

CANTO XIII

]. 2. A forest.] ‘Inde in aliam vallem nimis terribiliorem deveni
plenam subtilissimis arboribus in modum hastarum sexaginta bra-
chiorum longitudinem habentibus, quaarum omnium capita, ac si sudes
acutissima erant, et spinosa.’ Alberici Visio, § 4.

1. 10. Betwixt Corneto and Cecina’s stream.| A wild and woody
tract of country, abounding in deer, goats, and wild boars. Cecina
is a river not far to the south of Leghorn; Corneto, a small city on
the same coast, in the patrimony of the church.

]. 12. The Strophades.| See Virgil, Aen. Lib. III. 210.

1. 14. Broad are their pennons.]|

Virginei volucrum vultus, foedissima ventris
Proluvies, uncaeque manus et pallida semper
Ora fame.

Virgil, Aen. Lib. III. 216.
1, 33. Gathered I.| So Frezzi.

A quelle frasche stesi su la mano,
E d@’ una vetta un ramuscel ne colsi;
Allora ella gridd: oimé, fa piano,
E sangue vivo usci, ond’ io lo tolsi,
Il Quadrir., Lib. I, cap. 4.

1, 48. In my verse described.| The commentators explain this, ‘If he
could have believed, in consequence of my assurances alone, that of
which he hath now had ocular proof, he would not have stretched forth
his hand against thee.’ But I am of opinion that Dante makes Virgil
allude to his own story of Polydorus, in the third book of the Aenevd.

1. 56. That pleasant word of thine.] ‘Since you have inveigled me
to speak by holding forth so gratifying an expectation, let it not dis-
please you if I am as it were detained in the snare you have spread
for me, so as to be somewhat prolix in my answer.’

1. 60. J it was.| Pietro delle Vigne, a native of Capua, who from
a low condition raised himself, by his eloquence and legal knowledge,
to the office of Chancellor to the Emperor Frederick II ; whose con-
fidence in him was such, that his influence in the empire became un-
bounded. The courtiers, envious of his exalted situation, contrived,
by means of forged letters, to make Frederick believe that he held
a secret and traitorous intercourse with the Pope, who was then at
enmity with the Emperor. In consequence of this supposed crime,
he was cruelly condemned, by his too credulous sovereign, to lose
his eyes; and being driven to despair by his unmerited calamity and
disgrace, he put an end to his life by dashing out his brains against
the walls of a church, in the year 1245. Both Frederick and Pietro
delle Vigne composed verses in the Sicilian dialect, which are now
extant. A canzone by each of them may be seen in the ninth book

386 NOTES

of the Sonettt é Canzoni di diverst Autort Toscani, published by
the Giunti in 1527. See further the note on Purg., Canto III. 110.

1. 67. The harlot.) Envy. Chaucer alludes to this, in the Prologue
to the Legend of Good Women, 358 :

Envye is lavender of the court alway,
For she ne parteth neither night ne day
Out of the hous of Cesar: thus saith Dant.

j. 119. Hach fan o th’ wood.| Hence perhaps Milton :

Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora’s fan.
P. L., Book V. 6.

Some have translated ‘ rosta’ ‘impediment’, instead of ‘fan’.

]. 122. Lano.] Lano, a Sienese, who being reduced by prodigality
to a state of extreme want, found his existence no longer support-
able; and having been sent by his countrymen on a military ex-
pedition to assist the Florentines against the Aretini, took that
opportunity of exposing himself to certain death, in the engagement
which took place at Toppo near Arezzo. See G. Villani, Hist.,
ih. VL. ¢. exix,

]. 133.

O Jacomo
Of Sant? Andrea ?)

Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea, a Paduan, who, having wasted his property
in the most wanton acts of profusion, killed himself in despair.

]. 144. In that city.| ‘I was an inhabitant of Florence, that city
which changed her first patron Mars for St. John the Baptist; for
which reason the vengeance of the deity thus slighted will never be
appeased ; and if some remains of his statue were not still visible
on the bridge over the Arno, she would have been already levelled to
the ground; and thus the citizens, who raised her again from the
ashes to which Attila had reduced her, would have laboured in vain.’
See Paradise, Canto XVI. 44. The relic of antiquity, to which the
superstition of Florence attached so high an importance, was carried
away by a flood, that destroyed the bridge on which it stood, in the
year 1337, but without the ill effects that were apprehended fiom
the loss of their fancied Palladium.

]. 152. I slung the fatal noose.| We are not informed who this
suicide was; some calling him Rocco de’ Mozzi, and others Lotto
degli Agli.

CANTO XIV

1. 15. By Cato’s foot.| See Lucan, Phars. Lib. IX.
]. 26. Dilated flakes of fire.| Compare Tasso, G. L., c. x, st. 61.

Al fin giungemmo al loco, ove gia scese
Fiamma del cielo in dilatate falde,

E di natura vendicd Il offese

Sovra la gente in mal oprar si salde.

]. 28. As, in the torrid Indian clime.| Landino refers to Albertus
Magnus for the circumstance here alluded to.
]. 35. As under stove.] So Frezzi:

Si come Il esca al foco del focile.
Lib. I, cap. 17.

HELL, CANTO XIV 387

1. 53. In Mongibello.]

More hot than Aetn’ or flaming Mongiball.
Spenser, F. Q., Book II, c. ix, st. 29

Siccome alla fucina in Mongibello
Fabrica tuono il demonio Vulcano,
Batte folgori e foco col martello,
E con esso i suoi fabri in ogni mano,
Berni, Orl. Inn., Lib. I, c. xvi, st. 21.

See Virgil, Aen. Lib. VIII. 416. It would be endless to refer to
parallel passages in the Greek writers.

1. 64. This of the seven kings was one.| Compare Aesch. Seven Chiefs,
425. Euripides, Phoen. 1179, and Statius, Theb. Lib. X. 821.

1. 76. Bulicame.| A warm medicinal spring near Viterbo; the
waters of which, as Landino and Vellutelli affirm, passed by a place
of ill fame. Venturi, with less probability, conjectures that Dante
would imply that it was the scene of much licentious merriment
among those who frequented its baths.

]. 91. Under whose monarch. |

Credo pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
In terris.——— Juv. Satir. vi.

In Saturn’s reign, at Nature’s early birth,
There was that thing called chastity on earth.
Dryden’s translation.

1. 102. His head.| This is imitated by Frezzi, in the Quadriregio,
Lib. IV, cap 14:

La statua grande vidi in un gran piano, &c.

‘This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of
silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet
part of iron and part of clay.’ Dan. ii. 32, 33.

1. 130. The red seething wave.| This he might have known was
Phlegethon.

1. 133. Whither.] On the other side of Purgatory.

CANTO XV
1. 10. Chiarentana.] A part of the Alps where the Brenta rises ;
which river is much swollen as soon as the snow begins to dissolve
on the mountains.
1. 20. As an old tailor at his needle’s eye.| In Fazio degli Uberti’s
Dittamondo, |. iv, cap. 4, the tailor is introduced in a simile scarcely
less picturesque :

Perché tanto mi stringe a questo punto
La lunga tema, ch’ io fo come il sarto
Che quando affretta spesso passa il punto.

]. 28. Brunetto.] ‘Ser Brunetto, a Florentine, the secretary or
chancellor of the city, and Dante’s preceptor, hath left us a work so
little read, that both the subject of it and the language of it have
been mistaken. It is in the French spoken in the reign of St. Louis,
under the title of Tresor; and contains a species of philosophical

CARY P

388 NOTES

course of lectures divided into theory and practice, or, as he ex-
presses it, un enchaussement des choses divines et humaines,’ &c.
Sir R. Clayton’s Translation of Tenhove’s Memoirs of the Medici,
vol. i, ch. ii, p. 104. The T'resor has never been printed in the original
language. There is a fine manuscript of it in the British Museum,
with an illuminated portrait of Brunetto in his study, prefixed.
Mus. Brit. MSS. 17, E. 1, Tesor. It is divided into four books:
the first, on Cosmogony and Theology; the second, a translation of
Aristotle’s Ethics; the third, on Virtues and Vices; the fourth, on
Rhetoric. For an interesting memoir relating to this work, see Hist.
de l’ Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. vii. 296. His T'esoretto, one of the
earliest productions of Italian poetry, is a curious work, not unlike
the writings of Chaucer in style and numbers; though Bembo re-
marks, that his pupil, however largely he had stolen from it, could
not have much enriched himself. As it is perhaps but little known,
I will here add a slight sketch of it. Brunetto describes himself as
returning from an embassy to the King of Spain, on which he had
been sent by the Guelph party from Florence. On the plain of Ron-
cesvalles he meets a scholar on a bay mule—

—— un scolaio
Sur un muletto baio.

There a scholar I espied
On a bay mule that did ride.

—who tells him that the Guelfi are driven out of the city with great
loss. Struck with grief at these mournful tidings, and musing with
his head bent downwards, he loses his road, and wanders into a wood.
Here Nature, whose figure is described with sublimity, appears, and
discloses to him the secrets of her operations. After this, he wanders
into a desert—
Deh che paese fiero
Trovai in quella parte,
Che s’ io sapessi d’ arte
Quivi mi bisognava.
Che quanto pitt mirava
Piu mi parea selvaggio.
Quivi non a viaggio,
Quivi non a persone,
Quivi non a magione.
Non bestia non uccello,
Non fiume non ruscello,
Non formica non mosca,
Non cosa ch’ io conosca.
{d io pensando forte
Dottai ben della morte,
E non € maraviglia,
Che ben trecento miglia
Durava d’ ogni lato
Quel paese smagato.

Well-away! what fearful ground
In that savage part I found.

If of art I aught could ken,
Well behoved me use it then.

HELL, CANTO XV 389

More I looked, the more I deemed
That it wild and desert seemed.
Not a road was there in sight,
Not a house, and not a wight;
Not a bird, and not a brute,

Not a rill, and not a root;

Not an emmet, not a fly,

Not a thing I mote descry.

Sore I doubted therewithal
Whether death would me befall ;
Nor was wonder, for around

Full three hundred miles of ground
Right across on every side

Lay the desert bare and wide.

—and proceeds on his way, under the protection of a banner with
which Nature had furnished him, till on the third day he finds him-
self in a pleasant champaign, where are assembled many emperors,
kings, and sages :
Un gran piano giocondo
Lo pit. gajo del mondo
E lo pit degnitoso.

Wide and far the champaign lay,
None in all the earth so gay.

It is the habitation of Virtue and her daughters, the four Cardinal
Virtues. Here Brunetto sees also Courtesy, Bounty, Loyalty, and
Prowess, and hears the instructions they give to a knight, which
occupy about a fourth part of the poem. Leaving this territory, he
passes over valleys, mountains, woods, forests, and bridges, till he
arrives in a beautiful valley covered with flowers on all sides, and the
richest in the world ; but which was continually shifting its appear-
ance from a round figure to a square, from obscurity to light, and
from populousness to solitude. This is the region of Pleasure, or
Cupid, who is accompanied by four ladies, Love, Hope, Fear, and
Desire. In one part of it he meets with Ovid, and is instructed by
him how to conquer the passion of love, and to escape from that
place. After his escape, he makes his confession to a friar, and then
returns to the forest of visions; and, ascending a mountain, meets
with Ptolemy, a venerable old man. Here the narrative breaks off.
The poem ends, as it began, with an address to Rustico di Filippo,
on whom he lavishes every sort of praise.

It has been observed, that Dante derived the idea of opening his
poem by describing himself as lost in a wood, from the T'esoretto of
his master. I know not whether it has been remarked, that the
crime of usury is branded by both these poets as offensive to God
and Nature :—

Un altro, che non cura
Di Dio né di Natura,
Si diventa usuriere.

One, that holdeth not in mind
Law of God or Nature’s kind,
Taketh him to usury ;

390 NOTES

—or that the sin for which Brunetto is condemned by his pupil is
mentioned in his J'esorefto with great horror. But see what is said on
thissubject by Perticari, Degli Scrittori del Trecento, l,i, c. iv. Dante’s
[supposed] twenty-fifth sonnet is a jocose one, addressed to Brunetto,
of which a translation is inserted in the ‘ Life of Dante’ prefixed. He
died in 1294. G,. Villani sums up his account of him by saying, that
he was himself a worldly man; but that he was the first to refine
the Florentines from their grossness, and to instruct them in speak-
ing properly, and in conducting the affairs of the republic on principles
of policy.

]. 51. Before mine age.| On the whole, Vellutello’s explanation of
this is, I think, most satisfactory. He supposes it to mean, ‘ before
the appointed end of his life was arrived—before his days were
accomplished.’ Lombardi, concluding that the fullness of age must
be the same as ‘ the midway of this our mortal life’ (see Canto I,
v. 1), understands that he had lost himself in the wood before that
time, and that he then only discovered his having gone astray.

1. 62. Who in old times came down from Fiesole.| See G. Villani,
Hist., Lib. IV, cap. v, and Macchiav., Hist. of Flor., Book II.

1. 67. Blind.| It is said that the Florentines were thus called, in
consequence of their having been deceived by a shallow artifice
practised on them by the Pisans, in the year 1117. See G. Villani,
Lib. TV, cap. xxx.

1. 89. With another text.] He refers to the prediction of Farinata,
in Canto X.

]. 110. Priscian.] There is no reason to believe, as the commen-
tators observe, that the grammarian of this name was stained with
the vice imputed to him; and we must therefore suppose that Dante
puts the individual for the species, and implies the frequency of the
crime among those who abused the opportunities which the educa-
tion of youth afforded them, to so abominable a purpose.

J. 111. Francesco.] Accorso, a Florentine, interpreted the Roman
law at Bologna, and died in 1229, at the age of 78. His authority
was so great as to exceed that of all the other interpreters, so that
Cino da Pistoia termed him the Idol of Advocates. His sepulchre,
and that of his son Francesco here spoken of, is at Bologna, with this
short epitaph: ‘Sepulerum Accursii Glossatoris et Francisci eius
Filii.. See Guidi Panziroli, De Claris Legum Interpretibus, Lib. II,
cap. xxix, Lips. 4to, 1721.

1. 113. Him.] Andrea de’ Mozzi, who, that his scandalous life
might be less exposed to observation, was translated either by
Nicolas III or Boniface VIII from the see of Florence to that of
Vicenza, through which passes the river Bacchiglione. At the latter
of these places he died.

]. 114. The servants’ servant.) Servo de’ servi. So Ariosto, Sat. iii.

Degli servi
Io sia il gran servo.

]. 121. IZ commend my Treasure to thee.] Brunetto’s great work,
the Tresor :
Siati raccomandato il mio Tesoro.
So Giusto de’ Conti, in his Bella Mano, Son. ‘ Occhi’ :

Siavi raccomandato il mio Tesoro.

HELL, CANTO XVI 391

CANTO XVI

1. 38. Gualdrada.| Gualdrada was the daughter of Bellincion Berti,
of whom mention is made in the Paradise, Canto XV and XVI. He
was of the family of Ravignani, a branch of the Adimari. The
Emperor Otho IV being at a festival in Florence, where Gualdrada
was present, was struck with her beauty; and inquiring who she
was, was answered by Bellincion, that she was the daughter of one
who, if it was his Majesty’s pleasure, would make her admit the
honour of his salute. On overhearing this, she arose from her seat,
and blushing, in an animated tone of voice, desired her father that
he would not be so liberal in his offers, for that no man should ever
be allowed that freedom except him who should be her lawful hus-
band. The Emperor was not less delighted by her resolute modesty
than he had before been by the loveliness of her person ; and calling
to him Guido, one of his barons, gave her to him in marriage ; at the
same time raising him to the rank of a count, and bestowing on her
the whole of Casentino, and a part of the territory of Romagna, as
her portion. Two sons were the offspring of this union, Guglielmo
and Ruggieri; the latter of whom was father of Guidoguerra, a man
of great military skill and prowess ; who, at the head of four hundred
Florentines of the Guelph party, was signally instrumental to the
victory obtained at Benevento by Charles of Anjou, over Manfredi,
King of Naples, in 1265. One of the consequences of this victory
was the expulsion of the Ghibellini, and the re-establishment of the
Guelfi at Florence. Borghini (Disc. dell’ Orig. di Firenze, ediz. 1755,
p- 6), as cited by Lombardi, endeavours by a comparison of dates
to throw discredit on the above relation of Gualdrada’s answer to her
father, which is found in G. Villani, Lib. V, c. xxxvii: and Lombardi
adds, that if it had been true, Bellincion would have been worthy of
a place in the eighteenth Canto of Hell, rather than of being men-
tioned with praise in the Paradise: to which it may be answered,
that the proposal of the father, however irreconcilable it may be to
our notions of modern refinement, might possibly in those times have
been considered rather as a sportive sally than as a serious exposure
of his daughter’s innocence. The incident is related, in a manner
very unfavourable to Berti, by Francesco Sansovino, in one of his
Novelle, inserted by Mr. Thomas Roscoe in his entertaining selection
from the Italian Novelists, v. iii, p. 137.

1. 39. Many a noble act.|

Molto egli opro col senno e con la mano.
Tassos GedAse, stp 12

1. 42. Aldobrandi.}| Tegghiaio Aldobrandi was of the noble family
of Adimari, and much esteemed for his military talents. He en-
deavoured ‘to dissuade the Florentines from the attack which they
meditated against the Sienese; and the rejection of his counsel
occasioned the memorable defeat which the former sustained at
Montaperto, and the consequent banishment of the Guelfi from
Florence.

1. 45. Rusticucct.]| Jacopo Rusticucci, a Florentine, remarkable
for his opulence and the generosity of his spirit.

1. 70. Borsiere.] Guglielmo Borsiere, another Florentine, whom

392 NOTES

Boceaccio, in a story which he relates of him, terms ‘a man of
courteous and elegant manners, and of great readiness in conversa-
tion’. Dec., Giorn. i, Nov. 8.

1. 78. At so little cost.| They intimate to our Poet (as Lombardi
well observes) the inconveniences to which his freedom of speech
was about to expose him in the future course of his life.

1. 84. When thou with pleasure shalt retrace the past. |

Quando ti giovera dicere: ‘Io fui.

So. lasso, Go 0., €. xv, St..c0:

Quando mi giovera narrar altrui
Le novita vedute, e dire: ‘Io fui.’

1. 94. H’en as the river.| He compares the fall of Phlegethon to
that of the Montone (a river in Romagna) from the Apennine above
the Abbey of St. Benedict. All the other streams, that rise between
the sources of the Po and the Montone, and fall from the left side of
the Apennine, join the Po, and accompany it to the sea.

1. 99. At Forli.] Because there it loses the name of Acquacheta,
and takes that of Montone.

]. 102. Where space.] Either because the abbey was capable of
containing more than those who occupied it, or because (says Lan-
dino) the lords of that territory, as Boccaccio related on the autho-
rity of the abbot, had intended to build a castle near the waterfall,
and to collect within its walls the population of the neighbouring
villages.

1. 106. A cord.| This passage, as it is confessed by Landino, involves
a fiction sufficiently obscure. His own attempt to unravel it does
not much lessen the difficulty. That which Lombardi has made is
something better. It is believed that our Poet, in the earlier part
of his life, had entered into the order of St. Francis. By observing
the rules of that profession, he had designed to mortify his carnal
appetites, or, as he expresses it, ‘ to take the painted leopard ’ (that
animal, which, as we have seen in a note to the first Canto, repre-
sented Pleasure) ‘ with this cord.” This part of the habit he is now
desired by Virgil to take off; and it is thrown down the gulf, to
allure Geryon to them with the expectation of carrying down one
who had cloaked his iniquities under the garb of penitence and self-
mortification; and thus (to apply to Dante on this occasion the
words of Milton) :

He, as Franciscan, thought to pass disguised.
1. 118. But spy into the thoughts with subtle skill.]

Sorrise Uranio, che per entro vede
Gli altrui pensier col senno.
Menzini, Sonetto, Mentre io dormia.

1. 121. Ever to that truth.| This memorable apophthegm is repeated
by Luigi Pulci and Trissino :

Sempre a quel ver, ch’ ha faccia di menzogna,
piu senno tacer la lingua cheta,
Che spesso senza colpa fa vergogna.
Morgante Magqg., c. xxiv.

HELL, CANTO XVI 393

La verita, che par menzogna,
Si dovrebbe tacer dall’ uom ch’ € saggio.
Italia Lib., c. xvi.
1. 125. By these notes.| So Frezzi:

Per queste rime mie, lettor, ti giuro.
Il Quadrir., Lib. ILI, cap. 16.

In like manner, Pindar confirms his veracity by an oath:
Nai pa yap “Opkov, éuay Sofav. Nem. xi. 30.
which is imitated, as usual, by Chiabrera :

Ed io lungo il Permesso
Sacro alle Muse oblighero mia fede.
Canz. Eroiche, xliii. 75.

CANTO XVII

1. 1. The fell monster.] Fraud.

1. 53. A pouch.] A purse, whereon the armorial bearings of each
were emblazoned. According to Landino, our Poet implies that the
usurer can pretend to no other honour than such as he derives from
his purse and his family. The description of persons by their heraldic
insignia is remarkable both on the present and several other occasions
in this poem.

1.57. A yellow purse.] The arms of the Gianfigliacci of Florence.

1. 60. Another.] Those of the Ubbriachi, another Florentine family
of high distinction.

]. 62. A fat and azure swine.] The arms of the Scrovigni, a noble
family of Padua.

1. 66. Vitaliano.] Vitaliano del Dente, a Paduan.

1. 69. That noble knight.) Giovanni Buiamonti, a Florentine usurer,
the most infamous of his time.

1. 70. Beaks.] Monti, in his Proposta, had introduced a facetious
dialogue, on the supposed mistake made in the interpretation of
this word ‘ Becchi’ by the compilers of the Della Crusca Dictionary,
who translated it ‘ goats’, instead of ‘beaks’. He afterwards saw
his own error, and had the ingenuousness to confess it in the Appendix,
p. 274. Having in the former editions of this work been betrayed
into the same misunderstanding of my author, I cannot do less than
follow so good an example, by acknowledging and correcting it.

[‘ Beaks’ is, however, correct, and is adopted in the text.]

1. 81. As one.] Dante trembled with fear, like a man who, expect-
ing the return of a quartan ague, shakes even at the sight of a place
made cool by the shade.

1. 85. But shame.] I have followed the reading in Vellutello’s
edition,

Ma vergogna mi fe le sue minacce ;

which appears preferable to the common one,
Ma vergogna mi fer, &c.

It is necessary that I should observe this, because it has been imputed
to me as a mistake.

394 NOTES

CANTO XVIII
]. 12. Sure defence. |

La parte doy’ e’ son rendon sicura.

This is the common reading ; besides which there are two others :
La parte dove il sol rende figura ;
and, La parte dov’ ei son rende figura :

the former of which two, Lombardi says, is found in Daniello’s
edition, printed at Venice, 1568; in that printed in the same city
with the commentaries of Landino and Vellutello, 1572; and also
in some MSS. The latter, which has very much the appearance of
being genuine, was adopted by Lombardi himself, on the authority
of a text supposed to be in the handwriting of Filippo Villani, but so
defaced by the alterations made in it by some less skilful hand, that
the traces of the old ink were with difficulty recovered ; and it has,
since the publication of Lombardi’s edition, been met with also in
the Monte Cassino MS. Monti is decided in favour of Lombardi’s
reading, and Biagioli opposed to it.

1. 28. With us beyond.| Beyond the middle point they tended the
same way with us, but their pace was quicker than ours.

1. 29. H’en thus the Romans.| In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII,
to remedy the inconvenience occasioned by the press of people who
were passing over the bridge of St. Angelo during the time of the
Jubilee, caused it to be divided lengthwise by a partition; and
ordered that all those who were going to St. Peter’s should keep one
side, and those returning the other. G. Villani, who was present,
describes the order that was preserved, Lib. VIII, c. xxxvi. It was
at this time, and on this occasion, as the honest historian tells us,
that he first conceived the design of ‘ compiling his book ’.

1. 42. J therefore stayed.| ‘I piedi affissi’ is the reading of the
Nidobeatina edition ; but Lombardi is under an error, when he tells
us that the other editions have ‘ gli occhi affissi’; for Vellutello’s,
at least, printed in 1544, agrees with the Nidobeatina.

1. 50. Venedico.] Venedico Caccianimico, a Bolognese, who pre-
vailed on his sister Ghisola to prostitute herself to Obizzo da Este,
Marquis of Ferrara, whom we have seen among the tyrants,
Canto XII.

1. 51. Seasoning.| Salse. Monti, in his Proposta, following Ben-
venuto da Imola, takes this to be the name of a place. If so, a play
must have been intended on the word, which cannot be preserved in
English.

l. 62. To answer Sipa.] He denotes Bologna by its situation
between the rivers Savena to the east, and Reno to the west of that
city; and by a peculiarity of dialect, the use of the affirmative sipa
instead either of si, or, as Monti will have it, of sza.

1. 90. Hypsipyle.| See Apollonius Rhodius, |. i, and Valerius
Flaccus, |. ii. Hypsipyle deceived the other women, by concealing
her father Thoas, when they had agreed to put all their males to
death.

1. 120. Alessio.] Alessio, of an ancient and considerable family in
Lucca, called the Interminei.

HELL, CANTO XVIII 395

1. 130. Thais.] He alludes to that passage in the Eunuchus of
Terence, where Thraso asks if Thais was obliged to him for the present
he had sent her; and Gnatho replies, that she had expressed her
obligation in the most forcible terms.

T. Magnas vero agere gratias Thais mihi ?
G. Ingentis. Lun., act iii, se. 1.

CANTO XIX

1. 18. Saint John’s fair dome.] The apertures in the rock were of
the same dimensions as the fonts of St. John the Baptist at Florence ;
one of which, Dante says, he had broken, to rescue a child that was
playing near and fellin. He intimates, that the motive of his break-
ing the font had been maliciously represented by his enemies.

1. 52. When fixed.| The commentators on Boccaccio’s Decameron,
p- 72, ediz. Giunti, 1573, cite the words of the statute by which
murderers were sentenced thus to suffer at Florence. ‘° Assassinus
trahatur ad caudam muli seu asini usque ad locum iustitiae; et
ibidem plantetur capite deorsum, ita quod moriatur.’ ‘Let the
assassin be dragged at the tail of a mule or ass to the place of justice ;
and there let him be set in the ground with his face downward, so
that he die.’

1, 55. O Boniface /] The spirit mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII,
who was then alive; and who he did not expect would have arrived
so soon, in consequence, as it should seem, of a prophecy, which pre-
dicted the death of that popeat a later period. Boniface died in 1303.

1. 58. Jn guile.] ‘Thou didst presume to arrive by fraudulent
means at the papal power, and afterwards to abuse it.’

1. 71. In the mighty mantle I was robed.| Nicholas III of the Orsini
family, whom the Poet therefore calls ‘ figliuol dell’ orsa’, ‘son of
the she-bear.’ He died in 1281.

1. 86. From forth the west, a shepherd without law.| Bertrand de Got,
Archbishop of Bourdeaux, who succeeded to the pontificate in 1305,
and assumed the title of Clement V. He transferred the holy see to
Avignon in 1308 (where it remained till 1376), and died in 1314.

1. 88. A new Jason.] ‘* But after the death of Seleucus, when
Antiochus, called Epiphanes, took the kingdom, Jason, the brother
of Onias, laboured underhand to be high-priest, promising unto the
king, by intercession, three hundred and threescore talents of silver,
and of another revenue eighty talents.’ Maccab., Book II, ch. iv, 7, 8.

1. 91. Of France’s monarch.| Philip IV of France. See G. Villani,
Bib. VE lech box.

1. 97. Nor Peter.] Acts i. 26.

1. 100. The condemned soul.| Judas.

1. 103. Against Charles.| Nicholas III was enraged against Charles I,
King of Sicily, because he rejected with scorn a proposition made by
that pope for an alliance between their families. See G. Villani, Hzst.,
Lib. VII, ec. liv.

1. 107. Under foot.]

So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign.
Milton, P. L., Book XII. 537.

396 NOTES

1. 109. The Evangelist.| Rev. xvii. 1, 2, 3.—Petrarch, in one of
his Epistles, had his eye on these lines: ‘ Gaude (inquam) et ad aliquid
utilis inventa gloriare bonorum hostis et malorum hospes, atque asylum
pessima rerum Babylon feris, Rhodani ripis imposita, famosa dicam an
infamis meretrix, fornicata cum regibus terrae. Illa equidem ipsa es
quam in spiritu sacer vidit Evangelista. Illa eadem, inquam, es, non
alia, sedens swper aquas multas, sive ad littora tribus cincta fluminibus
sive rerum atque divitiarum turba mortalium quibus lasciviens ac secura
insides opum immemor aeternarum sive ut idem qui vidit, exposuit.
Populi et gentes et linguae aquae sunt, super quas meretrix sedes,
recognosce habitum,’ &c. Petrarchae Opera, ed. fol. Basil. 1554,
Epist. sine titulo Liber, ep. xvi, p. 729. The text is here probably
corrupted. The construction certainly may be rendered easier by
omitting the ad before littora, and substituting a comma for a full
stop after exposuit. With all the respect that is due to a venerable
prelate and truly learned critic, I cannot but point out a mistake he
has fallen into, relating to this passage, when he observes, that
‘Numberless passages in the writings of Petrarch speak of Rome
under the name of Babylon. But an equal stress is not to be laid
on all these. It should be remembered, that the popes, in Petrarch’s
time, resided at Avignon, greatly to the disparagement of themselves,
as he thought, and especially of Rome; of which this singular man
was little less than idolatrous. The situation of the place, surrounded
by waters, and his splenetic concern for the exiled church (for under
this idea he painted to himself the pope’s migration to the banks of
Avignon), brought to his mind the condition of the Jewish church in
the Babylonian captivity. And this parallel was all, perhaps, that
he meant to insinuate in most of those passages. But when he applies
the prophecies to Rome, as to the Apocalyptic Babylon (as he clearly
does in the epistle under consideration), his meaning is not equivocal,
and we do him but justice to give him an honourable place among
the TESTES VERITATIS. An Introduction to the Study of the Pro-
phecies, d&:c., by Richard Hurd, D.D., serm. vii, p. 239, note y, ed. 1772.
Now, a reference to the words printed in italics, which the Bishop of
Worcester has omitted in his quotation, will make it sufficiently
evident, that Avignon, and not Rome, is here alluded to by Petrarch.
The application that is made of these prophecies by two men so
eminent for their learning and sagacity as Dante and Petrarch is,
however, very remarkable, and must be satisfactory to those who
have renounced the errors and corruptions of the papacy. Such
applications were indeed frequent in the middle ages, as may be
seen in the ‘Sermons’ above referred to. Balbo observes, that it
is not Rome, as most erroneously interpreted, but Avignon, and the
court there, that is termed Babylon by Dante and Petrarch. Vita di
Dante, vol. ii, p. 103.

]. 118. Ah, Constantine /] He alludes to the pretended gift of the
Lateran by Constantine to Sylvester, of which Dante himself seems
to imply a doubt, in his treatise De Monarchia.—‘ Ergo scindere
Imperium Imperatori non licet. Si ergo aliquae dignitates per
Constantinum essent alienatae (ut dicunt) ab Imperio,’ &c. III. x.
‘ Therefore to make a rent in the empire exceeds the lawful power
of the emperor himself. If, then, some dignities were by Constantine
alienated (as they report) from the empire,’ &c. In another part of

HELL, CANTO XIX 397

the same treatise he speaks of the alienation with less doubt indeed,
but not with less disapprobation: ‘O felicem populum! O Auso-
niam te gloriosam ! si vel numquam infirmator ille imperii tui natus
fuisset ; vel numquam sua pia intentio ipsum fefellisset. —‘ O happy
people! O glorious Italy! if either he who thus weakened thine
empire had never been born, or had never suffered his own pious
intentions to mislead him.’ II. xiii, ad finem. The gift is by Ariosto
very humorously placed in the moon, among the things lost or abused
on earth:

Di varj fiori ad un gran monte passa,

Ch’ ebber gia buono odore, or puzzan forte,

Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece)

Che Costantino al buon Silvestro fece.

Orl. Fur., c. xxxiv, st. 80.

Milton has translated both this passage and that in the text. Prose
Works, vol. i, p. 11, ed. 1753.
Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was cause
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy pope received of thee.

Then passed he to a flowery mountain green,
Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously ;
This was that gift, if you the truth will have,
That Constantine to good Silvester gave.

CANTO XX
1. 11. Reversed.]
But very uncouth sight was to behold
How he did fashion his untoward pace ;
For as he forward moved his footing old,
So backward still was turned his wrinkled face ;
Unlike to men, who, ever as they trace,
Both feet and face one way are wont to lead.
Spenser, Faery Queen, Book I, c. viii, st. 31.

How I long
Could keep my visage dry.]
Sight so deform what heart of rock could long

Dry-eyed behold ? Adam could not, but wept.
Milton, P. L., Book XI. 491.

1. 30. Before whose eyes.| Amphiaraiis, one of the seven kings who
besieged Thebes. He is said to have been swallowed up by an open-
ing of the earth. See Lydgate’s Storie of Thebes, part 11i, where it is
told how the ‘ Bishop Amphiaraiis’ fell down to hell :

And thus the devill, for his outrages,
Like his desert payed him his wages.

A different reason, for his being doomed thus to perish, is assigned
by Pindar :

1. 19.

6 8 ’Apdquiapni, &e. Nem. ix.
For thee, Amphiaraiis, earth,
By Jove’s all-riving thunder cleft,

398 NOTES

Her mighty bosom opened wide,

Thee and thy plunging steeds to hide,
Or ever on thy back the spear

Of Periclymenus impressed

A wound to shame thy warlike breast.
For struck with panic fear

The gods’ own children flee.

1. 33. Ruining.] ‘ Ruinare.” Hence, perhaps, Milton, P. L., Book
VI. 868:
Heaven ruining from heaven.

1. 37. Tiresias. |

Duo magnorum viridi coeuntia sylva

Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu,

Deque viro factus (mirabile) foemina, septem
Egerat autumnos. Octavo rursus eosdem

Vidit. Et, est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae,
Nunc quoque vos feriam. Percussis anguibus isdem
Forma prior rediit, genitivaque venit imago.

Ovid, Met. Lib. III.

1. 43. Aruns.] Aruns is said to have dwelt in the mountains of Luni
(from whence that territory is still called Lunigiana), above Carrara,
celebrated for its marble. Lucan, Phars. Lib. I. 575. So Boccaccio,
in the Fiammetta, Lib. III: ‘ Quale Arunte,’ &c. ‘ Like Aruns, who
amidst the white marbles of Luni contemplated the celestial bodies
and their motions.’ Compare Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, 1. iii,
cap. vi.

i 50. Manto.| The daughter of Tiresias of Thebes, a city dedicated
to Bacchus. From Manto, Mantua, the country of Virgil, derives
its name. The Poet proceeds to describe the situation of that place.
But see the note to Purgatory, Canto XXII. 112.

]. 62. Camonica.| Lombardi, instead of

Tra Garda, e val Camonica e Apennino,
reads Tra Garda e val Camonica Pennino,

from the Nidobeatina edition (to which he might have added that
of Vellutello in 1544), and two MSS., all of which omit the second
conjunction, the only part of the alteration that affects the sense.
I have re-translated the passage, which in the former editions stood
thus :

which a thousand rills

Methinks, and more, water between the vale

Camonica and Garda, and the height

Of Apennine remote.

It should be added, that Vellutello reads ‘ Valdimonica’ for ‘ Val
Camonica’; but which of these is right remains to be determined
by a collation of editions and MSS., and still more perhaps by a view
of the country in the neighbourhood of the lake (now called the Lago
di Garda), with a reference to this passage.

1. 63. There is a spot.| Prato di Fame, where the dioceses of Trento,
Verona, and Brescia meet.

HELL, CANTO XX 399

1. 68. A garrison of goodly site and strong.

Gaza, bello e forte arnese
Da fronteggiare i regni di Soria.
Tasso, Ger. Lib., c. 1, st. 67.

1.69. Peschiera.] A garrison situated to the south of the lake,
where it empties itself and forms the Mincius.

1.94. Casalodi’s madness.| Alberto da Casalodi, who had got
possession of Mantua, was persuaded, by Pinamonte de’ Bonaccorsi,
that he might ingratiate himself with the people, by banishing to
their own castles the nobles, who were obnoxious to them. No
sooner was this done, than Pinamonte put himself at the head of the
populace, drove out Casalodi and his adherents, and obtained the
sovereignty for himself.

1. 96. Another origin.| Lombardi refers to Servius on the Tenth
Book of the Aeneid. Alii a Tarchone Tyrrheni fratre conditam
dicunt Mantuam autem ideo nominatam quia Etrusca lingua Mantum
ditem patrem appellant.

]. 111. So sings my tragic strain.]}

Suspensi Eurypylum scitantem oracula Phoebi
Mittimus. Virgil, Aeneid, Lib. II. 114.

1.114. Michael Scott.| ‘ Egli non ha ancora guari, che in questa
citta fu un gran maestro in negromanzia, il quale ebbe nome Michele
Scotto, percid che di Scozia era.’ Boccaccio, Dec., Giorn. viii, Nov. 9.
“It is not long since there was in this city (Florence) a great master
in necromancy, who was called Michele Scotto, because he was from
Scotland.’ See also Giov. Villani, Hist., Lib. X, cap. ev and exli,
and Lib. XII, cap. xviii, and Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, |. ii,
cap. xxvii. I make no apology for adding the following curious
particulars extracted from the notes to Scott’s Lay of the Last
Minstrel, a poem in which a happy use is made of the superstitions
relating to the subject of this note. ‘ Sir Michael Scott, of Balwearie,
flourished during the thirteenth century, and was one of the ambas-
sadors sent to bring the Maid of Norway to Scotland upon the death
of Alexander III. He was a man of much learning, chiefly acquired
in foreign countries. He wrote a commentary upon Aristotle,
printed at Venice in 1496, and several treatises upon natural philo-
sophy, from which he appears to have been addicted to the abstruse
studies of judicial astrology, alchymy, physiognomy, and chiromancy.
Hence he passed among his contemporaries for a skilful magician.
Dempster informs us, that he remembers to have heard in his youth,
that the magic books of Michael Scott were still in existence, but
could not be opened without danger, on account of the malignant fiends
who were thereby invoked. Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica, 1627,
Lib. XII, p. 495. Lesly characterizes Michael Scott as “ Singularie
philosophiae astronomiae ac medicinae laude prestans, dicebatur
penitissimos magiae recessus indagasse.”’ A personage thus spoken
of by biographers and historians loses little of his mystical fame in
vulgar tradition. Accordingly, the memory of Sir Michael Scott
survives in many a legend; and in the south of Scotland any work
of great labour and antiquity is ascribed either to the agency of Auld
Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or of the devil. Tradition varies
concerning the place of his burial: some contend for Home Coltrame

400 NOTES

in Cumberland, others for Melrose Abbey: but all agree that his
books of magic were interred in his grave, or preserved in the convent
where he died.’ The Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter Scott,
Lond. 4to, 1805, p. 234, notes. Mr. Warton, speaking of the new
translations of Aristotle, from the original Greek into Latin, about
the twelfth century, observes: ‘I believe the translators understood
very little Greek. Our countryman, Michael Scotus, was one of the
first of them; who was assisted by Andrew, a Jew. Michael was
astrologer to Frederic II, Emperor of Germany, and appears to have
executed his translations at Toledo in Spain, about the year 1220.
These new versions were perhaps little more than corrections from
those of the early Arabians, made under the inspection of the learned
Spanish Saracens.’ History of English Poetry, vol. i, dissert. ii, and
sect. ix, p. 292. Among the Canonici MSS. in the Bodleian, I have
seen (No. 520) the astrological works of Michael Scott, on vellum,
with an illuminated portrait of him at the beginning.

1.116. Guido Bonatti.] An astrologer of Forli, on whose skill Guido
da Montefeltro, lord of that place, so much relied, that he is reported
never to have gone into battle, except in the hour recommended to
him as fortunate by Bonatti. Landino and Vellutello speak of
a book which he composed on the subject of his art. Macchiavelli
mentions him in the History of Florence, 1. i, p. 24, ed. 1550. ‘ He
flourished about 1230 and 1260. Though a learned astronomer he
was seduced by astrology, through which he was greatly in favour
with many princes of that time. His many works are miserably
spoiled by it.’ Bettinelli, Risorgimento d’ Italia, t. i, p. 118, 8vo,
1786. He is referred to in Browne’s Vulgar Errors, Book IV, c. 12.

1. 116. Axdente.] A shoemaker at Parma, who deserted his business
to practise the arts of divination. How much this man had attracted
the public notice appears from a passage in our author’s Convito,
IV. xvi, where it is said, in speaking of the derivation of the word
‘noble’, that ‘if those who were best known were accounted the
most noble, Asdente, the shoemaker of Parma, would be more noble
than anyone in that city’.

]. 123. Cain with fork of thorns.| By Cain and the thorns, or what
is still vulgarly called the Man in the Moon, the Poet denotes that
luminary. The same superstition is alluded to in the Paradise,
Canto II, 52. The curious reader may consult Brand on Popular
Antiquities, 4to, 1813, vol. ii, p. 476, and Douce’s Jilustrations of
Shakespeare, 8vo, 1807, vol. i, p. 16.

CANTO XXI
1.7. In the Venetians’ arsenal.]

Come dentr’ ai Navai della gran terra,
Tra le lacune del mar d’ Adria posta,
Serban la pece la togata gente,
Ad uso di lor navi e di lor triremi;
Per solcar poi sicuri il mare ondoso, &c.
Ruccellai, Le Api, v. 165.

Dryden seems to have had the passage in the text before him in
his Annus Mirabilis, st. 146, &e.

HELL, CANTO XXI 401

i. 17. Boiled.] ‘Vidi flumen magno de Inferno procedere ardens,
atque piceum.” Alberict Visio, § 17.
aA One mighty swell

Heave. |
‘Vidi etiam os putei magnum flammas emittentem, et nunc sursum
nunc deorsum descendentem.’ Alberici Visio, § 11.

1. 37. One of Santa Zita’s elders.| The elders or chief magistrates of
Lucca, where Santa Zita was held in especial veneration. The name
of this sinner is supposed to have been Martino Bottaio.

]. 40. Except Bonturo, barterers.| This is said ironically of Bonturo
Dati. By barterers are meant peculators of every description ;
all who traffic the interests of the public for their own private advan-
tage.

:.47. The hallowed visage.| A representation of the head of our
Saviour worshipped at Lucca.

1.48. Is other swimming than in Serchio’s wave. |

Qui si nuota altrimenti che nel Serchio.

Serchio is the river that flows by Lucca. So Pulci, Morg. Magqg.,
C. XXiv.
Qui si nuota nel sangue, e non nel Serchio.

]. 55. The flesh.] ‘In eundem flumen corruunt : rursumque assur-
gentes, ac denuo recidentes, tamdiu ibidem cruciantur, donec in
morem carnium excocti,’ &c. Alberict Visio, § 17.

1.92. From Caprona.| The surrender of the castle of Caprona to
the combined forces of Florence and Lucca, on condition that the
garrison should march out in safety, to which event Dante was a wit-
ness, took place in 1290. See G. Villani, Hist., Lib. VII, c. cxxxvi.

1.109. Yesterday.) This passage fixes the era of Dante’s descent
at Good Friday, in the year 1300 (thirty-four years from our blessed
Lord’s incarnation being added to 1266), and at the thirty-fifth year
of our Poet’s age. See Canto I, v. 1. The awful event alluded to,
the Evangelists inform us, happened ‘at the ninth hour’, that is,
our sixth, when ‘ the rocks were rent’, and the convulsion, accord-
ing to Dante, was felt even in the depths of Hell. See Canto XII,
v. 38.

]. 117. Cagnazzo.] Pulci introduces some of these demons in a very
pleasant adventure, related near the beginning of the second Canto of
his Morgante Maggiore :

Non senti tu, Orlando, in quella tomba

Quelle parole, che colui rimbomba ?

Io voglio andar a scoprir quello avello,

La dove e’ par che quella voce s’ oda,

Ed escane Cagnazzo, e Farfarello,

O Libicocco, col suo Malacoda ;

E finalmente s’ accostava a quello,

Pero che Orlando questa impresa loda,

K disse: Scuopri, se vi fussi dentro

Quanti ne piovon mai dal ciel nel centro.
Stanze 30, :.

‘ Perceivest the words, Orlando, which this fellow
Doth in our ears out of that tomb rebellow ?

402 NOTES

“Tl go, and straight the sepulchre uncase,

From whence, as seems to me, that voice was heard ;
Be Farfarel and Cagnazzo to my face,

Or Libicoe with Malacoda, stirred: ”

And finally he drew near to the place;

The emprize Orlando praising with his word :
“Uncase it, though within as many dwell,

As ever were from heaven rained down to hell.’’

1.125. O master ‘| Lombardi tells us that every edition, except
his favourite Nidobeatina, has ‘O me’ printed separately, instead
of ‘Omé’. This is not the case at least with Landino’s of i484.
But there is no end of these inaccuracies.

1. 137. With sownd obscene.] Compare the original with Aristophanes,
Nubes, 165 :—

, c , 3
oakmy 0 TpwKTUS EOTLY,

CANTO XXII

1.9. Tabors.] ‘Tabour, a drum, a common accompaniment of war,
is mentioned as one of the instruments of martial music in this battle
(in Richard Cceur-de-Lion) with characteristical propriety. It was
imported into the European armies from the Saracens in the holy
war. Joinville describes a superb bark or galley belonging to a
Saracen chief which, he says, was filled with cymbals, tabours, and
Saracen horns. Hist. de S. Loys, p. 30.2. Warton’s Hist. of English
Poeiry. V1, 84, Ds, LOT.

1.16. In the church.| This proverb is repeated by Pulci, Morg.
Magq., ¢. xvii.

}.19. Whate’er the chasm contained.| Monti, in his Proposta, in-
terprets ‘contegno’ to mean, not ‘contents’ but ‘state’, ‘con-
dition.’

1. 20. As dolphins.]

li lieti delfini
Givan saltando sopra I’ onde chizre,
Che soglion di fortuna esser divini.
Frezzi, Il Quadrir., Lib. I. cap. 15.

]. 34. Graffiacan.] Fuseli, in a note to his third Lecture, observes,
that ‘ the Minos of Dante, in Messer Biagio da Cesena, and his Charon,
have been recognized by all; but less the shivering wretch held over
the barge by a hook, and evidently taken from this passage’. He is
speaking of Michael Angelo’s Last Judgement.

1.47. Born in Navarre’s domain.) The name of this peculator is
said to have been Ciampolo.

1.51. The good king Thibault.] ‘ Thibault I, King of Navarre, died
on the 8th of June, 1233, as much to be commended for the desire
he showed of aiding the war in the Holy Land, as reprehensible and
faulty for his design of oppressing the rights and privileges of the
church ; on which account it is said that the whole kingdom was
vnder an interdict for the space of three entire years.—Thibault un-
doubtedly merits praise, as for his other endowments, so especially
for his cultivation of the liberal arts, his exercise and knowledge of
music and poetry, in which he so much excelled, that he was accus-

HELL, CANTO XXII 403

tomed to compose verses and sing them to the viol, and to exhibit
his poetical compositions publicly in his palace, that they might be
criticised by all.” Mariana, History of Spain, Book XIII, c. 9. An
account of Thibault, and two of his songs, with what were probably
the original melodies, may be seen in Dr. Burney’s History of Music,
vol. ii, c. iv. His poems, which are in the French language, were
edited by M. l Evéque de la Ravalliére. Paris, 1742, 2 vol., 12mo.
Dante twice quotes one of his verses in the T'reatise de Vulg. Elogq.,
Lib. I, ¢. ix, and Lib. II, c. v, and refers to him again, Lib. II, e. vi.
From ‘the good king Thibault’ are descended the good, but more
unfortunate monarch, Louis XVI of France, and consequently the
present legitimate sovereign of that realm (1844]. See Henault,
Abrégé Chron. 1252, 3, 4.

]. 51. I served.| Again Lombardi misrepresents the readings of
other editions, as he does throughout this Canto in several instances,
wherein he professes to follow that which he has selected for his model ;
but, as these varieties regard certain delicacies of the original language,
and do not affect the sense, I shall not trouble my readers by noticing
them.

1. 80. The friar Gomita.] He was entrusted by Nino de’ Visconti
with the government of Gallura, one of the four jurisdictions into
which Sardinia was divided. Having his master’s enemies in his
power, he took a bribe from them, and allowed them to escape.
Mention of Nino will recur in the notes to Canto X X XIII, and in the
Purgatory, Canto VIII.

1. 88. Michel Zanche.| The president of Logodoro, another of the
four Sardinian jurisdictions. See Canto XXXIII. Note to |. 136.

1. 140. Umpire.| Schermidor. The reader, if he thinks it worth
while, may consult the Proposta of Monti on this word, which, with
Lombardi, he would alter to ‘ sghermitor.’

CANTO XXIII

1.5. Aesop's fable.| The fable of the frog, who offered to carry the
mouse across a ditch, with the intention of drowning him, when both
were carried off by a kite. It is not among those Greek fables which
go under the name of Aesop.

1. 36. He had not spoke.) ‘Cumque ego cum angelis relictus starem
pavidus, unus ex illis tartareis ministris horridis (Qu. horridus ?)
hispidis (Qu. hispidus ?) aspectuque procerus festinus adveniens me
impellere, et quomodocumque nocere conabatur: cum ecce apo-
stolus velocius accurrens, meque subito arripiens in quendam locum
gloriose proiecit visionis.’ Alberici Visio, § 15.

1. 63. Monks in Cologne.| They wore their cowls unusually large.

1. 66. Frederick’s.| The Emperor Frederick II is said to have
punished those who were guilty of high treason by wrapping them
up in lead, and casting them into a furnace.

1. 101. Our bonnets gleaming bright with orange hue.| It is observed
by Venturi, that the word ‘rance’ does not here signify ‘ rancid or
disgustful’, as it is explained by the old commentators, but ‘ orange-
coloured’, in which sense it occurs in the Purgatory, Canto II. 9.
By the erroneous interpretation Milton appears to have been misled ;

404 NOTES

‘Ever since the day peepe, till now the sun was grown somewhat
ranke. Prose Works, vol. i, p. 160, ed. 1753.

1]. 104. Joyous friars.) ‘Those who ruled the city of Florence on
the part of the Ghibellines perceiving this discontent and murmuring,
which they were fearful might produce a rebellion against them-
selves, in order to satisfy the people, made choice of two knights,
Frati Godenti (joyous friars) of Bologna, on whom they conferred
the chief power in Florence ; one named M. Catalano de’ Malavolti,
the other M. Loderingo di Liandolo; one an adherent of the Guelph,
the other of the Ghibelline party. It is to be remarked, that the
Joyous Friars were called Knights of St. Mary, and became knights on
taking that habit: their robes were white, the mantle sable, and the
arms a white field and red cross with two stars: their office was to
defend widows and orphans; they were to act as mediators; they
had internal regulations, like other religious bodies. The above-
mentioned M. Loderingo was the founder of that order. But it was
not long before they too well deserved the appellation given them,
and were found to be more bent on enjoying themselves than on any
other object. These two friars were called in by the Florentines,
and had a residence assigned them in the palace belonging to the
people, over against the Abbey. Such was the dependence placed
on the character of their order, that it was expected they would be
impartial, and would save the commonwealth any unnecessary ex-
pense; instead of which, though inclined to opposite parties, they
secretly and hypocritically concurred in promoting their own advan-
tage rather than the public good.’ G. Villani, Book VII, c. xiii.
This happened in 1266.

1.110. Gardingo’s vicinage.| The name of that part of the city
which was inhabited by the powerful Ghibelline family of the Uberti,
and destroyed under the partial and iniquitous administration of
Catalano and Loderingo.

1.117. That pierced spirit.| Caiaphas.

]. 124. The father of his consort.| Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas.

]. 137. Great.| In the former editions it was printed ‘next’. The
error was observed by Mr. Carlyle.

]. 142. He warned us ill.) He refers to the falsehood told him by
the demon. Canto XXI. 108.

]. 146. He ts a liar.) ‘He is a liar and the father of it. John
viii. 44. Dante had perhaps heard this text from one of the pulpits
in Bologna.

CANTO XXIV

1.1. In the year’s early nonage.| ‘ At the latter part of January,
when the sun enters into Aquarius, and the equinox is drawing near,
when the hoar-frosts in the morning often wear the appearance of
snow, but are melted by the rising sun.’

1.5. Her dazzling sister’s image. |

Avyviv péAauvay, aidAnv mupds Kdowy.

Aeschyl. Septem Contra Thebas, 494.

—— Kaots
mnArov fvvoupos, iia nous,

Aeschyl. Agamemnon, 494.

HELL, CANTO XXIV 405

1.7. Whom fails his wintry store. |
A cui la roba manca.
So in the Purgatorio, c. xiii. 61,
Cosi li ciechi a cui la roba manca.

1.41. From whence.] Mr. Carlyle notes the mistake in my former
translation ; and I have corrected it accordingly.
1. 46. Not on downy plumes. |

Lettor, tu dei pensar che, senza ardire,
Senza affanno soffrir, uomo non puote
Fama acquistar, né gran cose fornire.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. IV, cap. iv.

Nessun mai per fuggir, o per riposo,
Venne in altezza fama ovver in gloria.
Frezzi, 11 Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. ii.

Signor, non sotto l ombra in piaggia molle
Tra fonti e fior, tra Ninfe e tra Sirene,
Ma in cima all’ erto e faticoso colle
Della virtt riposto é il nostro bene.
Tasso, G. L., c. xvii, st. 61.
1. 51. Vanquish thy weariness. ]

—— Quin corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinae particulam aurae.
Hor. Sat. II. ii. 78.

1. 80. Serpents.] ‘ Vidi locum horridum tenebrosum foetoribus ex-
halantibus flammis crepitantibus serpentibus, draconibus —-—— re-
pletum. Alberici Visio, § 12.

1. 82. Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars., Lib. IX. 703.

]. 92. Helwotrope.| ‘ Viridi colore est (gemma heliotropion) non ita
acuto sed nubilo magis et represso, stellis puniceis superspersa.
Causa nominis de effectu lapidis est et potestate. Deiecta in labris
aeneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu, utraque aqua splen-
dorem aeris abiicit et avertit. Etiam illud posse dicitur, ut herba
eiusdem nominis mixta et praecantationibus legitimis consecrata,
eum, a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahat visibus obviorum.’ Solinus,
c. xl. ‘ A stone,’ says Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino,
‘which we lapidaries call heliotrope, of such extraordinary virtue,
that the bearer of it is effectually concealed from the sight of all
present.’ Decam., G. viii, N. 3. In Chiabrera’s Ruggiero, Scaltri-
mento begs of Sofia, who is sending him on a perilous errand, to lend
him the heliotrope.

—In mia man fida
L’ elitropia, per cui possa involarmi
Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui. Cc. Vi.

Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which
I may at will from others’ eyes conceal me.

Compare Ariosto, 1 Negromante, a. 3, s. 3, Pulci, Morg. Magg.,
ce. xxv, and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x, st. 17. Gower, in his

406 NOTES

Confessio Amantis, Lib. VII, enumerates it among the jewels in the
diadem of the sun :—
Jaspis and helitropius.

1.104. The Arabian Phoeniz.] This is translated from Ovid,
Metam. Lib. XV :—

Una est quae reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales ;
Assyrii Phoenica vocant. Nec fruge neque herbis,
Sed thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.

Haec ubi quinque suae complevit secula vitae,
Ilicis in ramis, tremulaeve cacumine palmae,
Unguibus et pando nidum sibi construit ore.

Qua simul ut casias, et nardi lenis aristas,
Quassaque cum fulva substravit cinnama myrrha,
Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus aevum.

See also Petrarch, Canzone :—Qual piu, &c.
1.107. Tears of frankincense. |

>

Incenso e mirra é quello onde si pasce.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, in a gorgeous description of the
Phoenix, Lib. II, cap. v.
1.113. Gazeth around.]

Su mi levai senza far pit parole,
Cogli occhi intorno stupido mirando,
Si come |’ Epilentico far suole.
Frezzi, 11 Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. iii.

]. 120. Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate off-
spring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the
sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged
Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege; in consequence of which
accusation the latter suffered death.

1. 142. Pistoia.] ‘In May, 1301, the Bianchi party of Pistoia, with
the assistance and favour of the Bianchi, who ruled Florence, drove
out the party of the Neri from the former place, destroying their
houses, palaces, and farms.’ Giov. Villani, Hist., Lib. VIII, c. xliv.

1. 143. Then Florence.] ‘Soon after the Bianchi will be expelled
from Florence, the Neri will prevail, and the laws and people will be
changed.’

1.144. From Valdimagra.| The commentators explain this pro-
phetical threat to allude to the victory obtained by the Marquis
Morello Malaspina of Valdimagra (a tract of country now called the
Lunigiana), who put himself at the head of the Neri, and defeated
their opponents, the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon
after the occurrence related in the preceding note on v. 142. Of
this engagement I find no mention in Villani. Balbo (Vita di Dante,
v. li, p. 143) refers to Gerini, Memorie Storiche di Lunigiana, tom. ii,
p- 123, for the whole history of this Morello or Moroello. Currado
Malaspina is introduced in the eighth Canto of the Purgatory ; where
it appears, that although on the present occasion they espoused con-
trary sides, most important favours were nevertheless conferred by
hat family on our Poet, at a subsequent period of his exile, in

307.

HELL, CANTO XXV 407

CANTO XXV
1.1. His hands.]

Le mani alzo, con ambedue le fiche.
So Frezzi:
E fe le fiche a Dio *] superbo vermo.
Il Quadrir., Lib. TI, cap. xix.

Io vidi lira poi con crudel faccia ;
E fe le fiche a Dio il mostro rio,
Stringendo i denti ed alzando le braccia.
Ibid., Bib. INE es x:
And Trissino :

Poi facea con le man le fiche al cielo
Dicendo: Togli, Iddio; che puoi pit farmi ?
L’ Ital. Liberata, c. xii.

‘The practice of thrusting out the thumb between the first and
second fingers, to express the feelings of insult and contempt, has
prevailed very generally among the nations of Europe, and for many
ages had been denominated ‘“‘ making the fig ”’, or described at least
by some equivalent expression.’ Douce’s Illustrations of Shake-
speare, vol. i, p. 492, ed. 1807. The passage in the original text has
not escaped this diligent commentator.

1. 12. Thy seed.| Thy ancestry.

1.15. Not him.] Capaneus. Canto XIV.

1.18. On Maremma’s marsh.| An extensive tract near the sea-
shore of Tuscany.

1. 24. Cacus.] Virgil, Aen., Lib. VIII. 195.

1.31. A hundred blows.] Less than ten blows, out of the hundred
Hercules gave him, had deprived him of feeling.

1. 39. Cianfa. He is said to have been of the family of Donati at
Florence.

1. 48. In either cheek.] ‘Ostendit mihi post hoc apostolus lacum
magnum tetrum, et aquae sulphureae plenum, in quo animarum
multitudo demersa est, plenum serpentibus ac scorpionibus ; stabant
vero ibi et daemones serpentes tenentes et ora vultus et capita homi-
num cum eisdem serpentibus percutientes.’ Albericz Visio, § 23.

1. 51. Ivy ne'er clasped. ]

‘Oroia Kioads Spuds brws tHAS efopar.

Euripides, Hecuba, 398.
Like ivy to an oak, how will I cling to her!

1.57. Thus up the shrinking paper.| Many of the commentators
suppose that by ‘ papiro’ is here meant the wick of a lamp or candle,
and Lombardi adduces an extract from Pier Crescenzio (Agricolt.,
Lib. VI, cap. ix) to show that this use was then made of the plant.
But Tiraboschi has proved that paper made of linen came into use
towards the latter half of the fourteenth century, and that the in-
ventor of it was Pier da Fabiano, who carried on his manufactory in
the city of Trevigi; whereas paper of cotton, with, perhaps, some

408 NOTES

linen mixed, was used during the twelfth century. Stor. della Lett.
Ital., tom. v, Lib. I, cap. iv, sect. 4.

—— All my bowels crumble up to dust.
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up.
Shakespeare, K. John, v. vii. 31.

. 61. Agnello.| Agnello Brunelleschi.
. In that part.| The navel.
. 81. As if by sleep or feverous fit assarled. |

——O Rome! thy head
Is drowned in sleep, and all thy body fev’ry.
Ben Jonson’s Catiline.

1. 85. Lucan.] Phars., Lib. [X, 766 and 793.

Lucan di aleun di questi poetando
Conta si come Sabello e Nasidio
Fu punti @ trasformati ivi passando.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, |. v, cap. xvii.

1. 87. Ovid.] Metam., Lib. IV and V.

1.121. His sharpened visage.| Compare Milton, P. L., Book X,
511, &c.

1. 131. Buoso.] He is also said by some to have been of the Donati
family ; but by others of the Abati.

1.134. My pen.] Lombardijustly prefers ‘la penna ’ to ‘la lingua’;
but, when he tells us that the former is in the Nidobeatina, and the latter
in the other editions, he ought to have excepted at least Landino’s of
1484, and Vellutello’s of 1544, and, perhaps, many besides these.

1. 138. Sciancato.] Puccio Sciancato, a noted robber, whose family,
Venturi says, he has not been able to discover. The Latin annotator
on the Monte Cassino MS. informs us that he was one of the Galigai
of Florence, the decline of which house is mentioned in the Paradise,
Canto XVI. 96.

1.140. Gaville.] Francesco Guercio Cavalcanti was killed at
Gaville, near Florence; and in revenge of his death several in-
habitants of that district were put to death.

—
-~I
-~I

CANTO XXVI
1. 2. O’er land and sea.]

And he can spread thy name o’er lands and seas.
Milton, Son. viii.
1. 7. But if our minds.]
Namque sub Auroram, iam dormitante lucerna,
Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent.
Ovid, Epist. xix.
The same poetical superstition is alluded to in the Purgatory,
Cantos IX and X XVII.
1. 9. Shalt feel what Prato.| The Poet prognosticates the calamities
which were soon to befall his native city, and which, he says, even
her nearest neighbour, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more

HELL, CANTO XXVI 409

particularly pointed at are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over
the Arno, in May, 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to
witness a representation of hell and the infernal torments, in con-
sequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagra-
tion, that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen
hundred houses, many of them sumptuous buildings. See G. Villani,
HAist., Lib. VIII, c. lxx and Ixxi.

1. 13. As time.] ‘I shall feel all calamities more sensibly as I am
further advanced in life.’

1.15. The flinty steps.] Venturi,after Daniello and Volpi, explains the
word in the original, *‘ borni,’to mean the stones that project froma wall,
for other buildings to be joined to, which the workmen call ‘toothings’.

]. 22. More than I am wont.] ‘ When I reflect on the punishment
allotted to those who do not give sincere and upright advice to others,
I am more anxious than ever not to abuse to so bad a purpose those
talents, whatever they may be, which Nature, or rather Providence,
has conferred on me.’ It is probable that this declaration was the
result of real feeling in the mind of Dante, whose political character
would have given great weight to any opinion or party he had
espoused, and to whom indigence and exile might have offered strong
temptations to deviate from that line of conduct, which a strict sense
of duty prescribed.

1. 35. As he, whose wrongs.] 2 Kings ii. 24.

1.54. Ascending from that funeral pile.| The flame is said to have
divided on the funeral pile which consumed the bodies of Eteocles and
Polynices, as if conscious of the enmity that actuated them while living.

Ecce iterum fratres primos ut contigit artus
Ignis edax, tremuere rogi, et novus advena busto
Pellitur, exundant diviso vertice flammae,
Alternosque apices abrupta luce coruscant.
Statius, Theb. Lib. XIT. 429.
Compare Lucan, Pharsal., Lib. I. 145.

1. 60. The ambush of the horse.| ‘ The ambush of the wooden horse,
that caused Aeneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in
Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman empire.’

1. 76. For they were Greeks.) By this it is, perhaps, implied that
they were haughty and arrogant. So, in our Poet’s [supposed]
Sonnet of which a translation is inserted in the ‘ Life’ prefixed, he says,

Ed ella mi rispose, come un Greco.

1,91. Cateta.] Virgil, Aeneid, Lib. VII. 2.
1. 93. Nor fondness for my son.| Imitated by Tasso, G. L., c. viii,
Bose
Né timor di fatica 6 di periglio,
Né vaghezza del regno, né pietade
Del vecchio genitor, si degno affetto
Intiepedir nel generoso petto.

This imagined voyage of Ulysses into the Altantic is alluded to by
Pulci :—
E sopratutto commendava Ulisse,
Che per veder nell’ altro mondo gisse.
Morg. Magq., c. XxXv.
And by Tasso, G. D., c. xv. 25.

410 NOTES

1. 106. The strait pass.| The straits of Gibraltar.
1. 122. Made our oars wings.]
OvS einpe’ Eperua, Ta TE MTEpAa VnVal TéAOVTAL,
Hom. Od. xi. 125.
So Chiabrera, Canz. Eroiche, xiii.

Fard de’ remi un volo.
And Tasso, G. L., xv. 26.
]. 123. Night now beheld.| Petrarch is here cited by Lombardi :—

Né la su sopra il cerchio della luna
Vide mai tante stelle alcuna notte.
Canz. xxxviil. 1.

Nor there above the circle of the moon
Did ever night behold so many stars.

]. 128. A mountain dim.| The mountain of Purgatory.—Amongst
the various opinions of theologians respecting the situation of the
terrestrial paradise. Pietro Lombardo relates, that ‘it was separated
by a long space, either of sea or land, from the regions inhabited by
men, and placed in the ocean, reaching as far as to the lunar circle,
so that the waters of the deluge did not reach it’. Sent., Lib. I,
dist. 17. Thus Lombardi.

L132. Thriec.]

Ast illam ter fluctus ibidem
Torquet agens circum, et rapidus vorat aequore vertex.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. I. 116.

1. 135. Closed.| Venturi refers to Pliny and Solinus for the opinion
that Ulysses was the founder of Lisbon, from whence he thinks it was
easy for the fancy of a poet to send him on yet farther enterprises.
Perhaps the story (which it is not unlikely that our author will be
found to have borrowed from some legend of the middle ages) may
have taken its rise partly from the obscure oracle returned by the
ghost of Tiresias to Ulysses (see the eleventh book of the Odyssey),
and partly from the fate which there was reason to suppose had
befallen some adventurous explorers of the Atlantic ocean.

CANTO XXVII

1. 6. The Sicilian bull.| The engine of torture invented by Perillus,
for the tyrant Phalaris.

]. 26. Of the mountains there.| Montefeltro.

1. 38. Polenta’s eagle.| Guido Novello da Polenta, who bore an
eagle for his coat of arms. The name of Polenta was derived from
a castle so called, in the neighbourhood of Brittonoro. Cervia is a
small maritime city, about fifteen miles to the south of Ravenna.
Guido was the son of Ostasio da Polenta, and made himself master
of Ravenna in 1265. In 1322 he was deprived of his sovereignty,
and died at Bolognain the year following. This last and most muni-
ficent patron of Dante is himself enumerated, by the historian of
Italian literature, among the poets of his time. Tiraboschi, Storia
della Lett. Ital., tom. v, lib. iii, c. ii, sect. 13. The passage in the

HELL, CANTO XXVII 411

text might have removed the uncertainty which Tiraboschi expressed,
respecting the duration of Guido’s absence from Ravenna, when he
was driven from that city in 1295, by the arms of Pietro, Archbishop
of Monreale. It must evidently have been very short, since his
government is here represented (in 1300) as not having suffered any
material disturbance for many years. In the Proemium to the
Annotations on the Decameron of Boccaccio, written by those who
were deputed to that work, Ediz. Giunti, 1573, it is said of Guido
Novello, ‘ del quale si leggono ancora alcune composizioni, per poche
che elle sieno, secondo quella eta, belle e leggiadre:’ and in the
collection edited by Allacci at Naples, 1661, p. 382, is a sonnet of his,
which breathes a high and pure spirit of Platonism. Among the
MSS. of the Hiad in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, described by
Mai, there is one that was in the possession of Guido. Jliadis Frag-
menta, &c., fol. Mediol. 1819. Prooemium, p. xlviii. It was, perhaps,
seen by Dante. To this account I must now subjoin that which has
since been given, but without any reference to authorities, by Troya:
‘In the course of eight years, from 1310 to 1318, Guido III of Polenta,
father of Francesca, together with his sons Bernardino and Ostasio,
had died. A third son, named Bannino, was father of Guido IV.
Of these two it is not known whether they held the lordship of
Ravenna. But it came to the sons of Ostasio, Guido V, called
Novello, and Rinaldo the archbishop: on the sons of Bernardino
devolved the sovereignty of the neighbouring city of Cervia.’ Veltro
Allegorico di Dante, ed. 1826, p. 176.

1. 41. The land.| The territory of Forli, the inhabitants of which,
in 1282, were enabled, by the stratagem of Guido da Montefeltro,
who then governed it, to defeat with great slaughter the French army
by which it had been besieged. See G. Villani, Lib. VII, c. Ixxxi.
The Poet informs Guido, its former ruler, that it is now in the posses-
sion of Sinibaldo Ordolaffi, or Ardelaffi, whom he designates by his
coat of arms, a lion vert.

]. 43. The old mastiff of Verruchio and the young.| Malatesta and
Malatestino his son, lords of Rimini, called, from their ferocity, the
mastiffs of Verruchio, which was the name of their castle. Malates-
tino was, perhaps, the husband of Francesca, daughter of Guido da
Polenta. See notes to Canto V. 113.

]. 44. Montagna.| Montagna de’ Parcitati, a noble knight,
and leader of the Ghibelline party at Rimini, murdered by
Malatestino.

1. 46. Lamone’s city, and Santerno’s.| Lamoneis the river at Faenza,
and Santerno at Imola.

1.47. The lion of the snowy lair.| Mainardo Pagano, whose arms
were a lion azure on a field argent ; mentioned again in the Purgatory,
Canto XIV. 122. See G. Villani, passim, where he is called Machi-
nardo da Susinana.

1. 50. Whose flank 1s washed of Savio’s wave.| Cesena, situated at
the foot of a mountain, and washed by the river Savio, that often
descends with a swollen and rapid stream from the Apennine.

]. 64. A man of arms.| Guido da Montefeltro.

1. 68. The high priest.| Boniface VIII.

1], 72. The nature of the lion than the fox.)

Non furon leonine ma di volpe.

412 NOTES

So Pulci, Morg. Magg., c. xix:

E furon le sue opre e le sue colpe
Non creder leonine ma di volpe.

Fraus quasi vulpeculae, vis leonis videtur.
Cicero, de Officiis, Lib. I, c. 13.

1. 77. To lower sails.] Our Poet had the same train of thought as
when he wrote that most beautiful passage in his Convito (LV. xxviil),
beginning ‘ E qui é da sapere, che siccome dice Tullio in quello di
Senettute, la naturale morte’, &c. ‘ Asit hath beensaid by Cicero, in
his treatise on old age, natural death is like a port and haven to us
after a long voyage ; and even as the good mariner, when he draws
near the port, lowers his sails, and enters it softly with a weak and
inoffensive motion, so ought we to lower the sails of our worldly
operations, and to return to God with all our understanding and
heart, to the end that we may reach this haven with all quietness
and with all peace. And herein we are mightily instructed by nature
in a lesson of mildness; for in such a death itself there is neither
pain nor bitterness ; but, as ripe fruit is lightly and without violence
loosened from its branch, so our soul without grieving departs from
the body in which it hath been.’

So mayst thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop

Into thy mother’s lap, or be with ease

Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature.
Milton, P. Z., Book XI. 532.

1. 81. The chief of the new Pharisees.) Boniface VIII, whose enmity
to the family of Colonna prompted him to destroy their houses near
the Lateran. Wishing to obtain possession of their other seat,
Penestrino, he consulted with Guido da Montefeltro how he might
accomplish his purpose, offering him at the same time absolution for
his past sins, as well as for that which he was then tempting him
to commit. Guido’s advice was, that kind words and fair promises
would put his enemies into his power; and they accordingly soon
afterwards fell into the snare laid for them, A. p. 1298. See G. Villani,
Lib. VIII, c. xxiii. There is a relation similar to this in the history
of Ferreto Vincentino, Lib. II, anno 1294; and the writer adds,
that our Poet had justly condemned Guido to the torments he has
allotted him. See Muratori, Script. Ital., tom. ix, p. 970, where the
Editor observes: ‘ Probosi huius facinoris narrationi fidem adiungere
nemo probus velit, quod facile confinxerint Bonifacii aemuli,’ &c.
And indeed it would seem as if Dante himself had either not heard,
or had not believed, the report of Guido’s having sold himself thus
foolishly to the Pope, when he wrote the passage in the Convito cited
in the note to 1. 77; for he soon after speaks of him as one of those
noble spirits ‘who, when they approached the last haven, lowered
the sails of their worldly operations, and gave themselves up to religion
in their old age, laying aside every worldly delight and wish.’

]. 84. Nor against Acre one

Had fought.)

He alludes to the renegade Christians, by whom the Saracens,
in April, 1291, were assisted to recover St. Jean d’Acre, the last
possession of the Christians in the Holy Land. The regret ex-

HELL, CANTO XXVII 413

pressed by the Florentine annalist, G. Villani, for the loss of this
valuable fortress, is well worthy of observation, Lib. VII, ec. exliv.
‘From this event Christendom suffered the greatest detriment :
for by the loss of Acre there no longer remained in the Holy Land
any footing for the Christians ; and all our good maritime places of
trade never afterwards derived half the advantage from their mer-
chandise and manufactures ; so favourable was the situation of the
city of Acre, in the very front of our sea, in the middle of Syria, and
as it were in the middle of the inhabited world, seventy miles from
Jerusalem, both source and receptacle of every kind of merchandise,
as well from the east as from the west ; the resort of all people from
all countries, and of the eastern nations of every different tongue ; so
that it might be considered as the aliment of the world.’

1. 89. As in Soracte, Constantine besought.| So in Dante’s treatise
De Monarchia: *Dicunt adhuc quidam, quod Constantinus Imperator,
mundatus a lepra intercessione Sylvestri, tunc summi pontificis,
imperii sedem, scilicet Romam, donavit ecclesiae, cum multis aliis
imperii dignitatibus. Lib. III. x. Compare Fazio degli Uberti,
Dittamondo, Lib. Il, cap. xii.

]. 101. My predecessor.] Celestine V. See notes to Canto III.

CANTO XXVIII

1.7. Happy soil.) There is a strange discordance here among the
expounders. ‘ Fortunata terra.’ Because of the vicissitudes of
fortune which it experienced: Landino. Fortunate, with respect
to those who conquered in it: Vellutello. Or on account of its
natural fertility: Venturi. The context requires that we should
understand, by fortunata, ‘ calamitous’, ‘ disgraziata,’ to which sense
the word is extended in the Vocabulary of La Crusca: Lombardi.
Volpi is silent. On this note the late Archdeacon Fisher favoured
me with the following remark: ‘ Volpi is, indeed, silent at the passage ;
but in the article “‘ Puglia’, in his second Index, he writes, Dante la
chiama fortunata, cioé pingue e feconda. This is your own trans-
lation ; and is the same word in meaning with evédaipwy and feliz, in
Xenophon’s Anabasis and Horace passim.’

1. 8. The Trojans.| Some MSS. have ‘Romani’; and Lombardi
has admitted it into the text. Venturi had, indeed, before met with
the same reading in some edition, but he has not told us in which.

In that long war.) The war of Hannibal in Italy. ‘ When
Mago brought news of his victories to Carthage, in order to make
his successes more easily credited, he commanded the golden rings
to be poured out in the senate-house, which made so large a heap, that,
as some relate, they filled three modii and a half. A more probable
account represents them not to have exceeded one modius.’ Livy,
Hist., Lib. XXIII. 12.

1.9. The rings.| So Frezzi :

Non quella, che riempié i moggi d’ anella.
Il Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. 9.
1. 12. Guiscard’s Norman steel.| Robert Guiscard, who conquered

the kingdom of Naples, and died in 1110. G. Villani, Lib. IV, cap.
xvili. He is introduced in the Paradise, Canto XVIII.

414 NOTES

1. 13. And those the rest.| The army of Manfredi, which, through
the treachery of the Apulian troops, was overcome by Charles of
Anjou in 1265, and fell in such numbers, that the bones of the slain
were still gathered near Ceperano. G. Villani, Lib. VII, cap. ix.
See the Purgatory, Canto III.

]. 16. O Tagliacozzo.| He alludes to the victory which Charles
gained over Curradino, by the sage advice of the Sieur de Valeri,
in 1268. G. Villani, Lib. VII, ¢. xxvii.

1. 32. Ali.] The disciple of Mohammed.

1. 53. Dolcino.| ‘In 1305, a friar, called Dolcino, who belonged to
no regular order, contrived to raise in Novara, in Lombardy, a large
company of the meaner sort of people, declaring himself to be a true
apostle of Christ, and promulgating a community of property and of
wives, with many other such heretical doctrines. He blamed the
pope, cardinals, and other prelates of the holy church, for not observ-
ing their duty, nor leading the angelic life, and affirmed that he ought
to be pope. He was followed by more than three thousand men and
women, who lived promiscuously on the mountains together, like
beasts, and, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by
depredation and rapine. This lasted for two years, till many, being
struck with compunction at the dissolute life they led, his sect was
much diminished ; and, through failure of food and the severity of
the snows, he was taken by the people of Novara, and burnt, with
Margarita, his companion, and many other men and women whom
his errors had seduced.’ G. Villani, Lib. VIII, c. Ixxxiv. Landino
observes, that he was possessed of singular eloquence, and that both
he and Margarita endured their fate with a firmness worthy of a better
cause. For a further account of him, see Muratori, Rer. /tal. Script.,
tom. ix, p. 427. Fazio degli Uberti, speaking of the polygamy
allowed by Mahomet, adds ;

E qui con fra Dolcin par che s’ intenda.
Dittamondo, Lib. V, cap. xii.

I. 69. Medicina.] A place in the territory of Bologna. Pier
fomented dissensions among the inhabitants of that city, and among
the leaders of the neighbouring states.

1. 70. The pleasant land.| Lombardy.

1]. 72. The twain.) Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano,
two of the worthiest and most distinguished citizens of Fano, were
invited by Malatestino da Rimini to an entertainment, on pretence
that he had some important business to transact with them; and,
according to instructions given by him, they were drowned in their
passage near La Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano.

1. 75. Out of life's tenement.| ‘ Fuor di lor vasello,’ is construed by
the old Latin annotator on the Monte Cassino MS. and by Lombardi,
‘out of the ship.’ Volpi understands ‘ vasello’ to mean ‘ their city
or country’. Others take the word in the sense according to which,
though not without some doubt, it is rendered in this translation.

1. 85. Focara’s wind.| Focara is a mountain, from which a
wind blows that is peculiarly dangerous to the navigators of that
coast.

1.94. The doubt in Caesar's mind.| Curio, whose speech (according
to Lucan) determined Julius Caesar to proceed when he had arrived

HELL, CANTO XXVIII 415

at Rimini (the ancient Ariminum), and doubted whether he should
prosecute the civil war.

Tolle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis.
Pharsal..\. 1. 281.

Haste then thy towering eagles on their way ;
When fair occasion calls, ’tis fatal to delay.
Rowe.

1. 102. Mosca.] Buondelmonte was engaged to marry a lady of the
Amidei family, but broke his promise, and united himself to one of
the Donati. ‘This was so much resented by the former, that a meeting
of themselves and their kinsmen was held, to consider of the best
means of revenging the insult. Mosca degli Uberti, or de’ Lamberti,
persuaded them to resolve on the assassination of Buondelmonte,
exclaiming to them, ‘the thing once done, there is an end.’ The
counsel and its effects were the source of many terrible calamities
to the state of Florence. ‘This murder,’ says G. Villani, Lib. V,
cap. xxxviii, “was the cause and beginning of the accursed Guelph
and Ghibelline parties in Florence.’ It happened in 1215. See the
Paradise, Canto XVI. 139.

1. lll. The boon companion. |

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ?
Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VI, 111. ii. 232.

1]. 1380. Bertrand.] Bertrand de Born, Vicomte de Hautefort, near
Périgueux in Guienne, who incited John to rebel against his father,
Henry II of England. Bertrand holds a distinguished place among
the Provengal poets. He is quoted in Dante, De Vulg. Hlog., Lib. II,
cap. il, where it is said, * that he treated of war, which no Italian poet
had yetdone.’ ‘Armaveronullum Latinum adhuc invenio poetasse.’
The triple division of subjects for poetry, made in this chapter of the
De Vulg. Elog., is very remarkable. It will be found in a note on
Purgatory, Canto XXVI. 113. For the translation of some extracts
from Bertrand de Born’s poems, see Millot, Hist. Littéraire des Trou-
badours, tom. i, p. 210; but the historical parts of that work are,
I believe, not to be relied on. Bertrand had a son of the same name,
who wrote a poem against John, King of England. It is that species
of composition called the serventese; and is in the Vatican, a MS.
in Cod. 3204. See Bastero, La Crusca Provenzale, Roma, 1724, p. 80.
For many particulars respecting both Bertrands, consult Raynouard’s
Poésies des Troubadours ; in which excellent work, and in his Lexique
Roman, Paris, 1838, several of their poems, in the Provencal language,
may be seen.

CANTO XXIX

1. 26. Geri of Bello.| A kinsman of the Poet’s, who was murdered
by one of the Sacchetti family. His being placed here, may be
considered as a proof that Dante was more impartial in the allotment
of his punishments than has generally been supposed. He was the
son of Bello, who was brother to Bellincion, our Poet’s grandfather.
Pelli, Mem. per la Vita di Dante, Opere di Dante, Zatta ediz., tom. iv,
part. ii, p. 23.

416 NOTES

1. 44. As were the torment.| It is very probable that these lines gave
Milton the idea of his celebrated description :

Immediately a place
Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark,
A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseased, all maladies, &c.
Pr ie Bovk Xt, 477:

Yet the enumeration of diseases, which follows, appears to have
been taken by Milton from the Quadriregio :
Quivi eran zoppi, monchi, sordi, e orbi,
Quivi era il mal podagrico e di fianco,
Quivi la frenesia cogli occhi torbi.
Quivi il dolor gridante, e non mai stanco,
Quivi il catarro con la gran cianfarda,
L’ asma, la polmonia quivi eran’ anco.
L’ idropisia quivi era grave e tarda,
Di tutte febbri quel piano era pieno,
Quivi quel mal, che par che la carne arda.
Lib. II, cap. 8.

]. 45. Of Valdichiana.| The valley through which passes the river
Chiana, bounded by Arezzo, Cortona, Montepulciano, and Chiusi.
In the heat of autumn it was formerly rendered unwholesome by the
stagnation of the water, but has since been drained by the Emperor
Leopold II. The Chiana is mentioned as a remarkably sluggish
stream, in the Paradise, Canto XIII. 21.

1.47. Maremma’s pestilent fen.| See note to Canto XXV. 18.

1.58. In Aegina.] He alludes to the fable of the ants changed into
Myrmidons. Ovid, Met., Lib. VII.

1. 104. Arezzo was my dwelling.| Griffolinoof Arezzo, who promised
Albero, son of the Bishop of Siena, that he would teach him the art
of flying ; and, because he did not keep his promise, Albero prevailed
on his father to have him burnt for a necromancer.

). 117. ————— Was ever race
Light as Siena s ?|

The same imputation is again cast on the Sienese, Purg., Canto
XIII. 141.

]. 121. Stricca.] This is said ironically. Stricea, Niccold de’ Salim-
beni, Caccia d’ Ascian, and Abbagliato or Meo de’ Folcachieri, belonged
to a company of prodigal and luxurious young men in Siena, called
the ‘ brigata godereccia’. Niccolo was the inventor of a new manner
of using cloves in cookery, not very well understood by the com-
mentators, and which was termed the ‘ costuma ricca’. Pagliarini,
in his Historical Observations on the Quadriregio, Lib. III, cap. 13,
adduces a passage from a MS. History of Siena, in which it is told
that these spendthrifts, out of the sum raised from the sale of their
estates, built a palace, which they inhabited in common, and made
the receptacle of their apparatus for luxurious enjoyment ; and that,
amongst their other extravagancies, they had their horses shod with
silver, and forbade their servants to pick up the precious shoes if
they dropped off. The end was, as might be expected, extreme
poverty and wretchedness. Landino says, they spent two hundred

HELL, CANTO XXIx 417

thousand florins in twenty months. Horses shod with silver are
mentioned by Fazio degli Uberti :
Ancora in questo tempo si fi visto
Quel Roberto Guiscardo, che d’ argento
I cavagli ferrd per far I’ acquisto. —
Dittamondo, |. ii, ec. 24, as corrected by Perticari.

1]. 125. In that garden.] Siena.

1. 129. Abbagliato.| Lombardi understands ‘ Abbagliato ’ not to be
the name of a man, but to be the epithet to ‘senno’, and construes
‘ EY abbagliato il suo senno proferse ’, ‘and manifested to the world
the blindness of their understanding.’ So little doubt, however, is
made of there being such a person, that Allacci speaks of his grand-
father Folcachiero de’ Folcachieri of Siena, as one who may dispute
with the Sicilians the praise of being the first inventor of Italian poetry.
Tiraboschi, indeed, observes, that this genealogy is not authenticated
by Allacci ; yet it is difficult to suppose that he should have mentioned
it at all, if Meo de’ Folcachieri, or Abbagliato, as he was called, had
never existed. Vol. i, p. 95, Mr. Mathias’s edit.

1. 134. Capocchio’s ghost.| Capocchio of Siena, who is said to have
been a fellow-student of Dante’s in natural philosophy.

CANTO XXX

1. 4. Athamas.] From Ovid, Metam., Lib. IV. Protinus Aeolides, &c.
1. 12. With her other burden.|

Seque super pontum nullo tardata timore
Mittit, onusque suum. Ovid, Metam., Lib. IV.

1.16. Hecuba.]See Euripides, Hecuba; and Ovid, Metam., Lib. XIII.
1. 19. Her Polydorus. |

Aspicit eiectum Polidori in littore corpus.
Ovid, ibid.

1. 33. Schicchi.] Gianni Schicchi, who was of the family of Caval-
canti, possessed such a faculty of moulding his features to the resem-
blance of others, that he was employed by Simon Donati to personate
Buoso Donati, then recently deceased, and to make a will, leaving
Simon his heir; for which service he was remunerated with a mare of
extraordinary value, here called ‘ the lady of the herd ’.

1. 39. Myrrha.| See Ovid, Metam., Lib. X.

1. 60. Adamo’s woe.] Adamo of Brescia, at the instigation of Guido,
Alessandro, and their brother Aghinolfo, lords of Romena, counter-
feited the coin of Florence ; for which crime he was burnt. Landino
says, that in his time the peasants still pointed out a pile of stones
near Romena, as the place of his execution. See Troya, Veléru
Allegorico, p. 25.

1. 64. Casentino.] Romena is a part of Casentino.

1. 77. Branda’s limpid spring.| A fountain in Siena.

1. 85. Less.] Lombardi justly concludes that as Adamo wishes to
exaggerate the difficulty of finding the spirit whom he wishes to see,
‘men,’ and not ‘ pit’ (‘ less,’ and not ‘ more ’ than the half of a mile),
is probably the true reading ; for there are authorities for both.

418 NOTES

1. 88. The florins with three carats of alloy.| The florin was a coin
that ought to have had twenty-four carats of pure gold. Villani
relates, that it was first used at Florence in 1252, an era of great
prosperity in the annals of the republic; before which time their
most valuable coinage was of silver. Hist., Lib. VI, c. liv. Fazio
degli Uberti uses the word to denote the purest gold.

Pura era come I! oro del fiorino.
Dittamondo, L. ii. cap. Xiv.

‘Among the ruins of Chaucer’s house at Woodstock they found an
ancient coin of Florence; I think, a Florein, anciently common in
England. Chaucer, Pardon. Tale, |. 446.

For that the Florins been so faire and brighte.

Edward the Third, in 1344, altered it from a lower value to 6s. 8d.
The particular piece I have mentioned seems about that value.’
Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. ii, sect. ii, p. 44.

1. 96. The false accuser.| Potiphar’s wife.

CANTO XXXI
1. 1. The very tongue.]

Vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste
Vulneris auxilium Pelias hasta fuit.
Ovid, Rem. Amor. 47.

The same allusion was made by Bernard de Ventadour, a Provengal
poet in the middle of the twelfth century ; and Millot observes, that
‘it was a singular instance of erudition in a Troubadour’. But it
is not impossible, as Warton remarks (Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. il,
sect. x, p. 215), but that he might have been indebted for it to some
of the early romances. In Chaucer’s Squieres Tale a sword of similar
quality is introduced, |. 236:

And othere folk han wondred on the swerd,
That wolde percen thurgh-out every-thing ;
And fille in speche of Thelophus the king,
And of Achilles with his queynte spere,

For he coude with it bothe hele and dere.

So Shakespeare, 2 Henry VJ, v. i. 100.

Whose smile and frown like to Achilles’ spear
Is able with the change to kill and cure.

1. 14. Orlando.]

When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.

Milton, P. L., Book I. 586.

See Warton’s Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol.i, sect. iii, p. 132. ‘ This is
the horn which Orlando won from the giant Jatmund, and which,
as Turpin and the Islandic bards report, was endued with magical
power, and might be heard at the distance of twenty miles.’ Charle-
magne and Orlando are introduced in the Paradise, Canto XVIII.

]. 36. Montereggion.| A castle near Siena.

HELL, CANTO XxXxI 419

1. 38. Giants.] The giants round the pit, it is remarked by Warton,
are in the Arabian vein of fabling. See D’Herbelot, Bibl. Orientale,
V. Rocail, p. 717 a.

1. 53. The pine.] ‘ The large pine of bronze, which once ornamented
the top of the mole of Adrian, was afterwards employed to decorate
the top of the belfry of St. Peter; and having (according to Buti)
been thrown down by lightning, it was, after lying some time on the
steps of this palace, transferred to the place where it now is, in the
Pope’s garden, by the side of the great corridor of Belvedere. In the
time of our Poet, the pine was then either on the belfry or on the steps
of St. Peter.’ Lombardi.

1. 61. Raphel, &c.] These unmeaning sounds, it is supposed, are
meant to express the confusion of languages at the building of the
tower of Babel.

1. 68. Spirit confused.] I had before translated ‘ Wild spirit!’ and
have altered it at the suggestion of Mr. Darley, who well observes,
that ‘ anima confusa ’ is peculiarly appropriate to Nimrod, the author
of the confusion of Babel.

1. 105. The fortunate vale.| The country near Carthage. See Liv.,
Hist., |. xxx, and Lucan, Phars., 1. iv. 590, &c. Dante has kept the
latter of these writers in his eye throughout all this passage.

l. 123. Alcides.| The combat between Hercules and Antaeus is
adduced by the Poet in his treatise De Monarchia, II. viii, as a proof
of the judgement of God displayed in the duel, according to the
singular superstition of those times. ‘Certamine vero dupliciter Dei
iudicium aperitur: vel ex collisione virium, sicut fit per duellum
pugilum, qui duelliones etiam vocantur; vel ex contentione plurium
ad aliquod signum praevalere conantium, sicut fit per pugnam
athletarum currentium ad bravium. Primus horum modorum
apud gentiles figuratus fuit in illo duello Herculis et Antaei, cuius
Lucanus meminit in quarto Pharsaliae, et Ovidius in nono de rerum
transmutatione.’

1. 128. The tower of Carisenda.| The leaning tower at Bologna.

CANTO XXXII

1. 8. ————A tongue not used
To infant babbling. |
Né da lingua, che chiami mamma e babbo.

Dante in his treatise De Vulg. Eloq., speaking of words not admissible
in the loftier, or, as he calls it, tragic style of poetry, says—‘ In
quorum numero nec puerilia propter sui simplicitatem ut Mamma et
Babbo,’ Lib. II, c. vii.

]. 24. A lake.] The same torment is introduced into the Edda,
compiled in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. See the Song of the
Sun, translated by the Rev. James Beresford, London, 1805; and
compare Warton’s Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. i, dissert. i, and Gray’s
Posthumous Works, edited by Mr. Mathias, vol. ii, p. 106. Indeed, as
an escape from ‘ the penalty of Adam, the seasons’ difference ’, forms
one of the most natural topics of consolation for the loss of life, so
does a renewal of that suffering in its fiercest extremes of heat and

CARY Q

420 NOTES

cold bring before the imagination of men in general (except indeed
the terrors of a self-accusing conscience) the liveliest idea of future
punishment. Refer to Shakespeare and Milton in the notes to
Canto III. 82; and see Douce’s Illustrations of Shakespeare, 8vo,
1807, vol. i, p. 182.

1. 29. Tabernicch or Pietrapana.| The one a mountain in Sclavonia,
the other in that tract of country called the Garfagnana, not far
from Lucca.

1. 33. T'o where modest shame appears.| * As high as to the face.’

1. 35. Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork. ]

Mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna.

So Boccaccio, G. viii, N. 7. ‘Lo scolar cattivello quasi cicogna
divenuto si forte batteva i denti.’

]. 53. Who are these two.] Alessandro and Napoleone, sons of
Alberto Alberti, who murdered each other. They were proprietors
of the valley of Falterona, where the Bisenzio has its source, a river
that falls into the Arno about six miles from Florence.

1. 59. Not him.] Mordrec, son of King Arthur. In the romance of
Lancelot of the Lake, Arthur, having discovered the traitorous inten-
tions of his son, pierces him through with the stroke of his lance, so that
the sunbeam passes through the body of Mordrec ; and this disruption
of the shadow is no doubt what our Poet alludes to in the text.

1. 60. Focaccia.]| Focaccia of Cancellieri (the Pistoian family),
whose atrocious act of revenge against his uncle is said to have given
rise to the parties of the Bianchi and Neri, in the year 1300. See
G. Villani, Hist., Lib. VIII, c. xxxvii, and Macchiavelli, Hist., Lib. II.
The account of the latter writer differs much from that given by
Landino in his Commentary.

]. 63. Mascheroni.| Sassol Mascheroni, a Florentine, who also
murdered his uncle.

1. 66. Camicion.] Camicion de’ Pazzi of Valdarno, by whom
his kinsman Ubertino was treacherously put to death.

1. 67. Carlino.] One of the same family. He betrayed the Castel
di Piano Travigne, in Valdarno, to the Florentines, after the refugees
of the Bianca and Ghibelline party had defended it against a siege
for twenty-nine days, in the summer of 1302. See G. Villani,
Lib. VIII, ec. lii, and Dino Compagni, Lib. II.

Lo16. Df wilt.

Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate.
Milton 22PoLs Beek, 1.133:

1. 81. Montaperto.| The defeat of the Guelfi at Montaperto, occa-
sioned by the treachery of Bocca degli Abati, who, during the engage-
ment, cut off the hand of Jacopo del Vacca de’ Pazzi, bearer of the
Florentine standard. G. Villani, Lib. VI, c. Ixxx, and notes to
Canto X. This event happened in 1260.

l. 89. Antenora.| ‘So called from Antenor, who, according to
Dictys Cretensis (de Bello Troi., Lib. V) and Dares Phrygius (De
Excidio Troiae) betrayed Troy his country.’ Lombardi. See note
on Purg., Canto V. 75. Antenor acts this part in Boccaccio’s Fidostrato,
and in Chaucer’s T'roilus and Criseyde.

l. 113. Him of Duera.] Buoso of Cremona, of the family of Duera,
who was bribed by Guy de Montfort to leave a pass between Pied-

HELL, CANTO XXXII 42)

mont and Parma, with the defence of which he had been entrusted by
the Ghibellines, open to the army of Charles of Anjou, A. D. 1265, at
which the people of Cremona were so enraged, that they extirpated
the whole family. G. Villani, Lib. VII, c. iv.

]. 116. Beccaria.] Abbot of Vallombrosa, who was the Pope’s
Legate at Florence, where his intrigues in favour of the Ghibellines
being discovered, he was beheaded. I do not find the occurrence
in Villani, nor do the commentators say to what Pope he was legate.
By Landino he is reported to have been from Parma; by Vellutello,
from Pavia.

1. 118. Soldanieri.] ‘Gianni Soldanieri,’ says Villani, Hist., Lib.
VII, c. xiv, * put himself at the head of the people, in the hopes of
rising into power, not aware that the result would be mischief to the
Ghibelline party, and his own ruin; an event which seems ever to
have befallen him who has headed the populace in Florence.’—
A. D. 1266.

1. 119. Ganellon.]| The betrayer of Charlemagne, mentioned by
Archbishop Turpin. He is a common instance of treachery with
the poets of the middle ages.

Trop son fol e mal pensant,
Pis valent que Guenelon.
Thibaut, Roi de Navarre.

O newe Scariot, newe Genilon,
False dissimilour, &c.
Chaucer, Nonne Preestes Tale, 407.

And in the Monkes Tale, Peter of Spain, 399.
1. 119. Tribaldello.| Tribaldello de’ Manfredi, who was bribed to
betray the city of Faenza, a. p. 1282. G. Villani, Lib. VII, c. Ixxx.
1. 128. Tydeus.] See Statius, Theb., Lib. VIII, ad finem.

CANTO XXXITII

1. 14. Count Ugolino.| ‘In the year 1288, in the month of July,
Pisa was much divided by competitors for the sovereignty; one
party, composed of certain of the Guelfi, being headed by the Judge
Nino di Gallura de’ Visconti; another, consisting of others of the
same faction, by the Count Ugolino della Gherardesca ; and a third
by the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, with the Lanfranchi,
Sismondi, Gualandi, and other Ghibelline houses. The Count
Ugolino, to effect his purpose, united with the Archbishop and his
party, and having betrayed Nino, his sister’s son, they contrived
that he and his followers should either be driven out of Pisa, or their
persons seized. Nino hearing this, and not seeing any means of
defending himself, retired to Calci, his castle, and formed an alliance
with the Florentines and people of Lucca, against the Pisans. The
Count, before Nino was gone, in order to cover his treachery, when
everything was settled for his expulsion, quitted Pisa, and repaired
to a manor of hiscalled Settimo; whence, as soon as he was informed
of Nino’s departure, he returned to Pisa with great rejoicing and
festivity, and was elevated to the supreme power with every demon-

422 NOTES

stration of triumph and honour. But his greatness was not of long
continuance. It pleased the Almighty that a total reverse of fortune
should ensue, as a punishment for his acts of treachery and guilt ;
for he was said to have poisoned the Count Anselmo da Caprara, his
sister’s son, on account of the envy and fear excited in his mind by
the high esteem in which the gracious manners of Anselmo were held
by the Pisans.—The power of the Guelfi being so much diminished,
the Archbishop devised means to betray the Count Ugolino, and
caused him to be suddenly attacked in his palace by the fury of the
people, whom he had exasperated, by telling them that Ugolino had
betrayed Pisa, and given up their castles to the citizens of Florence
and of Lucca. He was immediately compelled to surrender; his
bastard son and his grandson fell in the assault ; and two of his sons,
with their two sons also, were conveyed to prison.’ G. Villani,
Lib. VII, c. exx. ‘In the following March, the Pisans, who had
imprisoned the Count Ugolino, with two of his sons and two of his
grandchildren, the offspring of his son the Count Guelfo, in a tower
on the Piazza of the Anziani, caused the tower to be locked, the key
thrown into the Arno, and all food to be withheld from them. In
a few days they died of hunger; but the Count first with loud cries
declared his penitence, and yet neither priest nor friar was allowed
to shrive him. All the five, when dead, were dragged out of the
prison, and meanly interred; and from thenceforward the tower
was called the tower of famine, and so shall ever be.’ Ibid., ce. exxvii.
Troya asserts that Dante, for the sake of poetical effect, has much
misrepresented the real facts. See his Veltro Allegorico di Dante,
Ed. 1826, p. 28, 9. This would render a conjecture, which the
same writer elsewhere hazards, still more improbable; that the
story might have been written by Dante when the facts were yet
recent, and afterwards introduced into his poem. Ibid., p. 96.
Chaucer has briefly told Ugolino’s story. See Monkes Tale, Hugelino
of Pisa.

]. 24. Several moons.) Many editions, and the greater part of the
MSS., instead of ‘ pit lune’, read ‘ pitt lume’; according to which
reading Ugolino would say, that the day had broke, and shone
through the grated window of the prison, before he fell asleep.

]. 29. Unto the mountain.] The mountain 8S. Giuliano between Pisa
and Lucca.

1.47. All stone I felt within.] ‘ My heart is turned to stone ; I strike
it, and it hurts my hand.’ Shakespeare, Othello, tv. i. 190.

1. 59. Thou gavest.] Tu ne vestisti
Queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia.
Imitated by Filicaia, Canz. III.
Di questa Imperial caduca spoglia
Tu, Signor, me vestisti e tu mi spoglia:
Ben puoi ’] Regno me tor tu che me ’! desti.
And by Maffei in the Merope :
Tu disciogleste
Queste misere membra e tu le annodi.

1. 79. In that fair region.] Del bel paese 1a, dove il st suona.
Italy, as explained by Dante himself, in his treatise De Vulg. Elog.,

HELL, CANTO XXXIII 423

Lib. I, cap. 8. ‘ Qui autem S? dicunt a praedictis finibus (Januen-
sium) Orientalem (Meridionalis Europae partem) tenent; videlicet
usque ad promontorium illud Italiae, qua sinus Adriatici maris
incipit et Siciliam.’

1. 82. Caprara and Gorgona.| Small islands near the mouth of
the Arno.

1. 94. There, very weeping suffers not to weep.|

Lo pianto stesso li pianger non lascia.
So Giusto de’ Conti, Bella Mano. Son. ‘ Quanto il ciel.’
Che il troppo pianto a me pianger non lassa.

1. 116. The friar Alberigo.| Alberigo de’ Manfredi of Faenza, one
of the Frati Godenti, Joyous Friars, who having quarrelled with some
of his brotherhood, under pretence of wishing to be reconciled, in-
vited them to a banquet, at the conclusion of which he called for the
fruit, a signal for the assassins to rush in and dispatch those whom he
had marked for destruction. Hence, adds Landino, it is said pro-
verbially of one who has been stabbed, that he has had some of the
friar Alberigo’s fruit. Thus Pulci, Morg. Magg., c. xxv.

Le frutte amare di frate Alberico.

1. 118. The date.]
Come Dio rende dataro per fico.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, |. iv, cap. xix.

1]. 123. Ptolomea.] This circle is named Ptolomea from Ptolemy
the son of Abubus, by whom Simon and his sons were murdered,
at a great banquet he had made for them. See 1 Maccabees, ch. xvi.
Or from Ptolemy, king of Egypt, the betrayer of Pompey the Great.

1. 123. The soul.]| Chaucer seems to allude to this in the Freres
Tale (1. 221), where a fiend assumes the person of a yeoman, and
tells the Sompnour that he shall one day come toa place where he
shall understand the mystery of such possessions,

Bet than Virgyle, whyl he was on lyve,
Or Dant also.

See Southey’s Tale of Donica.
]. 126. The glazed tear-drops.|

—— sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears.
Shakespeare, Rich. IJ, 11. ii. 16.

1. 136. Brancad Oria.| The family of D’Oria was possessed of great
influence in Genoa. Branca is said to have murdered his father-in-
law, Michel Zanche, introduced in Canto X XII.

1. 140. Eats, drinks, and sleeps. |

——— But ’tis a spirit.
Pro. No, wench, it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses
As we have, such. Shakespeare, Tempest, 1. 1. 408.

1. 152. Romagna’s darkest spirit.| The friar Alberigo.

424 NOTES

CANTO XXXIV
1.1. The banners. |

Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni.

A parody of the first verse in a hymn that was sung by the church in
praise of the cross.

1. 6. A windmill.] The author of the Caliph Vathek, in the notes
to that tale, justly observes that it is more than probable that Don
Quixote’s mistake of the windmills for giants was suggested to
Cervantes by this simile.

1. 25. I was not dead nor living.]

—— ovr’ éy Tots pOpévors,
ovr é€v (Bow apiOpoupern.
Euripides, Supplices, 968.
tum ibi me nescioquis arripit
Timidam atque pavidam, nec vivam nec mortuam.
Plautus, Curculio, act v, sc. 2.

]. 30. A giant.]

Nel primo clima sta come signore
Colli giganti; ed un delle sue braccie
Piu che nullo di loro é assai maggiore.
Frezzi, Jl Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. i.
]. 37. Three faces.] It can scarcely be doubted but that Milton
derived his description of Satan, in those lines—

—— Each passion dimmed his face
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair.
P. L., Book IV. 114.

from this passage, coupled with the remark of Vellutello upon it:
‘ The first of these sins is anger, which he signifies by the red face ;
the second, represented by that between pale and yellow, is envy,
and not, as others have said, avarice ; and the third, denoted by the
black, is a melancholy humour that causes a man’s thoughts to be
dark and evil, and averse from all joy and tranquillity.” Lombardi
would understand the three faces to signify the three parts of the
world then known, in all of which Lucifer had his subjects: the red
denoting the Europeans, who were in the middle; the yellow, the
Asiatics, on the right; and the black, the Africans, who were on the
left ; according to the position of the faces themselves.
1. 44. Sails.] Argo non ebbe mai si grande vela,
Ne altra nave, come I’ ali sue ;
Ne mai tessuta fu si grande tela.
Frezzi, J Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. xix.

—— His sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight.
Milton, P. L., Book II. 927.

Compare Spenser, F. Q., Book I, c. xi, st. 10; Ben Jonson’s Lvery
Man out of his Humour, v. 7; and Fletcher’s Prophetess, act 2, sc. 3.
In his description of Satan, Frezzi has departed not less from Dante
than our own poet has done ; for he has painted him on a high throne,
with a benignant and glad countenance, yet full of majesty, a triple

HELL, CANTO XXXIV 425

crown on his head, six shining wings on his shoulders, and a court
thronged with giants, centaurs, and mighty captains, besides youths
and damsels, who are disporting in the neighbouring meadows with
song and dance; but no sooner does Minerva, who is the author’s
conductress, present her crystal shield, than all this triumph and
jollity is seen through it transformed into loathsomeness and horror.
There are many touches in this picture that will remind the reader of
Milton.

1. 46. Like a bat.) The description of an imaginary being, who is
called Typhurgo, in the Zodiacus Vitae, has something very like this
of Dante’s Lucifer.

Ingentem vidi regem, ingentique sedentem
In solio, crines flammanti stemmate cinctum,
————utrinque patentes
Alae humeris magnae, quales vespertilionum
Membranis contextae amplis—
Nudus erat longis sed opertus corpora villis.
M. Palingenii, Zod. Vit., Lib. TX.

A mighty king I might discerne,
Placed hie on lofty chaire,

His haire with fyry garland deckt
Puft up in fiendish wise.

Large wings on him did grow
Framde like the wings of flinder mice, &c.
Googe’s Translation.

1. 61. Brutus.] Landino struggles, but I fear in vain, to extricate
Brutus from the unworthy lot which is here assigned him. He
maintains, that by Brutus and Cassius are not meant the individuals
known by those names, but any who put a lawful monarch to death.
Yet if Caesar was such, the conspirators might be regarded as desery-
ing of theirdoom. ‘QO uominieccellenti!’ exclaims the commentator,
with a spirit becoming one who felt that he lived in a free state,
“ed al tutto degni a quali Roma fosse patria, e de’ quali restera
sempre eterna memoria ; legginsi tutte le leggi di qualunque republica
bene instituta, e troveremo che a nessuno si propose maggior premio
che a chi uccide il tiranno.’ Cowley, as conspicuous for his loyalty
as for his genius, in an ode inscribed with the name of this patriot,
which, though not free from the usual faults of the poet, is yet a noble
one, has placed his character in the right point of view—

Excellent Brutus! of all human race
The best, till nature was improved by grace.

If Dante, however, believed Brutus to have been actuated by evil
motives in putting Caesar to death, the excellence of the patriot’s
character in other respects would only have aggravated his guilt
in that particular. ‘Totius autem iniustitiae nulla capitalior est
quam eorum, qui cum maxime fallunt id agunt, ut viri boni esse
videantur.’ Cic. de Off., Lib. I, cap. xiii.

1. 89. Within one hour and half of noon.) The Poet uses the Hebrew
manner of computing the day, according to which the third hour
answers to our twelve o'clock at noon.

426 NOTES

1.105. That point.| Monti observes, that if this passage had chanced
to meet the eye of Newton, it might better have awakened his thought
to conceive the system of attraction, than the aecidental falling of an
apple. Proposta, v. iii, pte 2, p. Ixxviii, 8vo, 1824.

]. 120. By what of firm land on this side appears.| The mountain of
Purgatory.

1. 123. The vaulted tomb.| ‘Latomba.’ This word is used to express
the whole depth of the infernal region.

PURGATORY

CANTO I

Line 1. O’er better waves.| So Berni, Orl. Inn., Lib. YI, e. i.

Per correr maggior acqua alza le vele,
O debil navicella del mio ingegno.

I. 11. Birds of chattering note.| For the fable of the daughters of
Pierus, who challenged the muses to sing, and were by them changed
into magpies, see Ovid, Met., Lib. V, fab. 5.

1. 15. The first circle.| Either, as some suppose, the moon ; or, as
Lombardi (who likes to be as far off the rest of the commentators as
possible) will have it, the highest circle of the stars.

]. 19. Planet.| Venus.

]. 20. Made all the orient laugh.| Hence Chaucer, Knightes Tale :

That al the orisont laugheth of the lighte (1. 636).

It is sometimes read ‘ orient’.

]. 21. The Pisces’ light.| The constellation of the Fish veiled by
the more luminous body of Venus, then a morning star.

]. 24. Four stars.) Venturi observes that ‘Dante here speaks as
a poet, and almost in the spirit of prophecy ; or, what is more likely,
describes the heaven about that pole according to his own invention.
In our days,’ he adds, ‘ the cross, composed of four stars, three of the
second and one of the third magnitude, serves as a guide to those
who sail from Europe to the south; but in the age of Dante these
discoveries had not been made :’ yet it appears probable, that either
from long tradition, or from the relation of later voyagers, the real
truth might not have been unknown to our Poet. Seneca’s prediction
of the discovery of America may be accounted for in a similar manner.
But whatever may be thought of this, it is certain that the four stars
are here symbolical of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice,
Fortitude, and Temperance. See Canto XXXI, v. 105. M. Artaud
mentions a globe constructed by an Arabian in Egypt, with the date
of the year 622 of the Hegira, corresponding to 1225 of our era, in
which the southern cross is positively marked. See his Histoire de
Dante, ch. xxxi, and xl, 8vo, Par. 1841.

1. 25. Our first parents.| In the terrestrial paradise, placed, as we
shall see, by our Poet, on the summit of Purgatory.

1. 30. The wain.] Charles’s Wain, or Ursa Major.

1]. 31. An old man.] Cato.

Secretosque pios; his dantem iura Catonem.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. VIII. 670.

The commentators, and Lombardi amongst the rest, might have
saved themselves and their readers much needless trouble if they
would have consulted the prose writings of Dante with more diligence.
In the Convito, IV. xxviii, he has himself declared his opinion of the

428 NOTES

illustrious Roman. ‘ Quale uomo,’ &c. ‘ What earthly man was
more worthy to follow God than Cato ? Certainlynone.’ And again,
IV. xxviii, end. ‘Nel nome di cui, &c. ‘In whose name, whatever
needs be said concerning the signs of nobility may be concluded ;
for, in him, that nobility displays them all throughout all ages.’
]. 42. Venerable plumes. |
Insperata tuae cum veniet pluma superbiae.
Hor) Carm., 1V- =. 2.

The same metaphor has occured in Hell, Canto XX. 41.

the plumes,
That marked the better sex.

It is used by Ford in The Lady’s Trial, act iv, sc. 2.
Now the down
Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age.

1. 53. A Dame from heaven.| Beatrice. See Hell, II. 54.
1. 58. The farthest gloom.| L’ ultima sera.
So Ariosto, O. F., Canto XXXIV, st. 59.

Che non han visto ancor l ultima sera.
And Filicaia, Canz. TX. Al Sonno.
L’ ultima sera.

And Mr. Mathias, Canzone a Guglielmo Roscoe premessa alla Storia
della Poesia Italiana, p. 13.

Di morte non vedra l ultima sera.

]. 77. Of Minos am not bound.| See Hell, V. 4.
]. 79. Marcia.]

Da foedera prisci

Illibata tori: da tantum nomen inane

Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis

Martia. Lucan, Phars., Lib. II. 344.

Our author’s habit of putting an allegorical interpretation on every-
thing, a habit which appears to have descended to that age from
certain fathers of the church, is nowhere more apparent than in his
explanation of this passage. See Convito, IV. xxviii. ‘ Marzia fu
vergine, &c. ‘Marcia was a virgin, and in that state she signifies
childhood ; then she came to Cato, and in that state she represents
youth ; she then bare children, by whom are represented the virtues
that we have said belong to that age.’ Dante would surely have done
well to remember his own rule laid down in the De Monarch., III. iv.
‘ Advertendum,’ &c. ‘Concerning the mystical sense it must be
observed that we may err in two ways, either by seeing it where it
is not, or by taking it otherwise than it ought to be taken.’

1. 82. Through thy seven regions.| The seven rounds of Purgatory,
in which the seven capital sins are punished.

1. 89. By that law.] When he was delivered by Christ from limbo,
a change of affections accompanied his change of place.

1. 94. A slender reed.]| The reed is here supposed, with sufficient
probability, to be meant for a type of simplicity and patience.

]. 106. Where to take.| ‘ Prendere il monte,’ a reading which Lom-

PURGATORY, CANTO I 429

bardi claims for his favourite Nidobeatina edition, is also found in
Landino’s of 1484.
l. 116. I spied the trembling of the ocean stream.]

Conobbi il tremolar della marina.
So Trissino in the Sofonisba.
EH resta in tremolar |’ onda marina.
And Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, Canto IX, st. 17.
——— visto il tremolar della marina.
1. 135. Another.] From Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 143.
Primo avulso non deficit alter.

CANTO II

l. 1. Now had the sun.] Dante was now antipodal to Jerusalem ;
so that while the sun was setting with respect to that place, which he
supposes to be the middle of the inhabited earth, to him it was rising.
See Routh’s Reliquiae Sacrae, tom. iii, p. 256. So Fazio degli Uberti,
Dittamondo, Lib. VI, cap. vi.

—— questo monte é quello
Ch’ in mezzo il mondo apunto si divisa.

1. 6. The scales.| The constellation Libra.

l. 7. When she reigns highest.| ‘ Quando soverchia ’ is (according
to Venturi, whom I have followed) * when the autumnal equinox is
passed ’, Lombardi supposes it to mean ‘ when the nights begin to
increase, that is, after the summer solstice ’.

1. 9. To orange turned.| *L’ aurora gia di vermiglia cominciava
appressandosi il sole a divenir rancia.’ Boccaccio, Decam., G. ili,
at the beginning. See notes to Hell, XXIII. 101.

1. 11. Like men.]

Che va col core, e col corpo dimora.
So Frezzi.
E mentre il corpo posa, col cor varca.
Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 8.
1.14. Through the thick vapours.) So in the Convito, II. xiv.
“Esso appare, &c. ‘He (Mars) appears more or less inflamed with
heat, according to the thickness or rarity of the vapours that
follow him.’
1. 33. Except his wings.| Hence Milton :
Who after came from earth, sailing arrived,
Wafted by angels.
P. E23 Book Lik? 5232

1. 35. Winnowing the air.]
Trattando |’ aere con |’ eterne penne.

So Filicaia, Canz. VIII, st. 11.
Ma trattar l’ aere coll’ eterne piume.

1. 45. In Exitu.] ‘ When Israel came out of Egypt.’ Ps. exiv.

430 NOTES

1,54. With his arrowy radiance.| So Milton:

—— and now went forth the morn;
—— from before her vanished night,
Shot through with orient beams.
P. L.; Book VI.. 12.

This has been regarded by some critics as a conceit, into which Milton
was betrayed by the Italian poets; but it is in truth authorized by
one of the correctest of the Grecians.

“Ov aidda vig évapiCopeva

TikTer, KaTreuvater TE, pAoyiCipevov

“AXor, Sophocles, T'rachin. 94.

Ecco dinanzi a te fugge repente
Saettata la notte.
Marini, Son. al Sig. Cinthio Aldobrandino.

l. 75. Thrice my hands.]

Ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum,
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago ;
Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.
Virgil, Aen. IT. 792.
Compare Homer, Od. xi. 205.

The incident in the text is pleasantly alluded to in that delightful
book, the Capricci del Bottaio of Gelli (Opere, Milan, 1805, v. ii, p. 26),
of which there is an English translation entitled ‘ The Fearfull Fancies
of the Florentine Cooper. Written in Toscane, by John Baptist
Gelli, one of the free studie of Florence. And for recreation translated
into English by W. Barker.’ 8vo, Lond. 1599.

1. 88. My Casella.| A Florentine, celebrated for his skill in music,
‘in whose company,’ says Landino, ‘ Dante often recreated his spirits,
wearied by severer studies.” See Dr. Burney’s History of Music,
vol. ii, cap. iv, p. 322. Milton has a fine allusion to this meeting
in his sonnet to Henry Lawes.

Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

]. 88. Where I am.] ‘ La dove son.’ Lombardi understands this
differently : ‘ Not without purpose to return again to the earth, where
Iam; that is, where I usually dwell.’

1. 90. Hath so much time been lost.| There is some uncertainty in
this passage. If we read

Ma a te com’ era tanta terra tolta ?

with the Nidobeatina and Aldine editions, and many MSS., it signifies
‘why art thou deprived of so desirable a region as that of Purgatory ?
why dost thou not hasten to be cleansed of thy sins?’ If with the
Academicians della Crusca, we read,

Diss’ io, ma a te come tant’ ora é tolta ?
which is not destitute of authority to support it, and which has the
advantage over the other, as it marks Dante’s speech from Casella’s,

then it must mean as I have translated it, ‘why hast thou lost so
much time in arriving here?’ Lombardi, who is for the former

PURGATORY, CANTO II 431

reading, supposes Casella to be just dead; those, who prefer the
latter, suppose him to have been dead some years, but now only just
arrived.

1. 91. He.] The conducting angel.

1. 94. These three months past.|] Since the time of the Jubilee, during
which all spirits not condemned to eternal punishment were supposed
to pass over to Purgatory as soon as they pleased.

1. 96. The shore.] Ostia.

1. 107. ‘ Love, that discourses in my thoughts.’)

‘Amor, che nella mente mi ragiona.’

The first verse of a canzone in the Convito of Dante, which he again
cites in his treatise De Vulg. Elog., Lib. IL, cap. 6.
l. 125. As one.]

Come uom che va, né sa dove riesca.
So Frezzi:
Come chi va, né sa dove camina.
Il Quadrir., Lib. I, cap. 3.

CANTC III

1. 9. How doth a little failing wound thee sore.]

Ch’ era al cor picciol fallo amaro morso.
Tasso, G. L., Canto X, st. 59.

1. 11. Haste, that mars all decency of act.] Aristotlein his Physiog.,
ce. ili, reckons it among the dva:dovs onpeta, ‘ the signs of an impudent
man,’ that he is éy rais kwnoeow dvs, ‘quick in his motions,’
Compare Sophocles, Electra, 872.

TO Kéopuov pebeioa,

Joy, my dear sister, wings my quick return,
And with more speed than decency allows.
Potter.

]. 15. Where highest.| Lombardi proposes, with some hesitation,
a different meaning from that which has hitherto been affixed to the
words,

Che inverso il ciel pit alto si dislaga ;

and would construe them, ‘ that raises itself higher than every other
mountain above the sea:’ ‘sopra |’ allagamento delle acque del
mare.’ The conjecture is at least ingenious, and has obtained new
force by the arguments of Monti in his Proposta.

1. 26. To Naples.| Virgil died at Brundusium, from whence his
body is said to have been removed to Naples.

1. 38. Desiring fruitlessly.| See Hell, Canto IV. 39.

1. 43. In troubled mood.| Because he himself (Virgil) was amongst
the number of spirits who thus desired without hope.

1.49. ’Twiat Lerice and Turbia.| At that time the two extremities
of the Genoese republic; the former on the east, the latter on the
west. A very ingenious writer has had occasion, for a different
purpose, to mention one of these places as remarkably secluded by its
mountainous situation. ‘On an eminence among the mountains,

432 NOTES

between the two little cities, Nice and Monaco, is the village of Torbia,
a name formed from the Greek rpémaa.’ Mitford on the Harmony
of Language, sect. xv, p. 351, 2nd edit.

]. 55. The meaning of the pathway.| Lombardi reads,

—— — tenea ’] viso basso,
Esaminando del cammin la mente,

and explains it, ‘ he bent down his face, his mind being occupied with
considering their way to ascend the mountain.’ I doubt much
whether the words can bear that construction.

1. 67. When we some thousand steps.| Mr. Carlyle puts a query
to my former translation of this passage. It was certainly erro-
neous.

]. 78. As sheep.] The imitative nature of these animals supplies
our Poet with another comparison, in his Convito, I. ii. ‘ Questi
sono da chiamare pecore,’ &c. ‘These may be called flocks of sheep
and not men; for if one sheep should throw himself down a precipice
of a thousand feet, all the rest would follow ; and if one for any cause
in passing a road should leap, all the rest would do the same, though
they saw nothing to leap over.’

1. 110. Manfredi.] King of Naples and Sicily, and the natural son
of Frederick II. He was lively and agreeable in his manners, and
delighted in poetry, music, and dancing. But he was luxurious and
ambitious, void of religion, and in his philosophy an Epicurean.
See G. Villani, Lib. VI, cap. xlvii, and Mr. Mathias’s Tiraboschi.
vol. i, p. 99. He fell in the battle with Charles of Anjou in 1265,
alluded to in Canto XXVIII of Hell, ver. 13, or rather in that which
ensued in the course of a few days at Benevento. But the successes
of Charles were so rapidly followed up, that our author, exact as he
generally is, might not have thought it necessary to distinguish them
in point of time ; for this seems the best method of reconciling some
little apparent inconsistency between him and the annalist. ‘ Dying
excommunicated, King Charles did not allow of his being buried in
sacred ground, but he was interred near the bridge of Benevento ;
and on his grave there was cast a stone by every one of the army,
whence there was formed a great mound of stones. But some have
said, that afterwards, by command of the Pope, the Bishop of Cosenza
took up his body and sent it out of the kingdom, because it was the
land of the church; and that it was buried by the river Verde, on
the borders of the kingdom and of Campagna. This, however, we
do not affirm.’ G. Villani, Hist., Lib. VII, cap. ix. Manfredi and
his father are spoken of by our Poet in his De Vulg. Elog., Lib. I, cap. 12,
with singular commendation. ‘Si quidem illustres,’ &c. © Those
illustrious worthies, Frederick the Emperor, and his well-born son
Manfredi, manifested their nobility and uprightness of form, as long
as fortune remained, by following pursuits worthy of men, and
disdained those which are suited only to brutes. Such, therefore,
as were of a lofty spirit, and graced with natural endowments,
endeavoured to walk in the track which the majesty of such great
princes had marked out for them: so that whatever was in their time
attempted by eminent Italians, first made its appearance in the court
of crowned sovereigns; and because Sicily was a royal throne, it
came to pass that whatever was produced in the vernacular tongue

PURGATORY, CANTO III 433

by our predecessors was called Sicilian; which neither we nor our
posterity shall be able to change.’

1. 111. Costanza.] See Paradise, Canto III. 121.

1. 112. My fair daughter.| Costanza, the daughter of Manfredi,
and wife of Peter III, King of Aragon, by whom she was mother to
Frederick, King of Sicily, and James, King of Aragon. With the
latter of these she was at Rome, 1296. See G. Villani, Lib. VIII,
cap. Xvili, and notes to Canto VII.

1. 122. Clement.] Pope Clement IV.

1. 127. The stream of Verde.| A river near Ascoli, that falls into the
Tronto. The ‘extinguished lights’ formed part of the ceremony
at the interment of one excommunicated.

Passa la mora di Manfré, cui lava
Il Verde.——
Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. III, cap. i, as corrected by Perticari.

1. 1380. Hope.]
Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde.
So Tasso, G.L., Canto XIX, st. 53.
—— infin che verde é fior di speme.

CANTO IV

1. 1. When.] It must be owned the beginning of this Canto is some-
what obscure. Vellutello refers, for an elucidation of it, to the
reasoning of Statius in the twenty-fifth Canto. Perhaps some illustra-
tion may be derived from the following passage in the Summa Theo-
logiae of Thomas Aquinas. ‘Some say that in addition to the
vegetable soul, which was present from the first, there supervenes
another soul, which is the sensitive, and again, in addition to that,
another, which is the intellective. And so there are in man three
souls, one of which exists potentially with regard to another: but
this has been already disproved. And accordingly others say that
that same soul, which at first was merely vegetative, is, through
action of the seminal virtue, carried forward till it reaches to that
point, in which, being still the same, it nevertheless becomes sensitive;
and at length the same by an ulterior progression is led on till it
becomes intellective ; not, indeed, through the seminal virtue acting
in it, but by virtue of a superior agent, that is, God, enlightening it
from without.’ (This opinion he next proceeds to confute.) , Dicunt
ergo quidam quod supra animam vegetabilem, quae primo inerat,
supervenit alia anima, quae est sensitiva, supra illam iterum alia
quae est intellectiva. Et sic sunt in homine tres animae, quarum una
est in potentia ad aliam, quod supra improbatum est. Et ideo alii
dicunt, quod illa eadem anima, quae primo fuit vegetativa tantum,
postmodum per actionem virtutis, quae est in semine, perducitur
ad hoe, ut ipsa eadem fiat sensitiva ; et tandem ipsa eadem perducitur
ad hoc, ut ipsa eadem fiat intellectiva, non quidem per virtutem
activam seminis, sed per virtutem superioris agentis, scilicet Dei
deforis illustrantis.’ Thom. Aquin. Opera, Edit. Venet., 1595, tom. x.
Summa Theolog. Ima Pars. Quaestio cxviii, Art. ii. See also Lettere

434 NOTES

di Fra Guittone, 4° Roma, 1745, p. 15; and Routh’s note on the
Gorgias of Plato, p. 451.

l. 14. Full fifty steps.| Three hours and twenty minutes, fifteen
degrees being reckoned to an hour.

l. 23. Sanleo.} A fortress on the summit of Montefeltro. The
situation is described by Troya, Veltro Allegorico, p. 11. It is
a conspicuous object to travellers along the cornice on the riviera
di Genoa.

]. 24. Noli.] In the Genoese territory, between Finale and Savona.

1. 25. Bismantua.] A steep mountain in the territory of Reggio.

1. 27. With the swift wing.] Compare Paradise, Canto XX XIII. 17.

1. 40. More than line.] It was much nearer to being perpendicular
than horizontal.

1. 55. From the left.] Vellutello observes an imitation of Lucan in this
passage :

Ignotum vobis, Arabes, venistis in orbem,
Umbras mirati nemorum non ire sinistras.
Phars., Lib. III. 248.

1.57. Amazed.] He wonders that being turned to the east he should
see the sun on his left, since in all the regions on this side of the tropic
of Cancer it is seen on the right of one who turns his face towards the
east; not recollecting that he was now antipodal to Europe, from
whence he had seen the sun taking an opposite course.

1. 59. Were Leda’s offspring.| ‘ As the constellation of the Gemini
is nearer the Bears than Aries is, it is certain that if the sun, instead
of being in Aries, had been in Gemini, both the sun and that portion
of the Zodiac made “ruddy” by the sun, would have been seen to
“wheel nearer to the Bears”. By the “ruddy Zodiac ” must neces-
sarily be understood that portion of the Zodiac affected or made red
by the sun; for the whole of the Zodiac never changes, nor appears
to change, with respect to the remainder of the heavens.’ —Lombardi.

1. 68. The path.] The ecliptic.

1. 69. Thou wilt see.] ‘If you consider that this mountain of
Purgatory, and that of Sion, are antipodal to each other, you will
perceive that the sun must rise on opposite sides of the respective
eminences.’

l. 75. That the mid orb.] ‘That the equator (which is always
situated between that part where, when the sun is, he causes summer,
and the other where his absence produces winter) recedes from this
mountain towards the north, at the time when the Jews inhabiting
Mount Sion saw it depart towards the south.’—Lombardi.

1. 87. But more a man proceeds, less evil grows.| Because in ascending
he gets rid of the weight of his sins.

l. 119 Belacqua.] Concerning this man, the commentators afford
no information, except that in the margin of the Monte Cassino MS.
there is found this brief notice of him: ‘ Iste Belacqua fuit optimus
magister cithararum, et leutorum, et pigrissimus homo in operibus
mundi sicut in operibus animae.’ ‘ This Belacqua was an excellent
master of the harp and lute, but very negligent in his affairs both
spiritual and temporal.’ Lettera di Eustazio Dicearcheo ad Angelio
Sidicino, 4to, Roma, 1801.

l. 125. The bird of God.| Here are two other readings, ‘ Uscier’
and ‘ Angel’, ‘ Usher’ and ‘ Angel’ of God.

PURGATORY, CANTO IV 435

1. 135. Marocco’s shore.| Cuopre la notte gid col pié Marocco.
Hence, perhaps, Milton:
Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond.
P. L., Book I. 584.

instead of Morocco, as he elsewhere calls it :

Morocco, and Algiers, and Tremisen.
P. L., Book XI. 404.

If the vowels were to change places, the verse would in both
instances be spoiled.

CANTO V

1.4. ——It seems as if the light not shone
From the left hand. |

The sun was, therefore, on the right of our travellers. For, as
before, when seated and looking to the east from whence they had
ascended, the sun was on their left; so now that they have risen and
are again going forward, it must be on the opposite side of them.

1. 5. Of him beneath.| Of Dante, who was following Virgil up the
mountain, and therefore was the lower of the two.

]. 14. Be as a tower.| Sta come torre ferma.

So Berni, Orl. Inn., Lib. I, Canto XVI, st. 48.

In quei due piedi sta fermo il gigante
Com’ una torre in mezzo d’un castello.

And Milton, P. Z., Book I. 591.
Stood like a tower.

1. 36. Ne’er saw I fiery vapours.| Imitated by Tasso, G. L., Canto
XIX, st. 62.
Tal suol fendendo liquido sereno
Stella cader della gran madre in seno.

And by Milton, P. Z., Book IV. 556.

—— Swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired
Impress the air.

Compare Statius, T’heb. i. 92.
Tlicet igne Iovis, lapsisque citatior astris.

1,49. There.] Upon the earth.

1. 67. That land.| The Marca d’Ancona, between Romagna and
Apulia, the kingdom of Charles of Anjou.

1. 73. From thence I came.] Jacopo del Cassero, a citizen of Fano,
who having spoken ill of Azzo da Este, Marquis of Ferrara, was by
his orders put to death. Jacopo was overtaken by the assassins
at Oriaco, a place near the Brenta, from whence if he had fled towards
Mira, higher up on that river, instead of making for the marsh on
the sea-shore, he might have escaped.

1. 74. The blood.) Supposed to be the seat of life.

1. 75. Antenor’s land.| The city of Padua, said to be founded by
Antenor. This implies a reflection on the Paduans. See Hell,

436 NOTES

xxxii. 89. Thus G. Villani calls the Venetians ‘the perfidious
descendants from the blood of Antenor, the betrayer of his country,
Troy. Lib. XI,’ capo ixxxix:

1. 87. Of Montefeltro I.] Buonconte (son of Guido da Montefeltro,
whom we have had in the twenty-seventh Canto of Hell) fell in the
battle of Campaldino (1289), fighting on the side of the Aretini.
In this engagement our Poet took a distinguished part, as we have
seen related in his Life. See Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II,
cap. XXix.

|. 88. Giovanna.] Either the wife, or a kinswoman, of Buonconte.

1. 94. The hermit’s seat.] The hermitage of Camaldoli.

1. 95. Where its name is cancelled.| That is, between Bibbiena and
Poppi, where the Archiano falls into the Arno.

1. 96. Throat.] In the former editions it was printed ‘heart’.
Mr. Carlyle has observed the error.

1. 101. Me Gods angel took.| Cum autem finem vitae explesset
servus Dei aspiciens vidit diabolum simul et Angelum ad animam
stantem ac unum quemque illam sibi tollere festinantem. Alberics
Visio, § 18.

1. 105. For one poor tear.] Visum est quod angelus Domini lachri-
mas quas dives ille —— fuderat in ampulla teneret. Alberici Visio,
§ ule.

1. 110. That evil will.| The devil. Lombardi refers us to Albertus
Magnus de Potentia Daemonum. This notion of the Evil Spirit
having power over the elements, appears to have arisen from his
being termed the ‘prince of the power of the air’, in the New
Testament.

1.115. From Pratomagno to the mountain range.| From Pratomagno,
now called Prato Vecchio (which divides the Valdarno from Casen-
tino), as far as to the Apennine.

1. 131. Pita.] She is said to have been a Sienese lady, of the family
of Tolommei, secretly made away with by her husband Nello della
Pietra of the same city, in Maremma, where he had some possessions.

CANTO VI

1. 3. Revolving in his mind. |]

—— Riman dolente
Ripetendo le volte, e tristo impara.

Lombardi explains this: ‘that the loser remains by himself, and
taking up the dice casts them over again, as if to learn how he may
throw the numbers he could wish to come up.’ There is something
very natural in this; but whether the sense can be fairly deduced
from the words, is another question.

]. 10. And thus.| The late Archdeacon Fisher pointed out to me
a passage in the Novela de la Gitanilla of Cervantes, Ed. Valentia,
1797, p. 12, from which it appears that it was usual for money to be
given to bystanders at play by winners; and as he well remarked :
‘Dante is therefore describing, with his usual power of observation,
what he had often seen, the shuffling, boon-denying exit of the
successful gamester.’

1.14. Of Arezzo him.] Benincasa of Arezzo, eminent for his skill

PURGATORY, CANTO VI 437

in jurisprudence, who having condemned to death Turrino da Turrita,
brother of Ghino di Tacco, for his robberies in Maremma, was mur-
dered by Ghino, in an apartment of his own house, in the presence
of many witnesses. Ghino was not only suffered to escape in safety,
but (as the commentators inform us) obtained so high a reputation
by the liberality with which he was accustomed to dispense the fruits
of his plunder, and treated those who fell into his hands with so
much courtesy, that he was afterwards invited to Rome, and knighted
by Boniface VIII. A story is told of him by Boccaccio, G. x, N. 2.

1.15. Him beside.| Cione, or Ciacco de’ Tarlatti of Arezzo. He is
said to have been carried by his horse into the Arno, and there
drowned, while he was in pursuit of certain of his enemies.

1.17. Frederic Novello.| Son of the Conte Guido da Battifolle,
and slain by one of the family of Bostoli.

1.18. Of Pisa he.| Farinata degliScornigiani of Pisa. His father
Marzucco, who had entered the order of the Frati Minori, so entirely
overcame the feelings of resentment, that he even kissed the hands
of the slayer of his son, and, as he was following the funeral, ex-
horted his kinsmen to reconciliation. The eighteenth and thirtieth
in the collection of Guittone d’ Arezzo’s Letters are addressed to
Marzucco. The latter is in verse.

1. 20. Count Orso.| Son of Napoleone da Cerbaia, slain by Alberto
da Mangona, his uncle.

]. 23. Peter de la Brosse.| Secretary of Philip III of France. The
courtiers, envying the high place which he held in the king’s favour,
prevailed on Mary of Brabant to charge him falsely with an attempt
upon her person ; for which supposed crime he suffered death. So
say the Italian commentators. Henault represents the matter very
differently : ‘Pierre de la Brosse, formerly barber to St. Louis,
afterwards the favourite of Philip, fearing the too great attachment
of the king for his wife Mary, accuses this princess of having poisoned
Louis, eldest son of Philip, by his first marriage. This calumny is
discovered by a nun of Nivelle in Flanders. La Brosse is hung.’
Abregé Chron. 1275, &c. The Deputati, or those deputed to write
annotations on the Decameron, suppose that Boccaccio, in the Gior-
nata ii, Novella 9, took the story from this passage in Dante, only
concealing the real names and changing the incidents in some parts,
in order not to wound the feelings of those whom, as it was believed,
these incidents had so lately befallen. Ediz. Giunti, 15738, p. 40.

1. 30. In thy text.] He refers to Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 376.

Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.
; The sacred height
Of judgement. |
So Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, WU. ii. 76.
If He, which is the top of judgement.
1.48. Above.] See Purgat., c. xxx, v. 32.

1.51. The hill.| It was now past the noon.
1. 66. Eyeing us as a lion on his watch. |

A guisa di leon quando si posa.

A line taken by Tasso, G. L., can. x, st. 56.
1. 72. The shadow, in itself absorbed.| I had before translated ‘ The

1. 37

438 NOTES

solitary shadow’; and have made the alteration in consequence of
Monti’s just remark on the original, that ‘tutta in se romita’ does not
mean ‘solitary’, but ‘collected, concentrated in itself’. See his
Proposta under ‘ Romito’. Vellutello had shown him the way to
this interpretation, when he explained the words by ‘tutta in se
raccolta e sola’. Petrarch applies the expression to the spirit of
Laura, when departing from the body. See his Triwmph of Death,
cap. i, v. 152.

1.75. Sordello.| The history of Sordello’s life is wrapt in the
obscurity of romance. That he distinguished himself by his skill
in Provengal poetry is certain; and many feats of military prowess
have been attributed to him. It is probable that he was born towards
the end of the twelfth, and died about the middle of the succeeding
century. Tiraboschi, who terms him the most illustrious of all the
Provengal poets of his age, has taken much pains to sift all the notices
he could collect relating to him, and has particularly exposed the
fabulous narrative which Platina has introduced on this subject in
his history of Mantua. Honourable mention of his name is made
by our Poet in the treatise De Vulg. Elog., Lib. I, cap. 15, where it is
said that, remarkable as he was for eloquence, he deserted the ver-
nacular language of his own country, not only in his poems, but in
every other kind of writing. Tiraboschi had at first concluded him
to be the same writer whom Dante elsewhere (De Vulg. Elog., Lib. I,
c. 13) calls Gottus Mantuanus, but afterwards gave up that opinion
to the authority of the Conte d’ Arco and the Abate Bettinelli. By
Bastero, in his Crusca Provenzale, Ediz. Roma, 1724, p. 94, amongst
Sordello’s MS. poems in the Vatican are mentioned * Canzoni, Ten-
zoni, Cobbole’, and various ‘ Serventesi’, particularly one in the
form of a funeral song on the death of Blancas, in which the poet
reprehends all the reigning princes in Christendom. This last was
well suited to attract the notice of our author. Mention of Sordello
will recur in the notes to the Paradise, Canto IX, v. 32. Since this
note was written, many of Sordello’s poems have been brought to
light by the industry of M. Raynouard in his Choix des Poésies des
Troubadours and his Lexique Roman.

1.76. Thou inn of grief.)

S’ io son d’ogni tormento ostello e chiave.
Vita Nuova, § 7.

Thou most beauteous inn,
Why should hard-favour’d grief be lodged in thee ?
Shakespeare, Richard II, v. i. 13.

1. 82. Thy living ones.| Compare Milton, P. L., Book II. 496, &e.

1.89. Justinian’s hand.| ‘ What avails it that Justinian delivered
thee from the Goths and reformed thy laws, if thou art no longer
under the control of his successors in the empire ?’

1.94. That which God commands.| He alludes to the precept—
‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.’

]. 98. O German Albert /| The Emperor Albert I succeeded Adolphus
in 1298, and was murdered in 1308. See Par., Canto XIX. 114.

1,103. Thy successor.} The successor of Albert was Henry of
Luxemburg, by whose interposition in the affairs of Italy our Poet
hoped to have been reinstated in his native city.

PURGATORY, CANTO VI 439

1. 104. Thy sire.| The Emperor Rodolph, too intent on increasing
his power in Germany to give much of his thoughts to Italy, ‘ the
garden of the empire.’

]. 107. Capulets and Montagues.| Our ears are so familiarized to
the names of these rival houses in the language of Shakespeare, that
I have used them instead of the ‘Montecchi’ and ‘ Cappelletti’.
They were two powerful Ghibelline families of Verona. In some
parts of that play, of which they form the leading characters, our
great dramatic poet seems to have been not a little indebted
to the Hadriana of Luigi Groto, commonly called I] cieco d’ Adria.
See Walker’s Historical Memoir on Italian Tragedy, 4to, 1799, § i,
p. 49.

1.108. Filippeschi and Monaldi.| Two other rival families in
Orvieto.

1.113. What safety Santafiore can supply.) A place between Pisa
and Siena. What he alludes to is so doubtful, that it is not certain
whether we should not read ‘come si cura’—‘ How Santafiore is
governed.’ Perhaps the event related in the note to Canto XI, 58,
may be pointed at.

1.114. Come and behold thy Rome.) Thus in the Latin Epistle to
the Cardinals, which has been lately discovered in the Laurentian
library, and has every appearance of being Dante’s: *‘ Romam urbem,
nunc utroque lumine destitutam, nune Hannibali nedum aliis miser-
andam, solam sedentem et viduam, prout superius proclamatur,
qualis est, pro modulo vestrae imaginis, ante mortales oculos affigatis
omnes.’ Opere minort di Dante, tom. iii, p* ii, p. 270, 12° Fir.
1840.

]. 127. Marcellus. |

Un Marcel diventa
Ogni villan che parteggiando viene.

Repeated by Alamanni in his Coltivazione, Lib. I. He probably
means the Marcellus who opposed Julius Caesar.

1.135. Many refuse.]| He appears to have been of Plato's mind,
that in a commonwealth of worthy men, place and power would be
as much declined as they are now sought after and coveted.
xivOuvever TOALS Gvdpav ayadwv & yévoiTo, TEpiuaxnTov ay eivac TO pH
apxewv, waonep viv TO apxyev. Republic, Book I. 347d.

1.151. A sick wretch.| Imitated by the Cardinal de Polignac in his
Anti-Lucretius, Lib. I, 1052.

Ceu lectum peragrat membris languentibus aeger,

In latus alterne lJaevum dextrumque recumbens :
Nec iuvat: inde oculos tollit resupinus in altum :
Nusquam inventa quies; semper quaesita: quod illi
Primum in deliciis fuerat, mox torquet et angit :
Nec morbum sanat, nec fallit taedia morbi.

440 NOTES

CANTO VII

Where one of mean estate might clasp
His lord.]

So Ariosto, Orl. F., c. xxiv, st. 19.

E labbracciaro, ove il maggior s’abbraccia,
Col capo nudo e col ginocchio chino.

1.17. What desert.| So Frezzi:

Qual grazia, o qual destin m’ ha fatto degno
Che io ti veggia. Il Quadrir. Lib. IV, cap. 9.

1.24. Not for my doing.) I am indebted to the kindness of
Mr. Lyell for pointing out to me that three lines of the original were
here omitted in the former editions of this translation.

1.27. There is a place.| Limbo. See Hell, Canto IV. 24.

1. 34. The three holy virtues.| Faith, Hope, and Charity.

1.35. The rest.| Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.

1. 53. Only this line.| ‘ Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness
come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness, knoweth not
whither he goeth.” John xii. 35.

1.66. As large valleys.| Viatores enim per viam rectam dum
ambulant, campum iuxta viam cernentes spatiosum et pulchrum,
oblitique itineris, dicunt intra se, Iter per campum istum faciamus,
&e. Alberici Visio, § 28.

1. 74. Indian wood.]

Indico legno lucido e sereno.

It isa little uncertain what is meant by this. Indigo, although it is
extracted from a herb, seems the most likely. Monti, in his Proposta,
maintains it to be ebony.

1. 75. Fresh emeralds. |

Under foot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay
Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone
Of costliest emblem. Milton, P. L., Book IV. 700.

Zaffir, rubini, oro, topazj, e perle,
E diamanti, e crisoliti e giacinti
Potriano i fiori assimigliar, che per le
Liete piagge v’avea aura dipinti ;
Si verdi Perbe, che potendo averle
Qua git ne foran gli smeraldi vinti.
Ariosto, Orl. Fur., Canto XXXIV, st. 49.

1. 14.

1. 80. The sweetness. ]

E quella ai fiori, ai pomi, e alla verzura

Gli odor diversi depredando giva,

E di tutti faceva una mistura,

Che di soavita alma notriva. Ibid., st. 51.

1. 82. Salve Regina.| The beginning of a prayer to the Virgin. It
is sufficient here to observe, that in similar instances [ shall either
ay the original Latin words or translate them, as it may seem

st to suit the purpose of the verse.

PURGATORY, CANTO VII 441

1.94. The Emperor Rodolph.| See the last Canto, v. 104. He died
in 1291.

1.98. That country.| Bohemia.

1. 100. Ottocar.| King of Bohemia, who was killed in the battle of
Marchfield, fought with Rodolph, August 26, 1278. Winceslaus II,
his son, who succeeded him in the kingdom of Bohemia, died in
1305. The latter is again taxed with luxury in the Paradise,
XTX, 123:

1. 104 That one with the nose depressed.| Philip III of France, father
of Philip IV. He died in 1285, at Perpignan, in his retreat from
Aragon.

1.105. Him of gentle look.| Henry of Navarre, father of Jane
married to Philip IV of France, whom Dante calls ‘ mal di Francia’
—‘ Gallia’s bane.’

1. 111. Gallia’s bane.| G. Villani, Lib. VII, cap. exlvi, speaks with
equal resentment of Philip IV. ‘In 1291, on the night of the calends
of May, Philip le Bel, King of France, by advice of Biccio and Mus-
ciatto Franzesi, ordered all the Italians who were in his country
and realm, to be seized, under pretence of seizing the money-lenders,
but thus he caused the good merchants also to be seized and ran-
somed ; for which he was much blamed and held in great abhorrence.
And from thenceforth the realm of France fell evermore into degrada-
tion and decline. And it is observable, that between the taking of
Acre and this seizure in France, the merchants of Florence received
great damage and ruin of their property.’

1. 113. He, so robust of imb.| Peter III, called the Great, King of
Aragon, who died in 1285, leaving four sons, Alonzo, James,
Frederick, and Peter. The two former succeeded him in the king-
dom of Aragon, and Frederick in that of Sicily. See G. Villani,
Lib. VII, cap. cii, and Mariana, Lib. XIV, cap. 9. He is enumerated
among the Provengal poets by Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troubadours,
tom. ili, p. 150.

]. 114. Him of feature prominent.| ‘ Del maschio naso ’—‘ with the
masculine nose.’ Charles I, King of Naples, Count of Anjou, and
brother of St. Louis. He died in 1284. The annalist of Florence
remarks, that ‘there had been no sovereign of the house of France,
since the time of Charlemagne, by whom Charles was surpassed
either in military renown and prowess, or in the loftiness of his
understanding’. G. Villani, Lib. VII, cap. xciv. We shall, how-
ever, find many of his actions severely reprobated in the twentieth
Canto.

1.116. That stripling.| Either (as the old commentators suppose)
Alonzo III, King of Aragon, the eldest son of Peter III, who died in
1291, at the age of 27; or, according to Venturi, Peter the youngest
son. The former was a young prince of virtue sufficient to have
justified the eulogium and the hopes of Dante. See Mariana,
Lib. XIV, cap. 14.

]. 120. By James and Frederick.| See note to Canto ITI, 112.

}. 122. Rarely.|

Wel can the wyse poete of Florence,

That highte Dant, speken in this sentence
Lo! in swich maner rym is Dantes tale.
‘Ful selde up ryseth by his branches smale

442 NOTES

Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse

Wol that of him we clayme our gentillesse :

For of our eldres may we no-thing clayme

But temporel thing, that man may hurte and mayme.
Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Tale, 269.

Compare Homer, Od., Book II, v. 276; Pindar, Nem. xi. 48; and
Euripides, Electra, 369.

]. 125. To Charles.| ‘Al Nasuto ’—‘ Charles II, King of Naples, is
no less inferior to his father, Charles I, than James and Frederick to
theirs, Peter III.’ See Canto XX. 78, and Paradise, Canto XIX. 125.

]. 180. Costanza.] Widow of Peter III. She has been already
mentioned in the third Canto, v. 112. By Beatrix and Margaret
are probably meant two of the daughters of Raymond Berenger,
Count of Provence; the latter married to St. Louis of France, the
former to his brother, Charles of Anjou, King of Naples. See Paradise,
Canto VI. 135. Dante therefore considers Peter as the most illus-
trious of the three monarchs.

1.1382. Harry of England.| Henry III. The contemporary
annalist speaks of this king in similar terms. G. Villani, Lib. V,
cap. iv. ‘From Richard was born Henry, who reigned after him,
who was a plain man and of good faith, but of little courage.’ With
the exception of the last part of the sentence, which must be changed
for its opposite, we might well imagine ourselves to be reading the
character of our present venerable monarch (A. D. 1819). Fazio degli
Uberti, Dittamondo, |. iv, cap. xxv, where he gives the characters of
our Norman kings, speaks less respectfully of Henry. Capitoli
xxili-xxv, Lib. IV of this neglected poem appear to deserve the
notice of our antiquarians.

1. 133. Better assue.] Edward I, of whose glory our Poet was per-
haps a witness, in his visit to England. ‘ From the said Henry was
born the good king Edward, who reigns in our times, who has done
great things, whereof we shall make mention in due place.’ G. Villani,
ibid.

1.136. Walliam, that brave Marquis.) William, Marquis of Mont-
ferrat, was treacherously seized by his own subjects, at Alessandria
in Lombardy, A.D. 1290, and ended his life in prison. See G. Villani,
Lib. VII, cap. exxxv. A war ensued between the people of Ales-
sandria and those of Montferrat and the Canavese, now a part of
Piedmont.

CANTO VIII

1.5. Hear the vesper bell from far.}
I hear the far-off curfeu sound.
Milton’s Jl Penseroso.
1. 6. That seems to mourn for the expiring day.]

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
Gray’s Elegy.

giorno—che si more
is from Statius :
Iam moriente die.

Sylv. LV. vi. 3.

PURGATORY, CANTO VIII 443

1.13. Te Lucis Ante.] ‘Te lucis ante terminum,’ says Lombardi,
is the first verse of the hymn sung by the church in the last part of
the sacred office termed compieta, a service which our Chaucer calls
‘complin’.

]. 15. All my sense.| Fece me a me uscir di mente.

Me surpuerat mihi.
Horat. Carm. IV. xiii. 20.

1.19. Here, reader /} Lombardi’s explanation of this passage, by
which the commentators have been much perplexed, though it may
be thought rather too subtle and fine-spun, like the veil itself spoken
of in the text, cannot be denied the praise of extraordinary ingenuity.
‘This admonition of the poet to his reader,’ he observes, ‘ seems to
relate to what has been before said, that these spirits sang the whole
of the hymn “Te lucis ante terminum” throughout, even that
second strophe of it—

Procul recedant somnia,

Et noctium phantasmata,
Hostemque nostrum comprime,
Ne polluantur corpora ;

and he must imply, that these souls, being incorporeal, did not offer
up this petition on their own account, but on ours, who are yet in
this world ; as he afterwards makes those other spirits, who repeat
the Pater Noster, expressly declare, when after that prayer
they add,

This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves, &c. Canto XI.

As, therefore, if we look through a very fine veil, the sight easily

passes on, without perceiving it, to objects that lie on the other

side ; so here the poet fears that our mind’s eye may insensibly pass

on to contemplate these spirits, as if they were praying for the relief

of their own wants; without discovering the veil of our wants, with

which they invest themselves in the act of offering up this prayer.’
1. 36. As faculty. ]

My earthly by his heavenly overpowered

As with an object, that excels the sense,
Dazzled and spent.
Milton, P. L. Book VIII. 453.

]. 53. Nino, thou courteous judge.) Nino di Gallura de’ Visconti,
nephew to Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, and betrayed by him.
See notes to Heli, Canto XX XIII.

1. 65. Conrad.| Currado, father to Marcello Malaspina.

1.71. My Giovanna.| The daughter of Nino, and wife of Riccardo
da Cammino of Trevigi, concerning whom see Paradise, Canto IX. 48.

1.73. Her mother]. Beatrice, Marchioness of Este, wife of Nino,
and after his death married to Galeazzo Visconti of Milan. It is
remarked by Lombardi, that the time which Dante assigns to this
journey, and consequently to this colloquy with Nino Visconti, the
beginning, that is, of April, is prior to the time which Bernardino
Corio, in bis history of Milan, part the second, fixes for the nuptials of

444 NOTES

Beatrice with Galeazzo; for he records her having been betrothed
to that prince after the May of this year (1300), and her having been
solemnly espoused at Modena on the 29th of June. Besides, how-
ever, the greater credit due to Dante, on account of his having lived
at the time when these events happened, another circumstance in
his favour is the discrepancy remarked by Giovambatista Giraldi
(Commentar. delle cose di Ferrara) in those writers by whom the
history of Beatrice’s life has been recorded. Nothing can set the
general accuracy of our Poet, as to historical facts, in a stronger
point of view, than the difficulty there is in convicting him of even
so slight a deviation from it as is here suspected.

1.74. The white and wimpled folds.| The weeds of widowhood.

1.80. The viper.| The arms of Galeazzo and the ensign of the
Milanese.

1. 81. Shrill Gallura’s bird.| The cock was the ensign of Gallura,
Nino’s province in Sardinia. Hell, XXII. 80, and notes. It is
not known whether Beatrice had any further cause to regret her
nuptials with Galeazzo, than a certain shame which appears, how-
ever unreasonably, to have attached to a second marriage.

1. 89. The three torches.| The three evangelical virtues, Faith, Hope,
and Charity. These are supposed to rise in the evening, in order to
denote their belonging to the contemplative; as the four others,
which are made to rise in the morning, were probably intended to
signify that the cardinal virtues belong to the active life: or perhaps
it may mark the succession, in order of time, of the Gospel to the
heathen system of morality.

1.98. Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food.| Compare Milton’s
description of that serpent in the ninth book of the Paradise Lost.

1]. 111. May the lamp.) ‘ May the divine grace find so hearty a co-
operation on the part of thy own will, as shall enable thee to ascend
to the terrestrial paradise, which is on the top of this mountain.’

]. 115. Valdimagra.| See Hell, Canto XXIV. 144, and notes.

1. 118. That old one.| An ancestor of Currado Malaspina, who was
also of that name.

]. 133. Seven times the tired sun.| ‘ The sun shall not enter into the
constellation of Aries seven times more, before thou shalt have still
better cause for the good opinion thou expressest of Valdimagra, in
the kind reception thou shalt there meet with.’ Dante was hospit-
ably received by the Marchese Marcello, or Morello Malaspina, during
his banishment, A. D. 1307.

CANTO IX

1. 1. Now the fair consort of Tithonus old.| La concubina di Titone
antico. So Tassoni, Secchia Rapita, c. viii, st. 15. ‘La puttanella del
canuto amante.’ Venturi, after some of the old commentators, in-
terprets this to mean an Aurora, or dawn of the moon; but this
seems highly improbable. From what follows it may be conjectured,
that our Poet intends us to understand that it was now near the
break of day.

1. 5. Of that chill animal.| The scorpion.

1.8. The third was closing up its wing.| The night being divided
into four watches, I think he may mean that the third was past,

PURGATORY, CANTO Ix 445

and the fourth and last was begun, so that there might be some faint
glimmering of morning twilight ; and not merely, as Lombardi sup-
poses, that the third watch was drawing towards its close, which
would still leave an insurmountable difficulty in the first verse. At
the beginning of Canto XV our Poet makes the evening commence
three hours before sunset, and he may now consider the dawn as
beginning at the same distance from sunrise. Those who would
have the dawn, spoken of in the first verse of the present Canto, to
signify the rising of the moon, construe the ‘two steps of her ascent
which the night had past’, into as many hours, and not watches ;
so as to make it now about the third hour of the night. The old
Latin annotator on the Monte Cassino MS. alone, as far as I know,
supposing the division made by St. Isidore (Orig., Lib. V) of the night
into seven parts to be adopted by our Poet, concludes that it was the
third of these; and he too, therefore, is for the lunar dawn. Rosa
Morando ingenuously confesses, that to him the whole passage is
‘non esplicabile o almeno difficillimo’, inexplicable, or, at best,
extremely difficult.

]. 11. All five.|] Virgil, Dante, Sordello, Nino, and Currado Mala-
spina.

1. 13. Remembering haply ancient grief.| Procne having been
changed into a swallow after the outrage done her by Tereus. See
Ovid, Metam., Lib. VI.

]. 18. A golden-feathered eagle.| So Chaucer, in the Hous of Fame,
at the conclusion of the first book and beginning of the second, repre-
sents himself carried up by the ‘grim pawes’ of a golden eagle.
Much of his description is closely imitated from Dante :—

Me thoughte I saw an egle sore.

Hit was of golde and shoon so brighte,
That never saw men such a sighte.
The Hous of Fame, Book I.

This egle, of which I have yow told,
That shoon with fethres as of gold,
Which that so hyé gan to sore,

I gan beholde more and more

To see hir beautee and the wonder,
But never was ther dint of thonder,
Ne that thing that men calle foudre,
That smoot somtyme a tour to poudre,
And in his swifte coming brende,
That so swythe gan descende

As this foul, whan hit behelde

That I a-roume was in the felde,
And with his grimme pawes stronge,
Within his sharpe nayles longe,

Me fleinge at a swappe he hente, &c.
Ibid., Book IT.

‘ Avis candida columbae similis adveniens . . . per comam capitis
suo me ore apprehendens ferre sublimem cepit.’ Alberici Visio, § 1.
1. 36. There.] Mr. Darley has noted the omission of this line in

the preceding editions.

446 NOTES

1. 51. Lucia.] See Hell, Canto II. 97, and Paradise, Canto XX XII.
123.

1. 86. The lowest stair.| By the white step is meant the distinct-
ness with which the conscience of the penitent reflects his offences ;
by the burnt and cracked one, his contrition on their account ; and
by that of porphyry, the fervour with which he resolves on the
future pursuit of piety and virtue. Hence, no doubt, Milton describ-
ing ‘the gate of heaven’, P. L., Book IIT. 516.

Each stair mysteriously was meant.

]. 101. Seven times.] Seven P’s, to denote the seven sins (Peccata)
of which he was to be cleansed in his passage through Purgatory.

}. 109. Two keys.| Lombardi remarks, that painters have usually
drawn St. Peter with two keys, the one of gold and the other of
silver; but that Niccolo Alemanni, in his Dissertation de Parietinis
Lateranensibus, produces instances of his being represented with one
key, and with three. We have here, however, not St. Peter, but an
angel deputed by him.

]. 116. One is more precious.] The golden key denotes the divine
authority by which the priest absolves the sinners: the silver ex-
presses the learning and judgement requisite for the due discharge.
of that office.

1. 128. Harsh was the grating.

On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder. Milton, P. L., Book II. 879.

1. 129. The Tarpeian. |
Protinus abducto patuerunt templa Metello.
Tunc rupes Tarpeia sonat: magnoque reclusas
Testatur stridore fores: tune conditus imo
Eruitur templo multis intactus ab annis
Romani census populi, &c.

Lucan, Ph., Lib. III. 157.

The tribune with unwilling steps withdrew,
While impious hands the rude assault renew ;
The brazen gates with thundering strokes resound,
And the Tarpeian mountain rings around.
At length the sacred storehouse, open laid,
The hoarded wealth of ages past displayed.
Rowe.

]. 137. Organ.] Organs were used in Italy as early as the sixth
century. See Tiraboschi, Stor. della Lett. Ital., 4to, vol. iii, Lib. III,
cap. i, § 11, where the following description of that instrument is
quoted from Cassiodorus, in Psalm cl. :—‘ Organum itaque est quasi
turris diversis fistulis fabricata, quibus flatu follium vox copiosissima
destinatur, et ut eam modulatio decora componat, linguis quibusdam
ligneis ab interiore parte construitur, quas disciplinabiliter Magis-
trorum digiti reprimentes grandisonam efficiunt et suavisonam can-
tilenam.’ If I remember right there is a passage in the Emperor
. ulian’s writings, which shows that the organ was not unknown in

is time.

PURGATORY, CANTO X 447

CANTO X

1.6. That wound.| Venturi justly observes, that the Padre d’ Aquino
has misrepresented the sense of this passage in his translation.
dabat ascensum tendentibus ultra
Scissa tremensque silex, tenuique erratica motu.

The verb *‘ muover’ is used in the same signification in the Inferno,
Canto XVIII. 16.

Cosi da imo della roccia scogli
Movien.

from the rock’s low base
Thus flinty paths advanced.

In neither place is actual motion intended to be expressed.

1. 15. I spent with toil.| Dante only was wearied, because he only
had the weight of a bodily frame to encumber him.

1.37. Hail.]

On whom the angel Hail

Bestowed, the holy salutation used

Long after to blest Mary, second Eve.

Milton, P. L., v. 385.

‘The basso-rilievo on the border of the second rock, in Purgatory,
furnished the idea of the Annunziata, painted by Marcello Venusti
from his (Michael Angelo’s) design in the sacristy of St. Giov. Lateran.’
Fuseli, Lecture III, note.

1. 52. That from unbidden office awes mankind.| ‘ And when they
came to Nachon’s threshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the
ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the
anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him
there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.’ 2 Sam.
Vi 6,7.

]. 58. Preceding.| ‘ And David danced before the Lord with all his
might ; and David was girded with a linen ephod.’ 2 Sam. vi. 14.

1. 68. Gregory.] St. Gregory’s prayers are said to have delivered
Trajan from hell. See Paradise, Canto XX. 40.

1. 69. Trajan the Emperor.) For this story, Landino refers to two
writers, whom he calls ‘ Helinando’, of France, by whom he means
Elinand, a monk and chronicler, in the reign of Philip Augustus, and
*Polycrato’, of England, by whom is meant John of Salisbury,
author of the Polycraticus de Curialium Nugis, in the twelfth century.
The passage in the text I find nearly a translation from that work,
Lib. V, c. 8. The original appears to be in Dio Cassius, where it is
told of the Emperor Hadrian, Lib. LXIX, duédce yuvarrds, «. 7. A.
“when a woman appeared to him with a suit, as he was on a journey,
at first he answered her, ‘‘I have no leisure;”’ but she crying out
to him, “then reign no longer,” he turned about, and heard her
cause.’ Lombardi refers also to Johannes Diaconus. Vita 8. Gregor.,
Lib. II, cap. 44 ; the Euchology of the Greeks, cap. 96 ; and St. Thomas
Aquinas, Supplem. Quaest. 73, art. 5 ad 5. Compare Fazio degli
Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap. 6.

1. 73. The eagles floated.| See Perticari’s Letter on this passage,

448 NOTES

Opere, vol. iii, p. 552, ed. Bol. 1823. The eagles were of metal; not
worked on a standard, as Villani supposed.

1.97. Ponder.| This is, in truth, an unanswerable objection to the
doctrine of Purgatory. It is difficult to conceive how the best can
meet death without horror, if they believe it must be followed by
immediate and intense suffering.

1. 114. The winged insect.) L’angelica farfalla. The butterfly was
an ancient and well-known symbol of the human soul. Venturi cites
some lines from the Canzoni Anacreontiche of Magalotti, in which
this passage is imitated.

]. 117. Abortive.| The word in the original is entomata. Some
critics, and Salvini amongst the rest, have supposed that Dante, find-
ing in a vocabulary the Greek word évroua with the article ra
placed after it to denote its gender, mistook them for one word.
From this error he is well exculpated by Rosa Morando in a passage
quoted by Lombardi from the Osserv. Parad. III, where it is shown
that the Italian word is formed, for the sake of the verse, in analogy
with some others used by our Poet; and that Redi himself, an
excellent Greek scholar and a very accurate writer, has even in
prose, where such licences are less allowable, thus lengthened it. It
may be considered as some proof of our author’s acquaintance with
the Greek language, that in the Convito, I. x. he finds fault with
the version of Aristotle's Ethics made by Taddeo di Alderotto, the
Florentine physician ; and that in the treatise De Monarchia, Lib. I,
ce. xiv, he quotes a Greek word from Aristotle himself. On the other
hand, he speaks of a passage in the same writer being doubtful, on
account of its being differently interpreted in two different transla-
tions, a new and an old one. Convito, II. xv. And for the word
‘autentin’, he refers to a vocabulary compiled by Uguccione Benti-
vegna of Pisa, a MS. that is, perhaps, still remaining, as Cinelli, in
his MS. history of Tuscan writers referred to by Biscioni in the notes
on the Convito, p. 142, speaks of it as being preserved in the library
of S. Francesco at Cesena. After all, Dante’s knowledge of Greek
must remain as questionable as Shakespeare’s of that language and
of Latin.

1.119. As, to support.| Chillingworth, cap. vi, § 54, speaks of ‘ those
crouching anticks, which seem in great buildings to labour under the
weight they bear’. And Lord Shaftesbury has a similar illustration
in his Essay on Wit and Humour, p. 4, § 3.

CANTO XI

1. 1. O thou Almighty Father.) The first four lines are borrowed by
Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. vi. Dante, in his Credo, has again versified
the Lord’s Prayer, if, indeed, the Credo be Dante’s, which some have
doubted ; and in the preface to Allacci’s Collection it is ascribed to
Antonio di Ferrara.

| Pages a

Such, whose wills
Have root of goodness in them. |
The Poet has before told us, that there are no others on earth whose
prayers avail to shorten the pains of those who are in Purgatory.
1, 58. I was of Latium.) Omberto, the son of Guglielmo Aldo-

PURGATORY, CANTO XI 449

brandesco, Count of Santafiore, in the territory of Siena. His arro-
gance provoked his countrymen to such a pitch of fury against him,
that he was murdered by them at Campagnatico.

1. 79. Oderigi.] The illuminator, or miniature painter, a friend of
Giotto and Dante.

1. 83. Bolognian Franco.] Franco of Bologna, who is said to have
been a pupil of Oderigi’s.

1. 88. The forfeiture is paid.]

Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio.

So in the Inferno, X XVII. 135.
in che si paga il fio.
And Ariosto, Orl. Fur., e. xxii. 59.

Prestate ola, che qui si paga il fio.

12:

If an age
Less bright succeed not.]

If a generation of men do not follow, among whom none exceeds or
equals those who have immediately preceded them. ‘ Etati grosse ;’
to which Volpi remarks a similar expression in Boileau.

Villon sit le premier, dans ces siécles grossiers,
Debrouiller Part confus de nos vieux romanciers.
Art Poétique, ch. i.

1. 93. Cimabue.] Giovanni Cimabue, the restorer of painting, was
born at Florence, of a noble family, in 1240, and died in 1300. The
passage in the text is an allusion to his epitaph.

Credidit ut Cimabos picturae castra tenere,
Sic tenuit vivens: nunc tenet astra poli.

]. 95. The cry is Giotto’s.| In Giotto we have a proof at how early
a period the fine arts were encouraged in Italy. His talents were
discovered by Cimabue, while he was tending sheep for his father in
the neighbourhood of Florence, and he was afterwards patronized by
Pope Benedict XI and Robert, King of Naples; and enjoyed the
society and friendship of Dante, whose likeness he has transmitted to
posterity. He died in 1336, at the age of sixty.

1. 96. One Guido from the other.| Guido Cavalcanti, the friend of
our Poet (see Hell, Canto X. 59), had eclipsed the literary fame of
Guido Guinicelli, of a noble family in Bologna, whom we shall meet
with in the twenty-sixth canto, and of whom frequent and honour-
able mention is made by our Poet in his treatise De Vulg. Elog.
Guinicelli died in 1276, as is proved by Fantuzzi, on the Bolognian
writers, tom. iv, p. 345. See Mr. Mathias’s Tiraboschi, tom. i, p. 110.
There are more of Guinicelli’s poems to be found in Allacci’s Collec-
tion, than Tiraboschi, who tells us he had not seen it, supposed.
From these I have selected two which appear to me singularly
pathetic. It must, however, be observed that the former of them is
attributed in the Vatican MS. 3213, to Cino da Pistoia, as Bottari
informs us in the notes to Lettere di Fra Guittone d Arezzo, p. 171.
Many of Cavalcanti’s writings, hitherto in MS., are said to be pub-
lishing at Florence. See Esprit des Journaux, Jan. 1813. [They

450 NOTES

were edited there in that year, but not for sale, by Antonio Ciccia-
porci, as I learn from Gamba’s Testi di Lingua Ital. 272.]

Noi provamo che ’n questo cieco mondo
Ciascun si vive in angosciosa noia,
Ché in ogni avversita ventura ’| tira.
Beata l alma che lassa tal pondo
E va nel ciel, ov’ é compiuta gioia,
Gioioso i] cor for di corrotto e d’ira.
Or dunque di che il vostro cor sospira
Che rallegrar si de’ del suo migliore ?
Che Dio, nostro signore,
Volle di lei, come avea Il angel detto,
Fare il cielo perfetto.
Per nova cosa ogni santo la mira:
Ed ella sta dinanzi a la salute ;
Ed in ver lei parla ogni virtute.

Allacci, Ediz. Napoli, 1661, p. 378.

By proof, in this blind mortal world, we know,
That each one lives in grief and sore annoy ;
Such ceaseless strife of fortune we sustain.
Blessed the soul, that leaves this weight below,
And goes its way to heaven, where it hath joy
Entire, without a touch of wrath or pain.

Now then what reason hath thy heart to sigh,
That should be glad, as for desire fulfilled,
That God, our Sovereign, willed

She, as He told His angel, should be given

To bless and perfect heaven ?

Kach saint looks on her with admiring eye ;
And she stands ever in salvation’s sight ;

And every virtue bends on her its light.

Conforto gia conforto ? amor chiama,

E pieta prega per Dio, fate resto ;

Or inchinate a si dolce preghiera ;

Spogliatevi di questa veste grama,

Da che voi siete per ragion richiesto.

Ché P uomo per dolor more e dispera.

Com’ voi vedreste poi la bella ciera.

Se vi cogliesse morte in disperanza ?

De si grave pesanza

Traete il vostro core omai per Dio,

Che non sia cosi rio

Ver l alma vostra che ancora ispera

Vederla in cielo e star nelle sue braccia,

Dunque di speme confortar vi piaccia.
Allacci, Ediz. Napoli, 1661, p. 380

‘Comfort thee, comfort thee,’ exclaimeth Love ;
And Pity by thy God adjures thee ‘ rest’ :

Oh then incline ye to such gentle prayer ;

Nor Reason’s plea should ineffectual prove,
Who bids ye lay aside this dismal vest :

PURGATORY, CANTO XI 45]

For man meets death through sadness and despair.
Amongst you ye have seen a face so fair:

Be this in mortal mourning some relief.

And, for more balm of grief,

Rescue thy spirit from its heavy load,
Remembering thy God ;

And that in heaven thou hopest again to share
In sight of her, and with thine arms to fold:
Hope then; nor of this comfort quit thy hold.

To these I will add a sonnet by the same writer, from the poems
pied with the Bella Mano of Giusto de’ Conti. Ediz. 1715,
p. 167.

Voglio del ver la mia donna laudare,
E rassembrareli la rosa e lo giglio.
Come la stella Diana splende, e pare,
E cid, ch’é lassi: bello a lei somiglio.
Verde rivera a lei rassembro e |’ a’re,
Tutti colori e fior, giallo e vermiglio,
Oro, ed argento, e ricche gio’ preclare ;
Medesmo amor per lei raffina miglio.
Passa per via si adorna, e si gentile,
Ch’abassa orgoglio, a cui dona salute,
KE fal di nostra fé, se non la crede.
E non le pud appressar, uom che sia vile,
Ancor ve ne dird maggior virtute,
Null’ uom pud mal pensar fin che la vede.

I would from truth my lady’s praise supply,
Resembling her to lily and to rose ;
Brighter than morning’s lucid star she shows,
And fair as that which fairest is on high.
To the blue wave, I liken her, and sky,
All colour that with pink and crimson glows,
Gold, silver and rich stones: nay lovelier grows
F’en love himself, when she is standing by.
She passeth on so gracious and so mild,
One’s pride is quenched, and one of sick is well:
And they believe, who from the faith did err ;
And none may near her come by harm defiled.
A mightier virtue have I yet to tell;
No man may think of evil, seeing her.

The two following sonnets of Guido Cavalcanti may enable the reader
to form some judgement whether Dante had sufficient reason for
preferring him to his predecessor Guinicelli.

Io temo che la mia disaventura
Non faccia si ch’ io dico io mi dispero,
Perd ch’ io sento nel cor un pensero,
Che fa tremar la mente di paura.

E par ch’ ei dica: Amor non t’ assicura
In guisa che tu possa di leggiero
Alla tua donna si contare il vero,
Che morte non ti ponga in sua figura.

CARY R

452 NOTES

Della gran doglia, che I anima sente,
Si parte dallo core un tal sospiro
Che va dicendo: spiritei fuggite ;
Allor nul? uom, che sia pietoso, miro ;
Che consolasse mia vita dolente,
Dicendo: spiritei non vi partite.
Anecdota Literaria ex MSS. Codicibus eruta.
Ediz. Roma (no year), v. iii, p. 452.

I fear lest my mischance may so prevail,
That it may make me of myself despair.
For, my heart searching, I discover there
A thought that makes the mind with terror quail.
It says, meseemeth, ‘ Love shall not avail
To strengthen thee so much, that thou shalt dare
Tell her, thou lovest, thy passion or thy prayer,
To save from power of death thy visage pale.’
Through the dread sorrow that o’erwhelms my soul,
There issues from my bosom such a sigh,
As passeth, crying; ‘Spirits, flee away.’
And then, when I am fainting in my dole,
No man so merciful there standeth by,
To comfort me, and answer, ‘ Spirits, stay.’

Belta di donna, e di saccente core,
E cavalieri armati, che sian genti,
Cantar d’ augelli, e ragionar d’ amore,
Adorni legni in mar, forti e correnti:
Aria serena, quando appar I albore,
E bianca neve scender senza venti,
Rivera d’ acqua, e prato d’ ogni fiore,
Oro, e argento, azurro in ornamenti:
Cid che pud la beltate, e la valenza
Della mia donna in suo gentil coraggio,
Par che rassembra vile a chi cio guarda.
E tanto ha pitt d’ ogni altra conoscenza,
Quanto lo Ciel di questa terra é maggio,
A simil di natura ben non tarda.
La Bella Mano e Rime Antiche, Ediz. Fir., 1715, p. 128.

Whatso is fair in lady’s face or mind,

And gentle knights caparisoned and gay,

Singing of sweet birds unto love inclined,

And gallant barks that cut the watery way ;

The white snow falling without any wind,

The cloudless sky at break of early day,

The crystal stream, with flowers the meadow lined,
Silver, and gold, and azure for array:

To him that sees the beauty and the worth
Whose power doth meet and in my lady dwell,
All seem as vile, their price and lustre gone.

And, as the heaven is higher than the earth,

So she in knowledge doth each one excel,
Not slow to good in nature like her own.

PURGATORY, CANTO XI 453

1. 97. He, perhaps, 1s born.| Some imagine, with much probability,
that Dante here augurs the greatness of his own poetical reputation.
Others have absurdly fancied that he prophesies the glory of Petrarch.
But Petrarch was not yet born. Lombardi doubts whether it is not
spoken generally of human vicissitudes.

1. 120. What tumours.)

Apt words have power to assuage
The tumours of a troubled mind.
Milton’s Samson Agonistes, 184.

]. 131. Or ever.] This line was omitted in the former editions, as
Mr. Lyell has pointed out to me.

1]. 1386. A suztor.] Provinzan Salvani humbled himself so far for
the sake of one of his friends, who was detained in captivity by
Charles I of Sicily, as personally to supplicate the people of Siena
to contribute the sum required by the king for his ransom: and this
act of self-abasement atoned for his general ambition and pride. He
fell in the battle of Val d’ Elsa, wherein the Florentines discomfited
the Sienese in June, 1269. G. Villani relates some curious par-
ticulars of his fate. ‘Messer Provinzan Salvani, the lord and con-
ductor of the army, was taken, and his head cut off and carried
through all the camp fixed upon a lance. And well was accomplished
the prophecy and revelation made to him by the Devil by way of
witchcraft, but he understood it not; for having compelled him to
answer how he should succeed in the said engagement, he told him
lyingly : “‘ Thou shalt go, fight, conquer not, die in the battle, and
thy head shall be the highest in the camp.” And he thought to have
the victory, and from these words thought to remain master of all,
and noted not the fallacy, where he said “‘ conquer not, die”. And
therefore it is great folly to trust such counsel as that of the Devil.’
Lib. VII, cap. xxxi.

1. 140. Thy neighbours soon.| ‘Thou wilt know in the time of thy
banishment, which is near at hand, what it is to solicit favours of
others, and ‘ tremble through every vein’’, lest they should be re-
fused thee.’

CANTO XII

1. 26. The Thymbraean god.| Apollo.
Si modo, quem perhibes, pater est Thymbraeus Apollo.
Virg. Georg. iv. 323.
1.27. Mars.)
With such a grace,

The giants that attempted to scale heaven, —

When they lay dead on the Phlegraean plain,

Mars did appear to Jove. %

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Prophetess, act ii, se. 3.

1. 32. Sennaar’s plain.]
The builders next of Babel on the plain

Of S ar.
alg) Milton, P. L., Book III. 466.
1.42. O Rehoboam.] 1 Kings xii. 18.

454 NOTES

1. 46. Alemaeon.| Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 445, and Homer, Od. xi.
325,

1. 48. Sennacherib.|] 2 Kings xix. 37.

1.51. Tomyris.] Caput Cyri amputatum in utrem humano sanguine
repletum coniici Regina iubet cum hac exprobatione crudelitatis,
Satia te, inquit, sanguine quem sitisti, cuiusque insatiabilis semper
fuisti. Justin., Lib. I, cap. 8.

1. 54. Holofernes.| Judith xiii.

]. 58. What master of the pencil or the style.]

inimitable on earth
By model, or by shading pencil drawn.
Milton, P. L., Book ITI. 508.

1.74. The sixth handmaid.| Compare Canto XXII. 1i6.

1. 94. The chapel stands.| The church of San Miniato in Florence,
situated on a height that overlooks the Arno, where it is crossed by
the bridge Rubaconte, so called from Messer Rubaconte da Mandella,
of Milan, chief magistrate of Florence, by whom the bridge was
founded in 1237. See G. Villani, Lib. VI, cap. xxvii.

1. 96. The well-guided city.] This is said ironically of Florence.

1.99. The registry.| In allusion to certain instances of fraud
committed in Dantae’s time with respect to the public accounts and
measures. See Paradise, Canto XVI. 103.

1. 104. Blessed.] ‘ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.’ Matt. v. 3.

]. 113. Sin’s broad characters.| Of the seven P’s, that denoted the
same number of sins (Peccata) whereof he was to be cleansed (see
Canto IX. 101), the first had now vanished in consequence of his
having passed the place where the sin of pride, the chief of them,
was expiated.

CANTO XIII

|. 18. Zf.] ‘ Unless there be some urgent necessity for travelling
by night, the daylight should be preferred for that purpose.’

1. 26. They have no wine.] John ii. 3. These words of the Virgin
are referred to as an instance of charity.

1. 29. Orestes.] Alluding to his friendship with Pylades.

1. 32. Love ye those have wronged you.| ‘ But I say unto you, Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute
you.” Matt. v. 44.

1. 33. The scourge.| “The chastisement of envy consists in hearing
examples of the opposite virtue, charity. As a curb and restraint
on this vice, you will presently hear very different sounds, those of
threatening and punishment.’

1. 80. So may heaven’s grace. |

Se tosto grazia risolva le schiume
Di vostra coscienza, si che chiaro
Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.

This is a fine moral, and finely expressed. Unless the conscience be
cleared from its impurity, which it can only thoroughly be by an

PURGATORY, CANTO XIII 455

influence from above, the mind itself cannot act freely and clearly.

‘If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.’ John vii. 17.
1. 87. ——— Citizens
Of one true city.]

‘For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.’
Heb. xiii. 14.

1. 101. Sapia.] A lady of Siena who, living in exile at Colle, was
so overjoyed at a defeat which her countrymen sustained near that
place, that she declared nothing more was wanting to make her die
contented. The Latin annotator on the Monte Cassino MS. says of
this lady: ‘fuit uxor D. Cinii de Pigezo de Senis.’

1. 109. And I prayed God to grant what He had willed.| That her
countrymen should be defeated in battle.

1. 114. The merlin.] The story of the merlin is, that having been
induced by a gleam of fine weather in the winter to escape from his
master, he was soon oppressed by the rigour of the season.

1. 119. The hermit Piero.] Pier Pettinagno, a holy hermit of
Florence.

1. 126. The woe beneath.| Dante felt that he was much more subject
to the sin of pride, than to that of envy; and this is just what we
should have concluded of a mind such as his.

1. 141. That vain multitude.| The Sienese. See Hell, Canto X XIX.
118. ‘ Their acquisition of Talamone, a seaport on the confines of the
Maremma, has led them to conceive hopes of becoming a naval power:
but this scheme will prove as chimerical as their former plan for the
discovery of a subterraneous stream under their city.’ Why they
gave the appellation of Diana to the imagined stream, Venturi says
he leaves it to the antiquaries of Siena to conjecture.

1. 144. They, who lead.| The Latin note to the Monte Cassino MS.
informs us, that those who were to command the fleets of the Sienese,
in the event of their becoming a naval power, lost their lives during
their employment at Talamone, through the pestilent air of the
Maremma, which lies near that place.

CANTO XIV

1. 1. Say.] The two spirits who thus speak to each other are Guido
del Duca of Brettinoro, and Rinier da Calboli of Romagna.

l. 7. Accost him.] It is worthy of remark, that the Latin annotator
on the Monte Cassino MS agrees with Landino in reading ‘a colo’,
instead of ‘accolo’, and interprets it as he does: ‘ Nil aliud vult
auctor dicere de colo, nisi quod cum interroget ita dulciter ut respon-
deat (sic) eum ad colum, id est quod tantum respondeat auctor eis quod
animus eorum remaneat in quiete et non in suspenso.’ ‘ The author
means to say, that the spirit should interrogate him courteously, that
he may return such an answer as Shall put a period to their suspense.
Still I have retained my translation of the common reading generally
supposed to be put by syncope for ‘ accoglilo ’, * accost him.’

]. 11. The one.] Guido del Duca. ;

1. 18. A brooklet.] The Arno, that rises in Falterona, a mountain
inthe Apennine. Its course is a hundred and twenty miles, acecrding
to G. Villani, who traces it accurately.

456 NOTES

1. 27. The other.] Rinier da Calboli.

1. 32. From the source.] ‘From the rise of the Arno in that ‘“‘ Alpine
steep ’’, the Apennine, from whence Pelorus in Sicily was torn by
a convulsion of the earth, even to the point where the same river
unites its waters to the ocean, Virtue is persecuted by all.’

]. 34. Maimed of Pelorus.| Virgil, Aen., Lib. III. 414. Lucan,
Phars., Lib. II. 438.

—— A hill
Torn from Pelorus.
Milton, P. L., Book I. 231.

1. 34. That doth scarcely pass.| ° Pelorus i is in few places higher than
Falterona, where the Arno springs.’ Lombardi explains this dif-
ferently, and, I think, erroneously.

1. 45.’ Midst brute swine.| The people of Casentino.

. 49. Curs.| The Arno leaves Arezzo about four miles to the left.
51. Foss.] Soin his anger he terms the Arno.

53. Wolves.| The Florentines.

. 55. Foxes.| The Pisans.

57. My words are heard.| It should be recollected that Guido
still eblcleeaaee himself to Rinier.

1. 59. For this man.| ‘ For Dante, who has told us that he comes
from the banks of Arno.’

1. 61. Thy grandson.] Fulcieri da Calboli, grandson of Rinier da
Calboli who is here spoken to. The atrocities predicted came to pass
in 1302. See G. Villani, Lib. VIII, c. lix.

1. 81. What thou wilt not do.] Dante having declined telling him
his name. See 1. 22.

1. 89. Why place.| This will be explained in the ensuing Canto.

1. 95. ’T'wixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore.| The boundaries
of Romagna.

1. 96. Fancy.] ‘ Trastullo.” Quadrio, in the notes on the second
of the Salmi Penitenziali of our author, understands this in a higher
sense, as meaning that joy which results from an easy and constant
practice of virtue. See Opere di Dante, Zatta ediz., tom. iv, part ii,
p- 193. And he is followed by Lombardi.

]. 99. Lizio.] Lizio da Valbona introduced into Boccaccio’s
Decameron, G. v, N. 4.

1. 100. Mainardi, Traversaro, and Carpigna.| Arrigo Mainardi of
Faenza, or, as some say, of Brettinoro; Pier Traversaro, lord of
Ravenna; and Guido di Carpigna of Montefeltro.

1. 102. In Bologna the low artisan.] One who had been a mechanic,
named Lambertaccio, arrived at almost supreme power in Bologna.

Quando in Bologna un Fabbro si ralligna :
Quando in Faenza un Bernardin di Fosco.

The pointing and the marginal note of the Monte Casino MS. entirely
change the sense of these two lines. There is a mark of interrogation
added to each; and by way of answer to both there is written,
‘Quasi dicat numquam.’ Fabbro is made a proper name, and it is
said of him: ‘ Iste fuit Dom. Faber de Lambertaciis de Bononia ; ’
and Benvenuto da Imola calls him ‘ Nobilis Miles’. I have not
ventured to alter the translation so as to make it accord with this
interpretation, as it must have been done in the face, I believe, of

(ell cell ell ell oe
. .

PURGATORY, CANTO XIV 457

nearly all the editions, and, as far as may be gathered from the silence
of Lombardi, of the MSS. also which that commentator had consulted.
But those, who wish to see more on the subject, are referred to Monti’s
Proposta, tom. iii, p'® 2, under the word ‘ Rallignare’.

1. 103. Yon Bernardin.| Bernardin di Fosco, a man of low origin,
but great talents, who governed at Faenza.

1. 107. Prata.| A place between Faenza and Ravenna.

Of Azzo him.] Ugolino, of the Ubaldini family in Tuscany.

1. 108. With us.] Lombardi claims the reading, ‘ nosco,’ instead of
‘vosco’, ‘ with us,’ instead of ‘ with you’, for his favourite edition ;
but it is also in Landino’s of 1488.

Tignoso.| Federico Tignoso of Rimini.

1. 109. Traversaro’s house and Anastagio’s.| Two noble families
of Ravenna. See]. 100. She to whom Dryden has given the name
of Honoria, in the fable so admirably paraphrased from Boccaccio,
was of the former: her lover and the spectre were of the Anastagi
family.

1. 111. The ladies, &c.]

Le donne, e i cavalier, gli affanni, e gli agi
Che ne invogliava amore e cortesia.

These two lines express the true spirit of chivalry. ‘ Agi’ is under-
stood, by the commentators whom I have consulted, to mean ‘ the
ease procured for others by the exertions of knight-errantry ’. But
surely it signifies the alternation of ease with labour. Venturi is of
opinion that the opening of the Orlando Furioso—

Le donne, i cavalier, arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, |’ audaci imprese io canto,

originates in this passage.

]. 112. Courtesy.] ‘Cortesia e onestade,’ &c. Convito, II. xi.
‘Courtesy and honour are all one; and because anciently virtue
and good manners were usual in courts, as the contrary now is, this
term was derived from thence: courtesy was as much as to say,
custom of courts; which word, if it were now taken from courts,
especially those of Italy, would be no other than turpitude,’ * tur-
pezza.’

— — Courtesy,
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named,
And yet is most pretended.
Milton, Comus, 322.

Marino has exceeded his usual extravagance in his play on this word.

Ma come puod vero diletto ? 6 come
Vera quiete altrui donar la Corte ?
Le dié la Cortesia del proprio nome
Solo il principio, il fine ha della Morte.
Adone, c. ix, st. 77.

1.114. O Brettinoro.] A beautifully situated castle in Romagna, the
hospitable residence of Guido del Duca, whois here speaking. Landino
relates, that there were several of this family, who, when a stranger

458 NOTES

arrived amongst them, contended with one another by whom he should
be entertained ; and that in order to end this dispute, they set up
a pillar with as many rings as there were fathers of families among
them, a ring being assigned to each, and that accordingly as a stranger
on his arrival hung his horse’s bridle on one or other of these, he be-
came his guest to whom the ring belonged.

]. 118. Bagnacavallo.| A castle between Imola and Ravenna.

——— Castrocaro ill,
And Conio worse.| Both in Romagna.

1. 120. Counties.] I have used this word here for ‘ Counts’, as it is
in Shakespeare.

1. 121. Pagani.] The Pagani were lords of Faenza and Imola.
One of them, Mainardo, was named the Demon, from his treachery.
See Hell, Canto X XVII. 47, and note.

]. 123. Not so, howe’er.] ‘ Yet your offspring will be stained with
some vice, and will not afford true proof of the worth of your an-
cestors.’

]. 124. Hugolin.] Ugolinode’ Fantolin, a nobleand virtuous person
in Faenza, who, on account of his age probably, was not likely to
leave any offspring behind him. He is enumerated among the poets
by Crescimbeni, and by Tiraboschi, Mr. Mathias’s edit., vol. i, p. 143 ;
and Perticari cites a beautiful little poem by him in the Apologia di
Dante, parte ii, c. 27, but with so little appearance of antiquity that
nothing less than the assurance of so able a critic could induce one
for a moment to receive it as genuine.

1. 130. Such.] Here again the Nidobeatina edition adopted by
Lombardi, and the Monte Cassino MS. differ from the common reading,
and both have

Si m’ ha nostra region la mente stretta.

Our country’s sorrow has so wrung my heart.
instead of

Si m’ ha vostra ragion, &c.

1. 136. ——-— Whosoever finds
Will slay me.]

The words of Cain, Gen. iv. 14.

1. 142. Aglauros.| Ovid, Met., Lib. II, fab. 12.

1. 145. There was the galling bit.| Referring to what had been before
said, Canto XIII. 35. The commentators remark the unusual word
‘camo’, which occurs here in the original; but they have not ob-
served, I believe, that Dante himself uses it in the De Monarchia,
Lib. III, c. xvi. For the Greek word yapor see a fragment by S. Petrus
Alex. in Routh’s Religuiae Sacrae, vol. iii, p. 342, and note.

1. 146. Which.] Mr. Darley has noticed the omission of this line
in the former editions.

1. 149. Heaven calls.]

Or ti solleva a piu beata speme,
Mirando il ciel, che ti si volve intorno
Immortal ed adorno.
Petrarca, Canzone. I’vo pensando.

PURGATORY, CANTO XV 459

CANTO XV

]. 1. As much.| It wanted three hours of sunset.
1. 13. Both hands. |

Raising his hand to screen the dazzled sense.
Southey’s Thalaba, Book XII, st. 19.
1. 16. As when the ray.]

Sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aenis
Sole repercussum, aut radiantis imagine lunae,
Omnia pervolitat late loca, iamque sub auras
Erigitur, summique ferit laquearia tecti.
Aen., Lib. VIII. 25.
Compare Apoll. Rhodius, iii. 755.

1. 19. Ascending at a glance. |

Quod simul ac primum sub diu splendor aquai
Ponitur: extemplo, caelo stellante, serena
Sidera respondent in aqua radiantia mundi.
Jamne vides igitur, quam puncto tempore imago
Aetheris ex oris in terrarum accidat oras ?

Lucret., Lib. IV. 211.

1. 20. And as much.] Lombardi, I think justly, observes that this
does not refer to the length of time which a stone is in falling to the
ground, but to the perpendicular line which it describes when falling,
as contrasted with the angle of incidence formed by light reflected
from water or from a mirror.

1. 38. Blessed the merciful.| Matt. v. 7.

l. 43. Romagna’s spirit.| Guido del Duca, of Brettinoro, whom
we have seen in the preceding Canto.

1. 53. For there.| Landino has here cited, in addition to Seneca and
Boethius, the two following apposite passages from Augustine and
Saint Gregory: ‘* Nullo modo fit minor accedente consortio possessio
bonitatis, quam tanto latius quanto concordius individua sociorum
possidet caritas.’ Augustin. de Civitate Det. ‘ Qui facibus invidiae
carere desiderat, illam possessionem appetat, quam numerus pos-
sidentium non angustat.’

1. 77. Provide but thou.| ‘ Take heed that thou be healed of the five
remaining sins, as thou already art of the two, namely, pride and
envy.’

1. 87. A dame.] Luke ii. 48.

1. 96. Over this city.]| Athens, named after ’A@nvn, Minerva, in con-
sequence of her having produced a more valuable gift for it in the
olive, than Neptune had done in the horse.

1. 101. How shall we those requite.| The answer of Pisistratus the
tyrant to his wife, when she urged him to inflict the punishment of
death on a young man, who, inflamed with love for his daughter,
had snatched a kiss from her in public. The story is told by Valerius
Maximus, Lib. V. 1.

1. 105. A stripling youth.] The protomartyr Stephen.

460 NOTES

CANTO XVI

1. 24. As thou.] ‘ As if thou wert still living.’
1.46. I was of Lombardy, and Marco called.| A Venetian gentleman.
Lombardo,’ both was his surname and denoted the country to which
he belonged. G. Villani, Lib. VII, cap. cxx, terms him ‘a wise and
worthy courtier.” Benvenuto da Imola, says Landino, relates of him,
that being imprisoned and not able to pay the price of his ransom,
he applied by letter to his friend Riccardo da Cammino, lord of Trevigi,
for relief. Riccardo set on foot a contribution among several nobles
of Lombardy for the purpose ; of which when Marco was informed,
he wrote back with much indignation to Riccardo, that he had rather
die than remain under obligations to so many benefactors. It is
added that Riccardo then paid the whole out of his own purse. Of
this generous man I have occasion to speak again in the notes to
Canto VIII. 71, and to Par., Canto IX. 48.
1. 58. Elsewhere.] He refers to what Guido del Duca had said in
the fourteenth Canto, concerning the degeneracy of his countrymen.
1. 70. If this were so.]| Mr. Crowe, in his Lewesdon Hill, has ex-
pressed similar sentiments with much energy.

—— Of this be sure,
Where freedom is not, there no virtue is:
If there be none, this world is all a cheat,
And the divine stability of heaven
(That assured seat for good men after death)
Is but a transient cloud, displayed so fair
To cherish virtuous hope, but at our need
Eludes the sense, and fools our honest faith,
Vanishing in a lie, &c.
So, also, Frezzi, in his Quadriregio.
Or sappi ben che Dio ha dato il freno
A voi di voi; e, se non fosse questo,

Libero arbitrio in voi sarebbe meno.
Lib. FE caps:

There is much more on this subject at the conclusion of the eighth
Capitolo of this book. Compare also Origen. in Genesin., Patrum
Graecor., vol. xi, p. 14, Werceburgi, 1783, 8vo; and Tertullian,
Contra Marcionem, Lib. II, p. 458, Lutetiae, 1641, fol. A very
noble passage on the freedom of the will occurs in the first book De
Monarchia, beginning, ‘Et humanum genus, potissimum liberum,
optime se habet.’ ‘The human race, when most completely free,
is in its highest state of excellence.’ Lib. I. cap. xii.

1. 79. To mightier force.] ‘ Though ye are subject to a higher power
than that of the heavenly constellations, even to the power of the
great Creator himself, yet ye are still left in the possession of liberty.’

1. 88. Like a babe, that wantons sportively.| This reminds us of the
Emperor Hadrian’s verses to his departing soul.

Animula vagula blandula, &c.

1. 99. The fortress.| Justice, the most necessary virtue in the chief
magistrate, as the commentators for the most part explain it: and

PURGATORY, CANTO XVI 46]

it appears manifest from all our Poet says in his first book De Monar-
chia, concerning the authority of the temporal Monarch and con-
cerning Justice, that they are right. Yet Lombardi understands the
law here spoken of to be the law of God; the sovereign, a spiritual
ruler, and the true city, the society of true believers; so that
the fortress, according to him, denotes the principal parts of
Christian duty.

1. 103. Who.]| Hecompares the Pope, on account of the union of the
temporal with the spiritual power in his person, to an unclean beast
in the Levitical law. ‘The camel, because he cheweth the cud, but
divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.’ Levy. xi. 4.

1. 110. Z'wo suns.] The Emperor and the Bishop of Rome. There
is something similar to this in the De Monarchia, Lib. III, ec. iv.
‘ They say first, according to that text in Genesis, that God made two
great lights, the greater light and the lesser, the one to rule the day,
and the other the night; then, that as the moon, which is the lesser
light, has no brightness, except as she receives it from the sun, so
neither has the temporal kingdom authority, except what it receives
from the spiritual government.’ The fallacy of which reasoning
(if such it can be called) he proceeds to prove.

1. 117. That land.| Lombardy.

1.119. Hre the day.]| Before the Emperor Frederick II was defeated
before Parma, in 1248. G. Villani, Lib. VI, cap. xxxv.

1. 124. The old time.] L’ antica eta.

—— It is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 11. iv. 46.

1. 126. The good Gherardo.| Gherardoda Cammino, of Trevigi. He
is honourably mentioned in our Poet’s Convito, IV. xiv. ‘ Let us
suppose that Gherardo da Cammino had been the grandson of the
meanest hind that ever drank of the Sile or the Cagnano, and that
his grandfather was not yet forgotten; who will dare to say that
Gherardo da Cammino was a mean man, and who will not agree with
me in calling him noble ? Certainly no one, however presumptuous,
will deny this; for such he was, and as such let him ever be remem-
bered.’ Tiraboschi supposes him to have been the same Gherardo
with whom the Provengal poets were used to meet a hospitable
reception. ‘This is probably that same Gherardo, who, together
with his sons, so early as before the year 1254, gave a kind and
hospitable reception to the Provengal poets.’ Mr. Mathias’s edition,
tom. 1, p. 137.

1. 127. Conrad.] Currado da Palazzo, a gentleman of Brescia.

Guido of Castello.] Of Reggio. All the Italians were called
Lombards by the French.

1. 131. Fallen into the mire.| There is a passage resembling this in
the De Vulg. Elog., Lib. II, cap. 4. ‘Ante omnia ergo dicimus
unumquemque debere materiae pondus propriis humeris coaequare,
ne forte humerorum nimio gravata virtute in coenum cespitare
necesse sit.’

1.144, His daughter Gaia.| A lady equally admired for her modesty,
the beauty of her person, and the excellency of her talents. Gaia,
says Tiraboschi, may perhaps lay claim to the praise of having been

462 NOTES

the first among the Italian ladies, by whom the vernacular poetry
was cultivated. This appears (although no one has yet named her
as a poetess) from the MS. Commentary on the Commedia of Dante,
by Giovanni da Serravalle, afterwards bishop of Fermo, where,
commenting on Canto XVI of the Purgatory, he says: ‘De ista
Gaia filia dicti boni Gerardi, possent dici multae laudes, quia fuit
prudens domina, literata, magni consilii, et magnae prudentiae,
maximae pulchritudinis, quae scivit bene loqui rhytmatice in vulgari.’

CANTO XVII

1]. 2. On an Alpine height.| ‘Nell alpe. Although the Alps, as
Landino remarks, are properly those mountains which divide Italy
from France, yet from them all high mountains are in the Tuscan
language, though not in the Latin, termed Alps. Milton uses the
word thus generally in the Samson Agonistes, 1. 628 :

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.

And this is a sufficient answer to the charge of impropriety, which is
brought by Doctor Johnson, on the introduction of it into that drama.
See the Rambler, No. 140.

| bl) Ne The bird, that most

Delights itself in song.]

I cannot think with Vellutello, that the swallow is here meant.
Dante probably alludes to the story of Philomela, as it is found in
Homer’s Odyssey, Book XIX. 518, rather than as later poets have
told it. ‘She intended to slay the son of her husband’s brother
Amphion, incited to it by the envy of his wife, who had six children,
while herself had only two, but through mistake slew her own son
Itylus, and for her punishment was transformed by Jupiter into
a nightingale.’ Cowper’s note on this passage. In speaking of
the nightingale, let me observe, that while some have considered its
song as a melancholy, and others as a cheerful one, Chiabrera
appears to have come nearest the truth, when he says, in the
Alcippo, act I, se. 1,

Non mai si stanca d’ iterar le note,
O gioconde o dogliose,

Al sentir dilettose.

Unwearied still reiterates her lays,
Jocund or sad, delightful to the ear.

See a very pleasing letter on this subject by a late illustrious
statesman, Address to the reader, prefixed to Fox’s History of James II,
edit. 1808, p. xii; and a beautiful poem by Coleridge. I know
not whether the following lines by a neglected poet have yet been
noticed, as showing the diversity of opinions that have prevailed
respecting the sony of this bird.

The cheerful birds

With sweetest notes to sing their Maker’s praise,
Among the which, the merrie nightingale

With swete and swete, her breast against a thorn,
Ringes out all night.

Vallans, Tale of Two Swannes,

PURGATORY, CANTO XVII 463

1, 26. One crucified.| Haman. See the book of Esther, c. vii.
‘In the Lunetta of Haman, we owe the sublime conception of his
figure (by Michael Angelo) to this passage.’ Fuseli, Lecture iii, note.

1. 32. Like a bubble. |

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.
Shakespeare, Macbeth, I. iii. 79.

1. 34. A damsel.] Lavinia, mourning for her mother Amata, who,
impelled by grief and indignation for the supposed death of Turnus,
destroyed herself. Aen., Lib. XII. 595.

1. 42. The broken slumber quivering ere it dies.]| Venturi suggests
that this bold and unusual metaphor may have been formed on
that in Virgil.

Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus aegris
Incipit, et dono divum gratissima serpit.
Aen., Lib. II. 268.

1. 68. The peace-makers.| ‘Blessed are the peace-makers; for
they shall be called the children of God.’ Matt. v. 9.

1. 81. The love.| ‘ A defect in our love towards God, or lukewarm-
ness in piety, is here removed.’

1. 89. Or natural.| Lombardi refers to the Convito, Canz. i, Tratt. 2,
cap. 3, where this subject is diffusely treated by our Poet.

1. 93. While eer it seeks.| So Frezzi:

E 8 egli é ben, che @ altro ben dipenda,
Non s’ ami quasi per se esistente,
Se vuoi, che quando é tolto, non t’ offenda.
Il Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. 14.

This Capitolo, which describes the punishment of those who give
way to inordinate grief for the loss of their kindred, is marked by much
power of imagination and a sublime morality.

1. 94. The primal blessings.) Spiritual good.

1. 95. The inferior.| Temporal good.

1. 102. Now.] ‘It is impossible for any being, either to hate itself,
or to hate the First Cause of all, by which it exists. We can therefore
only rejoice in the evil which befalls others.’

. 111. There is.) The proud.

]. 114. There is.] The envious.

1, 117. There is he.| The resentful.

]. 121. This threefold love is mourned.| Frezzi alludes to this dis-
tinction.

Superbia puote essere in tre modi;
Si come si dimostra dalla Musa,
La qual hai letta, e che tu tanto lodi.
Il Quadrir., Lib. ITI, cap. 2.

1. 135. Along three circles.| According to the allegorical commen-
tators, as Venturi has observed, Reason is represented under the
person of Virgil, and Sense under that of Dante. The former leaves
to the latter to discover for itself the three carnal sins—avarice,
gluttony, and libidinousness; having already declared the nature
of the spiritual sins—pride, envy, anger, and indifference, or luke-

464 NOTES

warmness in piety, which the Italians call accidia, from the Greek
word d«ndia, and which Chaucer vainly endeavoured to naturalize
in our language. See the Persones Tale, §23. Lombardi refers to
Thomas Aquinas, Lib. I, Quest. 72, Ari. 2, for the division here made
by our Poet.

CANTO XVIII

l. 1. The teacher ended.] Compare Plato, Protagoras, 328d.
Ilpwraydpas péev tooavta, «.7.A. Apoll. Rhod., 1. i. 513, and Milton,
P.Ls Book VIII. 1.

The angel ended, and in Adam’s ear
So charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.

1]. 23. Your apprehension.| It is literally, ‘ Your apprehensive
faculty derives intension from a thing really existing, and displays
that intension within you, so that it makes the soul turn to it.’ The
commentators Jabour in explaining this; but whatever sense they
have elicited, may, I think, be resolved into the words of the transla-
tion in the text.

1. 35. Perhaps. ‘ Our author,’ Venturi observes, ‘ uses the language
of the Peripatetics, which denominates the kind of things, as deter-
minable by many differences, matter. Love then, in kind perhaps,
appears good ; and it is said perhaps, because, strictly speaking, in
kind there is neither good nor bad, neither praiseworthy nor blameable.’
To this Lombardi adds, that what immediately follows, namely,
that ‘every mark is not good although the wax be so,’ answers to
this interpretation. For the wax is precisely as the determinable
matter, and the mark or impression as the determining form; and
even as the wax, which is either good or at least not bad, may, by
being imprinted by a bad figure, acquire the name of bad; so may
love be said generally to be good or at least not bad, and acquire the
name of bad by being determined to an unfit object. ‘As the wax
takes all shapes, and yet is wax still at the bottom; the 70 tmoxeipevoy
still is wax; so the soul transported in so many several passions of
joy, fear, hope, sorrow, anger, and the like, has for its general ground-
work of all this, Love.’ Henry More, Discourse xvi. This passage
in the most philosophical of our theologians, may serve for an answer
to the objection of those who blame Collins for not having brought
in Love among the ‘ Passions’ in his exquisite ode.

]. 47. Spirit.| The human soul, which differs from that of brutes,
inasmuch as though united with the body it has a separate existence
of its own.

]. 60. That virtue.) Reason.

]. 65. Or severs.| Lest the reader of the original should be misled,
it is right to warn him that the word ‘vigliare’ must not be con-
founded with ‘ vagliare’ to winnow, and strictly means ‘ to separate
from the straw what remains of the grain after the threshing.’ The
process is distinctly described in the notes on the Decameron, p. 77,
ediz. Giunti, 1573, where this passage is referred to.

1. 65. Those men.| The great moral philosophers among the
heathens,

PURGATORY, CANTO XVIII 465

_ 1.78. A crag.| I have preferred the reading of Landino, scheggion,
*crag’, conceiving it to be more poetical than secchion, ‘ bucket,’
which is the common reading. The same cause, the vapours, which
the commentators say might give the appearance of increased magni-
tude to the moon, might also make her seem broken at her rise.
Lombardi explains it differently. The moon being, as he says, in
the fifth night of her wane, has exactly the figure of a brazen bucket,
round at the bottom and open at top; and, if we suppose it to be
all on fire, we shall have, besides the form of the moon, her colour
also. There is a simile in one of Fielding’s novels very like this,
but so ludicrous that I am unwilling to disturb the reader’s gravity
by inserting it.

Up the vault.| The moon passed with a motion opposite to
that of the heavens, through the constellation of the Scorpion, in
which the sun is, when to those who are in Rome he appears to set
between the isles of Corsica and Sardinia.

1.84. Andes.| Andes, now Pietola, made more famous than Mantua,
near which it is situated, by having been the birthplace of Virgil.

1. 92. Ismenus and Asopus.| Rivers near Thebes.

1. 98. Mary.) ‘And Mary arose in those days, and went into the
hill-country with haste, into a city of Juda; and entered into the
house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.’ Luke i. 39, 40.

1. 99. Caesar.| See Lucan, Phars., Lib. III and IV, and Caesar,
De Bello Civili, Lib. I. Caesar left Brutus to complete the siege of
Marseilles, and hastened on to the attack of Afranius and Petreius, the
generals of Pompey, at Ilerda (Lerida) in Spain.

1. 118. Abbot.| Alberto, abbot of San Zeno in Verona, when
Frederick I was emperor, by whom Milan was besieged and reduced
to ashes, in 1162.

1. 121. There is he.] Alberto della Scala, Lord of Verona, who had
made his natural son abbot of San Zeno.

]. 133. First they died.| The Israelites, who on account of their
disobedience died before reaching the promised land.

]. 1385. And they.| Those Trojans, who, wearied with their voyage,
chose rather to remain in Sicily with Acestes, than accompany
Aeneas to Italy. Virgil, Aen., Lib. V.

CANTO XIX

1. 1. The hour.] Near the dawn.

1. 4. The geomancer.| The geomancers, says Landino, when they
divined, drew a figure consisting of sixteen marks, named from so
many stars which constitute the end of Aquarius and the beginning
of Pisces. One of these they called ‘the greater fortune’. Chaucer has
imitated this in a description of morning (7'roilus and Criseyde, Book
III, st. 203), for he did not find it in his original, Boccaccio’s Fulostrato ;—

But whan the cok, comune astrologer,

Gan on his brest to bete, and after crowe,
And Lucifer the dayes messager

Gan for to ryse, and out hir bemes throwe,
And estward roos, to him that coude it knowe,
Fortuna Maior. dal

466 NOTES

1. 7. A woman’s shape.) Worldly happiness. This allegory reminds
us of the ‘ Choice of Hercules’.
1. 14. Love’s own hue.]

A smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue.
Milton, P. L., Book VIII. 618.

facies pulcherrima tunc est,

Quum porphyriaco variatur candida rubro.

Quid color hic roseus sibi vult ? designat amorem :
Quippe amor est igni similis; flammasque rubentes
Ignis habere solet.

Palingenti Zodiacus Vitae, Lib. XII.

]. 21. Ulysses.] It is not easy to determine why Ulysses, contrary
to the authority of Homer, is said to have been drawn aside from his
course by the song of the Siren. No improbable way of accounting
tor the contradiction is, to suppose that she is here represented as
purposely deviating from the truth. Or Dante may have followed
some legend of the middle ages, in which the wanderings of Ulysses
were represented otherwise than in Homer.

1. 26. A dame.| Philosophy, or perhaps Truth.

1. 49. Who mourn.] ‘ Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall
be comforted.’ Matt. v. 4.

1. 61. Let thy heels spurn the earth.| This is a metaphor from hawk-
ing, though less apparent than in the lines that follow.

1. 64. The falcon. |

Poi come fa ’] falcon, quando si move,
Cosi Umilta al cielo alzd la vista.
Frezzi, 1 Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. v.

Io vidi poi color tutti levare
Inverso il cielo, come fa ’! falcone,
Quando Ja preda sua prende in su IL are.
Ibid., cap. xiii.

One of our periodical critics has remarked, that Dante must have
loved hawking; and ‘that he paints his bird always to the life’.
Edinburgh Review, No. lviii, p. 472. In the same manner Mr. Blom-
field supposes that Aeschylus was addicted to fishing, because he
often takes his metaphors from fishing-nets. See that gentleman’s
notes to the Persae, Glossar. v. 430.

1. 72. Mysoul.] ‘ Mysoulcleaveth untothe dust: quicken thou me
according to thy word.’ Ps. cxix. 25.

1. 82. I noted what remained yet hidden from them.| They were
ignorant, it appeared, whether Dante was come there to be purged
of his sins.

1. 97. The successor of Peter.| Ottobuono, of the family of Fieschi,
Counts of Lavagno, died thirty-nine days after he became Pope,
with the title of Adrian V, in 1276.

|. 98. That stream.] The river Lavagno, in the Genoese territory ;
to the east of which territory are situated Siestri and Chiaveri.

1. 120. Were lifted.| Rosa Morando and Lombardi are very severe
on Venturi’s perplexity occasioned by the word ‘ aderse’. They have
none of them noticed Landino’s reading of ‘aperse’. Ediz. 1484.

PURGATORY, CANTO XIX 467

1. 132. Err not.] ‘ And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he
said unto me, See thou do it not: Iam thy fellow servant, and of
thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus.’ Rev. xix. 10.

1. 135. Nor shall be given in marriage.| ‘Since in this state we
neither marry nor are given in marriage, [ am no longer the spouse
of the church, and therefore no longer retain my former dignity.’
See Matt. xxii. 30. .

1. 139. That whereof thou spakest.| See 1. 89.

1. 140. A kinswoman.] Alagia is said to have been the wife of the
Marchese Marcello Malaspina, one of the Poet’s protectors during
his exile. See Canto VIII. 133.

CANTO XX

1. 3. I drew the sponge.] ‘I did not persevere in my inquiries frona
the spirit, though still anxious to learn more.’

l. 11. Wolf.] Avarice.

1. 16. Of his appearing.] He is thought to allude to Can Grande
della Scala. See Hell, Canto I. 98.

1. 25. Fabricius.] So our author in the second book of the De
Monarchia, cap. v. ‘Nonne Fabricius, &c.? ‘Has not Fabricius
given us another example of resisting avarice, when, poor as he was,
he preserved his faith to the republic, and rejected with scorn a great
sum of gold that was offered him? Our Poet in the sixth book
records this, when he says—

Parvoque potentem
Fabricium.’

Compare Petrarch, 7'r. della Fama, ec. i.

Un Curio ed un Fabricio assai pit. belli
Con la lor poverta, che Mida e Crasso
Con I’ oro ond’ a virtii furon rubelli.

1. 30. Nzcholas.] The story of Nicholas is, that an angel having
revealed to him that the father of a family was so impoverished as to
resolve on exposing the chastity of his three daughters to sale, he
threw in at the window of their house three bags of money, containing
a sufficient portion for each of them.

]. 42. Root.] Hugh Capet, ancestor of Philip IV. ]

1.46. Had Ghent and Douai, Lille and Bruges power.| These cities
had lately been seized by Philip IV. The spirit is made to intimate
the approaching defeat of the French army by the Flemings, in the
battle of Courtrai, which happened in 1302. .

1. 51. The slaughterer’s trade.| This reflection on the birth of his
ancestor, induced Francis I to forbid the reading of Dante in his
dominions. Hugh Capet, who came to the throne of France in 987,
was however the grandson of Robert, who was the brother of Eudes,
King of France in 888; and it may, therefore, well be questioned,
whether by ‘ beccaio di Parigi’ is meant literally one who carried on
the trade of a butcher, at Paris, and whether the sanguinary dis-
position of Hugh Capet’s father is not stigmatized by this opprobrious
appellation. See Cancellieri, Osservazioni, &c., Roma, 1814, p. 6.

468 NOTES

]. 52. All save one.| The posterity of Charlemagne, the second race
of French monarchs, had failed, with the exception of Charles of
Lorraine, who is said, on account of the melancholy temper of his
mind, to have always clothed himself in black. Venturi suggests
that Dante may have confounded him with Childeric III, the last of
the Merovingian, or first race, who was deposed and made a monk
in 751.

1. 57. My son.] Hugh Capet caused his son Robert to be crowned
at Orleans.

1. 59. The great dower of Provence.] Louis IX and his brother
Charles of Anjou, married two of the four daughters of Raymond
Berenger, Count of Provence. See Par., Canto VI. 135.

1. 60. The stains.| Lombardi understands this differently from all
the other commentators with whom I am acquainted. The word
‘ vergogna ’ he takes in the sense of ‘a praiseworthy shame of doing
ill’ ; and according to him the translation should run thus :

The shame that yet restrained my race from ill.

By ‘ Provenzale ’ he understands the estates of Toulouse, the dowry
of the only daughter of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, married to
a brother of Louis IX.

]. 63. For amends.| This is ironical.

|. 64. Pottou it seized, Navarre and Gascony.| I venture to read—

Potti e Navarra prese e Guascogna,
instead of

Ponti e Normandia prese e Guascogna.

Seized Ponthieu, Normandy, and Gascony.

Landino has ‘ Potti’, and he is probably right: for Poitou was
annexed to the French crown by Philip IV. See Henault, Abrégé
Chron., A.D. 1283, &c. Normandy had been united to it long before
by Philip Augustus, a circumstance of which it is difficult to imagine
that Dante should have been ignorant; but Philip IV, says Henault,
ibid., took the title of King of Navarre: and the subjugation of
Navarre is also alluded to in the Paradise, Canto XIX. 140. In 1293,
Philip IV summoned Edward I to do him homage for the duchy of
Gascony, which he had conceived the design of seizing. See G. Vil-
lani, Lib. VIII, cap. iv. The whole passage has occasioned much
perplexity. I cannot withhold from my readers the advantage of
an attempt made to unravel it by the late Archdeacon Fisher, which
that gentleman, though a stranger, had the goodness to communi-
cate to me in the following terms: ‘I am encouraged to offer you
an elucidation of a passage, with the interpretation of which I was
never yet satisfied. As it goes to establish the accuracy of two very
happy conjectures which you have made at Purg. XX. 66, you
will perhaps forgive me, if my notion a little militates against your
solution of the difficulty. The passage is as follows :

I’ fui radice della mala pianta,

Che la terra Cristiana tutta aduggia,

Si che buon frutto rado se ne schianta.

Ma se Doagio, Guanto, Lilla, e Bruggia

Potesser, tosto ne saria vendetta :

Ed io la cheggio a lui, che tutto giuggia.

PURGATORY, CANTO XX 469

Mentre che la gran dote Provenzale

Al sangue mio non tolse la vergogna,

Poco valea, ma pur non facea male.

Li comincid con forza e con menzogna

La sua rapina; e poscia, per ammenda,

Potti e Navarra prese, e Guascogna.
It is my persuasion that the stanzas I have copied are one passage,
continuous in its sense, interrupted only by a parenthesis of four
stanzas, which are introduced as necessary to the political solution
of the meaning. Again, I think that my quoted stanzas refer to only
one person, and that Philip IV of France. He is depicted by both
the phrases, “mala pianta”’, and “‘sangue mio”. Ido not find that
Louis IX obtained any part of Provence by dowry, owing to his
marriage with the daughter of the prince of that country; at least
nothing equivalent to the words “‘la gran dote Provenzale”. Isuppose
the stanzas quoted to depict the three great events in the life of
Philip IV. He married, during the life of his father, the heiress of
the kingdom of Navarre, and also of the duchy of Champagne.
Philip obtained at once the sovereignty of both these dowries, and
left to his son Philip V the title of King of France and Navarre. On
the accession of Philip IV to the throne, he became embroiled with
the English respecting the duchy of Guienne, which, after having
changed masters frequently, was then in the possession of Edward I.
The word Guienne included Poitou and Gascony, and was generally
the country termed by Caesar, Aquitania. By perfidy, and the
childish ignorance of Edmund, the brother of Edward I, Philip got
possession of Guienne. .. . The duchy of Champagne, now annexed
to the crown of France, lying adjacent to that of Flanders, Philip next
endeavoured to lay hands on that fief: and failing in treacherous
negotiation, he carried a cruel and murderous war into the Low
Countries, and laid them desolate. His progress was stopped by
the Flemings at the battle of Courtrai, and he was soon after com-
pelled to surrender Guienne to the English king, and to make peace
with his numerous enemies. Now to these three leading epochs of
Philip’s life, the Poet seems to allude. “ Doagio, Guanto, Lilla e
Bruggia’’ refer to his desolating war in Flanders; “vendetta,” tothe
battle of Courtrai; ‘“‘la gran dote Provenzale”, to the dowry of the
kingdom of Navarreand the duchy of Champagne; “forzae men-
zogna,” to his conduct respecting Guienne with its two sister provinces,
as you so convincingly conjectured, ‘*Potti e Guascogna”’.’

1. 66. Young Conradine.] Charles of Anjou put Curradino to death
in 1268, and became King of Naples. See Hell, Canto XXVIII. 16,
and note. Compare Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap.
XAX.

1. 67. The angelic teacher.| Thomas Aquinas. He was reported to
have been poisoned by a physician, who wished to ingratiate himself
with Charles of Anjou. ‘In the year 1323, at the end of July, by
the said Pope John and by his cardinals, was canonized at Avignon
Thomas Aquinas, of the order of Saint Dominic, a master in divinity
and philosophy,a man most excellent in all science,and who expounded
the sense of Scripture better than any onesince the time of Augustine.
He lived in the time of Charles I, King of Sicily; and going to the
council at Lyons, it is said that he was killed by a physician of the

470) NOTES

said king, who put poison for him into some sweetmeats, thinking
to ingratiate himself with King Charles, because he was of the lineage
of the lords of Aquino, who had rebelled against the king, and doubt-
ing lest he should be made cardinal: whence the church of God
received great damage. He died at the abbey of Fossanova, in
Campagna.’ G. Villani, Lib. IX, cap. ecxviii. We shall find him
in the Paradise, Canto X.

1. 69. Another Charles.| Charles of Valois, brother of Philip IV,
was sent by Pope Boniface VIII to settle the disturbed state of
Florence. In consequence of the measures he adopted for that pur-
pose, our Poet and his friends were condemned to exile and death.
See G. Villani, Lib. VIII, c. xlviii.

1. 71. ——— with that lance,

Which the arch-traitor tilted with.]

—— con la lancia
Con la qual giostrd Giuda.

If I remember right, in one of the old romances, Judas is represented
tilting with our Saviour.

1. 78. The other.] Charles, King of Naples, the eldest son of Charles
of Anjou, having, contrary to the directions of his father, engaged
with Ruggier de Lauria, the admiral of Peter of Aragon, was made
prisoner, and carried into Sicily, June, 1284. He afterwards, in con-
sideration of a large sum of money, married his daughter to Azzo VIII,
Marquis of Ferrara. I take Lauria to be the hero meant by Petrarch
in his T'riumph of Fame,

Quel di Luria seguiva il Saladino.
Cap. ii, v. 151.

Of whom Biagioli says in a note, ‘ Non so chi sia, e non trovo né vivo
né morto chi mel dica.’ ‘I know not who he is, and I find no one
alive or dead to tell me.’ Mariana, Lib. XIV, cap. 10, calls Lauria
‘a brave captain, signalized by his former victories’. See also the
seventh book of G. Villani’s history, and Boccaccio’s Decameron, G. 5,
N. 6; where he is named Ruggieri dell’ Oria.

1. 85. The flower-de-luce.]| Boniface VIII was seized at Alagna in
Campagna, by the order of Philip IV, in the year 1303, and soon
after died of grief. G. Villani, Lib. VIII, cap. lxiii. ‘ As it pleased
God, the heart of Boniface being petrified with grief, through the
injury he had sustained, when he came to Rome, he fell into a strange
malady, for he gnawed himself as one frantic, and in this state ex-
pired.’ His character is strongly drawn by the annalist in the next
chapter. Thus, says Landino, was verified the prophecy of Celestine
respecting him, that he should enter on the Popedom like a fox, reign
like a lion, and die like a dog.

1. 94. Into the temple.| It is uncertain whether our Poet alludes
still to the event mentioned in the preceding note, or to the destruc-
tion of the order of the Templars in 1310, but the latter appears more
probable.

]. 95. O sovereign Master.] Lombardi, who rightly corrects Ven-
turi’s explanation of this passage, with which I will not trouble the
reader, should have acknowledged, if he was conscious of it, that his
own interpretation of it was the same as that before given by Vellu-
tello: ‘ When, O Lord, shall I behold that vengeance accomplished,

PURGATORY, CANTO XX 471

which being already determined in thy secret judgement, thy re-
tributive justice even now contemplates with delight ?’
1. 98. What thou didst hear.| See }. 21.
1. 108. Pygmalion. |
—— Ille Sychaeum
Impius ante aras, atque auri caecus amore,
Clam ferro incautum superat.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. I. 348.
1. 107. Achan.] Joshua vii.
1. 111. Heliodorus.| ‘For there appeared unto them an horse, with
a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering,
and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his fore-feet.’
2 Maccabees iii. 25.
1. 112. Thracia’s king.] Polymnestor, the murderer of Polydorus.
Hell, Canto XXX. 19.
1.114. Crassus.] Marcus Crassus, who fell miserably in the Parthian
war. See Appian, Parthica.
E vidi Ciro pitt di sangue avaro,
Che Crasso d’ oro, e l uno e I’ altro n’ ebbe
Tanto, che parve a ciascheduno amaro.
Petrarca.

CANTO XXI

1.1. The well.] ‘The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this
water, that I thirst not.’ John iv. 15.

1. 6. Luke.] Chapter xxiv. 13.

1. 18. —— nor from his speed meanwhile

Desisting. |

The unintelligible reading of almost all the editions here (but not of
all, as Lombardi would lead us to suppose, except his favourite
Nidobeatina) is

E perché andate forte ?

Vellutello has also that which is no doubt the right :
E parte andava forte.

]. 22. The tokens.] The letter P for Peccata, sins, inscribed upon
his forehead by the Angel, in order to his being cleared of them in
his passage through Purgatory to Paradise.

]. 25. She.] Lachesis, one of the three Fates.

]. 43. —— that, which heaven in itself

Doth of ttself recerve.]
Venturi, I think rightly, interprets this to be light.
1. 49. Thaumantian.] Figlia di Taumante.
@dvpavtTos OuyaTnp.
Hesiod, Theog. 780.
Compare Plato, Theaet., v. ii, p. 76, Bip. edit. ; Virg. Aen. ix. 5; and
Spenser, Faery Queen, Book V, e. iii, st. 25.
Fair is Thaumantias in her crystal gown.
Drummond.

1. 64. To that wish.] Lombardi here alters the sense by reading
with the Nidobeatina, ‘con tal voglia,’ instead of ‘contra voglia’,

472 NOTES

and explains it: ‘ With the same ineffectual will with which man
was contrary to sin, while he resolved on sinning, even with the same
would he wish to rise from his torment in Purgatory, at the same
time that through inclination to satisfy the divine justice he yet
remains there.’

1. 77. I see the net.| ‘I perceive that ye are detained here by your
wish to satisfy the divine justice.’

1. 83. When the good Titus.| When it was so ordered by the divine
Providence that Titus, by the destruction of Jerusalem, should avenge
the death of our Saviour on the Jews.

1. 85. The name.| The name of Poet.

1. 89. From Tolosa.| Dante, as many others have done, confounds
Statius the poet, who was a Neapolitan, with a rhetorician of the
same name, who was of Tolosa, or Thoulouse. Thus Chaucer,
Hous of Fame, Book III, 370.

The Tholosan, that highte Stace.

And Boccaccio, as cited by Lombardi :
E Stazio di Tolosa ancora caro.
Amoros. Vis. Cant. 5.
1. 91. A myrtle garland. |
Et vos, O lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte.
Virg. Eel. ii. 54.

Qual vaghezza di lauro? o qual di mirto ?
Petrarca.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown. Milton, Lycidas.

1. 94. Fell.| Statius lived to write only a small part of the Achillerd.

1. 111. Z did but smile.] ‘ I smiled no more than one would do who
wished by a smile to intimate his consciousness of anything to another
person.’

CANTO XXII

1. 5. Blessed.| ‘ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ Matt. v. 6.

1. 14. Aquinam’s bard.| Juvenal had celebrated his contemporary,
Statius, Sat. vii. 82; though some critics imagine that there is
a secret derision couched under his praise.

1. 38. Why.]

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
Auri sacra fames ! Virgil, Aen., Lib. III. 56.

Venturi supposes, that Dante might have mistaken the meaning of
the word sacra, and construed it ‘ holy ’, instead of ‘cursed’. But
I see no necessity for having recourse to so improbable a conjecture.

1. 41. The fierce encounter.| See Hell, Canto VII. 26.

. 46. With shorn locks.| See Hell, Canto VII. 58.

. 57. The twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb.] Eteocles and Polynices.
. 58. With Clio.]
Quem prius heroum Clio dabis ? immodicum irae

Tydea ? laurigeri subitos an vatis hiatus ?
Stat. Zhebaid. i. 41.

|
~J]

PURGATORY, CANTO XXII 473

1. 71. A renovated world. |

Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Iam redit et Virgo; redeunt Saturnia regna ;
Iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.
Virg. Eel. iv. 5.

For the application of Virgil’s prophecy to the incarnation, see Natalis
Alexander, Hist. Eccl. Saec. i. Dissert. 1. Paris, 1679, v. i, p. 166.

1. 87. Before.| Before I had composed the Thebaid.

1. 96. Our old Terence.] ‘ Antico,’ which is found in many of the
old editions, seems preferable to ‘ amico’.

1. 97. Caecilius.] Caecilius Statius, a Latin comic poet, of whose
works some fragments only remain. Our Poet had Horace in his eye.

Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro,
Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi,
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte.

Epist. I. i. 57.

1. 97. Varro.] ‘Quam multa pene omnia tradidit Varro.’ Quin-
tilian, Instit. Orat., Lib. XII. ‘ Vix aperto ad philosophiam aditu,
primus M. Varro veterum omnium doctissimus.’ Sadolet. de liberis
recte wnstit., Edit. Lugd. 1533, p. 137.

1. 100. That Greek.| Homer.

1. 102. In the first ward.] In Limbo.

1. 104. ——— The bard

Of Pella.| Euripides.

1. 105. The Teian.] Euripide v’ 6 nosco, ed Anacreonte.

The Monte Cassino MS. reads ‘ Antifonte’, ‘ Antipho’, instead of
* Anacreonte ’. Dante probably knew little more of these Greek
writers than the names.

Agatho.| Chaucer, speaking of the Daisy as a representation
of Alcestis, refers to Agaton :

No wonder is thogh Jove hir stellifye,
As telleth Agaton for hir goodnesse.
Legend of Good Women, Prologue, 513.

And Mr. Tyrwhitt tells us that ‘ he has nothing to say of this writer
except that one of the same name is quoted in the Prol. to the tragedy
of Cambises by Thomas Preston. There is no reason,’ he adds, ‘ for
supposing with Gloss. Ur. that a philosopher of Samos is meant, or
any of the Agathoes of antiquity.’ I am inclined, however, to
believe that Chaucer must have meant Agatho, the dramatic writer,
whose name, at least, appears to have been familiar in the middle
ages; for, besides the mention of him in the text, he is quoted by
Dante in the treatise De Monarchia, III. vi. ‘ Deus per nuncium
facere non potest, genita non esse, genita, iuxta sententiam Aga-
thonis.’ The original is to be found in Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom.,
Lib: .ViE,.¢..2.

Mévov yap avrod Kal Oeds orepicxera

"Ayévnta moeiy doo’ av 7 TeTpaypeva,
Agatho is mentioned by Xenophon in his Symposiwm, by Plato in the
Protagoras, and in the Banquet, a favourite book with our author,
and by Aristotle in his Art of Poetry, where the following remarkable
passage occurs respecting him, from which I will leave it to the

474 NOTES

reader to decide whether it is possible that the allusion in Chaucer
might have arisen: év évias pev €y 7) S00 TOY ywpipwy eoTiv dvouaTor,
Ta 6€ GAAa memonueva’ ev évias 5 ovOev" olov év TH ’AydOwvos “AvOe.
dpolws yap év ToUT@W Ta TE TpayyaTa Kal Ta dvdpaTa TETOInTAL, Kai
ovdév HrTov evppaiver. Edit. 1794, p. 33. ‘There are, however, some
tragedies, in which one or two of the names are historical, and the
rest feigned; there are even some, in which none of the names are
historical ; such is Agatho’s tragedy called The Flower; for in that
all is invention, both incidents and names; and yet it pleases.’
Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry, by Thomas Twining, 8vo, edit. 1812,
vol. i, p. 128.

1. 107. Of thy train.] ‘ Of those celebrated in thy Poem.’

1. 110. Who showed Langia’s wave.| Hypsipile. See note to
Canto X XVI, v. 87.

1. 112. Tiresias’ daughter.| Dante, as some have thought, had for-
gotten that he had placed Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, among
the sorcerers. See Hell, Canto XX. Vellutello endeavours, rather
awkwardly, to reconcile the apparent inconsistency, by observing,
that although she was placed there as a sinner, yet, as one of famous
memory, she had also a place among the worthies in Limbo. Lom-
bardi, or rather the Della Crusca academicians, excuse our author
better, by observing that Tiresias had a daughter named Daphne.
See Diodorus Siculus, Lib. IV, § 66. I have here to acknowledge
a communication made to me by the learned writer of an anonymous
letter, who observes that Manto and Daphne are only different names
for the same person; and that Servius, in his Commentary on the
Aeneid, x. 198, says, that some make Manto the prophetess to be
a daughter of Hercules.

1. 112. —— The bride

Sea-born of Peleus.| Thetis.

1. 116. Four handmaids.| Compare Canto XII, v. 74.

1. 124. That worthy shade.] Statius.

1. 132. Downward this less ample spread.| The early commentators
understand that this tree had its root upward and the boughs down-
ward ; and this opinion, however derided by their successors, is not
a little countenanced by the imitation of Frezzi, who lived so near
the time of our Poet:

Su dentro al cielo avea la sua radice,
FE git inverso terra i rami spande.

Il Quadrir., Lib. TV, cap. 1.

—— It had in heaven
Its root above, and downward to the earth
Stretched forth the branches.

1. 139. Mary took more thought.| ‘ The blessed Virgin, who answers
for you now in heaven, when she said to Jesus, at the marriage in
Cana of Galilee, “‘ they have no wine,” regarded not the gratification
of her own taste, but the honour of the nuptial banquet.’

]. 142. The women of old Rome.| See Valerius Maximus, I. ii, c. 1.

1. 143. Daniel.| ‘Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of
the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,
Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us
pulse to eat, and water to drink.’ Dan.i. 11, 12. ‘Thus Melzar

PURGATORY, CANTO XXII 475

took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should
drink: and gave them pulse. As for these four children, God gave
them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel
had understanding in all visions and dreams.’ Ibid. 16, 17.

CANTO XXIII

1. 9. My lips.] ‘O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall
show forth thy praise.’ Ps. li. 15.
1. 20. The eyes.| Compare Ovid, Metam., Lib. VIII. 801

Hirtus erat crinis; cava lumina, pallor in ore:

Dura cutis, per quam spectari viscera possent :
Ossa sub incurvis exstabant arida lumbis.

1. 26. When Mary.| Josephus, de Bello Jud., Lib. VII, c. xxi, p. 954,
ed. Genev., fol. 1611. The shocking story is well told.
2. engee

Senza fior prato o senza gemma anello.
Petrarca, Son. Lasciata hai, morte.

O ring, fro which the ruby is out-falle.
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book V, st. 79.

——— In this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost.
Shakespeare, Lear, v. iii. 190.

1. 28. Who reads the name.] ‘ He who pretends to distinguish the
letters which form OMO in the features of the human face, might
easily have traced out the M on their emaciated countenances.’ The
temples, nose, and forehead are supposed to represent this letter ;
and the eyes the two O’s placed within each side of it.

1. 44. Forese.] One of the brothers of Piccarda; he who is again
spoken of in the next Canto, and introduced in the Paradise,Canto ITI.
Cionacci, in his Storia della Beata Umiliana, Parte iv, cap. i, is re-
ferred to by Lombardi, in order to show that Forese was also the
brother of Corso Donati, our author’s political enemy. See next
Canto, 1. 81. Tiraboschi, after Crescimbeni, enumerates him among
the Tuscan poets. Stor. della Poes. It., v. i, p. 139.

1. 72. If the power.] ‘If thou didst delay thy repentance to the
last, when thou hadst lost the power of sinning, how happens it thou
art arrived here so early ?’

1. 76. Lower.] In the Ante-Purgatory. See Canto II.

1. 80. My Nella.] The wife of Forese.

1. 87. The tract, most barbarous of Sardinia’s isle.| The Barbagia is
a part of Sardinia, to which that name was given, on account of the
uncivilized state of its inhabitants, who are said to have gone nearly
naked.

1. 90. What wouldst thou have me say ?] The interrogative, which
Lombardi would dismiss from this place, as unmeaning and super-
fluous, appears to me to be the natural result of a deep feeling, and
to prepare us for the invective that follows.

476 NOTES

1. 94. The unblushing dames of Florence.}| Landino’s note exhibits
a curious instance of the changeableness of his countrywomen. He
even goes beyond the acrimony of the original. ‘In those days,’
says the commentator, ‘no less than in ours, the Florentine ladies
exposed the neck and bosom, a dress, no doubt, more suitable to
a harlot than a matron. But, as they changed soon after, insomuch
that they wore collars up to the chin, covering the whole of the neck
and throat, so have I hopes they will change again; not indeed so
much from motives of decency, as through that fickleness, which
pervades every action of their lives.’

1. 97. Saracens.| ‘This word, during the middle ages, was indiscri-
minately applied to Pagans and Mahometans ; inshort, to all nations
(except the Jews) who did not profess Christianity.” Mr. Ellis’s
Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, vol. i, p. 196 (a note),
Lond., 8vo, 1805.

1. 105. With lullaby.]

Colui che mo si consola con nanna.

‘Nanna’ is said to have been the sound with which the Florentine
women hushed their children to sleep.

1. 107. Thou seest.| Thou seest how we wonder that thou art here
in a living body.

CANTO XXIV

1. 8. He journeys.| The soul of Statius perhaps proceeds more
slowly, in order that he may enjoy as long as possible the company
of Virgil.

1. 11. Piccarda.| See Paradise, Canto ITI.

1.14. ?Twixt beautiful and good. |

—— Tra bella e onesta
Qual fu pit, lascid in dubbio.
Petrarca, Son. Ripensando a quel.
]. 17. Diet.] Dieta.

And dieted with fasting every day.
Spenser, F. Q., Book I, c. x, st. 26.

Spare fast that oft with gods doth diet.
Milton, 72 Penseroso.

1. 20. Bonagiunta.] Bonagiunta Urbiciani, of Lucca. ‘ There
is a canzone by this poet, printed in the collection made by the Giunti
(p. 209), and a sonnet to Guido Guinicelli in that made by Corbinelli
(p. 169), from which we collect that he lived not about 1230, as
Quadrio supposes (t. ii, p. 159), but towards the end of the thirteenth
century. Concerning other poems by Bonagiunta, that are _pre-
served in MS. in some libraries, Crescimbeni may be consulted.’
Tiraboschi, Mr. Mathias’s ed., v.i, p. 115. Three of these, a canzone,
a sonnet, and a ballata, have been published in the Anecdota Literaria
ex MSS. Codicibus eruta, 8vo, Roma (no year), v. iii, p. 453. He is
thus mentioned by our author in his treatise De Vulg. Elogq., Lib. I,
cap. xiii. ‘ Next let us come to the Tuscans, who, made senseless by
their folly, arrogantly assume to themselves the title of a vernacular
diction, more excellent than the rest ; nor are the vulgar alone misled

PURGATORY, CANTO XXIV 477

by this wild opinion, but many famous men have maintained it, as
Guittone d’Arezzo, who never addicted himself to the polished style
of the court, Bonagiunta of Lucca, Gallo of Pisa, Mino Mocato of
Siena, and Brunetto of Florence, whose compositions, if there shall
be leisure for examining them, will be found not to be in the diction
of the court, but in that of their respective cities.’ As a specimen
of Bonagiunta’s manner, the reader will take the following sonnet
from Corbinelli’s Collection added to the Bella Mano :—

Qual uomo é in su la rota per Ventura,
Non si rallegri, perché sia innalzato ;
Che quando pit si mostra chiara, e pura,
Allor si gira, ed hallo disbassato.
E nullo prato ha si fresca verdura,
Che li suoi fiori non cangino stato ;
E questo saccio, che avvien per natura ;
Piu grave cade, chi pit é montato.
Non si dee uomo troppo rallegrare
Di gran grandezza, né tenere spene ;
Che egli é gran doglia, allegrezza fallire :
Anzi si debbe molto umiliare ;
Non far soperchio, perché aggia gran bene ;
Che ogni monte a valle dee venire.
La Bella Mano e Rime Antiche, ediz. Firenze, 1715, p. 170.

What man is raised on Fortune’s wheel aloft,
Let him not triumph in his bliss elate ;
For when she smiles with visage fair and soft,
Then whirls she round, reversing his estate.
Fresh was the verdure in the sunny croft,
Yet soon the withered flowerets met their fate ;
And things exalted most, as chanceth oft,
Fall from on high to earth with ruin great.
Therefore ought none too greatly to rejoice
In greatness, nor too fast his hope to hold:
For one, that triumphs, great pain is to fail.
But lowly meekness is the wiser choice ;
And he must down, that is too proud and bold:
For every mountain stoopeth to the vale.

]. 23. He was of Tours.]| Simon of Tours became Pope with the
title of Martin IV, in 1281, and died in 1285.
1. 25. Bolsena’s eels and cups of muscadel.| The Nidobeatina edition
and the Monte Cassino MS. agree in reading
L’ anguille di Bolsena in la vernaccia ;
from which it would seem, that Martin the Fourth refined so much
on epicurism as to have his eels killed by being put into the wine
called vernaccia, in order to heighten their flavour. The Latin
annotator on the MS. relates, that the following epitaph was in-
scribed on the sepulchre of the Pope:
Gaudent anguillae, quod mortuus hic iacet ille,
Qui quasi morte reas excoriabat eas.
1. 29. Ubaldino.] Ubaldino degli Ubaldini, of Pila, in the Florentine
territory.

478 NOTES

1. 30. Boniface.] Archbishop of Ravenna. By Venturi he is called
Bonifazio de’ Fieschi, a Genoese; by Vellutello, the son of the
above-mentioned Ubaldini; and by Landino, Francioso, a French-
man.

1. 31. Crozier.] It is uncertain whether the word ‘rocco’, in the
original, means a ‘ crozier’ or a ‘ bishop’s rochet ’, that is, his epis-
copal gown. In support of the latter interpretation Lombardi cites
Du Fresne’s Glossary, article Roccus. ‘ Rochettum hodie vocant
vestem linteam episcoporum ... quasi parvum roccum;’ and ex-
plains the verse,

Che pasturd col rocco molte genti:

“who, from the revenues of his bishopric, supported in luxury

a large train of dependants.’ If the reader wishes to learn more on

the subject, he is referred to Monti’s Proposta, under the word
Rocco’.

1. 32. The Marquis.] The Marchese de’ Rigogliosi, of Forli. When
his butler told him it was commonly reported in the city that he did
nothing but drink, he is said to have answered: ‘ And do you tell
them that I am always thirsty.’

1. 38. Gentucca.] Of this lady it is thought that our Poet became
enamoured during his exile. See note to Canto XXXI. 56.

1. 39. There.| In the throat, the part in which they felt the tor-
ment inflicted by the divine justice.

1. 45. Whose brow no wimple shades yet.| ‘Who has not yet
assumed the dress of a woman.’

1. 46. Blame it as they may.| See Hell, Canto XXI. 39.

1. 51. Ladies, ye that con the lore of love.]

Donne, ch’ avete intelletto d’ Amore.

The first verse of a canzone in our author’s Vita Nuova.

1. 56. The notary.| Jacopo da Lentino, called the Notary, a poet of
these times. He was probably an Apulian: for Dante (De Vulg.
Eloq., Lib. I, cap. 12), quoting a verse which belongs to a canzone of
his, published by the Giunti, without mentioning the writer’s name,
terms him one of ‘the illustrious Apulians’, praefulgentes Apuli.
See Tiraboschi, Mr. Mathias’s edit., vol.i, p. 137. Crescimbeni (Lib. I,
Della Volg. Poes., p. 72, 4to, ed. 1698) gives an extract from one of
his poems, printed in Allacci’s Collection, to show that the whimsical
compositions called ‘ Ariette ’, are not of modern invention. His
poems have been collected among the Poeti del primo secolo della
Lingua Italiana, 2 vol. 8vo, Firenze, 1816. They extend from p. 249
to p. 319 of the first volume.

Guittone.| Fra Guittone, of Arezzo, holds a distinguished place
in Italian literature, as, besides his poems printed in the Collec-
tion of the Giunti, he has left a collection of letters, forty in number,
which afford the earliest specimen of that kind of writing in the
language. They were published at Rome in 1743, with learned
illustrations by Giovanni Bottari. He was also the first who gave to
the sonnet its regular and legitimate form, a species of composition
in which not only his own countrymen, but many of the best poets in
all the cultivated languages of modern Europe, have since so much
delighted. Guittone, a native of Arezzo, was the son of Viva di
Michele. He was of the order of the ‘ Frati Godenti’, of which an

PURGATORY, CANTO XXIV 479

account may be seen in the notes to Hell, Canto XXIII. Inthe year
1293 he founded a monastery of the order of Camaldoli, in Florence,
and died in the following year. ‘Tiraboschi, ibid., p. 119. Dante, in
the treatise De Vulg. Elog., Lib. I, cap. 13 (see note to |. 20, above),
and Lib. II, cap. 6, blames himfor preferring the plebeian to the more
courtly style; and Petrarch twice places him in the company of our
Poet. Triwmph of Love, cap. iv, and Son. Par. Sec., ‘ Sennuccio
mio.’ The eighth book in the collection of the old poets published
by the Giunti in 1527 consists of sonnets and canzoni by Guittone.
They are marked by a peculiar solemnity of manner, of which the
ensuing sonnet will afford a proof and an example.

Gran piacer Signor mio, e gran desire
Harei d’ essere avanti al divin trono,
Dove si prendera pace e perdono
Di suo ben fatto e d’ ogni suo fallire ;

E gran piacer harei hor di sentire
Quella sonante tromba e quel gran suono,
E d@’ udir dire: hora yvenuti sono,

A chi dar pace, a chi crudel martire.

Questo tutto vorici caro signore ;

Perché fia scritto a ciaschedun nel volto
Quel ché gia tenne ascoso dentro al core:

Allhor vedrete a la mia fronte avvolto
Un brieve, che dira; che ’] crudo amore
Per voi me prese, e mai non m’ ha disciolto.

Great joy it were to me to join the throng,
That thy celestial throne, O Lord, surround,
Where perfect peace and pardon shall be found,
Peace for good doings, pardon for the wrong:

Great joy to hear the vault of heaven prolong
That everlasting trumpet’s mighty sound,
That shall to each award their final bound,
Wailing to these, to those the blissful song.

All this, dear Lord, were welcome to my soul.

For on his brow then every one shall bear
Inscribed, what late was hidden in the heart ;
And round my forehead wreathed a lettered scroll

Shall in this tenor my sad fate declare :
*Love’s bondman I from him might never part.’

Bottari doubts whether some of the sonnets attributed to Guittone
in the Rime Antiche are by that writer. See his notes to Lettere di
Fra Guittone, p. 135.

1. 57. That new and sweeter style.} He means the style introduced
in our Poet’s time.

1. 63. The birds.] Hell, Canto V. 46. Euripides, Helena, 1495,
and Statius, Theb., Lib. V. 12.

1. 69. Tired with the motion of a trotting steed.| I have followed
Venturi’s explanation of this passage. Others understand

——_— di trottare é lasso

of the fatigue produced by running.
1. 78. The place.] Florence.

480 NOTES

1. 81. He.1 Corso Donati was suspected of aiming at the sovereignty
of Florence. To escape the fury of his fellow citizens, he fled away
on horseback, but falling, was overtaken and slain, a. p. 1308. The
contemporary annalist, after relating at length the circumstances of
his fate, adds, ‘that he was one of the wisest and most valorous
knights, the best speaker, the most expert statesman, the most re-
nowned and enterprising man of his age in Italy, a comely knight
and of graceful carriage, but very worldly, and in his time had formed
many conspiracies in Florence, and entered into many scandalous
practices for the sake of attaining state and lordship.’ G. Villani,
Lib. VIII, cap. xevi. The character of Corso is forcibly drawn by
another of his contemporaries, Dino Compagni, Lib. III. Muratori,
Rer. Ital. Script., tom. ix, p. 523. Guittone d’Arezzo’s seventh letter
is addressed to him. It is in verse.

1. 120. Creatures of the clouds.| The Centaurs. Ovid, Met., Lib. XII,
fab. 4.

1. 123. The Hebrews.| Judges vii.

1. 125. Zo Madian.]

The matchless Gideon in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquished kings.
Milton, Samson Agonistes, 280.

CANTO XXV

1. 2. The sun.] The sun had passed the meridian two hours, and that
meridian was now occupied by the constellation of Taurus, to which
as the Scorpion is opposite, the latter constellation was consequently
at the meridian of night.

1. 7. So entered we. ]

Davanti a me andava la mia guida:

E poi io dietro per una via stretta

Seguendo lei come mia scorta fida.
Frezzi, Jl Quadrir., Lib. II, cap. 3.

The good prelate of Foligno has followed our Poet so closely through-
out this Capitolo, that it would be necessary to transcribe almost the
whole of it in order to show how much he has copied. These verses
of his own may well be applied to him on the occasion.
1.17. Fear not to speed the shaft.| ‘ Fear not to utter the words

that are already at the tip of thy tongue.’

TIoAAGd pev dpriemys

TAd@ooa po Tofedpat exe Tepl Ketvwv

Kedadjoa. Pindar, Jsthm. vy. 60.

Full many a shaft of sounding rhyme
Stands trembling on my lip
Their glory to declare.

1. 19. How there can leanness come.| ‘ How can spirits, that need
not corporeal nourishment, be subject to leanness ?’ This question
gives rise to the following explanation of Statius respecting the forma-
tion of the human body from the first, its junction with the soul,
and the passage of the latter to another world.

PURGATORY, CANTO XXV 481

]. 22. Meleager.] Virgil reminds Dante that, as Meleager was
wasted away by the decree of the fates, and not through want of
blood ; so by the divine appointment, there may be leanness where
there is no need of nourishment.

1. 25. In the mirror.| As the reflection of a form in a mirror is modi-
fied in agreement with the modification of the form itself; so the
soul, separated from the earthly body, impresses the image or ghost
of that body with its own affections.

1. 50. From whence it came.| * From the heart,’ as Lombardi rightly
interprets it.

1. 58. As sea-sponge.| The foetus is in this stage a zodphyte.

1. 64. Babe.] By ‘ fante ’, which is here rendered ‘ babe ’, is meant
‘the human creature’. ‘The creature that is distinguished from
others by its faculty of speech,’ just as Homer calls men,

yeveal pepdtav avOpwrmwy,
1 G5. ——— More wise,
Than thou, has erred.
Averroes is said to be here meant. Venturi refers to his commentary
on Aristotle, De Anim., Lib. IIL, cap. 5, for the opinion that there is
only one universal intellect or mind pervading every individual of
the human race. Much of the knowledge displayed by our Poet in
the present Canto, appears to have been derived from the medical
work of Averroes called the Colliget, Lib. II, f. 10. Ven. 1490, fol.

1.79. Mark the sun’s heat.| Redi and Tiraboschi (Mr. Mathias’s ed.,
v. ii, p. 36) have considered this as an anticipation of a profound
discovery of Galileo’s in natural philosophy; but it is in reality
taken from a passage in Cicero, De Senectute, where, speaking of the
grape, he says, ‘ quae, et suco terrae et calore solis augescens, primo
est peracerba gustatu, deinde maturata dulcescit.’

1. 81. When Lachests hath spun the thread.| When a man’s life on
earth is at an end.

1.118. O God of mercy /| ‘Summae Deus clementiae.’ The be-
ginning of the hymn sung on the Sabbath at matins, as it stands in
the ancient breviaries; for in the modern it is ‘Summae Parens
clementiae.’ Lombardi.

1. 123. I do not know a man.| Luke i. 34.

1. 126. Callisto.| See Ovid, Met., Lib. II, fab. 5.

1.133. The wound that healeth last.| The marginal note in the
Monte Cassino MS. on this passage is: ‘id est ultima litera quae
denotat ultimum peccatum mortale;’ and the editor remarks, that
Dante in these last two verses admonishes himself, and in himself all
those guilty of carnal sin, in what manner the wound, inflicted by it,
and expressed by the last P on his forehead, may be healed.

CANTO XXVI

]. 42. Their first song, weeping, and their several shout.] See the last
Canto; Js. 318,123:
l. 64, ——— Amaze,
' (Not long the inmate of a noble heart.)]
——-— stupore scarche,
Lo qual negli alti cor tosto s’attuta.

482 NOTES

Thus Speroni:

lo stupore
Lo qual dagli alti cor tosto si parte. Canace.

He does not say that wonder is not natural to a lofty mind, for
it is the very principle of knowledge (pada yap giAoadgov TovTo Td
maQos, TO Oavpaterv, ov yap GAAn apx} Pirdogodias h avtn. Plato,
Theaet., 155 d.), but that it is not of long continuance in
such a mind. On this subject it is well said by Doctor Horsley :
‘Wonder, connected with a principle of rational curiosity, is the
source of all knowledge and discovery, and it is a principle even of
piety: but wonder, which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with
wonder, is the quality of an idiot.’ Sermons, vol. i, p. 227. Compare
Aristotle, Metaph., Lib. I, p. 335, edit. Sylb. The above passage
from Plato is adduced by Clemens Alexand. Strom., Lib. II, sect. 9.

1. 70. Caesar.| For the opprobrium cast on Caesar’s effeminacy, see
Suetonius, Julius Caesar, c. 49.

1. 83. Guinicelli.| See note to Canto XI. 96.

1. 87. Lycurgus.] Statius, Theb., Lib. IV and V. Hypsipile had
left her infant charge, the son of Lycurgus, on a bank, where it was
destroyed by a serpent, when she went to show the Argive army the
river of Langia: and, on her escaping the effects of Lycurgus’s
resentment, the joy her own children felt at the sight of her was such
as our Poet felt on beholding his predecessor Guinicelli. The incidents
are beautifully described in Statius, and seem to have made an
impression on Dante, for he before (Canto X XII. 110) characterizes
Hypsipile as her—

Who showed Langia’s wave.

]. 111. He.] The united testimony of Dante and of Petrarch places
Arnault Daniel at the head of the Provengal poets.

—— poi vera un drappello
Di portamenti e di volgari strani:
Fra tutti il primo Arnaldo Daniello
Gran maestro d’amor ch’ a la sua terra
Ancor fa onor col suo dir nuovo e bello.
Petrarca, T'rionfo d’ Amore, c. iv.

That he was born of poor but noble parents, at the castle of Ribeyrac
in Périgord, and that he was at the English court, is the amount of
Millot’s information concerning him (tom. ii, p. 479). The account
there given of his writings is not much more satisfactory, and the
criticism on them must go for little better than nothing. It is to be
regretted that we have not an opportunity of judging for ourselves
of his ‘ love ditties and his tales of prose ’.
Versi d’amore e prose di romanzi.

Our Poet frequently cites him in the work De Vwgari Eloquio.
In the second chapter of the second book, he is instanced as one *‘ who
had treated of love’; and in the tenth chapter, he is said to have
used in almost all his canzoni a particular kind of stanza, the sestine,
which Dante had followed in one of his own canzoni, beginning,

Al poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d’ombra.
This stanza is termed by Gray, ‘ both in sense and sound, a very mean

PURGATORY, CANTO XxXVI 483

composition.’ Gray’s Works, 4to, Lond. 1814, vol. ii, p. 23. Accord-
ing to Crescimbeni (Della Volg. Poes., Lib. I, p. 7, ed. 1698), he died
in 1189. Arnault Daniel was not soon forgotten ; for Ausias March,
a Catalonian, who was himself distinguished as a Provengal poet in
the middle of the fifteenth century, makes honourable mention of him
in some yerses, which are quoted by Bastero in his Crusca Provenzale,
ediz. Roma, 1724, p. 75.

Envers alguns aco miracle par ;

Mas sin’s membram d’en Arnau Daniel

E de aquels que la terra los es vel,

Sabrem Amor vers nos que pot donar.

To some this seems a miracle to be;

But if we Arnault Daniel call to mind,

And those beside, whom earthly veil doth bind,
We then the mighty power of love shall see.

Since this note was written, M. Raynouard has made us better
acquainted with the writings and history of the Provengal poets.
I have much pleasure in citing the following particulars respecting
Arnault Daniel from his Choiz des Poésies des Troubadours, tom. ii,
pp- 318, 319. ‘ L’autorité de Dante suffirait pour nous convaincre
qu’ Arnaud Daniel avait composé plusieurs romans. Mais il reste
une preuve positive de lexistence d’un roman d’Arnaud Daniel ;
e’est celui de Lancelot du Lac, dont la traduction fut faite, vers la
fin du treiziéme siécle, en allemand, par Ulrich de Zatchitschoven,
qui nomme Arnaud Daniel comme l auteur original.’? ‘ Le Tasse,
dans l’un de ses ouvrages,? s’exprime en ces termes, au sujet des
romans composés par les troubadours: E romanzi furono detti quei
poemi, o pit tosto quelle istorie favolose, che furono scritte nella
lingua de’ Provenzali o de’ Castigliani; le quali non si scrivevano in
versi, ma in prosa, come alcuni hanno osservato prima da me, perché
Dante, parlando d’Arnaldo Daniello, disse :

Versi d’amore e prose di romanzi, &c.

Enfin Pulci, dans son Morgante Maggiore, nomme Arnaud Daniel
comme auteur d’un roman de Renaud:

Dopo costui venne il famoso Arnaldo
Che molto diligentemente ha scritto,
E investigd le opre di Rinaldo,
De le gran cose che fece in Egitto,’ &c.
Morgante Maggiore, Canto X XVII, ott. 80.

See also Raynouard, tom. v. 30.

1 Des extraits de cette traduction allemande ont été publiés.
2 Discorso sopra il parere fatto dei Signor Fr. Patricio, &c., edit.
fol., tom. iv, p. 210.

1. 1138. The songster of Limoges.| Giraud de Borneil, of Sideuil,
a castle in Limoges. He was a Troubadour, much admired and
caressed in his day, and appears to have been in favour with the
monarchs of Castile, Leon, Navarre, and Aragon. Giraud is men-
tioned by Dante ina remarkable passage of the De Vulg. Flog., Lib. II,
cap. 2. * As man is endowed with a triple soul, vegetable, animal,
and rational, so he walks in a triple path. Inasmuch as he is

CARY s

484 NOTES

vegetable, he seeks utility, in which he has a common nature with
plants ; inasmuch as he is animal, he seeks for pleasure, in which
he participates with brutes ; inasmuch as he is rational, he seeks for
honour, in which he is either alone, or is associated with the angels.
Whatever we do, appears to be done through these three principles,
&c.’—‘ With respect to utility, we shall find on a minute inquiry that
the primary object with all who seek it, is safety; with regard to
pleasure, love is entitled to the first place ; and as to honour, no one
will hesitate in assigning the same pre-eminence to virtue. These
three then, safety, love, virtue, appear to be three great subjects,
which ought to be treated with most grandeur; that is, those things
which chiefly pertain to these, as courage in arms, ardency of love,
and the direction of the will: concerning which alone we shall find on
inquiry that illustrious men have composed their poems in the
vernacular tongues; Bertrand de Born, of arms; Arnault Daniel,
of love; Giraud de Borneil, of rectitude; Cino da Pistoia, of iove ;
his friend’ (by whom he means himself), ‘ of rectitude; but I find
no Italian as yet who has treated of arms.’ Giraud is again quoted
in the sixth chapter of this book. The following notice respecting
him is found in Gray’s posthumous Works, 4to, Lond. 1814, vol. ii,
p- 23. ‘The canzone is of very ancient date, the invention of it
being ascribed to Giraud de Borneil of the school of Provence, who
died in 1178. He was of Limoges, and was called ll Maestro de’
Trovatort.’ That he was distinguished by this title (a circumstance
that, perhaps, induced Dante to vindicate the superior claims of
Arnault Daniel) is mentioned by Bastero in his Crusca Provenzale,
ediz. Roma, p. 84, where we find the following list of his MS. poems
preserved in the Vatican, and in the library of 8. Lorenzo at Florence.
‘Una tenzone col Re d’Aragona ; e un Serventese contra Cardaillac,
e diverse Canzoni massimamente tre pel ricuperamento del S. Sepolcro,
o di Terra Santa, ed alcune col titolo di Canterete, cioé picciole
cantari, ovvero canzonette.” The light which these and similar
writings might cast, not only on the events, but still more on the
manners of a most interesting period of history, would surely, without
taking into the account any merit they may possess as poetical
compositions, render them objects well deserving of more curiosity
than they appear to have hitherto excited in the public mind. Many
of his poems are still remaining in MS. According to Nostradamus
he died in 1278. Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troub., tom. ii, pp. 1 and 23.
But I suspect that there is some error in this date, and that he did
not live to so late a period. Some of his poems have since been pub-
lished by Raynouard, Poésies des Troubadours, tom. ili, p. 304, &c.

]. 118. Guittone.] See Canto XXIV. 56.

]. 123. Far as needs.] See Canto XI. 23.

]. 132. Thy courtesy.| Arnault is here made to speak in his own
tongue, the Provencal. According to Dante (De Vulg. Elogq., Lib. I,
c. 8), the Provencal was one language with the Spanish. What he
says on this subject is so curious, that the reader will perhaps not
be displeased if I give an abstract of it. He first makes three great
divisions of the European languages. ‘ One of these extends from
the mouths of the Danube, or the lake of Maeotis, to the western
limits of England, and is bounded by the limits of the French and
Italians, and by the ocean. One idiom obtained over the whole of

PURGATORY, CANTO XXVI 485

this space: but was afterwards subdivided into the Sclavonian,
Hungarian, Teutonic, Saxon, English, and the vernacular tongues
of several other people, one sign remaining to all, that they use the
affirmative to (our English aye). The whole of Europe, beginning
from the Hungarian limits and stretching towards the east, has
a second idiom, which reaches still farther than the end of Europe,
into Asia. This is the Greek. In all that remains of Europe, there
is a third idiom, subdivided into three dialects, which may be severally
distinguished by the use of the affirmatives, oc, oi, and sz; the first
spoken by the Spaniards, the next by the French, the third by the
Latins (or Italians). The first occupy the western part of southern
Europe, beginning from the limits of the Genoese. The third occupy
the eastern part from the said limits, as far, that is, as to the promon-
tory of Italy, where the Adriatic sea begins, and to Sicily. The
second are in a manner northern, with respect to these, for they have
the Germans to the east and north, on the west they are bounded by
the English sea and the mountains of Aragon, and on the south
by the people of Provence and the declivity of the Apennine.’ Ibid.,
ce. x. ‘ Each of these three,’ he observes, ‘has its own claims to
distinction. The excellency of the French language consists in its
being best adapted, on account of its facility and agreeableness, to
prose narration (quicquid redactum, sive inventum est ad vulgare
prosaicum, suumest)’ ; and he instances the books compiled on the
gests of the Trojans and Romans, and the delightful Adventures of
King Arthur, with many other histories and works of instruction.
‘The Spanish (or Provencal) may boast of its having produced such as
first cultivated in this, as in a more perfect and sweet language, the
vernacular poetry : among whom are Pierre d’Auvergne, and others
more ancient. The privileges of the Latin, or Italian, are two;
first, that it may reckon for its own those writers who have adopted
a more sweet and subtile style of poetry, in the number of whom are
Cino da Pistoia and his friend; and the next, that its writers seem
to adhere to certain general rules of grammar, and in so doing give
it, in the opinion of the intelligent, a very weighty pretension to
preference.’ Since the last edition of this book, it has appeared that
Mr. Gray understood by the words ‘ Grammaticae, quae communis
est’ ‘the Latin or mother-tongue,’ and not, as I have rendered
them, ‘ general rules of grammar.’ In this latter sense, however,
the word ‘Grammatica’ has been used twice before in the treatise
De Vulg. Elog., though it is certainly afterwards applied in the sense
in which Gray took it. See the edition of Gray’s Works, for which
we are so much indebted to Mr. Mathias, 4to, London, 1814, vol. ii,
p- 35. We learn from our author’s Vita Nuova, § 25, that there
were no poetic compositions in the Provengal or Italian, more than
one hundred and fifty years before the Vita Nuova was written ;
and that the first who wrote in the vernacular languages, wrote to
make himself understood by a lady. M. Raynouard supposed the
text of all the editions to be miserably corrupted in this place, and
took much pains to restore it. I will add the passage as that learned
writer concluded it to have come from the hand of Dante :—
‘Tan m/’abellis vostre cortes deman,
Ch’ ieu non me puese ni m voil a vos cobrire ;
Jeu sui Arnautz, che plor e vai cantan ;

486 NOTES

Consiros, vei la passada follor,

E vei jauzen lo joi qu’esper denan ;

Aras vos prec, per aquella valor

Que us guida al som sens freich e sens calina,
Sovegna vos atenprar ma dolor.

‘Tant me plait votre courtoise demande,—que je ne puis ni ne me
veux & vous cacher ;—je suis Arnaud, qui pleure et va chantant ;—
soucieux, je vois la passée folie,—et vois joyeux le bonheur, que
jespére a l’avenir ;—maintenant je vous prie, par cette vertu—qui
vous guide au sommet, sans froid et sans chaud; qu'il souvienne
& vous de soulager ma douleur. I] nest pas un des nombreux
manuscrits de la Divina Commedia, pas une des éditions multipliées
qui en ont été données, qui ne présente dans les vers que Dante préte
au troubadour Arnaud Daniel, un texte défiguré et devenu, de copie
en copie, presque inintelligible. Cependant j’ai pensé qu’il n’était
pas impossible de rétablir le texte de ces vers, en comparant avec
soin, dans les manuscrits de Dante que possédent les dépéts publics
de Paris, toutes les variantes qu’ils pouvaient fournir, et en les choisis-
sant d’aprés les régles grammaticales et les notions lexicographiques
de la langue des troubadours. Mon espoir n’a point été trompé, et
sans aucun secours conjectural, sans aucun déplacement ni change-
ment de mots, je suis parvenu, par le simple choix des variantes,
a retrouver le texte primitif, tel qu’il a di étre produit par Dante.’
Raynouard, Lexique Roman, tom. i, p. xlii, 8°. Par. 1830.

CANTO XXVII

1.1. The sun.] At Jerusalem it was dawn, in Spain midnight, and
in India noonday, while it was sunset in Purgatory.
1. 10. Blessed.| Matt. v. 8.
Tae: ——— As one
Laid in the grave.)

Quale é colui che nella fossa é messo.

Lombardi understands this of a man who is taken to execution in the
manner described in Hell, Canto XIX. 52. ‘ Colui,’ he thinks, cannot
be properly applied to a corse. Yet Boccaccio’s imitation confirms
the opinion of the other commentators :—
Essa era tale, a guardarla nel viso,
Qual donna morta alla fossa portata.
Il Fulostrato, p. v, st. 83.

which Chaucer has thus translated :-—
She was right swich to seen in hir visage,

As is that wight that men on bere binde.
Troilus and Criseyde, Book IV, st. 124.

1. 40. While vermeil dyed the mulberry.] Ovid, Metam., Lib. IV. 125.

1. 57. Come.|] Matt. xxv. 34.

J. 102. Z am Leah.| By Leah is understood the active life, as
Rachel figures the contemplative. Michel Angelo has made these
allegorical personages the subject of two statues on the monument

PURGATORY, CANTO XXVII 487

of Julius II in the church of 8. Pietro in Vincolo. See Mr. Duppa’s
Infe of Michel Angelo, Sculpture, viii and x, and p. 247.

1. 104. To please me.] ‘ For the sake of that enjoyment which
I shall have in beholding my God face to face, I thus exercise myself
in good works.’

1. 105. She.] ‘ Her delight is in admiring in her mirror, that is, in
the Supreme Being, the light, or knowledge, that He vouchsafes her.’

1. 133. Lo / the herb.| ‘ In alium campum transit amoenissimum.—
Ipse vero campus splendidus, suavis ac decorus quantae magnitudinis,
quantae gloriae, quantaeque sit pulchritudinis, nulla lingua, nullusque
sermo, potest enarrare: plenus est enim omni iucunditate, et gaudio,
et laetitia. Ibi liliorum, et rosarum odor, ibi odoramentorum
omnium redolet fragrantia, ibi mannae, omniumque eternarum
deliciarum redundat abundantia. In huius campi medio paradisus
est.’ Alberict Visio, § 20.

1. 135. Those bright eyes.| The eyes of Beatrice.

CANTO XXVIII
1. 7. A pleasant air.]

Cantan fra i rami gli augelletti vaghi,
Azzurri, e bianchi, e verdi, e rossi, e gialli;
Mormoranti ruscelli, e cheti laghi
Di limpidezza vincono i cristalli.
Una dole’ aura, che ti par che vaghi
A un modo sempre, e dal suo stil non falli,
Facea si Paria tremolar d’intorno,
Che non potea nojar calor del giorno.
Ariosto, Orl. Fur., c. xxxiv, st. 50.

Therwith a wind, unnethe hit might be lesse,
Made in the leves grene a noise softe,
Accordant to the foules songe on-lofte.
Chaucer, Parlement of Foules, 201.

1. 11. Yo that part.| The west.

1. 14. The feathered choristers.| Imitated by Boccaccio, Fiammetta,
Lib. IV. ‘ Odi i queruli uccelli,’ &c..—‘ Hear the querulous birds
plaining with sweet songs, and the boughs trembling, and moved by
a gentle wind, as it were keeping tenor to their notes.’

]. 20. Chiassi.] This is the wood, where the scene of Boccaccio’s
sublimest story (taken entirely from Elinaud, as I learn in the notes
to the Decameron, ediz. Giunti, 1573, p. 62) is laid. See Dec., G. 5,
N. 8, and Dryden’s Theodore and Honoria. Our Poet perhaps
wandered in it during his abode with Guido Novello da Polenta.

1. 41. A lady.| Most of the commentators suppose that by this
lady, who in the last Canto is called Matilda, is to be understood the
Countess Matilda, who endowed the holy see with the estates called
the Patrimony of St. Peter, and died in 1115. See G. Villani, Lib. IV,
cap. xx. But it seems more probable that she should be intended
for an allegorical personage. Venturi accordingly supposes that
she represents the active life. But, as Lombardi justly observes,
we have had that already shadowed forth in the character of Leah ;
and he therefore suggests, that by Matilda may be understood that

488 NOTES

affection which we ought to bear towards the holy church, and for
which the lady above mentioned was so remarkable.

1. 71. A curb for ever to the pride of man.| Because Xerxes had been
so humbled, when he was compelled to repass the Hellespont in one
small bark, after having a little before crossed with a prodigious army,
in the hopes of subduing Greece.

1. 80. Thou, Lord ! hast made me glad.| Ps. xcii. 4.

1. 85. I know not how.] See Canto XXI. 45.

]. 104. Of elements contending.| In the Dittamondo of Fazio degli
Uberti, Lib. I, cap. xi, thereisa description of the terrestrial Paradise,
in which the poet has had Dante before him.

1. 116. The other land.| The continent inhabited by the living, and
separated from Purgatory by the ocean, is affected (and that diversely,
according to the nature of the soil, or the climate) by a virtue, or
efficacy, conveyed to it by the winds from plants growing in the
terrestrial Paradise, which is situated on the summit of Purgatory ;
and this is the cause why some plants are found on earth without
any apparent seed to produce them.

]. 147. On the Parnassian mountain. |

In bicipiti somniasse Parnaso.
Persius, Prol.

1. 149. Perpetual spring.|

Ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris
Mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores.

Flumina inna lactis, ian flumina nectaris ibant.
Ovid, Metam., Lib. I, v. 111.

CANTO XXIxX
l. 1. Singing. }
Cantava come fosse ’nnamorata.
Guido Cavalcanti, Poeti del primo secolo, v. 2, p. 283.

1]. 2. Blessed they.] Ps. xxxii. 1.
1. 39. Urania.] Landino observes that, intending to sing of heavenly
things, he rightly invokes Urania. Thus Milton:

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called.
PL Book Vi 1

1. 49. Tapers of gold.| See Rev. i. 12. The commentators are not
agreed whether the seven sacraments of the Church or the seven
gifts of the Spirit are intended. In his Convito, our author says :
* Because these gifts proceed from ineffable charity, and divine charity
is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, hence, also, it is that they are
called gifts of the Holy Spirit, the which, as Isaiah distinguishes them,
are seven.’ IV. xxi.

1. 58. The bride.]

E come va per via sposa novella
A passi rari, e porta gli occhi bassi
Con faccia vergognosa, e non favella.
Frezzi, Jl Quadrir., Lib. I, cap. 16.

PURGATORY, CANTO XXIX 489

1. 73. Leaving. |

Lasciando dietro a se l’aer dipinto.
Che lascia dietro a se l’aria dipinta.
Mr. Mathias’s ‘Ode to Mr. Nichols’, Gray’s Works, vol. i, p. 532.

1. 75. Pencils.] Since this translation was made, Perticari has
affixed another sense to the word ‘ pennelli’, which he interprets
* pennons ’ or ‘streamers’. Monti, in his Proposta, highly applauds
the discovery. The conjecture loses something of its probability,
if we read the whole passage, not as Monti gives it, but as it stands
in Landino’s edition of 1484.

Et vidi le fiammelle andar davante
lasciando drieto a se laire dipinto
che di tratti pennegli havea sembiante

Siche li sopra rimanea distinto
di sette liste tutte in que colori
onde fa larcho el sole & delia elcinto.

]. 76. Listed colours. ]

Di sette liste tutte in quei colori, &c.
—— a bow
Conspicuous with three listed colours gay.
Milton, P. L., Book XI. 861.

1. 79. Ten paces.| For an explanation of the allegorical meaning
of this mysterious procession, Venturi refers those, “who would see
in the dark,’ to the commentaries of Landino, Vellutello, and others :
and adds, that it is evident the Poet has accommodated to his own
fancy many sacred images in the Apocalypse. In Vasari’s Life of
Giotto, we learn that Dante recommended that book to his friend,
as affording fit subjects for his pencil.

1. 81. Four and twenty elders.}| *‘ Upon the seats I saw four and
twenty elders sitting.’ Rev. iv. 4.

1. 83. Blessed be thou.| * Blessed art thou among women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb.’ Luke i. 42.

1. 89. Four.] The four evangelists.

1. 96. EHzekiel.] ‘ And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out
of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness
was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out
of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the like-
ness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they
had the likeness of aman. And every one had four faces, and every
one had four wings.’ Ezek. i. 4, 5, 6.

1, 101. John.] * And the four beasts had each of them six wings
about him.’ Rev.iv. 8. ‘ Aliter senas alas propter senarii numeri
perfectionem positum arbitror ; quia in sexta aetate, id est adveniente
plenitudine temporum, haec Apostolus peracta commemorat; in
novissimo enim animali conclusit omnia.’ Primasii, Augustini
discipuli, Episcopi Comment. lib quinque in Apocal., ed. Basil, 1544.
‘With this interpretation it is very consonant that Ezekiel discovered
in these animals only four wings, because his prophecy does not extend
beyond the fourth age: beyond that is the end of the synagogue
and the calling of the Gentiles : whereas Dante beholding them in the
sixth age, saw them with six wings, as did Saint John.’ Lombardi.

490 NOTES

1. 103. A car triumphal.] Either the Christian church, or perhaps
the Papal chair.

1. 104. Gryphon.] Under the gryphon, an imaginary creature, the
fore-part of which is an eagle, and the hinder a lion, is shadowed
forth the union of the divine and the human nature in Jesus Christ.

1. 110. So beautiful.]

E certo quando Roma pit onore
Di carro trionfale a Scipione
Fece, non fu cotal, né di splendore
Passato fu da quello, il qual Fetone
Abbandond per soverchio tremore.
Boccaccio, Teseide, Lib. IX, st. 31.

Thus in the Quadriregio, Lib. I, cap. 5.

Mai vide Roma carro trionfante
Quanto era questo bel, ne vedra unquanco.

1.115. Tellus’ prayer.| Ovid, Met., Lib. II, v. 279.

l. 116. Three nymphs.] The three evangelical virtues: the first
Charity, the next Hope, and the third Faith. Faith may be produced
by charity, or charity by faith, but the inducements to hope must
arise either from one or other of these.

1. 125. A band quaternion.| The four moral or cardinal virtues, of
whom Prudence directs the others.

120. ——— One

The rest conducted. |

Prudence, described with three eyes, because she regards the past,
the present, and the future.

1. 129. Two old men.|] Saint Luke, the physician, characterized as
the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, and Saint Paul, represented
with a sword, on account, as it should seem, of the power of his style.

1. 133. Of the great Coan.] Hippocrates, ‘whom nature made for
the benefit of her favourite creature, man.’

1. 138. Four others.| “The commentators,’ says Venturi, ‘ suppose
these four to be the four evangelists ; but I should rather take them
to be four principal doctors of the church.’ Yet both Landino and
Vellutello expressly call them the authors of the epistles, James,
Peter, John, and Jude.

1. 140. One single old man.] As some say, Saint John, under the
character of the author of the Apocalypse. But, in the poem attri-
buted to Jacopo, the son of our Poet, which in some MSS. and in one
of the earliest editions, accompanies the original of this work, and is
descriptive of its plan, this old man is said to be Moses.

FE’! vecchio, ch’ era dietro a tutti loro,
Fu Moyse.
And the old man, who was behind them all,
Was Moses.
See No. 3459 of the Harl. MSS. in the British Museum.
1. 146. All on fire.] So Giles Fletcher,
The wood’s late wintry head

With flaming primroses set all on fire.
Christ’s Triumph after Death.

PURGATORY, CANTO XXX 491

CANTO XXX

1. 1. That polar light.| The seven candlesticks of gold, which he calls
the polar light of heaven itself, because they perform the same office
for Christians that the polar star does for mariners, in guiding them
to their port.

1. 12. Come.] ‘Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me,
from Lebanon.’ Song of Sol. iv. 8.

1. 19. Blessed.| ‘ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’
Matt. xxi. 9.

1. 20. From full hands.)

Manibus date lilia plenis.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 883.
]. 28. ——— Ina cloud
Of flowers. |
Dentro una nuvola di fiori.
——— ninguntque rosarum
Floribus, umbrantes matrem, &c.

Lucretius, Lib. II, 627.
Thus Milton :

Eve separate he spies,
Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood.
P. L., Book IX, v. 424.
And Thomson, in his Spring, 1. 3:
veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

]. 34. And.] In the first edition it stood thus:

And o’er my spirit, that in former days

Within her presence had abode so long,

No shuddering terror crept. Mine eyes no more

Had knowledge of her; yet there moved from her
A hidden virtue, at whose touch awaked, &c.,

and this was a translation of the common reading, which has ‘con la
sua presenza’, instead of ‘che alla sua presenza’, and a full stop
instead of a comma after ‘infranto’. As I have little doubt but
that the reading of the Nidobeatina edition and that of many MSS.
is right in this instance, I have altered the version as it now stands
in the text, which still perhaps needs some explanation. His spirit,
which had been so long unawed by the presence of Beatrice (for she
had been ten years dead) now felt, through a secret influence pro-
ceeding from her, its ancient love revived, though his sight had not
yet distinguished her.
]. 38. The power of ancient love.|

D’antico amor senti la gran potenza.

Io sento si d’amor la gran possanza.
Dante, Canzone xiv.

Sveglia d’antico amor la gran possanza.
Mr. Mathias’s ‘Ode to Mr. Nichols’, Gray's Works,
4to, 1814, vol. i, p. 532.

492 NOTES

1. 46. The old flame.] Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. IV. 23.

Conosco i segni dell’ antico fuoco.
Giusto de’ Conti, La Bella Mano.

1. 50. Nor.] ‘ Not all the beauties of the terrestrial Paradise, in
which I was, were sufficient to allay my grief.’

]. 84. But.| They sang the thirty-first Psalm, to the end of the
eighth verse. What follows in that Psalm would not have suited the
place or the occasion.

1. 86. The living rafters.) ‘Vive travi” The leafless woods on
the Apennine.

Fraxineaeque trabes.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 181.

and Trabibusque obscurus acernis.
Ibid., Lib. 1X. 87.

1]. 89. The land whereon no shadow falls.| ‘ When the wind blows
from off Africa, where, at the time of the equinox, bodies, being
under the equator, cast little or no shadow ; or, in other words, when
the wind is south.’

1.97. The ice.] Milton has transferred this conceit, though scarcely
worth the pains of removing, into one of his Italian poems, Son. v.

1. 101. Same edge.| The Nidobeatina edition and many MSS. here
read ‘detta coscia’, instead of ‘ destra’, or ‘dritta coscia’; and it
is probable, from what has gone before, that the former is the right
reading. See v. 60.

1. 117. In the freshness of his being.]

Nella sua vita nuova.

Some suppose our Poet alludes to the work so called, written in his
outh.

1. 126. The threshold of my second age.| In the Convito, our Poet
makes a division of human life into four ages, the first of which lasts
till the twenty-fifth year. Beatrice, therefore, passed from this life
to a better, about that period. See the ‘ Life of Dante’ prefixed.

]. 145. Such food.| The oblivion of sins.

CANTO XXXI

1. 3. With but lateral edge.| The words of Beatrice, when not
addressed directly to himself, but spoken to the angel of him, Dante
had thought sufficiently harsh.

]. 39. Counter to the edge.| ‘The weapons of divine justice are
blunted by the confession and sorrow of the offender.’

1. 56. For a slight girl.| ‘ Daniello and Venturi say that this alludes
to Gentucca of Lucca, mentioned in the twenty-fourth Canto. They
did not, however, observe that Bonagiunta there gives us to under-
stand that Dante knew not if Gentucca were then in the world, and
that Beatrice is now reprehending him for past and not for future
errors. Thus Lombardi. Pelli (Memor., p. 57) acquaints us that
Corbinelli, in the ‘ Life of Dante’ added to the edition of the De Vulg.
Elog., says the name of this lady was ‘ Pargoletta’. But the intima-

PURGATORY, CANTO XXXI 493

tion, as Pelli justly remarks, can scarcely be deemed authentic. The
annotator on the Monte Cassino MS. gives a very different turn to
the allusion. ‘ Quae proca fuit,’ &c. ‘This was either a mistress,
or else it is put for the poetic art, as when he says in a certain song :

Io mi son pargoletta bella e nuova
E son venuta,

which rebuke of Beatrice’s may be delivered in the person of many
theologians dissuading from poetry and other worldly sciences;
a rebuke that should be directed against those who read the poets to
gratify their own inclination, and not for the sake of instruction, that
they may defeat the errors of the Gentiles.’ It remains to be con-
sidered whether our Poet’s marriage with Gemma Donati, and the
difficulties in which that engagement involved him, may not be
the object of Beatrice’s displeasure.

]. 58. Bird. ‘ Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any
bird:-4pBrovait: ii

]. 69. From Iarbas’ land.| The south.

]. 71. The beard.| ‘I perceived, that when she desired me to raise
my beard, instead of telling me to lift up my head, a severe reflection
was implied on my want of that wisdom which should accompany
the age of manhood.’

]. 74. Than I perceived.) I had before translated this differently,
and in agreement with those editions which read,

Posarsi quelle belle creature
Da loro apparsion,

instead of
Posarsi quelle prime creature
Da loro aspersion,

for which reading I am indebted to Lombardi, who derives it from
the Nidobeatina edition. By the ‘ primal creatures’ are meant the
angels, who were scattering the flowers on Beatrice.

1.91. The lady.| Matilda.

1. 98. T'u asperges me.| ‘ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ Ps. li. 7. Sung by the
choir, while the priest is sprinkling the people with holy water.

]. 106. And in the heaven are stars.| See Canto IJ. 24.

]. 111. Those yonder three.| Faith, hope, and charity.

]. 116. The emeralds.| The eyes of Beatrice. The author of
Illustrations of Shakespeare, 8vo, 1807, vol. ii, p. 193, has referred
to old writers by whom the epithet green is given to eyes, as by the
early French poets, and by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 111. v. 221.

an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye.

Mr. Douce’s conjecture, that eyes of this colour are much less common
now than formerly, is not so probable as that writers, and especially
poets, should at times be somewhat loose and general in applying
terms expressive of colour, whereof an instance may be seen in some
ingenious remarks by Mr. Blomfield on the word xvaveos. Aeschyli
Persae., edit. 1814, Glossar., p. 107.

494 NOTES

CANTO XXXII

]. 2. Their ten years’ thirst.| Beatrice had been dead ten years.

]. 9. Too fixed a gaze.] The allegorical interpretation of Vellutello,
whether it be considered as justly inferable from the text or not,
conveys so useful a lesson, that it deserves our notice. ‘The under-
standing is sometimes so intently engaged in contemplating the light
of divine truth in the Scriptures, that it becomes dazzled, and is
made less capable of attaining such knowledge than if it had sought
after it with greater moderation.’

]. 12. But soon.] As soon as his sight was recovered, so as to
bear the view of that glorious procession, which, splendid as it was,
was yet less so than Beatrice, by whom his vision had been over-
powered, &c.

1. 37. A plant.| Lombardi has conjectured, with much probability,
that this tree is not (as preceding commentators had supposed)
merely intended to represent the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
but that the Roman empire is figured by it. Among the maxims
maintained by our Poet, as the same commentator observes, were
these : that one monarchy had been willed by Providence, and was
necessary for universal peace; and that this monarchy, by right
of justice and by the divine ordinance belonged to the Roman people
only. His treatise De Monarchia was written indeed to inculcate
these maxims, and to prove that the temporal monarchy depends
immediately on God, and should be kept as distinct as possible from
the authority of the Pope.

]. 39. Its tresses.| ‘I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the
earth, and the height thereof was great.’ Dan. iv. 10.

l 41. The Indians. ]

Quos oceano proprior gerit India lucos.
Virg. Georg., Lib. II. 122.

Such as at this day to Indians known.
Milton, P. L., Book IX. 1102.

1. 41. Blessed thou,

Gryphon !]
Our Saviour’s submission to the Roman empire appears to be intended,
and particularly his injunction, ‘to render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar’s.’

]. 50. There, left unto the stock.| Dante here seems, I think, to
intimate what he has attempted to prove at the conclusion of the
second book De Monarchia; namely, that our Saviour, by his
suffering under the sentence, not of Herod, but of Pilate, who was
the delegate of the Roman emperor, acknowledged and confirmed
the supremacy of that emperor over the whole world ; for if, as he
argues, all mankind were become sinners through the sin of Adam,
no punishment, that was inflicted by one who had a right of juris-
diction over less than the whole human race, could have been sufficient
to satisfy for the sins of all men. See note to Paradise, Canto VI. 89.

1. 51. When large floods of radiance.| When the sun enters into
Aries, the constellation next to that of the Fish.

]. 63. The unpitying eyes.| See Ovid, Met., Lib. I. 689.

1. 74. The blossoming of that fair tree.| Our Saviour’s transfiguration.

PURGATORY, CANTO XXXII 495

‘As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved
among the sons.’ Song of Sol. ii. 3.

1. 77. Deeper sleeps.| The sleep of death, in the instance of the
ruler of the Synagogue’s daughter and of Lazarus,

]. 82. The piteous one.| Matilda.

1. 97. Those lights.| The tapers of gold.

1. 101. Of that true Rome.| Of heaven.

1. 104. Yo that place.| To the earth.

1. 110. The bird of Jove.| This, which is imitated from Ezek. xvii.
3, 4, is typical of the persecutions which the church sustained from
the Roman emperors.

1. 118. A fox.] By the fox probably is represented the treachery
of the heretics.

1. 124. With his feathers lined.| In allusion to the donations made
by Constantine to the church.

1. 130. A dragon.| Probably Mahomet ; for what Lombardi offers
to the contrary is far from satisfactory.

1. 136. With plumes.| The increase of wealth and temporal dominion
which followed the supposed gift of Constantine.

]. 142. Heads.| By the seven heads, it is supposed with sufficient
probability, are meant the seven capital sins: by the three with
two horns, pride, anger, and avarice, injurious both to man himself
and to his neighbour: by the four with one horn, gluttony, gloominess,
concupiscence, and envy, hurtful, at least in their primary effects,
chiefly to him who is guilty of them. Vellutello refers to Rev. xvii.
Landino, who is followed by Lombardi, understands the seven heads
to signify the seven sacraments, and the ten horns the ten command-
ments. Compare Hell, Canto XIX. 112.

]. 146. O’er it.| The harlot is thought to represent the state of the
church under Boniface VIII, and the giant to figure Philip IV of
France.

l. 155. Dragged on.| The removal of the Pope’s residence from
Rome to Avignon is pointed at.

CANTO XXXII

]. 1. The heathen.) *‘O God, the heathen are come into thine in-
heritance.’ Ps. Ixxix. 1.

]. 10. Yet a little while.] ‘ A little while, and ye shall not see me ;
and again a little while, and ye shall see me.’ John xvi. 16.

1. 15. That remaining sage.| Statius.

]. 33. As one who dreams.| Imitated by Petrarch, Lib. I, s. 41.

Se parole fai,
Sono imperfette e quasi d’uom che sogna.

]. 35. Was, and is not.| ‘The beast that was, and is not.’ Rev.
xvii. 11.

]. 36. Hope not to scare God’s vengeance with a sop.| ‘ Let not him
who hath occasioned the destruction of the church, that vessel which
the serpent brake, hope to appease the anger of the Deity by any
outward acts of religious, or rather superstitious ceremony ; such as
was that, in our Poet’s time, performed by a murderer at Florence,

496 NOTES

who imagined himself secure from vengeance, if he ate a sop of bread
in wine upon the grave of the person murdered, within the space of
nine days.’
1. 38. That eagle.| He prognosticates that the Emperor of Germany
will not always continue to submit to the usurpations of the Pope,
and foretells the coming of Henry VII, Duke of Luxemburg, signi-
fied by the numerical figures DVX ; or, as Lombardi supposes, of
Can Grande della Scala, appointed the leader of the Ghibelline forces.
It is unnecessary to point out the imitation of the Apocalypse in the
manner of this prophecy. Troya assigns reasons for applying the
prediction to Uguccione della Faggiola rather than to Henry or Can
Grande. Veltro Allegorico di Dante, ediz. 1826, p. 143. But see
my note, Hell, Lib. I. 102.
1. 50. The Naiads.| Dante, it is observed, has been led into a mis-
take by acorruption in the text of Ovid's Metam., Lib. VIL. 759, where
he found—
Carmina Naiades non intellecta priorum
Solvunt,

instead of
Carmina Laiades non intellecta priorum
Solverat,

as it has been since corrected by Heinsius. Lombardi, after Rosa
Morando, questions the propriety of this emendation, and refers to
Pausanias, where ‘the Nymphs’ are spoken of as expounders of
oracles, for a vindication of the poet’s accuracy. Should the reader
blame me for not departing from the error of the original (if error it
be), he may substitute

Events shall be the Oedipus will solve, &c.

1.51. No damage light.]

Protinus Aoniis immissa est bellua Thebis,
Cessit et exitio multis; pecorique sibique
Ruricolae pavere feram. Ovid, ibid.

1. 57. Twice.] First by the eagle and next by the giant. See the
last Canto, Il. 110, 153.

1.61. Five thousand years.| That such was the opinion of the church,
Lombardi shows by a reference to Baronius, Martyr. Rom., Dec. 25:
‘ Anno a creatione mundi, quando a principio creavit Deus coelum
et terram, quinquies millesimo centesimo nonagesimo—Jesus Christus
—conceptus.’ Edit. Col. Agripp. 4to, 1610, p. 858.

]. 65. Inverted.) The branches, unlike those of other trees, spread-
ing more widely the higher they rose. See the last Canto, v. 39.

1. 67. Elsa's numbing waters.| The Elsa, a little stream, which flows
into the Arno about twenty miles below Florence, is said to possess
a petrifying quality. Fazio degli Uberti, at the conclusion of lib. iii,
cap. viil, of the Dittumondo, mentions a successful experiment he had
himself made of the property here attributed to it.

1]. 69. Thou hadst seen.| This is obscure. But it would seem as if
he meant to inculcate his favourite doctrine of the inviolability of
the empire, and of the care taken by Providence to protect it.

]. 78. That one brings home his staff inwreathed with palm.| ‘ For
the same cause that the palmer, returning from Palestine, brings

PURGATORY, CANTO XXXII 497

home his staff, or bourdon, bound with palm,’ that is, to show where
he has been.
Che si reca il bordon di palma cinto.

“It is to be understood,’ says our Poet in the Vita Nuova, ‘ that
people, who go on the service of the Most High, are probably named
in three ways. They are named palmers, inasmuch as they go
beyond sea, from whence they often bring back the palm. Inasmuch
as they go to the house of Galicia, they are called pilgrims; because
the sepulchre of St. James was farther from his country than that
of any other Apostle. They are called Romei’ (for which I know of
no other word we have in English except Roamers), ‘inasmuch as
they go to Rome’ (§ 41). ‘In regard to the word bourdon, why
it has been applied to a pilgrim’s staff, it is not easy to guess. I be-
lieve, however, that this name has been given to such sort of staves,
because pilgrims usually travel and perform their pilgrimages on
foot, their staves serving them instead of horses or mules, then called
bourdons and burdones, by writers in the Middle Ages.’ Mr. Johnes’s
Translation of Joinville’s Memoirs, Dissertation XV, by M. du Cange,
p. 152, 4to edit. The word is thrice used by Chaucer in the Romaunt
of the Rose.

1. 87. Mayst behold your art.| The second persons, singular and
plural, are here used intentionally by our author, the one referring
to himself alone, the second to mankind in general. Compare Hell,
XT. 106. But I will follow the example of Brunck, who in a
note on a passage in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, v. 369, where
a similar distinction requires to be made, says that it would be
ridiculous to multiply instances in a matter so well known.

1. 106. So paused.| Lombardi imagines that the seven nymphs,
who represent the four cardinal and the three evangelical virtues,
are made to stop at the verge of the shade, because retirement is the
friend of every virtuous quality and spiritual gift.

1. 112. I, Tigris and Euphrates.|

Quaque caput rapido tollit cum Tigride magnus
Euphrates, quos non diversis fontibus edit
Persis.

Lucan, Phars., Lib. III. 258.

Tigris et Euphrates uno se fonte resolvunt.
Boethius, de Consol. Philosoph., Lib. V, Metr. 1.

la oltre ond’ esce
D’un medesimo fonte Eufrate e Tigre.
Petrarca, Son. Mie Venture, cc.

1. 141. Renewed.]

come piante novelle
Rinnovellate di novella fronda.

So new this new-borne knight to battle new did rise.
Spenser, Faery Queene, Book I, ce. xi, st. 34.

‘ Rinnovellate’ is another of those words which Chaucer in vain
endeavoured to introduce into our language from the Italian, unless
it be supposed that he rather borrowed it from the French. ‘ Certes
ones a yere atte leeste wey it is laweful for to been housled, for
certes ones a yere alle thinges renovellen.’ Persones Tale, 1027.

PARADISE

CANTO I
Line 2. Pierces the universe.] Per luniverso penetra, &c.

his magnetic beam, that gently warms
The universe, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen,
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep.
Milton, P. L., Book III. 583.
1. 11. Shall now.)

Sara ora materia del mio canto.

Shall be the copious matter of my song.
Ibid., Book ITT. 413.

1. 12. Benign Apollo.| Chaucer has imitated this invocation very
closely, at the beginning of the third book of the Hous of Fame.

If, divyne vertu, thou
Wilt helpe me to shewe now
That in myn hede y-marked is,

Thou shalt see me go as blyve
Unto the next laure I see,

And kisse hit, for hit is thy tree.
Now entreth my breste anoon.

1. 15. Thus far.| He appears to mean nothing more than that this
part of his poem will require a greater exertion of his powers than the
former.

1. 17. Do thou.| Make me thine instrument; and, through me,
utter such sound as when thou didst contend with Marsyas.

1. 19. Marsyas.] Ovid, Met., Lib. VI, fab. 7. Compare Boccaccio,
Il Filocopo, Lib. V, p. 25, v. ii, ediz. Fir. 1723. ‘ Egli nel mio petto
entri,’ &c.—‘ May he enter my bosom, and let my voice sound like
his own, when he made that daring mortal deserve to come forth
unsheathed from his limbs.’

1. 29. Caesar, or bard.) So Petrarch, Son., Par. Prima.

Arbor vittoriosa trionfale,
Onor d’ imperadori e di poeti.

And Frezzi, JJ Quadrir., Lib. III, cap. 14.

—— alloro,
Che imperatori e’ poeti corona.

And Spenser, F. Q., Book I, ec. 1, st. 9.

The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors,
And poets sage.

PARADISE, CANTO I 499

1. 32. From a small spark.]
— moddav 7’ Ope mip ef Eévds
=répparos evOopoy dlatwoev vAar.
Pindar, Pyth. iii. 67.
Upon the mountain from one spark hath leapt
The fire, that hath a mighty forest burned.

1. 37. Through that.| ‘ Where the four circles, the horizon, the
zodiac, the equator, and the equinoctial colure join; the last three
intersecting each other so as to form three crosses, as may be seen
in the armillary sphere.’

eso ln happiest constellation.| Aries. Some understand the
planet Venus by the ‘ miglior stella ’.

1. 41. Morning there.| It was morning where he then was, and
about eventide on the earth.

1. 44. To the left.| Being in the opposite hemisphere to ours,
ene that she may behold the rising sun, turns herself to the
eft

1. 47. As from the first a second beam.| ‘ Like a reflected sunbeam,’
which he compares to a pilgrim hastening homewards.

Ne simil tanto mai raggio secondo
Dal primo usci.

Filicaia, Canz. xv, st. 4.

Sicut vir in peregrinatione constitutus, omni studio, omnique conatu
domum redire festinat, ac retrorsum non respicit sed ad domum,
quam reliquerat, reverti desiderat. Alberici Visio, § 25.

1. 55. Made.| And therefore best adapted, says Venturi, to the
good temperament and vigour of the human body and its faculties.
The Poet speaks of the terrestrial paradise where he then was.

1. 58. As tron that comes boiling from the fire.| Ardentem, et scin-
tillas emittentem, ac si ferrum cum de fornace trahitur. Alberici
Visio, §5. This simile is repeated, $16. So Milton, P. L., Book
III. 594.

——— As glowing iron with fire.
1. 59. Upon the day appeared. |

But-if the heven hadde y-wonne
Al newe of golde another sonne.
Chaucer, Hous of Fame, Book I, 505.

E par ch’ aggiunga un altro sole al cielo.
Ariosto, O. F., c. x, st. 109

Ed ecco un lustro lampeggiar d’ intorno
Che sole a sole aggiunse e giorno a giorno.
Marino, Adone., ¢. xi, st. 27.

Quando a paro col sol ma pit lucente
L’angelo gli appari dall’ oriente.
Tasso, 'G: Ec i, st. 1s.
——_— seems another morn
Risen on mid-noon.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 310.

Compare Euripides, Jon. 1550. ’Av7jd:ov mpocwmor,

500 NOTES

1. 62. Eternal wheels.| The heavens, eternal, and always circling.

1. 66. As Glaucus.] Ovid, Met., Lib. XIII, fab. 9. Plato, in the
tenth book of the Republic, makes a very noble comparison from
Glaucus, but applies it differently. X.6ll¢. Berkeley appears not
to have been aware of the passage, when he says that ‘ Proclus
compares the soul, in her descent invested with growing prejudices,
to Glaucus diving to the bottom of the sea, and there contracting
divers coats of seaweed, coral, and shells, which stick close to him,
and conceal his true shape.’ Siris, § 313.

1. 71. Jf.] ‘ Thou, O divine Spirit, knowest whether I had not risen
above my human nature, and were not merely such as thou hadst
then formed me.’

1.75. Harmony.| The harmony of the spheres.

And after that the melodye herde he

That cometh of thilke speres thryes three,

That welle is of musyke and melodye

In this world heer, and cause of armonye.
Chaucer, Parlement of Foules, 60.

—— In their motions harmony divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God’s own ear
Listens delighted.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 625.

1. 77. So much of heaven.] The sphere of fire, as Lombardi well
explains it.

1. 101. From hence the form.] This order it is, that gives to the
universe the form of unity, and therefore of resemblance to God.

1. 105. Whither the line is drawn.| All things, as they have their
beginning from the Supreme Being, so are they referred to Him
again.

1. 118. The heaven.| The empyrean, which is always motionless.

1. 119. The substance, that hath greatest speed.| The primum mobile.

1. 125. Through sluggishness. |

Perch’ a risponder la materia é sorda.
So Filicaia, Canz. vi, st. 9.
Perche a risponder la discordia é sorda.

‘The workman hath in his heart a purpose, he carrieth in mind the
whole form which his work should have; there wanteth not in him
skill and desire to bring his labour to the best effect ; only the matter,
which he hath to work on, is unframable.’ Hooker’s Feel. Polity,
Book V, ch. ix. 1. Our Poet, in his De Monarchia, has expressed the
same thought more fully. ‘Sciendum,’ &c., Lib. II, cap. ii. ‘ We must
know, that as art is found in a triple degree, in the mind that is of
the artist, in the instrument, and in the matter formed by art, so we
may contemplate nature also in a triple degree. For nature is in
the mind of the first mover, who is God; then in heaven, as in an
instrument, by means of which the similitude of the eternal goodness
is unfolded in variable matter ; and, as the artist being perfect, and
the instrument in the best order, if there is any fault in the form of
art, it is to be imputed only to the matter ; so, since God reaches to

PARADISE, CANTO I 501

the end of perfection, and his instrument, which is heaven, is not in
any wise deficient of due perfection (as appears from what we know
by philosophy concerning heaven), it remaineth that whatever fault
is in inferior things, is a fault of the matter worked on, and clean
beside the intention of God and of heaven.’

1. 126. This course.] Some beings, abusing the liberty given them
by God, are repugnant to the order established by Him.

1, 134. There would.] Hence, perhaps, Milton :

—— in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse.
P..£.,: Book Lf, v.75.

CANTO II
]. 1. In small bark.]

Con la barchetta mia cantando in rima.
Pulci, Morg. Magqg., c. xxviii.

Io me n’andro con la barchetta mia,
Quanto lacqua comporta un picciol legno.
Ibid.
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail ?
Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iv, 385.

]. 20. The increate perpetual thirst.| The desire of celestial beati-
tude, natural to the soul.

1. 30. This first star.| The moon.

]. 46. Hen as the truth.] ‘ Like a truth, that does not need de-
monstration, but is self-evident.’ Thus Plato, at the conclusion of
the Sixth Book of the Republic, lays down four principles of informa-
tion in the human mind: ‘* Ist, intuition of self-evident truth,
vonows; 2nd, demonstration by reasoning, Siavoa; 3rd, belief on
testimony, mioms; 4th, probability, or conjecture, eixacia.’ I can-
not resist adding a passage to the like effect from Hooker’s Ecclesias-
tical Polity, Book II, ch. vii. 5. ‘ Thetruth is, that the mind of man
desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible
certainty which the nature of things can yield. The greatest assur-
ance generally with all men, is that which we have by plain aspect
and intuitive beholding. Where we cannot attain unto this, there
what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration,
such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived, thereunto
the mind doth necessarily assent, neither is it in the choice thereof to
do otherwise. And incase these both do fail, then which way greatest
probability leadeth, thither the mind doth evermore incline.’

1. 52. Cain.] Compare Hell, Canto XX. 123, and note.

1. 60. By bodies dense or rare.| Lombardi observes, that the opinion
respecting the spots in the moon, which Dante represents himself as
here yielding to the arguments of Beatrice, is professed by our author
in the Convito, so that we may conclude that work to have been com-
posed before this portion of the Divina Commedia. ‘The shadow in
the moon is nothing else but the rarity of its body, which hinders the
rays of the sun from terminating and being reflected, as in other
parts of it.” Lib. II, ¢. xiv.

502 NOTES

1. 65. Numberless lights.| The fixed stars, which differ both in bulk
and splendour.

1. 71. Save one.] ‘ Except that principle of rarity and denseness
which thou hast assigned.’ By ‘formal principles ’, principi formal,
are meant ‘constituent or essential causes’. Milton, in imitation
of this passage, introduces the angel arguing with Adam respecting
the causes of the spots onthe moon. But, as a late French translator
of the Paradise, M. Artaud, well remarks, his reasoning is physical ;
that of Dante partly metaphysical and partly theologic.

Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurged
Vapours not yet into her substance turn’d.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 419.

]. 78. Change the leaves.| Would, like leaves of parchment, be
darker in some part than others.

]. 111. Within the heaven.| According to our Poet’s system, there
are ten heavens. The heaven, ‘ where peace divine inhabits,’ is the
empyrean ; the body within it, that ‘ circles round’, is the primum
mobile; ‘the following heaven,’ that of the fixed stars; and ‘ the
other orbs’, the seven lower heavens, are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the
Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Thus Milton, P. L., Book IIT.
48].

They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked, and that first moved.

]. 129. By blessed movers.| By angels.

This heaven.| The heaven of fixed stars.

1. 131. The deep spirit.| The moving angel.

1,139. Different virtue.| ‘ There is one glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star
differeth from another star in glory.’ 1 Cor. xv. 41. The words are
nearly Plato’s, whom St. Paul seems to have had in view throughout
this part of his argument. Mia pev [dvvapis] ArALov, pia 5€ cEANVs,
pia be Tav TavTwT doTpwy.K.T.r. Epinomis, 986b.

1, 143. The virtue mingled.| Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 724. ‘ Principio
caelum,’ &c.

CANTO IIT

1.1. That sun.| Beatrice.

1. 16. Delusion.) ‘ An error the contrary to that of Narcissus ;
because he mistook a shadow for a substance; I, a substance for
a shadow.’

]. 50. Piccarda.| The sister of Corso Donati, and of Forese whom
we have seen in the Purgatory, Canto XXIII. Petrarch has been
supposed to allude to this lady in his Triwmph of Chastity, v. 160, &c.

1. 96. What web it was.| ‘ What vow of religious life it was that
ahe Hee been hindered from completing, had been compelled to

reak.’

1.99. The Lady.| St. Clare, the foundress of the order called after
her. She was born of opulent and noble parents at Assisi, in 1193,
and died in 1253. See Biogr. Univ., tom. i, p. 598, 8vo. Paris, 1813.

1. 110. God knows.| Rodolfo da Tossignano, Hist. Seraph. Relig.,

PARADISE, CANTO III 503

Part i, p. 138, as cited by Lombardi, relates the following legend of
Piccarda :—‘ Her brother Corso, inflamed with rage against his virgin
sister, having joined with him Farinata, an infamous assassin, and
twelve other abandoned ruffians, entered the monastery by a ladder,
and carried away his sister forcibly to his own house ; and then tearing
off her religious habit, compelled her to go ina secular garment to
her nuptials. Before the spouse of Christ came together with her
new husband, she knelt down before a crucifix and recommended
her virginity to Christ. Soon after her whole body was smitten
with leprosy, so as to strike grief and horror into the beholders ; and
thus in a few days, through the divine disposal, she passed with
a palm of virginity to the Lord.’ Perhaps, adds the worthy Fran-
ciscan, our Poet not being able to certify himself entirely of this
occurrence, has chosen to pass it over discreetly, by making Piccarda
say—
God knows how, after that, my life was framed.

J. 121. Constance.| Daughter of Ruggieri, King of Sicily, who
being taken by force out of a monastery where she had_ professed,
was married to the Emperor Henry VI, and by him was mother to
Frederick II. She was fifty years old or more at the time, and
“ because it was not credited that she could have a child at that age,
she was delivered in a pavilion, and it was given out that any lady,
who pleased, was at liberty to see her. Many came, and saw her ;
and the suspicion ceased.’ Ricordano Malaspina, in Muratori, Rer.
It. Script., tom. viii, p. 939; and G. Villani, in the same words, Hist.,
Lib. V, c. xvi. The French translator above mentioned speaks of
her having poisoned her husband. The death of Henry VI is re-
corded in the Chronicon Siciliae by an anonymous writer (Muratori,
tom. x), but not a word of his having been poisoned by Constance ;
and Ricordano Malaspina even mentions her decease as happening
before that of her husband, Henry V, for so this author, with some
others, terms him.

j. 122. The second.| Henry VI, son of Frederick I, was the second
emperor of the house of Suabia; and his son, Frederick II, ‘ the
third and last.’

CANTO IV

]. 1. Between two kinds of food.| ‘Si aliqua dico sunt penitus
aequalia, non magis movetur homo ad unum quam ad aliud; sicut
famelicus, si habet cibum aequaliter appetibilem in diversis partibus,
et secundum aequalem distantiam, non magis movetur ad unum
quam ad alterum.? Thomas Aquinas, Summ. Theolog. i™ ii%
Partis, Questio. xiii. Art. vi.

1. 6. Between two deer.

Tigris ut, auditis, diversa valle duorum,
Extimulata fame, mugitibus armentorum,
Nescit utro potius ruat, et ruere ardet utroque.
Ovid, Metam., Lib. V. 166.

1. 13. Daniel.| See Dan. ii. Beatrice did for Dante what Daniel
did for Nebuchadnezzar, when he freed the king from the uncertainty
respecting his dream, which had enraged him against the Chaldeans.

504 NOTES

Lombardi conjectures that ‘ Fe’ si Beatrice’ should be read, instead
of ‘ Fessi Beatrice’ ; and his conjecture has since been confirmed by
the Monte Cassino MS.

]. 17. By each of these desires.) His desire to have each of the
doubts, which Beatrice mentions, resolved.

]. 24. Plato.| Svornoas 5é, x.7.A. Plato, Timaeus, 41d. ‘The
Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars
an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several
star.’

]. 27. Of that.] Plato’s opinion.

Which hath the more of gall.] Which is the more dangerous.

j. 28. Of seraphim.] ‘He amongst the seraphim who is most nearly
united with God, Moses, Samuel, and both the Johns, the Baptist
and the Evangelist, dwell not in any other heaven than do those
spirits whom thou hast just beheld ; nor does even the blessed Virgin
herself dwell in any other: nor is their existence either longer or
shorter than that of these spirits. She first resolves his doubt
whether souls do not return to their own stars, as he had read in the
Timaeus of Plato. Angels, then, and beatified spirits, she declares,
dwell all and eternally together, only partaking more or less of the
divine glory, in the empyrean ; although, in condescension to human
understanding, they appear to have different spheres allotted to
them.

]. 34. The first circle.]| The empyrean.

]. 45. Hands and feet.| Thus Milton :—

What surmounts the reach

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By likening spiritual to corporal forms,
As may express them best.

Pi Bookman le

These passages, rightly considered, may tend to remove the scruples
of some, who are offended by any attempts at representing the Deity
in pictures.

]. 48. Him who made

Tobias whole. |

Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid.
Ibid. 221.

1. 50. Timaeus.| In the Convito, III. v, our author again refers to
the Timaeus of Plato, on the subject of the mundane system ;_ but
it is in order to give the preference to the opinion respecting it held
by Aristotle.

1. 57. His true opinion.] In like manner, our learned Stillingfleet
has professed himself ‘ somewhat inclinable to think that Plato knew
more of the lapse of mankind than he would openly discover, and for
that end disguised it after his usual manner in that hypothesis of
pre-existence.’ Origines Sacrae, Book III, ec. iii, § 15.

1. 67. That, to the eye of man.) ‘That the ways of divine justice
are often inscrutable to man, ought rather to be a motive to faith
than an inducement to heresy.’ Such appears to me the most satis-
factory explanation of the passage.

PARADISE, CANTO IV 505

1. 70. This truth.| That it is no impeachment of God’s justice, if
merit be lessened through compulsion of others, without any failure
of good intention on the part of the meritorious. After all, Beatrice
ends by admitting that there was a defect in the will, which hindered
Constance and the others from seizing the first opportunity, that
offered itself to them, of returning to the monastic life.

]. 82. Laurence.| Who suffered martyrdom in the third century.

Scaevola.| See Liv. Hist., D. 1, Lib. II. 12.

]. 100. Alcemaeon.] Ovid, Met., Lib. IX, f. 10.

Ultusque parente parentem
Natus, erit facto pius et sceleratus eodem.

His father’s.| Amphiaraus.

1. 101. His own mother.| Eriphyle.

]. 107. Of will.] ‘What Piccarda asserts of Constance, that she
retained her affection to the monastic life, is said absolutely and
without relation to circumstances; and that, which I affirm, is
spoken of the will conditionally and respectively: so that our
apparent difference is without any disagreement.’

]. 119. That truth.] The light of divine truth.

CANTO V

1. 1. If beyond earthly wont.| Dante having been unable to sustain
the splendour of Beatrice, as we have seen at the end of the last
Canto, she tells him to attribute her increase of brightness to the
place in which they were.

1. 18. Supreme of gifts.) So in the De Monarchia, Lib. I, cap.
xii. ‘Si ergo iudicium moveat, &c. ‘If then the judgement
altogether move the appetite, and is in no wise prevented by it, it is
free. But if the judgement be moved by the appetite in any way
preventing it, it cannot be free: because it acts not of itself, but is
led captive by another. And hence it is that brutes cannot have
free judgement, because their judgements are always prevented by
appetite. And hence it may also appear manifest, that intellectual
substances, whose wills are immutable, and likewise souls separated
from the body, and departing from it well and holily, lose not the
liberty of choice on account of the immutability of the will, but
retain it most perfectly and powerfully. This being discerned, it is
again plain, that this liberty, or principle of all our liberty, is the
greatest good conferred on human nature by God; because by this
very thing we are here made happy, as men; by this we are else-
where happy, as divine beings.’

1. 32. Thou wouldst of theft.] ‘ Licet fur de furto, &c. De Mon-
archia, Lib. II, cap. vi. ‘ Although a thief should out of that which
he has stolen give help to a poor man, yet is that not to be called
almsgiving.’

1. 43. T'wo things.] The one, the substance of the vow, as of a single
life for instance, or of keeping fast; the other, the compact, or
form of it.

1. 48. Jt was enjoined the Israelites.) See Lev. xii and xxvii.

]. 56. Hither key.| Purgatory, Canto IX. 109.

506 NOTES

1. 58. If the last bond.] If the thing substituted be not fa: more
precious than that which is released.

]. 86. That region.]| As some explain it, the east: according to
others, the equinoctial line. Lombardi supposes it to mean that she
looked upwards. Monti, in his Proposta (vol. 3, p‘® 2, p. Ixxix, Milan,
1826), has adduced a passage from our author’s Convito, which fixes
the sense. ‘ Dico ancora, che quanto il Cielo é piu presso al cerchio
equatore, tanto é pit nobile per comparazione alli suoi poli ; perocché
ha pi’ movimento, e pit attualitade, e pit vita, e pit forma, e pit
tocca di quello, che é sopra sé, e per conseguente @ pili virtuoso’
(II. iv).

L 1 This sphere.| The planet Mercury, which, being nearest to
the sun, is oftenest hidden by that luminary.

]. 129. When his warm gaze.| When the sun has dried up the
vapours that shaded his brightness.

CANTO VI

]. 1. After that Constantine the eagle turned.| Constantine, in trans-
ferring the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, carried the eagle,
the Imperial ensign, from the west to the east. Aeneas, on the con-
trary, had, with better augury, moved along with the sun’s course,
when he passed from Troy to Italy.

1. 5. A hundred years twice told and more.| The Emperor Constan-
tine entered Byzantium in 324; and Justinian began his reign in 527.

]. 6. At Europe's extreme point.) Constantinople being situated at
the extreme of Europe, and on the borders of Asia, near those moun-
tains in the neighbourhood of Troy, from whence the first founders
of Rome had emigrated.

1. 13. Zo clear the encumbered laws.) The code of laws was abridged
and reformed by Justinian.

Giustiniano son io, disse il primajo,
Che ’] troppo e ’] van secai for delle leggi,
Ora soggette all’ arme e al denajo.
Frezzi, Il Quadriregio, Lib. IV, cap. 13.

]. 15. In Christ one nature only.| Justinian is said to have been
a follower of the heretical opinions held by Eutyches, ‘ who taught
that in Christ there was but one nature, viz. that of the incarnate
word.’ Maclaine’s Mosheim, tom. ii, cent. v, p. ii, cap. v, § 13.

1. 16. Agapete.| ‘ Agapetus, Bishop of Rome, whose Scheda Regia,
addressed to the Emperor Justinian, procured him a place among
the wisest and most judicious writers of this century.’ Ibid., cent. vi,
Guy cap. ii, §8. Compare Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, 1. ii,
cap. Xvi.

1. 33. Who pretend its power.] The Ghibellines.

And who oppose.| The Guelphs.

1. 34. Pallas died.| See Virgil, Aen., Lib. X.

1. 36. Not unknown.] In the second book of his treatise De Mon-
archia, where Dante endeavours to prove that the Roman people had
a right to govern the world, he refers to their conquests and successes
in nearly the same order as in this passage. ‘The Roman,’ he affirms,
‘might truly say, as the Apostle did to Timothy, There is laid up for

PARADISE, CANTO VI 507

me a crown of righteousness ; laid up, that is, in the eternal provi-
dence of God’ (cap. xi). And again: ‘ Now it is manifest, that by
duel (per duellum) the Roman people acquired the Empire ; therefore
they acquired it by right, to prove which is the main purpose of the
present bock’ (ibid.).

1. 39. The rival three.| The Horatii and Curiatii.

1. 41. Down.| ‘ From the rape of the Sabine women to the viola-
tion of Lucretia.’

1. 44. The Epirot prince.| King Pyrrhus.

1. 47. Quintius.] Quintius Cincinnatus.

E Cincinnato dall inculta chioma. Petrarca.

Compare De Monarchia, Lib. II, cap. v. ‘ “ Itaque”, inquit, “ et
maiores nostri’’,’ &e.

]. 49. EHmbalm.| The word in the original is ‘ mirro’, which some
think is put for ‘ miro’, ‘I behold or regard’ ; and others understand
as I have rendered it.

1. 50. Arab hordes.| The Arabians seem to be put for the barbarians
in general. Lombardi’s commentis, that asthe Arabs are an Asiatic
people, and it is not recorded that Hannibal had any other troops
except his own countrymen the Carthaginians, who were Africans,
we must understand that Dante denominates that people, Arabs, on
account of their origin. ‘ Ab Ifrico Arabiae Felicis rege, qui omnium
primus hance terram (Africam) incoluisse fertur,’ &c. Leo Africanus,
Africae Descriptio, Lib. I, cap. i.

1. 54. That hill.| The city of Fesulae, which was sacked by the
Romans after the defeat of Catiline.

]. 55. Under whose summit.) * At the foot of which is situated
Florence, thy birth-place.’

1. 56. Near the hour.| Near the time of our Saviour’s birth. ‘ The
immeasurable goodness of the Deity being willing again to conform
to itself the human creature, which by transgression of the first man
had from God departed, and fallen from his likeness, it was deter-
mined in that most high and closest consistory of the Godhead, the
Trinity, that the Son of God should descend upon earth to make this
agreement. And because it was behoveful, that at his coming, the
world, not only the heaven but the earth, should be in the best
possible disposition ; and the best disposition of the earth is, when
it is a monarchy, that is, all under one prince, as hath been said
above; therefore through the divine forecast was ordained that
people and that city for the accomplishment, namely, the glorious
Rome.’ Convito, IV. v. The same argument is repeated at the
conclusion of the first book of our author’s treatise De Monarchia.

1. 59. What then it wrought.| In the following fifteen lines the Poet
has comprised the exploits of Julius Caesar, for which, and for the
allusions in the greater part of this speech of Justinian’s, I must refer
my reader to the history of Rome.

1. 75. In its next bearer’s gripe.| With Augustus Caesar.

1. 77. Barked of.)

Toavd’ trAaKkret. Sophocles, Electra, 299.

1.89. The third Caesar.| The eagle in the hand of Tiberius, the third
of the Caesars, outdid all its achievements, both past and future, by
secoming the instrument of that mighty and mysterious act of satis-

508 NOTES

faction made to the divine justice in the crucifixion of our Lord.
This is Lombardi’s explanation; and he deserves much credit for
being right, where all the other commentators, as far as I know, are
wrong. See note to Purg., Canto XXXII. 50.

1. 95. Vengeance for vengeance.| This will be afterwards explained
by the Poet himself. See next Canto, v. 47, and note.

]. 98. Charlemagne.| Dante could not be ignorant that the reign of
Justinian was long prior to that of Charlemagne ; but the spirit of
the former emperor is represented, both in this instance and in what
follows, as conscious of the events that had taken place after his
own time.

]. 102. The one.] The Guelph party.

1. 104. The yellow lilies.) The French ensign.

]. 105. The other.) The Ghibelline party.

1. 107. Ye Ghibellines.| * Authors differ much as to the beginning
of these factions, and the origin of the names by which they were
distinguished. Some say that they began in Italy as early as the
time of the Emperor Frederick I, in his well-known disputes with
Pope Alexander III, about the year 1160. Others make them more
ancient, dating them from the reign of the Emperor Henry IV, who
died in 1125. But the most common opinion is, that they arose in
the contests between the Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX,
and that this Emperor, wishing to ascertain who were his own adher-
ents, and who those of the Pope, caused the former to be marked by
the appellation of Ghibellines, and the latter by that of Guelphs. It
is more probable, however, that the factions were at this time either
renewed, or diffused more widely, and that their origin was of an
earlier date, since it is certain that G. Villani, Book V, c. xxxvii, Ricor-
dano Malaspina, ec. civ., and Pietro Buoninsegni, Book I, of their
histories of Florence, are agreed, that even from 1215, that is long
before Frederick had succeeded to the Empire, and Gregory to the
Pontificate, by the death of Buondelmonte Buondelmonti, one of the
chief gentlemen in Florence (see Par., Canto XVI. 139), the factions
of the Guelfi and Ghibellini were introduced into that city. A. G.
Artegiani, Annotations on the Quadriregio, p. 180. ‘The same variety
of opinion prevails with regard to the origin of the names. Some
deduce them from two brothers, who were Germans, the one called
Guelph and the other Gibel, who being the partisans of two powerful
families in Pistoia, the Panciatichi, and the Cancellieri, then at enmity
with each other, were the first occasion of these titles having been
given to the discordant factions. Others, with more probability,
derive them from Guelph or Guelfone, Duke of Bavaria, and Gibello,
a castle where his antagonist, the Emperor Conrad the Third, was
born ; in consequence of a battle between Guelph and Henry, the
son of Conrad, which was fought (according to Mini, in his Defence of
Florence, p. 48) A.D. 1138. Others assign to them an origin yet more
ancient ; asserting, that at the election of Frederick I to the Empire,
the Electors concurred in choosing him, in order to extinguish the
inveterate discords between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, that prince
being descended by the paternal line from the Ghibellines, and by
the maternal from the Guelphs. Bartolo, however, in his tractate
De Guelphis et Gibellinis, gives an intrinsic meaning to these names
from certain passages in Scripture. “ Sicut Gibellus interpretatur

PARADISE, CANTO VI 509

locus fortitudinis, ita Gibellini appellantur confidentes in fortitudine
militum et armorum, et sicut Guelpha interpretatur os loquens, ita
Guelphi interpretantur confidentes in orationibus et in divinis.”
What value is to be put on this interpretation, which well accords
with the genius of those times, when it was perhaps esteemed a mar-
vellous mystery, we leave it to others to decide.’ Ibid.

]. 110. Charles.] The commentators explain this to mean Charles II,
king of Naples and Sicily. Is it not more likely to allude to Charles
of Valois, son of Philip III of France, who was sent for, about this
time, into Italy by Pope Boniface, with the promise of being made
Emperor? See G. Villani, Lib. VIII, cap. xlii.

1,120. When desires.| When honour and fame are the chief motives
to action, that love, which has heaven for its object, must necessarily
become less fervent.

]. 131. Romeo's light.| The story of Romeo is involved in some un-
certainty. The name of Romeo signified, as we have seen in the note,
Purg., Canto XX XIII. 78, one who went ona pilgrimage to Rome.
The French writers assert the continuance of his ministerial office
even after the decease of his sovereign, Raymond Berenger, Count of
Provence: and they rest this assertion chiefly on the fact of a certain
Romieu de Villeneuve, who was the contemporary of that prince,
having left large possessions behind him, as appears by his will pre-
served in the archives of the bishopric of Vence. That they are
right as to the name at least, would appear from the following mar-
ginal note on the Monte Cassino MS.: * Romeo de Villanova districtus
civitatis Ventiae de Provincia olim administratoris Raymundi
Belingeri Comitis de Provincia—ivit peregrinando contemplatione ad
Deum.’ Yet it is improbable, on the other hand, that the Italians,
who lived so near the time, should be misinformed in an occurrence
of such notoriety. According to them, after he had long been
a faithful steward to Raymond, when an account was required from
him of the revenues which he had carefully husbanded, and his
master as lavishly disbursed, ‘ he demanded the little mule, the staff,
and the scrip, with which he had first entered into the count’s ser-
vice, a stranger pilgrim from the shrine of St. James, in Galicia, and
parted as he came; nor was it ever known whence he was, or whither
he went.’ G. Villani, Lib. VI, c. xcii. The same incidents are told
of him at the conclusion of cap. xxviii, Lib. IT, of Fazio degli Uberti’s
Dittamondo.

]. 135. Four daughters.| Of the four daughters of Raymond
Berenger, Margaret, the eldest, was married to Louis [X of France ;
Eleanor, the next, to Henry III of England; Sancha, the third, to
Richard, Henry’s brother, and King of the Romans; and the youngest,
Beatrix, to Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily, and brother to
Louis.

1. 136. Raymond Berenger.| This prince, the last of the house of
Barcelona, who was Count of Provence, died in 1245. He is in the
list of Provencal poets. See Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troubadours,
tom. ii, p. 212. But M. Raynouard could find no manuscript of his
works. See Choix des Poésies des Troubadours, tom. v, p. Vil.

510 NOTES

CANTO VII

1. 1. Hosanna.] ‘Hosanna, holy God of Sabaoth, abundantly
illumining with thy brightness the blessed fires of these kingdoms.’

]. 4. That substance bright.) Justinian.

1. 16. As might have made one blest amid the flames.] So Giusto de’
Conti, Bella Mano. ‘ Qual salamandra.’

Che puommi nelle fiamme far beato.

1], 25. That man, who was unborn.| Adam.

]. 44. Different effects.| The death of Christ was pleasing to God,
inasmuch as it satisfied the divine justice ; and to the Jews, because
it gratified their malignity : and while heaven opened for joy at the
ransom of man, the earth trembled through compassion for its
Maker.

]. 48. A just vengeance.| The punishment of Christ by the Jews,
although just as far as regarded the human nature assumed by him,
and so a righteous vengeance of sin, yet being unjust as it regarded
the divine nature, was itself justly revenged on the Jews by the
destruction of Jerusalem.

]. 60. The celestial love.] From Boethius, De Consol. Philos., Lib. III,
Metr. 9.

Quem non externae pepulerunt fingere causae
Materiae fluitantis opus, verum insita summi

Forma boni livore carens; tu cuncta superno

Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse
Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans,
Perfectasque jubens perfectum absolvere partes.

1], 63. What distils.] ‘ That, which proceeds immediately from God,
and without the intervention of secondary causes, is immortal.’

1. 72. These tokens of pre-eminence.| The before-mentioned gifts of
immediate creation by God, independence on secondary causes, and
consequent similitude and agreeableness to the Divine Being, all at
first conferred on man.

1. 102. By both his ways, I mean, or one alone.] Either by mercy
and justice united, or by mercy alone.

1. 119. In some part.| She reverts to that part of her discourse
where she had said that what proceeds immediately from God ‘ no
end of being knows’. She then proceeds to tell him that the ele-
ments, which, though he knew them to be created, he yet saw dis-
solved, received their form not immediately from God, but from
a virtue or power created by God; that the soul of brutes and plants
is in like manner drawn forth by the stars with a combination of
those elements meetly tempered, ‘di complession potenziata’ ; but
that the angels and the heavens may be said to be created in that
very manner in which they exist, without any intervention of agency.

]. 137. Draw.| I had before rendered this differently, and I now
think erroneously :

With complex potency attract and turn.

]. 142. Our resurrection certain.| Venturi appears to mistake the
Poet’s reasoning, when he observes: ‘ Wretched for us, if we had

PARADISE, CANTO VII 511

not arguments more convincing, and of a higher kind, to assure us
of the truth of our resurrection.’ It is, perhaps, here intended that
the whole of God’s dispensation should be taken into the account.
The conclusion may be, that as before sin man was immortal, and
even in flesh proceeded immediately from God, so being restored to
the favour of heaven by the expiation made for sin, he necessarily
recovers his claim to immortality even in the body. There is much
in this poem to justify the encomium which the learned Salvini has
passed on it, when, in an epistle to Redi, imitating what Horace had
said of Homer, that the duties of life might be better learnt from the
Grecian bard, than from the teachers of the porch or the academy,
he says—

And dost thou ask, what themes my mind engage ?
The lonely hours I give to Dante’s page ;

And meet more sacred learning in his lines,

Than I had gained from all the school divines.

Se volete saper la vita mia,

Studiando io sto lungi da tutti gli uomini ;
Ed ho imparato pit teologia

In questi giorni, che ho riletto Dante,

Che nelle scuole fatto io non avria.

CANTO VIil

1. 1. The world.| The Poet, on his arrival at the third heaven, tells
us that the world, in its days of heathen darkness, believed the in-
fluence of sensual love to proceed from the star, to which, under the
name of Venus, they paid divine honours; as they worshipped the
supposed mother and son of Venus, under the names of Dione and
Cupid.

1. 4. Epicycle. |

the sphere

With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er,

Cycle and epicycle.

Milton, P. Z., Book VIII. 82.

‘In sul dosso di questo cerchio,’ &c. Convito di Dunte, II. iv. ‘ Upon
the back of this circle, in the heaven of Venus, whereof we are now
treating, is a little sphere, which has in that heaven a revolution of
its own; whose circle the astronomers term epicycle.

1. 11. Zo sit in Dido’s bosom.| Virgil, Aen., Lib. I. 718.

]. 14. Now obvious.] Being at one part of the year a morning, and
at another an evening star. So Frezzi :—

—— — I] raggio della stella
Che’l sol vagheggia or drieto or davanti.
Il Quadrir., Lib. I, cap. i.
——— whose ray,
Being page and usher to the day,
Does mourn behind the sun, before him play.
John Hall.

512 NOTES

]. 24. As their.] As each, according to their several deserts, par-
takes more or less of the beatific vision.

]. 26. Whether invisible to eye or no.] He calls the blast invisible, if
unattended by gross vapour; otherwise, visible.

1. 40. Oye! whose intellectual ministry. ]

Voi ch’ intendendo il terzo ciel movete.

The first line of our Poet’s first Canzone in his Convito.

1]. 43. Princedoms in heaven.| See Canto XXVIII. 112, where the
princedoms are, as here, made co-ordinate with this third sphere.
In his Convito, II. vi, he has ranked them differently, making the
thrones the moving intelligences of Venus.

]. 53. Had the time been more.| The spirit now speaking is Charles
Martel, crowned King of Hungary, and son of Charles II, King of
Naples and Sicily, to which dominions, dying in his father’s lifetime,
he did not succeed. The evil, that would have been prevented by
the longer life of Charles Martel, was that resistance which his brother
Robert, King of Sicily, who succeeded him, made to the Emperor
Henry VII. See G. Villani, Lib. LX, cap. xxxviii.

1.57. Thou lovedst me well.| Charles Martel might have been known
to our Poet at Florence, whither he came to meet his father in 1295,
the year of his death. The retinue and the habiliments of the young
monarch are minutely described by G. Villani, who adds, that ‘he
remained more than twenty days in Florence, waiting for his father
King Charles and his brothers; during which time great honour was
done him by the Florentines, and he showed no less love towards
them, and he was much in favour with all.’ Lib. VIII, cap. xiii.
His brother Robert, King of Naples, was the friend of Petrarch.

1. 60. The left bank.] Provence.

1.762: That horn

Of fair Ausonia.| The kingdom of Naples.

1. 68. The land.] Hungary.

]. 73. The beautiful Trinacria.] Sicily ; so called from its three
promontories, of which Pachynus and Pelorus, here mentioned, are two.

1. 74. T'yphoeus.| The giant, whom Jupiter is fabled to have over-
whelmed under the mountain Aetna, from whence he vomited forth
smoke and flame.

1.77. Sprung through me from Charles and Rodolph.| ‘ Sicily would
be still ruled by a race of monarchs, descended through me from
Charles I and Rodolph I, the former my grandfather, King of Naples
and Sicily; the latter, Emperor of Germany, my father-in-law’ ;
both celebrated in the Purgatory, Canto VII.

1. 78. Had not ill-lording.| ‘ If the ill conduct of our governors in
Sicily had not excited the resentment and hatred of the people, and
stimulated them to that dreadful massacre at the Sicilian vespers’ ;
in consequence of which the kingdom fell into the hands of Peter III
of Aragon, in 1282.

Miracol parve ad ogni persona
Che ad una voce tutta la Cicilia
Si rubelld dall’ una all altra nona,
Gridando, mora mora la famiglia
Di Carlo, mora mora gli franceschi,
E cosi ne taglio ben otto miglia.

PARADISE, CANTO VIII 513

O quanto i forestier che giungon freschi
Nell’ altrui terre, denno esser cortesi,
Fuggir lussuria e non esser maneschi.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap. 39.

]. 78. Desperate make.) ‘ Accora.? Monti in his Proposta con-
strues this ‘afflicts’. Vellutello’s interpretation of it, which is
“makes desperate’, appears to be nearer the mark.

1. 81. My brother's foresight.| He seems to tax his brother Robert
with employing necessitous and greedy Catalonians to administer the
affairs of his kingdom.

1. 99. How bitter can spring up.| ‘ How a covetous son can spring
from a liberal father.’ Yet that father has himself been accused of
avarice in the Purgatory, Canto XX. 78 ; though his general character
was that of a bounteous prince.

1. 103. T'he Good.| The Supreme Being uses these spheres as the
intelligent instruments of his providence in the conduct of terrestrial
natures ; so that these natures cannot but be conducted aright, un-
less these heavenly bodies should themselves fail from not having
been made perfect at first, or the Creator of them should fail. To
this Dante replies, that nature, he is satisfied, thus directed must do
her part. Charles Martel then reminds him that he had learned
from Aristotle that human society requires a variety of conditions,
and consequently a variety of qualifications in its members. Accord-
ingly, men, he concludes, are born with different powers and capaci-
ties, caused by the influence of the heavenly bodies at the time of
their nativity ; on which influence, and not on their parents, those
powers and capacities depend. Having thus resolved the question
proposed, Charles Martel adds, by way of corollary, that the want of
observing their natural bent in the destination of men to their several
offices in life, is the occasion of much of the disorder that prevails in
the world.

1]. 125. Consult your teacher.| Aristotle, éwed é£ dvopoiwy mérAuLs,
k.7.r. De Rep., Lib. III, cap. 4. ‘Since a state is made up of
members differing from one another (for even as an animal, in the
first instance, consists of soul and body ; and the soul, of reason and
desire ; and a family, of man and woman ; and property, of master
and slave; in like manner a state consists both of all these, and
besides these of other dissimilar kinds) ; it necessarily follows, that
the excellence of all the members of the state cannot be one and
the same.’

PST:

Whose airy voyage
Cost him his son.| Daedalus.

1,136. Esau is so wide of Jacob.) Gen. xxv. 22. Venturi blames
our Poet for selecting an instance which, as that commentator says,
proves the direct contrary of that which he intended, as they were
born under the same ascendant ; and, therefore, if the stars had any
influence, the two brothers should have been born with the same
temperament and disposition. This objection is well answered by
Lombardi, who quotes a passage from Roger Bacon, to show that
the smallest diversity of place was held to make a diversity in the
influence of the heavenly bodies, so as to occasion an entire dis-
crepancy even between children in the same womb. It must be
recollected, that whatever power may be attributed to the stars by

514 NOTES

our Poet, he does not suppose it to put any constraint on the free-
dom of the human will; so that, chimerical as his opinion appears to
us, it was, in a moral point of view at least, harmless.

1. 137. Quirenus.| Romulus, born of so obscure a father, that his
parentage was attributed to Mars.

1. 154. Therefore.| ‘The wisdom of God hath divided the genius of
men according to the different affairs of the world ; and varied their
inclinations according to the variety of actions to be performed
therein. Which they who consider not, rudely rushing upon pro-
fessions and ways of life unequal to their natures, dishonour not only
themselves and their functions, but pervert the harmony of the whole
world. Browne, On Vulgar Errors, Book I, chap. 5.

CANTO IX

]. 2. O fair Clemenza.| Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife
of Louis X of France.

]. 2. The treachery.) He alludes to the occupation of the kingdom
of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother’s son, Carobert, or
Charles Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani, Lib. VIII, c. exii.

1. 7. That saintly light.| Charles Martel.

1, 21. Prove thou to me.| The thoughts of all created minds being
seen by the Deity, and all that is in the Deity being the object of
vision to beatified spirits, such spirits must consequently see the
thoughts of all created minds. Dante therefore requests of the
spirit, who now approaches him, a proof of this truth with regard to
his own thoughts. See |. 70.

1. 25. In that part.| Between Rialto in the Venetian territory, and
the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava, is situated a castle called
Romano, the birthplace of the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino,
the brother of Cunizza who is now speaking. The tyrant we have
seen in ‘ the river of blood’. Hell, Canto XII, 110.

1. 32. Cunizza.| The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the in-
fluence of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino of Padua,
Lib. I, cap. 3, in Muratori, Rer. It. Script., tom. viii, p. 173. She
eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the com-
pany of Sordello (see Purg., Canto VI and VII), with whom she is
supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with
a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the
same city; and on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant,
was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo: lastly, when
he also had fallen by the same hand, she, after her brother’s death,
was again wedded in Verona.

1. 34. Yet I naught repine.| ‘I am not dissatisfied that I am not
allotted a higher place.’

1. 37. This.| Foleo of Genoa, a celebrated Provengal poet, commonly
termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was perhaps bishop.
Many errors of Nostradamus concerning him, which have been
followed by Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are detected by the
diligence of Tiraboschi. Mr. Mathias’s edit., v. i, p. 18. All that
appears certain is what we are told in this Canto, that he was of
Genoa; and by Petrarch, in the T'riumph of Love, c. iv, that he was

PARADISE, CANTO IX 515

better known by the appellation he derived from Marseilles, and at
last assumed the religious habit. One of his verses is cited by Dante,
De Vulg. Elog., Lib. II. vi.

1. 40. Five times.| The five hundred years are elapsed : and unless
the Provencal MSS. should be brought to light, the poetical reputation
of Foleo must rest on the mention made of him by the more fortunate
Italians. (What I scarcely ventured to hope at the time this note
was written, has been accomplished by the great learning and diligence
of M. Raynouard. See his Choix des Poésies des Troubadours and
Lexique Roman, in which Folques and his Provengal brethren are
awakened into the second life augured to them by our Poet.)

1. 42. When such life may attend the first.| When the mortal life
of man may be attended by so lasting and glorious a memory, which
is a kind of second life.

1. 43. The crowd.| The people who inhabited the tract of country
bounded by the river Tagliamento to the east and Adice to the west.

1. 45. The hour is near.| Cunizza foretells the defeat of Jacopo da
Carrara and the Paduans, by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on September
18, 1314. See G. Villani, Lib. TX, cap. 1xii.

]. 48. One.] She predicts also the fate of Riccardo da Cammino, who
is said to have been murdered at Trevigi (where the rivers Sile and
Cagnano meet), while he was engaged in playing at chess.

}. 50. The web.| The net, or snare, into which he is destined to fall.

Feltro.| The Bishop of Feltro having received a number of
fugitives from Ferrara, who were in opposition to the Pope, under a pro-
mise of protection, afterwards gave them up; so that they were recon-
ducted to that city, and the greater part of them there put to death.

]. 538. Malta's.) A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which,
under the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been ‘ with many a foul and
midnight murder fed’: or (as some say) near a river of the same
name, that falls into the lake of Bolsena, in which the Pope was
accustomed to imprison such as had been guilty of an irremissible sin.

1]. 54. The skillet.| The blood shed could not be contained in such
a vessel, if it were of the usual size.

]. 56. This priest.| The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous
partisan of the Pope, had committed the above-mentioned act of
treachery. The commentators are not agreed as to the name of this
faithless prelate. Troya calls him Alessandro Novello, and relates
the circumstances at full. Veltro Allegorico, p. 139.

1. 58. We descry.| ‘We behold the things that we predict, in the
mirrors of eternal truth.’

]. 64. That other joyance.| Folco.

1. 65. A thing to marvel at.| ‘ Preclara cosa.’ A Latinism according
to Venturi; but the word ‘ preclara’ had been already naturalized
by Guido Guinicelli :

Oro ed argento e ricche gio’ preclare.

See the sonnet, of which a version has been given in a note to Purg.,
Canto XI, v. 96.
]. 66. Choticest ruby.| Balascio.
No saphir ind, no rubé riche of price,
There lakked than, nor emeraud so grene,
Baleis. The Court of Love. 78.
CARY T

516 NOTES

Mr. Tyrwhitt, I should suppose erroneously as to the sense at least
intended by Chaucer, calls it ‘a sort of bastard ruby’.

]. 67. Effulgence.| As joy is expressed by laughter on earth, so is
it by an increase of splendour in Paradise; and, on the contrary,
grief is betokened in Hell by augmented darkness.

1. 76. Six shadowing wings.] ‘ Above it stood the seraphims:
each one had six wings.’ Isa. vi. 2. Ante maiestatis eius gloriam
cherubim senas habentes alas semper adstantes non cessant clamare,
sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Alberici Visio, § 39.

six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 277.

1]. 80. The valley of waters.| The Mediterranean sea.
That.| The great ocean.

], 82. Discordant shores.| Europe and Africa.

]. 83. Meridivan.| Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at
last reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its horizon when it
enters the Straits of Gibraltar. * Wherevera man is,’ says Vellutello,
‘ there he has, above his head, his own particular meridian circle.’

]. 85. ’Twiat Ebro’s stream

And Macra’s.]

Ebro, a river to the west, and Macra, to the east of Genoa, where
Folco was born; others think that Marseilles and not Genoa is here
described ; and then Ebro must be understood of the river in Spain.

]. 88. Begga.) A place in Africa.

]. 89. Whose haven.| Alluding to the terrible slaughter of the
Genoese made by the Saracens in 936; for which event Vellutello
refers to the history of Augustino Giustiniani. Those who conceive
that our Poet speaks of Marseilles, suppose the slaughter of its
inhabitants made in the time of Julius Caesar to be alluded to. It
must, however, have been Genoa, as that place, and not Marseilles,
lies opposite to Buggea or Begga, onthe African coast. Fazio degli
Uberti describes Buggea as looking towards Majorca.

Vidi Buggea che vé di grande loda ;
Questa nel mare Maiorica guata.
Dittamondo, Lib. V, cap. 6.

1. 91. This heaven.) The planet Venus, by which Folco declares
himself to have been formerly influenced.

1. 93. Belus’ daughter.| Dido.

]. 96. She of Rhodope.| Phyllis.

1. 98. Jove’s son.| Hercules.

1. 105. With such effectual working.| All the editions, except the
Nidobeatina, do not, as Lombardi affirms, read ‘contanto’; for
Vellutello’s of 1544 is certainly one exception.

]. 106. To the lower world.| I have altered my former translation
here, in compliance with a reading adopted by Lombardi from the
Nidobeatina ; *‘ Perche’] mondo’ instead of ‘ Perche al mondo.’ But
the passage is still obscure.

]. 112. Rahab.| Heb. xi. 31.

1. 115. This heaven.| ‘ This planet of Venus, at which the shadow
of the earth ends, as Ptolemy writes in his Almagest.’ Vellutello.

PARADISE, CANTO 1X 517

1. 120. With either palm.| By both his hands nailed to the cross.
I. 123. The Pope.) ‘Who cares not that the holy land is in the
possession of the Saracens.’ See also Canto XV. 136,

Ite superbi, O miseri Christiani
Consumando lun laltro; e non vi caglia
Che ’! sepolero di Cristo é in man di cani.
Petrarca, T'rionfo della Fama, cap. ii.

1. 124. Of him.] Of Satan.

1. 126. The cursed flower.| The coin of Florence, called the florin ;
the covetous desire of which has excited the Pope to so much evil.

1. 130. The decretals.| The canon law. So in the De Monarchia,
Lib. III, c. iii. ‘There are also a third set, whom they call Decre-
talists. These, alike ignorant of theology and philosophy, relying
wholly on their decretals (which I indeed esteem not unworthy of
reverence), in the hope, I suppose, of obtaining for them a paramount
influence, derogate from the authority of the empire. Nor is this
to be wondered at, when I have heard one of them saying, and
impudently maintaining, that traditions are the foundation of the
faith of the church.’ He proceeds to confute this opinion, and con-
cludes ‘that the church does not derive its authority from traditions,
but traditions from the church’: ‘necesse est, ut non ecclesiae
a traditionibus, sed ab ecclesia traditionibus accedat auctoritas.’
In accordance with the sentiments of Dante on this point, the Church
of England has framed that article, so well worthy of being duly
considered and carried into practice, which begins: ‘It is not
necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or
utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be
changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s
manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word.’ Article
XXXiv.

]. 134. The Vatican.) He alludes either to the death of Pope
Boniface VIII or, as Venturi supposes, to the coming of the Emperor
Henry VII into Italy; or else, according to the yet more probable
conjecture of Lombardi, to the transfer of the holy see from Rome
to Avignon, which teok place in the pontificate of Clement V.

CANTO X

1. 7. The point.] ‘To that part of heaven,’ as Venturi explains it,
‘in which the equinoctial circle and the zodiac intersect each other,
where the common motion of the heavens from east to west may
be said to strike with greatest force against the motion proper to
the planets: and this repercussion, as it were, is here the strongest,
because the velocity of each is increased to the utmost by their
respective distance from the poles. Such at least is the system of
Dante.’

l. 11. Oblique.| The zodiac.

1. 14. In heaven above.| If the planets did not preserve that order
in which they move, they would not receive nor transmit their due
influences: and if the zodiac were not thus oblique; if towards the
north it either passed, or went short of the tropic of Cancer, or else

518 NOTES

towards the south it passed, or went short of the tropic of Capricorn,
it would not divide the seasons as it now does.

]. 25. The part.| The above-mentioned intersection of the equi-
noctial circle and the zodiac.

]. 26. Minister.| The sun.

]. 30. Along the spires.) According to our Poet’s system, as the
earth is motionless, the sun passes, by a spiral motion, from one
tropic to the other.

1. 30. Where.| In which the sun rises every day earlier after the
vernal equinox.

]. 32. But as a man.| That is, he was quite insensible of it.

1. 45. Fourth family.| The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth planet.

]. 46. Of his spirit and of his offspring.| The procession of the
Third and the generation of the Second Person in the Trinity.

]. 70. Such was the song.| The song of these spirits was ineffable.
It was like a jewel so highly prized, that the exportation of it to
another country is prohibited by law.

1. 71. Let him.] Let him not expect any intelligence at all of
that place, for it surpasses description.

1. 86. No less constrained.| ‘The rivers might as easily cease to
flow towards the sea, as we could deny thee thy request.’

1. 91. J, then.| ‘I was of the Dominican order.’

1. 95. Albert of Cologne.| Albertus Magnus was born at Laugingen,
in Thuringia, in 1193, and studied at Paris and at Padua; at the
latter of which places he entered into the Dominican order. He then
taught theology in various parts of Germany, and particularly at
Cologne. Thomas Aquinas was his favourite pupil. In 1260 he
reluctantly accepted the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years
after resigned it, and returned to his cell in Cologne, where the
remainder of his life was passed in superintending the school, and
in composing his voluminous works on divinity and natural science.
He died in 1280. The absurd imputation of his having dealt in the
magical art is well known; and his biographers take some pains to
clear him of it. Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, by Quetif and
Kchard, Lut. Par. 1719, fol., tom. i, p. 162. Frezzi places Albertus
Magnus next in rank to Aristotle :

Alberto Magno é dopo lui ’] secondo :
Egli suppli li membri, e ’] vestimento
Alla Filosofia in questo mondo.
Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 9.

]. 96. Of Aquinum, Thomas.] Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is
reported to have said, ‘Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn
the church of Rome ;’ and whom Hooker terms ‘ the greatest among
the school divines’ (Heel. Pol., Book III, ch. ix. 2), was born of noble
parents, who anxiously but vainly endeavoured to divert him from
a life of celibacy and study. He died in 1274, at the age of forty-
seven. Quetif and Echard, ibid., p. 271. See also Purgatory, Canto
XX, 67. A modern French writer has collected some particulars
relating to the influence which the writings of Thomas Aquinas and
Bonaventura had on the opinions of Dante. See the third part of
Ozanam’s Dante et la Philosophie Catholique au Treiziéme Siécle,
8°, Par. 1839.

PARADISE, CANTO X 519

]. 101. Gratian.] ‘ Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the
Convent of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan,
composed, about the year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridge-
ment or epitome of canon law, drawn from the letters of the pontiffs,
the decrees of councils, and the writings of the ancient doctors.’
Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii, cent. xii, part ii, cap. i, § 6.

To either forum.) ‘ By reconciling, as Venturi explains it,
‘the civil with the canon law.’

]. 104. Peter.] ‘ Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is the
place of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a recommendation
from the Bishop of Lucca to St. Bernard, he went into France to
continue his studies; and for that purpose remained some time at
Rheims, whence he afterwards proceeded to Paris. Here his reputa-
tion was so great, that Philip, brother of Louis VII, being chosen
Bishop of Paris, resigned that dignity to Pietro, whose pupil he had
been. He held his bishopric only one year, and died 1160. His
Inber Sententiarum is highly esteemed. It contains a system of
scholastic theology, so much more complete than any which had
been yet seen, that it may be deemed an original work.’ Tiraboschi,
Storia della Lett. Ital., tom. iii, lib. iv, cap. ii.

That with the widow gave.) This alludes to the beginning of
the Liber Sententiarum, where Peter says: ‘ Cupiens aliquid de
penuria ac tenuitate nostra cum paupercula in gazophylacium
domini mittere,’ &c.

]. 105. The fifth light.| Solomon.

]. 107. His doom.| It was a common question, it seems, whether
Solomon were saved or no.

Il. 112. That taper’s radiance.| St. Dionysius, the Areopagite.
‘The famous Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius
the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who, under the protection
of this venerable name, gave laws and instructions to those that
were desirous of raising their souls above all human things, in order
to unite them to their great source by sublime contemplation, lived
most probably in this century (the fourth); though some place him
before, others after, the present period.’ Maclaine’s Mosheim,
V. 1; cent. 1V5 p21, ,Gilip, SL.

1.116. That pleader.| In the fifth century, Paulus Orosius * acquired
a considerable degree of reputation by the History he wrote to refute
the cavils of the Pagans against Christianity, and by his books against
the Pelagians and Priscillianists.’ Ibid., v.1i, cent. v, p.1i, c. ii, § 11.
A similar train of argument was pursued by Augustine, in his book
De Civitate Dei. Orosius is classed by Dante, in his treatise De Vulg.
Elog., Lib. II, cap. vi, as one of his favourite authors, among those
‘qui usi sunt altissimas prosas’—‘ who have written prose with
the greatest loftiness of style.’ The others are Cicero, Livy, Pliny,
and Frontinus. Some commentators, with less probability, suppose
that this seventh spirit is Saint Ambrose, and not Orosius.

1. 119. The eighth.| Boethius, whose book De Consolatione Philoso-
phiae excited so much attention during the Middle Ages, was born,
as Tiraboschi conjectures, about 470. ‘In 524 he was cruelly put
to death by command of Theodoric, either on real or pretended
suspicion of his being engaged in a conspiracy.’ Della Let. Ital.,
tom. iii, lib. i, cap. iv.

520 NOTES

]. 124. Cieldauro.|] Boethius was buried at Pavia, in the monastery
of St. Pietro in Ciel d’oro.

]. 126. Isidore.| He was Archbishop of Seville during forty years,
and died in 635. See Mariana, Hist., Lib. VI, cap. vii. Mosheim,
whose critical opinions in general must be taken with some allowance,
observes, that ‘ his grammatical, theological, and historical produc-
tions discover more learning and pedantry than judgement and taste.’

]. 127. Bede.| Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation of
the Venerable, was born in 672, at Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the
bishopric of Durham, and died in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope
Sergius I, he preferred passing almost the whole of his life in the
seclusion of a monastery. A catalogue of his numerous writings
may be seen in Kippis’s Biographia Britannica, v. ii.

]. 127. Richard.| Richard of St. Victor, a native either of Scotland
or Ireland, was canon and prior of the monastery of that name at
Paris; and died in 1173. ‘ He was at the head of the Mystics in
this century; and his treatise, entitled the Mystical Ark, which
contains as it were the marrow of this kind of theology, was received
with the greatest avidity. Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii, cent. xii,
p. ii, c. ii, § 23.

]. 132. Sigebert.| ‘ A monk of the abbey of Gemblours, who was
in high repute at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth
century. Dict. de Morerv.

]. 134. The straw-littered street.| The name of a street in Paris:
the ‘ Rue de Fouarre’.

]. 135. The spouse of God.| The church.

CANTO XI
l. 1. O fond anxiety of mortal men.| Lucretius, Lib. IT. 14.

O miseras hominum mentis! O pectora caeca !
Qualibus in tenebris vitae, quantisque periclis
Degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest !

1. 4. Aphorisms.] The study of medicine.

. 17. The lustre.| The spirit of Thomas Aquinas.

. 25. That ‘ well they thrive’.| See the last Canto, I. 93.
‘ No second such.’| See the last Canto, 1. 111.

]. 29. She.] The church.

1. 31. Her well-beloved.| Jesus Christ.

|. 34. One.] Saint Francis.

l. 36. The other.] Saint Dominic.

1. 40. Z'upino.] Thomas Aquinas proceeds to describe the birth-
place of Saint Francis, between Tupino, a rivulet near Assisi or Ascesi,
where the saint was born in 1182, and Chiascio, astream that rises in
a mountain near Agobbio, chosen by Saint Ubaldo for the place of his
retirement.

]. 42. Heat and cold.| Cold from the snow, and heat from the
reflection of the sun.

1. 45. Yoke.] Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of the
mountain to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi (as I have taken it)
of the heavy impositions laid on those places by the Perugians.
For giogo, like the Latin juguwm, will admit of either sense.

— bet

PARADISE, CANTO XI 521

1. 50. The East.]

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 11. ii.

]. 54. A dame.| There is in the under church of St. Francis, at
Assisi, a picture painted by Giotto from this subject. It is considered
one of the artist’s best works. See Kugler’s Handbook of the History
of Painting, translated by a lady. Lond. 1842, p. 48.

1. 55. ?Gainst his father’s will.| In opposition to the wishes of his
natural father.

1. 57. Before the spiritual court.| He made a vow of poverty in the
presence of the bishop and of his natural father.

]. 60. Her first husband.| Christ.

]. 63. Amyclas.| Lucan makes Caesar exclaim, on witnessing the
secure poverty of the fisherman Amyclas :—

O vitae tuta facultas

Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum
Intellecta deum! quibus hoc contingere templis,
Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu,
Caesarea pulsante manu ?

Phars:., Labs Vitdols

O happy poverty! thou greatest good

Bestow’d by heaven, but seldom understood !

Here nor the cruel spoiler seeks his prey,

Nor ruthless armies take their dreadful way, &c.
Rowe.

A translation in prose of these lines is introduced by our Poet in his
Convito, IV. xili.

|]. 72. Bernard.|] Of Quintavalle ; one of the first followers of the
saint.

]. 76. Egidius.| The third of his disciples, who died in 1262. His
work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp. See
Lucas Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.

]. 76. Sylvester.) Another of his earliest associates.

1. 80. Whom now the cord.) Saint Francis bound his body with
a cord, in sign that he considered it as a beast, and that it required,
like a beast, to be led by a halter.

1. 83. Pietro Bernardone.| A man in a humble station of life at
Assisi.

]. 85. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.

1. 90. Honorius.| His successor, Honorius III, who granted certain
privileges to the Franciscans.

1. 94. In the proud Soldan’s presence.| The Soldan of Egypt, before
whom Saint Francis is said to have preached.

1. 98. On the hard rock.| The mountain Alverna in the Apennine.

1. 100. The last signet.| Alluding to the stigmata, or marks resem-
bling the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the saint’s
body.

1. 106. His dearest lady.) Poverty.

1. 110. His body.] He forbade any funeral pomp to be observed
at his burial; and, as it is said, ordered that his remains should be
deposited in a place where criminals were executed and interred.

522 NOTES

1. 113. Our Patriarch.| Saint Dominic, to whose order Thomas
Aquinas belonged.

1. 116. Hvis flock.| The Dominicans.

]. 127. The plant from whence they split.| ‘ The rule of their order,
which the Dominicans neglect to observe.’

]. 128. And he shall see, who girds him, what that means.| Lombardi,
after the Nidobeatina edition, together with four MSS., reads ‘ il
correggiar ’, or ‘il coregiér’, which gives the sense that now stands
in the text of this version. The Dominicans might be called ‘ coreg-
gieri’, from their wearing a leathern girdle, as the Franciscans were
called ‘ cordiglieri’, from their being girt with a cord. I had before
followed the common reading, ‘il corregger’ ; and translated the
line according to Venturi’s interpretation of it :—

Nor miss of the reproof which that implies.

CANTO XII

1. 1. The blessed flame.) Thomas Aquinas.

]. 2. The holy mill.| The circle of spirits.

]. 12. In manner of that voice.| One rainbow giving back the image
of the other, as sound is reflected by Echo, that nymph who was
melted away by her fondness for Narcissus, as vapour is melted by
the sun. The reader will observe in the text not only a second and
third simile within the first, but two mythological and one sacred
allusion bound up together with the whole. Even after this
accumulation of imagery, the two circles of spirits, by whom Beatrice
and Dante were encompassed, are by a bold figure termed two garlands
of never-fading roses. Indeed there is a fullness of splendour, even
to prodigality, throughout the beginning of this Canto.

]. 25. One.|] Saint Bonaventura, general of the Franciscan order,
in which he effected some reformation ; and one of the most profound
divines of his age. ‘ He refused the archbishopric of York, which
was offered him by Clement IV, but afterwards was prevailed on to
accept the bishopric of Albano and a cardinal’s hat. He was born
at Bagnoregio or Bagnorea, in Tuscany, a. D. 1221, and died in 1274.’
Dict. Histor. par Chaudon et Delandine, ed. Lyon, 1804.

]. 25. Amongst the new lights.| In the circle that had newly sur-
rounded the first.

]. 26. That made me seem.| ‘That made me turn to it, as the mag-
netic needle does to the pole.’

]. 27. To its whereabout.| Al suo dove.

The very stones prate of my whereabout.
Shakespeare, Macbeth, 11. i.

1], 28. The love.| By an act of mutual courtesy, Bonaventura,
a Franciscan, is made to proclaim the praises of St. Dominic, as
Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, has celebrated those of St. Francis ;
and in like manner each blames the irregularities, not of the other’s
order, but of that to which himself belonged. Even Macchiavelli,
no great friend to the church, attributes the revival of Christianity
to the influence of these two saints. ‘ Quanto alle Sette, si vede
ancora queste rinovazioni esser necessarie, per l’essempio della nostra

PARADISE, CANTO XII 523

Religione, la quale, se non fusse stata ritirata verso il suo principio
da San Francesco e da San Domenico, sarebbe al tutto spenta.’
Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di T.. Livio, Lib. III, c. 1. ‘ As to sects,
it is seen that these renovations are necessary, by the example of our
religion, which, if it had not been drawn back to its principle by
St. Francis and St. Dominic, would be entirely extinguished.’

1]. 39. As thow heard’st.| See the last Canto, 1. 33.

1. 42. Jn that clime.] Spain.

]. 45. Those billows.| The Atlantic.

1. 47. Sometimes.] During the summer solstice.

1. 48. Callaroga.| Between Osma and Aranda, in Old Castile,
designated by the royal coat of arms.

1. 51. The loving minion of the Christian faith.| Dominic was born
April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace Callaroga ;
his father and mother’s names, Felix and Joanna; his mother’s
dream ; his name of Dominic, given him in consequence of a vision
by a noble matron who stood sponsor to him, are all told in an anony-
mous life of the saint, said to be written in the thirteenth century, and
published by Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum,
Par. 1719, fol.,tom.i, p. 25. These writers deny his having been an
inquisitor, and indeed the establishment of the inquisition itself
before the fourth Lateran Council. Ibid., p. 88.

1. 52. Gentle.| Bapetay éxOpois, nal Piro ebpev7.
Eurip. Medea, v. 809.

Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Iv. il.

]. 55. In the mother’s womb.] His mother, when pregnant with
him, is said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white and
black dog with a lighted torch in his mouth, which were signs of the
habit to be worn by his order, and of his fervent zeal.

1. 59. The dame.| His godmother’s dream was, that he had one
star in his forehead and another in the nape of his neck, from which
he communicated light to the east and the west.

]. 69. After the first counsel.| ‘ Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.’ Matt.
xix. 21. Dominic is said to have followed this advice.

1. 70. Many a time.| His nurse, when she returned to him, often
found that he had left his bed, and was prostrate, and in prayer.

1. 73. Felix.] Felix Gusman.

1.75. As men interpret it.| Grace or gift of the Lord.

1. 77. Ostiense.] Arrigo, a native of Susa, formerly a considerable
city in Piedmont, and cardinal of Ostia and Velletri, whence he
acquired the name of Ostiense, was celebrated for his lectures on the
five books of the Decretals. He flourished about the year 1250.
He is classed by Frezzi with Accorso the Florentine.

Poi Ostiense, e ?] Fiorentino Accorso,
Che fé le chiose, e dichiard ’] mio testo,
E alle leggi diede gran soccorso.
Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 13.

524 NOTES

I. 77. Taddeo.| It is uncertain whether he speaks of the physician
or the lawyer of that name. The former, Taddeo di Alderotto,
a Florentine, called the Hippocratean, translated the ethics of
Aristotle into Latin; and died at an advanced age towards the end
of the thirteenth century. The other, who was of Bologna and
celebrated for his legal knowledge, left no writings behind him.
He is also spoken of by Frezzi :

Azzo e Taddeo gia funno li maggiori ;
E ora ognun’ é oscuro, e tal appare
Qual’ é la luna alli febei splendori.

Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 18.

1. 82. The see.] ‘The apostolic see, which no longer continues its
wonted liberality towards the indigent and deserving ; not indeed
through its own fault, as its doctrines are still the same, but through
the fault of the pontiff, who is seated in it.’

1. 85. No dispensation.] Dominic did not ask licence to compound
for the use of unjust acquisitions by dedicating a part of them to
pious purposes.

]. 86. Nor the first vacant fortune.| Not the first benefice that fell
vacant.

1. 89. In favour of that seed.| ‘ For that seed of the divine word,
from which have sprung up these four and twenty plants, these holy
spirits that now environ thee.’

1]. 99. One wheel.| Dominic; as the other wheel is Francis.

]. 103. Thomas.| Thomas Aquinas.

1. 104. But the track.] ‘ But the rule of St. Francis is already
deserted: and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness.’

1.110. Tares.| He adverts to the parable of the tares and the wheat.

]. 111. JZ question not.| ‘Some indeed might be found, who still
observe the rule of the order: but such would come neither from
Casale nor Acquasparta.’ At Casale, in Monferrat, the discipline
had been enforced by Uberto with unnecessary rigour; and at
Acquasparta, in the territory of Todi, it had been equally relaxed
by the Cardinal Matteo, general of the order. Lucas Waddingus, as
cited by Lombardi, corrects the errors of the commentators who had
confounded these two.

Let. Illuminato here,

And Agostino. |
Two among the earliest followers of St. Francis.

]. 125. Hugues of St. Victor.| Landino makes him of Pavia;
Venturi calls him a Saxon; and Lombardi, following Alexander
Natalis, Hist. Eccl. Saec. xi, cap. 6, art. 9, says that he was from
Ypres. He was of the monastery of Saint Victor at Paris, and died
in 1142, at the age of forty-four. His ten books, illustrative of the
celestial hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, according to the
translation of Joannes Scotus, are inscribed to King Louis, son of
Louis le Gros, by whom the monastery had been founded. Opera
Hug. de S8.Vict., fol., Paris, 1526, tom. i. 329. ‘ A man distinguished
by the fecundity of his genius, who treated, in his writings, of all the
branches of sacred and profane erudition that were known in his time,
and who composed several] dissertations that are not destitute of
merit.’ Maclaine’s Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., v. iii, cent. xii, p. ii, ¢. il,

PARADISE, CANTO XII 525

§ 23. I have looked into his writings, and found some reason for
this high eulogium.

]. 125. Pietro Mangiadore.| ‘ Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born
at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards
chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices
to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in
1198.2. Chaudon et Delandine, Dict. Hist., ed. Lyon, 1804. The
work by which he is best known is his Historia Scolastica, which
I shall have occasion to cite in the Notes to Canto X XVI.

1. 126. He of Spain.] ‘To Pope Adrian V succeeded John X XI,
a native of Lisbon; a man of great genius and extraordinary acquire-
ments, especially in logic and in medicine, as his books written in
the name of Peter of Spain (by which he was known before he became
Pope) may testify. His life was not much longer than that of his
predecessors, for he was killed at Viterbo, by the falling in of the
roof of his chamber, after he had been pontiff only eight months
and as many days,’ 4. D. 1277. Mariana, Hist. de Esp., Lib. XIV, c. 2.
His Thesaurus Pawperum is referred to in Browne’s Vulgar Errors,
Book VII, ch. 7.

]. 128. Chrysostom.| The eloquent patriarch of Constantinople.

Anselmo.| ‘Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born
at Aosta, about 1034, and studied under Lanfranc, at the monastery
of Bec in Normandy, where he afterwards devoted himself to a
religious life, in his twenty-seventh year. In three years he was
made prior, and then abbot of that monastery; from whence he
was taken, in 1093, to succeed to the archbishopric, vacant by the
death of Lanfrane. He enjoyed this dignity till his death, in 1109,
though it was disturbed by many dissensions with William II and
Henry I respecting immunities and investitures. There is much
depth and precision in his theological works.’ Tiraboschi, Stor.
della Lett. Ital.,tom. iii, lib. iv, cap.2. Ibid.,c.v. ‘It is an observa-
tion made by many modern writers, that the demonstration of the
existence of God, taken from the idea of a Supreme Being, of which
Des Cartes is thought to be the author, was so many ages back
discovered and brought to light by Anselm. Leibnitz himself makes
the remark, Oper., vol. v, p. 570, edit. Genev., 1768.’

1. 129. Donatus.| Aelius Donatus, the grammarian, in the fourth
century, one of the preceptors of St. Jerome. So Fazio degli Uberti,
Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap. 13.

In questo tempo Donato vivea,
Che delle arti in si breve volume
L’uscio n’aperse e la prima scalea.

1. 130. Raban.| ‘He was made Archbishop of Mentz in 847. His
Latino-Theotische Glossary of the Bible is still preserved in the
imperial library at Vienna. See Lambesius, Comment. de Bibl.,
Lib. II, pp. 416 and 932.’ Gray’s Works, 4to, Lond., 1814, vol. ii, p. 33.
‘Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, isdeservedly placed at the head
of the Latin writers of thisage.? Mosheim, v. ii, cent. ix, p. li, c. 11, § 14.

1. 131. Joachim.| Abbot of Flora in Calabria ; ‘whom the multitude
revered as a person divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious
prophets of ancient times.’ Mosheim, v. iii, cent. xiii, p. li, c. Li, § 33.

1. 134. A peer.] St. Dominic.

526 NOTES

CANTO XIII

]. 1. Let him.] ‘Whoever would conceive the sight that now
presented itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the brightest
stars in heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus Major and two
of Arcturus Minor, ranged in two circles, one within the other, each
resembling the crown of Ariadne, and moving round in opposite
directions.’

]. 21. The Chiana.| See Hell, Canto XXIX. 45.

]. 29. That luminary.| Thomas Aquinas.

]. 30. The meek man of God.| Saint Francis. See Canto XI. 34.

]. 31. One ear.|] ‘ Having solved one of thy questions, I proceed
to answer the other. Thou thinkest then that Adam and Christ were
both endued with all the perfection of which the human nature is
capable ; and therefore wonderest at what has been said concerning
Solomon.’

]. 34. In the bosom.] ‘Thou knowest that in the breast of Adam,
whence the rib was taken to make that fair cheek of Eve, which, by
tasting the apple, brought death into the world; and also in the
breast of Christ, which, being pierced by the lance, made satisfaction
for the sins of the whole world ; as much wisdom resided, as human
nature was capable of : and thou dost therefore wonder that I should
have spoken of Solomon as the wisest.’ See Canto X. 105.

]. 48. That.) ‘Things, corruptible and incorruptible, are only
emanations from the archetypal idea residing in the Divine Mind.’

1.51. Light.| The Word: the Son of God.

]. 53. His love triune mith them.| The Holy Ghost.

1. 55. New existences.| Angels and human souls. If we read with
some editions and many MSS. ‘ nove’ instead of ‘ nuove,’ it should
be rendered ‘ nine existences’, and then means ‘ the nine heavens’ ;
and this reading is approved by Lombardi, Biagioli, and Monti.
In the terms ‘sussistenze’ and ‘contingenze’, ‘existences and
contingencies’, Dante follows the language of the scholastic writers,
which [ have endeavoured to preserve.

1. 57. The lowest powers.| Irrational life and brute matter.

1. 62. Their wax, and that which moulds it.| Matter, and the virtue
or energy that acts on it.

1. 68. The heaven.) The influence of the planetary bodies.

1. 70. The brightness of the seal.| The brightness of the Divine idea
before spoken of.

1. 74. Therefore.| Daniello, says Lombardi, has shown his sagacity
in remarking that our Poet intends this for a brief description of the
Trinity: the primal virtue signifying the Father; the lustrous
image, the Son; the fervent love, the Holy Ghost.

1. 77. The clay.) Adam.

1. 88. Who asked.] ‘ He did not desire to know the number of the
celestial intelligences, or to pry into the subtleties of logical, meta-
physical, or mathematical science: but asked for that wisdom which
might fit him for his kingly office.’

1. 90. The number.| This question is discussed by our Poet himself
in the Convito, II. vi.

1. 92. If necessary.] ‘If a premiss necessarily true, with one not
necessarily true, ever produced a necessary consequence: a question

PARADISE, CANTO XIII 527

resolved in the negative by the art of logic, with that general rule,
conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem.’ Lombardi.

1. 94. That first motion.| ‘ If we must allow one first motion, which
is not caused by other motion: a question resolved affirmatively
by metaphysics, according to that principle, repugnat in causis
processus in infinitum.’ Lombardi.

1. 95. Of the mid circle.| ‘If inthe half of the circle a rectilinear
triangle can be described, one side of which shall be the diameter of
the same circle, without its forming a right angle with the other two
sides; which geometry shows to be impossible.’ Lombardi.

1. 98. That ken.| See Canto X. 110.

1. 111. Whose affirmation, or denial.) Tév yap dpi devdrepa dv ris
dporoynoev, pr) Tpocéxav Tois pnuacr Tov votv, 7 TO ToAY cidiopeba
pavat TE Kal anapvetoOa. Plato, Theaetetus, 165a. ‘ For any one
might make yet absurder concessions than these, not paying strict
attention to terms, according to the way in which we are for the
most part accustomed both to affirm and to deny.’

}. 120. ——Parmenides,

Melissus, Bryso.|

For the singular opinions entertained by the two former of these
heathen philosophers, see Diogenes Laertius, Lib. [X, and Aristot.,
De Coelo, Lib. III, cap. i, and Phys., Lib. I, cap. ii. The last is also twice
adduced by Aristotle (Anal. Post., Lib. I, cap. ix, and Rhet., Lib. III,
cap. 1i) as affording instances of false reasoning. Our Poet refers to the
philosopher’s refutation of them in the De Monarchia, Lib. III, ec. iv.
See also Plato in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Parmenides.

1. 123. Sabellius, Arius.| Well-known heretics.

1. 124. Scimitars.] A passage in the travels of Bertradon de la
Brocquiére, translated by Mr. Johnes, will explain this allusion, which
has given some trouble to the commentators. That traveller, who
wrote before Dante, informs us, p. 138, that the wandering Arabs
used their scimitars as mirrors.

]. 135. Let not.] *‘ Let not shortsighted mortals presume to decide
on the future doom of any man, from a consideration of his present
character and actions.’ This is meant as an answer to the doubts
entertained respecting the salvation of Solomon. See Canto X. 107.

1. 135. Dame Birtha and Sir Martin.| Names put generally for any
persons who have more curiosity than discretion.

CANTO XIV

1.5. Such was the image.| The voice of Thomas Aquinas proceeding
from the circle to the centre; and that of Beatrice, from the centre
to the circle.

]. 14. When.] When ye shall be again clothed with your bodies at
the resurrection.

1. 25. That heavenly shower.| That effusion of beatific light. |

1.26. Him.] Literally translated by Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde,
Book V, st. 267.

Thou oon, and two, and three eterne on-lyve,
That regnest ay in three, and two, and oon,
Uncirecumscript, and al mayst circumscryve.

528 NOTES

1. 31. The goodliest light.) Solomon.

1. 78. To more lofty bliss.| To the planet Mars.

1. 92. Its pathway.] See the Convito, II. xv. ‘E da sapere,’ &@
‘It must be known, that, concerning the galaxy, philosophers have
entertained different opinions. The Pythagoreans say that the sun
once wandered out of his way; and passing through other parts not
suited to his heat, scorched the place through which he passed ; and
that there was left that appearance of the scorching. I think they
grounded their opinion on the fable of Phaeton, which Ovid relates
at the beginning of his Metamorphoses. Others (as Anaxagoras and
Democritus) said that it proceeded from a partial repercussion of the
solar light, which they proved by such reasons as they could bring to
demonstrate it. What Aristotle has said, cannot well be known;
because his meaning is not made the same in one translation as in
another: and I think it must have been an error in the translators ;
for, in the new, he seems to say that it is a collection of vapours under
the stars, which they always attract in that part; and this appears
devoid of any true reason. In the old, he says that the galaxy is
nothing else than a multitude of fixed stars in that part, so small,
that here below we cannot distinguish them ; but that they form the
appearance of that whiteness, which we call the galaxy. And it
may be, that the heaven in that part is dense, and therefore retains
and represents that light; and in this opinion Avicen and Ptolemy
seem to agree with Aristotle.” M. Letronne’s remarks on this passage
of the Convito, inserted in M. Artaud’s Histoire de Dante (8°, Par.,
1841, p. 157), are worth consulting.

1. 94. The venerable sign.| The cross, which is placed in the planet
of Mars, to denote the glory of those who fought in the crusades.

1. 106. The atomies of bodies. |

As thikke as motes in the sonne-beem.
Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Tale, |. 12.

As thick and numberless,
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams.
Milton, Jl Penseroso.

]. 125. He.] ‘ He, who considers that the eyes of Beatrice became
more radiant the higher we ascended, must not wonder that I do not
except even them, as I had not yet beheld them since our entrance
into this planet.” Lombardi understands by ‘ living seals’, ‘ vivi
suggelli,’ ‘the stars ;’ and this explanation derives some authority
from the Latin notes on the Monte Cassino MS. ‘id est coeli im-
primentes ut sigilla.’

1. 131. Revealed.] Dischiuso. Lombardi explains this word
‘excluded ’, as indeed Vellutello had done before him; and as it is
also used in the seventh Canto. If this interpretation were adopted,
the line should stand thus :—

That holy pleasure not excluded here.

But the word is capable of either meaning; and it would not be
easy to determine which is the right, in this passage.

PARADISE, CANTO XV 529

CANTO XV

1.15. And seems some star that shifted place in heaven.]
Pare una stella che tramuti loco.
Frezzi, Jl Quadrir., Lib. I, cap. 13.

Saepe etiam stellas, vento impendente, videbis,
Praecipites caelo labi, noctisque per umbram
Flammarum longos a tergo albescere tractus.
Virgil, Georg., Lib. I. 365.
Compare Arat., Avoonu. 194.
]. 24. Our greater muse.] Virgil, Aen., Lib. VI. 684.

Isque ubi tendentem adversum per gramina vidit
Aenean, alacris palmas utrasque tetendit....
‘Venisti tandem, tuaque exspectata parenti
Vicit iter durum pietas ?’

1.47. No unpleasant thirst, though long.| ‘ Thou hast satisfied the
long yet pleasing desire which I have felt to see thee, through my
knowledge of thee, obtained in the immutable decrees of the divine
Providence.’

1. 55. Unity.] Wdvrwy dpa 76 év mp@rov yéeyove TaV apiOpov éxdv-
tov, Plato, Parmenides, 153b. Perhaps the mention of Parmenides
in the last Canto but one, suggested this thought to Dante, which
he has expressed by specifying two particular numbers intended
to stand for all. There is something similar to it in his treatise De
Vulgart Eloquentia, Lib. I, c. xvi. *Sicut in numero cuncta men-
surantur uno, et plura vel pauciora dicuntur, secundum quod distant
ab uno, vel ei propinquant.’

1.71. To each among your tribe.| ‘ In you, glorified spirits, love and
knowledge are made equal, because they are equal in God. But
with us mortals it is otherwise, for we have often the will without
the means of expressing our affections; and I can therefore thank
thee only in my heart.’

1. 84. I am thy root.| Cacciaguida, father to Alighieri of whom our
Poet was the great-grandson.

1. 86. He, of whom.] ‘Thy great-grandfather, Alighieri, has been
in the first round of Purgatory more than a hundred years ; and it is
fit that thou by thy good deserts shouldst endeavour to shorten the
time of his remaining there.’ For what is known of Alighieri see
Pelli, Memor. Opere dt Dante ediz. Zatta, 1758, tom. iv, P. 2%, p. 21.
His son Bellincion was living in 1266; and of him was born the
father of our Poet, whom Benvenuto da Imola calls a lawyer by
profession. Pelli, ibid.

1. 92. Florence.| See G. Villani, Lib. ITI, cap. ii.

1. 93. Which calls her still.| The public clock being still within
the circuit of the ancient walls.

1. 98. When.] When the women were not married at too early an
age, and did not expect too large a portion.

1. 101. Void.] Through the civil wars and banishments. Or he
may mean that houses were not formerly built merely for pomp and
show, nor of greater size than was necessary for containing the families
that inhabited them. For it has been understood in both these ways

530 NOTES

]. 102. Sardanapalus.] The luxurious monarch of Assyria. Juvenal
is here imitated, who uses his name for an instance of effeminacy.
Sat. x. 362.

]. 103. Montemalo.| Either an elevated spot between Rome and
Viterbo; or Monte Mario, the site of the villa Mellini, commanding
a view of Rome.

1. 104. Our suburban turret.] Uccellatoio, near Florence, from
whence that city was discovered. Florence had not yet vied with
Rome in the grandeur of her public buildings.

1. 106. Bellincion Berti.] Hell, Canto XVI. 38, notes. There
is a curious description of the simple manner in which the earlier
Florentines dressed themselves, in G. Villani, Lib. VI, c. lxxi. ‘ And
observe that in the time of the said people (4. p. 1259), and before
and for a long time after, the citizens of Florence lived soberly, on
coarse viands, and at little cost, and in many customs and courtesies
of life were rude and unpolished ; and dressed themselves and their
women in coarse cloths: many wore plain leather, without cloth
over it; bonnets on their heads ; and all, boots on the feet: and the
Florentine women were without ornament; the better sort content
with a close gown of scarlet cloth of Ypres or of camlet, bound with
a girdle in the ancient mode, and a mantle lined with fur, and a hood
to it, which was worn on the head ; the common sort of women were
clad in a coarse gown of Cambrai in like manner. One hundred
pounds (libbre) was the common portion for a wife; and two or three
hundred was accounted a magnificent one; and the young women
were for the most part twenty years old or more before they were
given in marriage. Such was the dress; and thus coarse were the
manners of the Florentines: but they were of good faith and loyal
both among themselves and to the state ; and with their coarse way
of living and poverty did greater and more virtuous deeds than have
been done in our times with greater refinement and wealth.’

J. 110. Of Nerli, and of Vecchio.] Two of the most opulent families
in Florence.

]. 113. EHach.] ‘ None fearful either of dying in banishment, or of
being deserted by her husband on a scheme of traffic in France.’

1. 120. A Salterello and Cianghella.| The latter a shameless woman
of the family of Tosa, married to Lito degli Alidosi of Imola: the
former Lapo Salterello, a lawyer, with whom Dante was at variance.
‘We should have held an abandoned character, like these, as great
a wonder, as ye would the contrary now.’ There is a sonnet by
Lapo Salterello in Corbinelli’s collection printed with the Bella Mano,
ed. Firenze, 1715, p. 150.

]. 125. Mary.] The Virgin was invoked in the pains of childbirth.
Purgatory, Canto XX. 21.

1. 130. Val di Pado.| Cacciaguida’s wife, whose family name was
Alighieri, came from Ferrara, called Val di Pado, from its being
watered by the Po.

1. 132. Conrad.] The Emperor Conrad III, who died in 1152. See
G. Villani, Lib. IV. xxxiv.

1. 136. Whose people.| The Mahometans, who were left in possession
Ae ar Cie Land, through the supineness of the Pope. See Canto

. 123.

PARADISE, CANTO XVi 531

CANTO XVI

1. 10. With greeting.] The Poet, who had addressed the spirit, not
knowing him to be his ancestor, with a plain ‘ Thou ’, now uses more
ceremony, and calls him ‘ You’, according to a custom introduced
among the Romans in the latter times of the empire.

_L. 12. Beatrice.] Lombardi observes, that in order to show us that
his conversation with Cacciaguida had no connexion with sacred
subjects, Beatrice is described as standing at a little distance ; and
her smiling at his formal address to his ancestor, makes him fall into
a greater freedom of manner. See the next Canto, v. 15.

l. 15. Gwenever.] Beatrice’s smile reminded him of the female
servant who, by her coughing, emboldened Queen Guenever to admit
the freedoms of Lancelot. See Hell, Canto V. 124.

1. 23. The fold.| Florence, of which John the Baptist was the
patron saint.

1. 31. From the day.| From the incarnation of our Lord to the birth
of Cacciaguida, the planet Mars had returned five hundred and eighty
times to the constellation of Leo, with which it is supposed to have
a congenial influence. As Mars then completes his revolution in
a period forty-three days short of two years, Cacciaguida was born
about 1090. This is Lombardi’s computation, and it squares well
both with the old reading—

cinquecento cinquanta
E trenta fiate ;

and with the time when Cacciaguida might have fallen fighting under
Conrad IIT, who died in 1152. Not so the computation made by the
old commentators in general, who reckoning two years for the
revolution of Mars, placed the birth of Cacciaguida in 1160; the
impossibility of which being perceived by the Academicians della
Crusca (as it had before been by Pietro, the son of our Poet, or by
the author of the commentary which passes for his), they altered the
word ‘ trenta ’ into ‘ tre’, ‘ thirty ’ into ‘ three’; and so, still reckon-
ing the revolution of Mars at two years, brought Cacciaguida’s birth
to 1106. The way in which Lombardi has got over the difficulty
appears preferable, as it retains the old reading ; and I have accord-
ingly altered the translation, which before stood thus :—

— this fire had come,

Five hundred fifty times and thrice, its beams
To re-illumine underneath the foot

Of its own lion.

Since this note was written, Monti has given his assent to Lom-
bardi’s opinion. See his Proposta under the word ‘ Rinfiammare ’,
t. 1, p' ais: 210.

1. 38. The last.| The city was divided into four compartments.
The Elisei, the ancestors of Dante, resided near the entrance of that,
named from the Porta S. Piero, which was the last reached by the
competitor in the annual race at Florence. See G. Villani, Lib. IV,
¢

ap- |X:
1. 45. Mars.] The Padre d’ Aquino understands this to refer to the
population of Florence in Guido’s time ; for, according to him, ‘tra

532 NOTES

Marte eil Batista,’ means the space between thestatue of Mars placed
on the Ponte Vecchio and the Baptistery; and Lombardiassents to
this interpretation. Venturi supposes, that the portion of land so
described would have been insufficient to hold the population which
Florence contained at the supposed date of this poem, that is, in the
year 1300; and agrees with the elder commentators, who consider
the description as relating to time and not to place, and as indicating
the two periods of heathenism and Christianity. See Hell, Canto
XIII. 145. It would not be easy to determine the real sense of a
passage thus equivocal.

1. 48. Campi and Certaldo and Fighine.] Country places near
Florence.

1. 50. That these people.| ‘That the inhabitants of the above-
mentioned places had not been mixed with the citizens; nor the
limits of Florence extended beyond Galluzzo and Trespiano.’

1. 54. Aguglione’s hind, and Signa’s.| Baldo d’ Aguglione, and
Bonifazio da Signa.

1. 55. His eye already keen for bartering.| See Hell, Canto XXI. 40,
and note.

1. 56. Had not the people.| If Rome had continued in her allegiance
to the emperor, and the Guelph and Ghibelline factions had thus been
prevented ; Florence would not have been polluted by a race of
upstarts, nor lost the most respectable of her ancient families.

1.61. Simifonti.] A castle dismantled by the Florentines. G. Villani,
Lib. V, cap. xxx. The person here alluded to is no longer known.

1. 63. Montemurlo.| G. Villani, Lib. V, cap. xxxi, relates that the
Conti Guidi, not being able to defend their castle from the Pistoians,
sold it to the state of Florence.

1. 69. The blind bull.] So Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book II,
st. 198.

For swifter cours cometh thing that is of wighte
Whan it descendeth than don thinges lighte.
Compare Aristotle, Hthic. Nic., Lib. VI, cap. xiii, cwpare ioxupa, k.7.2.

1. 72. Lunt; Urbisaglia.| Cities formerly of importance, but then
fallen to decay.

1. 74. Chiust and Sinigaglia.|] The same.

1. 80. As the moon.] ‘ The fortune of us, that are the moon’s men,
doth ebb and flow like the sea.’ Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV, 1. ii.

1. 86. The Ught.] Whoever is curious to know the habitations of
these and the other ancient Florentines, may consult G. Villani,
Lib. IV.

1. 91. At the poop.] The Cerchi, Dante’s enemies, had succeeded to
the houses over the gate of Saint Peter, formerly inhabited by the
Ravignani and the Count Guido. G. Villani, Lib. [V, cap. x. Many
editions read porta, ‘gate’.—The same metaphor is found in Aeschylus,
Supp. 345, and is there also scarce understood by the critics.

Aidod ov mptpvay modeos @S éoreppevny.
Respect these wreaths, that crown your city’s poop.
1. 99. The gilded hilt and pommel.| The symbols of knighthood.
1. 100. The column, clothed with verrey.| The arms of the Pigli, or,
as some write it, the Billi.
1. 103. With them.] Either the Chiaramontesi, or the Tosinghi;

PARADISE, CANTO XVI 533

one of which had committed a fraud in measuring out the wheat
from the public granary. See Purgatory, Canto XII. 99.

1. 106. Sizit and Arrigucci.| ‘These families still obtained the
magistracies.’

1. 107. Them.] The Uberti; according to the Latin note on the
Monte Cassino MS., with which the editor of the extracts from these
notes says that Benvenuto agrees.

1. 109. The bullets of bright gold.| The arms of the Abati, as it is
conjectured ; or of the Lamberti, according to the authorities re-
ferred to in the last note.

1. 110. The sires of those.] ‘Of the Visdomini, the Tosinghi, and the
Cortigiani, who, being sprung from the founders of the bishopric of
Florence, are the curators of its revenues, which they do not spare,
whenever it becomes vacant.’

1. 113. The oerweening brood.| The Adimari. This family was
so little esteemed, that Ubertin Donato, who had married a
daughter of Bellincion Berti, himself indeed derived from the
same stock (see note to Hell, Canto XVI. 38), was offended with
his father-in-law, for giving another of his daughters in marriage to
one of them.

1. 120. Caponsacco.] The family of Caponsacchi, who had removed
from Fiesole, lived at Florence in the Mercato Vecchio.

F121. Giuda

And Infangato.] Giuda Guidi and the family of Infangati.

1. 123. A thing incredible I tell, though true.]

Io dird cosa incredibile e vera.

"Eyw aot ép@, Epn, @ TwKpates, Amoarov pev v7 Tovs Oeovs, dAnbes Se.
Plato, Theages, 130d.

]. 124. The gateway.] Landino refers this to the smallness of the
city: Vellutello, with less probability, to the simplicity of the people
in naming one of the gates after a private family.

1]. 127. The great Baron.| The Marchese Ugo, who resided at Flo-
rence aslieutenant of the Emperor Otho III, gave many of the chief
families licence to bear his arms. See G. Villani, Lib. IV, cap. ii,
where the vision is related, in consequence of which he sold all his
possessions in Germany, and founded seven abbeys ; in one whereof,
his memory was celebrated at Florence on St. Thomas’s day. * The
marquis, when hunting, strayed away from his people, and wandering
through a forest, came to a smithy, where he saw black and deformed
men tormenting others with fire and hammers; and, asking the
meaning of this, he was told that they were condemned souls, who
suffered this punishment, and that the soul of the Marquis Ugo was
doomed to suffer the same, if he did not repent. Struck with horror,
he commended himself to the Virgin Mary ; and soon after founded
the seven religious houses.’

]. 130. One.] Giano della Bella, belonging to one of the families
thus distinguished, who no longer retained his place among the
nobility, and had yet added to his arms a bordure or. See Macchia-
velli, Ist. Fior., Lib. II, p. 86, ediz. Giolito.

Iai32: Gualterott. dwelt,

And Importuni.]
Two families in the compartment of the city called Borgo.

534 NOTES

1. 134. Newer neighbourhood.| Some understand this of the Bardi;
and others, of the Buondelmonti.

1. 135. Zhe house.| Of Amidei. See Notes to Canto XXVIII of
Hell, 102.

1. 142. To Ema.) ‘It had been well for the city, if thy ancestor
had been drowned in the Ema, when he crossed that stream on his
way from Montebuono to Florence.’

l. 144. Onthat maimed stone.| See Hell, Canto XIII. 144 and note.
Near the remains of the statue of Mars, Buondelmonti was slain, as
if he had been a victim to the god; and Florence had not since
known the blessing of peace.

]. 150. The lily.| ‘The arms of Florence had never hung reversed
on the spear of her enemies, in token of her defeat ; nor been changed
from argent to gules’; as they afterwards were, when the Guelfi
gained the predominance.

CANTO XVII

l. 1. The youth.| Phaéton, who came to his mother Clymene, to
inquire of her if he were indeed the son of Apollo. See Ovid, Met.,
Lib. I, ad finem.

1. 6. That saintly lamp.| Cacciaguida.

1. 12. To own thy thirst.) ‘That thou mayst obtain from others
a solution of any doubt that may occur to thee.’

1. 15. That thou as clear.| ‘Thou beholdest future events with the
same clearness of evidence that we discern the simplest mathematical
demonstrations.’

]. 19. The point.| The divine nature.

]. 21. The soul-purifying mount.| See Purg., Canto VIII. 133, and
Canto XI. 140.

]. 22. The nether world.| See Hell, Canto X. 77, and Canto XV. 61.

1. 25. Well squared.| See Plato, Protagoras, 339b, and Aristot.
Rhetor. Lib. III, where Pietro Vettori, in his Commentary, p. 656,
remarks: ‘Quis nescit Dantem etiam suo in poemate tetragenum
vocasse apposite hominem, qui adversis casibus non frangitur sed
resistit fortiter ipsis ?’

]. 27. The arrow.| A line repeated by Ruccellai in his Oreste.

Nam praevisa minus laedere tela solent.
Ovid.
Che piaga antiveduta assai men duole.
Petrarca, T'rionfo del Tempo.
1.37. Contingency. ]

La contingenza, che fuor del quaderno
Della vostra materia non si stende.

I had before understood this, ‘ Contingency, which is not exposed to
view on the tablet of your nature,’ ‘ which is not discoverable by
your human understanding,’ and had translated it accordingly ; but
have now adopted Lombardi’s explanation: ‘Contingency, which
has no place beyond the limits of the material world.’

1]. 40. Necessity.| ‘The evidence with which we see casual events
portrayed in the source of all truth, no more necessitates those

PARADISE, CANTO XVII 535

events, than does the image, reflected in the sight by a ship sailing
down a stream, necessitate the motion of the vessel.’

]. 43. From thence.| ‘From the eternal sight; the view of the
Deity himself.’

]. 46. His cruel stepdame.| Phaedra.

1. 49. There.| At Rome, where the expulsion of Dante’s party
from Florence was then plotting, in 1300.

1. 51. The common cry.) The multitude will, as usual, be ready to
blame those who are sufferers, whose cause will at last be vindicated
by the overthrow of their enemies.

1. 55. Thou shalt leave each thing.| Compare Euripid., Phoen.
399, &e.

1. 65. Theirs.] ‘ They shall be ashamed of the part they have taken
against thee.’ Lombardi, I think, is very unhappy in his conjecture,
that ‘rotta la tempia’, areading of the Nidobeatinaedition, should be
adopted, and thatit may mean ‘ the broken heads of his companions’.

]. 69. The great Lombard.| Either Bartolommeo della Scala; or
Albuino his brother, although our Poet has spoken ambiguously of
him in his Convito, LV. xvi. Their coat of arms was a ladder and an
eagle. For an account of the rise of this family from a very mean
condition, see G. Villani, Lib. XI, cap. xciv.

]. 75. That mortal.) Can Grande della Scala, born under the in-
fluence of Mars, but at this time only nine years old. He was, as
the other two, a son of Alberto della Scala.

]. 80. The Gascon.] Pope Clement V. See Hell, Canto XIX. 86,
and note, and Paradise, Canto X XVII. 53, and Canto XXX. 141.

]. 80. Great Harry.) The Emperor Henry VII. See Canto XXX.
135.

1. 82. In equal scorn.] See Hell, Canto I. 98.

]. 106. The place.] Our Poet here discovers both that Florence, much
as he inveighs against it, was still the dearest object of his affections,
and that it was not without some scruple he indulged his satirical vein.

]. 107. I may not lose myself.| ‘That being driven out of my
country, I may not deprive myself of every other place by the bold-
ness, with which I expose in my writings the vices of mankind.’

1. 117. The treasure.| Cacciaguida.
~ 1.127. The cry thou raisest.| ‘Thou shalt stigmatize the faults of
those who are most eminent and powerful; for men are naturally
less moved by instances, adduced from among those who are in the
lower classes of life.’

CANTO XVIII

1. 1. Now.] The spirit of Cacciaguida enjoyed its own thoughts in
silence.
1. 3. Tempering the sweet with bitter. |
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.
Shakespeare, As You Like Jt, 1v. iii.
]. 22. The hallowed light.) In which the spirit of Cacciaguida was

enclosed.
1. 25. On this fifth lodgement of the tree.| Mars, the fifth of the

heavens.

536 NOTES

1. 37. The great Maccabee.| Judas Maccabeus.
]. 39. Charlemagne.| L. Pulci commends Dante for placing Charle-
magne and Orlando here :—

To mi confido ancor molto qui a Dante,
Che non sanza cagion nel ciel su misse
Carlo ed Orlando in quelle croci sante,
Che come diligente intese e scrisse.
Morg. Magq., ¢. xxviii.

1. 43. William, and Renard.| Probably, not, as the commentators
have imagined, William II of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaud,
two of the crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon (Maimbourg, Hist. des
Croisades, ed. Par., 1682, 12mo, tom. i, p. 96), but rather the two more
celebrated heroes in the age of Charlemagne. The former, William I
of Orange, supposed to have been the founder of the present illus-
trious family of that name, died about 808, according to Joseph de la
Pise, Tableaw de l Hist. des Princes et Principauté @ Orange. Our
countryman, Ordericus Vitalis, professes to give his true life, which
had been misrepresented in the songs of the itinerant bards. ‘ Vulgo
canitur a ioculatoribus de illo cantilena; sed iure praeferenda est
relatio autentica.’ Eccl. Hist. in Duchesne, Hist. Normann. Script.,
p- 598. The latter is better known by having been celebrated by
Ariosto, under the name of Rinaldo.

]. 43. Duke Godfrey.| Godfrey of Bouillon.

Poi venia solo il buon duce Goffrido,
Che fé P impressa santa e i passi giusti ;
Questo, di ch’ io mi sdegno e ’ndarno grido,
Fece in Hierusalem con le sue mani
Il mal guardato e gia negletto nido.
Petrarca, T'r. della Fama, cap. ii.

]. 44. Robert Guiscard.| See Hell, Canto XXVIII. 12.

1. 63. Through silvery.| Soin the Convito, ‘ E il cielo di Giove,’ &c.,
II. xiv. ‘The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to geometry, for
two properties: the one is, that it moves between two heavens repug-
nant to its temperature, as that of Mars and that of Saturn; whence
Ptolemy, in the above-cited book, says that Jupiter is a star of tem-
perate complexion, between the coldness of Saturn and the heat of
Mars: the other is, that, among all the stars, it shows itself white,
as it were silvered.’

1. 75. O nymph divine.] ‘O muse, thou that makest thy votaries
glorious and long-lived, as they, assisted by thee, make glorious and
long-lived the cities and realms which they celebrate, now enlighten
me,’ &c.

]. 81. The characters.| Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram.
‘Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth.’ Wusdom of
Solomon, i. 1.

1. 94. The wnwise.| Who augur future riches to themselves in pro-
portion to the quantity of sparks that fly from the lighted brand when
it is shaken.

1. 101. Who painteth there.| The Deity himself.

1. 105. Beatitude.| The band of spirits; for ‘ beatitudo’ is here
a noun of multitude.

PARADISE, CANTO XVIII 537

1. 116. That once more.| ‘That he may again drive out those who
buy and sell in the temple.’

1. 124. Taking the bread away.| ‘ Excommunication, or interdiction
of the eucharist, is now employed as a weapon of warfare.’

1. 126. That writest but to cancel.) ‘ And thou, Pope Boniface, who
writest thy ecclesiastical censures for no other purpose than to be
paid for revoking them.’

1. 130. T'o him.| The coin of Florence was stamped with the im-
pression of John the Baptist ; and, for this, the avaricious pope is
made to declare that he felt more devotion, than either for Peter or
Paul. Lombardi, I know not why, would apply this to Clement V
rather than to Boniface VIII.

1. 131. And for a dance.| I am indebted to an intelligent critic in
the Monthly Review, 1823, for pointing out my former erroneous
translation of the words ‘ per salti’, ‘ from the wilds.’

CANTO XIX

1. 8. Nor hath ink written. |

This Joye may not writen been with inke.
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book III, st. 242.
]. 32. Like to a falcon. |
Come falcon ch’ uscisse dal cappello.
Boccaccio, [1 Filostrato, p. iv, st. 83.
Which Chaucer translates,

As fresh as faucon comen out of muwe.
Troilus and Criseyde, Book III, st. 255.

Poi come fa | falcon, quando si move,
Cosi Umilta al cielo alzo la vista.
Frezzi, [1 Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 5.

Rinaldo sta come suole il falcone
Uscito del capello a la veleta.
L. Pulei, Morgante Magq., c. xi.

]. 38. Who turned his compass.| “When he prepared the heavens,
I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth.’
Prov. viii. 27.
In his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things.
Milton, P. Z., Book VII. 224.

]. 42. The Word.| ‘The divine nature still remained incompre-
hensible. Of this Lucifer was a proof; for he, though the chief of
all created beings, yet, through his pride, waiting not for further
supplies of the divine illumination, fell without coming to maturity.’
Thus our author in the De Vulgari Eloquentia, speaking of the fallen
angels, says, ‘divinam curam perversi expectare noluerunt.’ Lib. i,
ce. 2.

1. 78. To him.] ‘ He, who should argue, on the words I have just
used, respecting the fate of those who have wanted means of knowing

538 NOTES

the Gospel, would certainly have cause enough to doubt, if he did not
defer to the authority of Scripture, which pronounces God to be
thoroughly just.’

1. 83. The primal will.|] The divine will.

]. 105. Who call ‘ Christ, Christ’.| ‘ Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ Matt.
vii. 21.

1. 108. The Aethiop.| ‘The men of Nineveh shall rise in judge-
ment with this generation, and shall condemn it.’ Matt. xii. 41.

]. 112. That volume.| ‘ And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God; and the books were opened: and another book was
opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of
those things which were written in the books, according to their
works.’ Rev. xx. 12.

1. 114. Albert.| Purgatory, Canto VI. 98.

1]. 116. Prague.| The eagle predicts the devastation of Bohemia by
Albert, which happened soon after this time, when that emperor
obtained the kingdom for his eldest son Rodolph. See Coxe’s
House of Austria, 4to ed., vol. i, part i, p. 87.

]}. 117. He.] Philip LV of France, after the battle of Courtrai, 1302,
in which the French were defeated by the Flemings, raised the
nominal value of the coin. This king died in consequence of his
horse being thrown to the ground by a wild boar, in 1314. The cir-
cumstances of his death are minutely related by Fazio degli Uberti,
Dittamondo, Lib. IV, cap. 19.

1. 121. The English and Scot.| He adverts to the disputes between
John Baliol and Edward I, the latter of whom is commended in the
Purgatory, Canto VII. 133, and note.

]. 122. The Spaniard’s luxury.] The commentators refer this to
Alonzo X of Spain. It seems probable that the allusion is to Fer-
dinand IV, who came to the crown in 1295, and died in 1312, at the
age of twenty-four, in consequence, as it was supposed, of his
extreme intemperance. See Mariana, Hist., Lib. XV, cap. 11.

]. 123. The Bohemian.] Winceslaus II. Purgatory, Canto VII. 102.

1. 125. The halter of Jerusalem.| Charles II of Naples and Jerusalem,
who was lame. See note to Purgatory, Canto VII. 125, and XX. 78.

1.127. He.] Frederick of Sicily, son of Peter III of Aragon. Pur-
gatory, Canto VII. 117. The isle of fire is Sicily, where was the tomb
of Anchises.

]. 133. His uncle.] James, king of Majorca and Minorca, brother
to Peter ITI.

His brother.) James Il of Aragon, who died in 1327. See
Purgatory, Canto VII. 120.

]. 135. Bastardized.| ‘ Bozze, according to Bembo, is a Provencal
word for ‘ bastardo e non legitimo. Della Volg. Lingua, Lib. I,
p- 25, ediz. 1544. Others have understood it to mean, ‘one dis-
honoured by his wife.’

Of Portugal.| In the time of Dante, Dionysius was king of Portugal.
He died in 1325, after a reign of nearly forty-six years, and does
not seem to have deserved the stigma here fastened on him. See
Mariana, Lib. XV, cap. 18. Perhaps the rebellious son of Dionysius
may be alluded to.

l. 136. Norway.] Haquin, king of Norway, is probably meant ;

PARADISE, CANTO XIX 539

who, having given refuge to the murderers of Eric VII, king of
Denmark, A.D. 1288, commenced a war against his successor,
Eric VIII, ‘ which continued for nine years. almost to the utter ruin
and destruction of both kingdoms.’ Modern Univ. Hist., vol. xxxii,
pa2 15:
1. 1386. —— Him
Of Ratza.]

One of the dynasty of the house of Nemagna, which ruled the king-
dom of Rassia or Ratza, in Sclavonia, from 1161 to 1371, and whose
history may be found in Mauro Orbino. Regno degli Slavi, ediz.
Pesaro, 1601. Uladislaus appears to have been the sovereign in
Dante’s time: but the disgraceful forgery, adverted to in the text,
is not recorded by the historian.

]. 138. Hungary.| The kingdom of Hungary was about this time
disputed by Carobert, son of Charles Martel, and Winceslaus, prince
of Bohemia, son of Winceslaus II. See Coxe’s House of Austria,
vol. i, part i, p. 86, 4to edit.

1. 140. Navarre.| Navarre was now under the yoke of France. It
soon after (in 1328) followed the advice of Dante, and had a monarch
of its own. Mariana, Lib. XV, cap. 19.

1. 141. Mountainous girdle.| The Pyrenees.

]. 148. Famagosta’ s streets

And Nicosia’ s.|

Cities in the kingdom of Cyprus, at that time ruled by Henry II,
a pusillanimous prince. Vertot, Hist. des Chev. de Malte, Lib. III. iv.
The meaning appears to be, that the complaints made by those cities
of their weak and worthless governor, may be regarded as an earnest
of his condemnation at the last doom.

]. 145. The rest.| ‘ Wise Poet!’ thus Landino concludes his com-
mentary on this Canto; ‘to whom the human race owes obligations
for having thus severely reprehended the faults of princes; since
these are not, like the errors of private persons, harmful to one or
a few only; but injure all the country which they govern; and
a single one frequently causes the ruin of whole nations.’ Much to
the same effect is a memorable sentence in Xenophon’s Agesilaus,
that excellent manual for princes. «ai tas pev Tay idtwrayv dpapTias
mpdws epepe, TAs 5& THY ApyovTaVv peyddas FYE, Kpivwr, Tos pev dAtya,
rovs 5& moAAd Kaka@s sSiaTiOévar. C. xi. 6. Compare also the
opening of Demosthenes’ second Speech against Aristogiton.

CANTO XX

1. 6. Wherein one shines.| The light of the sun, whence he supposes
the other celestial bodies to derive their light. Thus, in the Convito,
III. xii. ‘Nullo sensibile, &c. ‘No sensible object in the world is
more worthy to be made an example of the deity, than the sun, which
with sensible light enlightens first itself, and then all celestial and
elementary bodies.’

1. 8. The great sign.| The eagle, the Imperial ensign.

]. 16. After.] ‘ After the spirits in the sixth planet (Jupiter) had
ceased their singing.’

540 NOTES

]. 29. The part.| Lombardi well observes, that the head of the eagle
is seen in profile, so that one eye only appears.

1. 34. Who.] David.

1. 39. He.] Trajan. See Purgatory, Canto X. 69.

1. 44. He next.| Hezekiah.

1.47. The decrees of heaven.] ‘The eternal counsels of God are
indeed immutable, though they appear to us men to be altered by the
prayers of the pious.’

]. 50. The other following.| Constantine. There is no passage, in
which Dante’s opinion of the evil that had arisen from the mixture of
the civil with the ecclesiastical power, is more unequivocally declared.

1. 51. Passed o’er.| ‘Left the Roman state to the Pope, and trans-
ferred the seat of the empire to Constantinople.’

1.57. William.| William IT, king of Sicily, at the latter part of the
twelfth century. He was of the Norman line of sovereigns, and
obtained the appellation of ‘the Good’; and, as the Poet says, his
loss was as much the subject of regret in his dominions, as the
presence of Charles II of Anjou, and Frederick of Aragon, was of
sorrow and complaint.

]. 62. Trojan Ripheus.]

Ripheus iustissimus unus
Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus aequi.
Virgil, Aen., Lib. II. 426.

Then Ripheus fell, the justest far of all
The sons of Troy.
Pitt:

1. 73. Through glass.| This is the only allusion I have remarked in
our author to the art of painting glass. Tiraboschi traces that in-
vention in Italy as far back as to the end of the eighth century. Stor.
della Lett. Ital., tom. iii, lib. iii, cap. vi, §ii1. This, however, if we
may trust Mr. Warton’s judgement, must have been a sort of mosaic
inglass. For to express figures in glass, or what we now call the art
of painting in glass, that writer observes, ‘ was a very different work ;
and I believe I can show it was brought from Constantinople to Rome
before the tenth century, with other ornamental arts. History of
English Poetry, vol. iii, p. xxii. In the following passage from the
Dittamondo of Fazio degli Uberti, Lib. V, cap. 3, the allusion is to
mosaic in glass:

E pensa s’ ai veduto e posto cura,
Quando il musaico con vetri dipinti
Adorna e compon ben la sua pittura,

E quei che son pitt riccamente tinti
Nelle pit nobil parti gli son sempre,
Ed e converso nel men gli pit stinti.

1. 97. This.] Ripheus.

1. 98. That.| Trajan.

1. 103. The prayers.| The prayers of St. Gregory.

1. 119. The three nymphs.| Faith, Hope, and Charity. Purgatory,
Canto X XIX. 116.

1. 138. The pair.] Ripheus and Trajan.

PARADISE, CANTO XXI 541

CANTO XXI

1.12. The seventh splendour.| The planet Saturn.

]. 13. The burning lion’s breast.| The constellation Leo.

1. 15. In them, mirrored.] ‘ Let the form which thou shalt now
behold in this mirror,’ the planet, that is, of Saturn (soon after, |. 22,
called the Crystal), ‘ be reflected in the mirror of thy sight.’

1. 21. In equal balance.| ‘My pleasure was as great in complying
with her will, as in beholding her countenance.’

1. 24. Of that loved monarch.) Saturn. Compare Hell, Canto
XIVe 91.

1. 36. That glitterance.| ‘ Quello sfavillar.’ That multitude of shin-
ing spirits, who, coming to a certain point of the ladder, made those
different movements, which he has described as made by the birds.

]. 56. What forbade the smile.| ‘ Because it would have overcome
thee.’

]. 61. There aloft.| Where the other souls were.

1. 80. Not the soul.| The particular ends of Providence being con-
cealed from the very angels themselves.

1. 95. °Twixt either shore.) Between the Adriatic gulf and the
Mediterranean sea.

1. 97. A stony ridge.] A partof the Apennine. ‘ Gibbo’ is literally
a ‘hunch’. Thus Archilochus calls the island of Thasus, dvov jays.
See Gaisford’s Poetae Minores Graeci, t. i, p. 298.

1. 99. Catria.| Now the abbey of Santa Croce, in the duchy of
Urbino, about half-way between Gubbio and La Pergola. Here
Dante is said to have residedfor some time. See the ‘ Life’ prefixed.

}. 112. Pietro Damiano.| ‘S. Pietro Damiano obtained a great and
well-merited reputation, by the pains he took to correct the abuses
among the clergy. Ravenna is supposed to have been the place of
his birth, about 1007. He was employed in several important
missions, and rewarded by Stephen IX with the dignity of cardinal,
and the bishopric of Ostia, to which, however, he preferred his former
retreat in the monastery of Fonte Avellana, and prevailed on
Alexander II to permit him to retire thither. Yet he did not long
continue in this seclusion, before he was sent on other embassies.
He died at Faenza in 1072. His letters throw much light on the
obscure history of these times. Besides them, he has left several
treatises on sacred and ecclesiastical subjects. His eloquence is
worthy of a better age.’ Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett, Ital., tom. iii,
lib. iv, cap. ii. Heis mentioned by Petrarch, de Vita Solit., Lib. II,
§iii, cap. xvii. ‘Siquidem statum illum, pompasque saeculi suis
contribulibus linquens, ipse Italiae medio, ad sinistrum Apennini
latus, quietissimam solitudinem, de qua multa conscripsit, et quae
vetus adhuc fontis Avellanae nomen servat, perituris honoribus pre-
ferendam duxit, ubi non minus gloriose postmodum latuit quam
innotuerat primum Romae, nec dedecori illi fuit alti verticis rutilum
decus squalenti cilicio permutasse.’ Petrarchae Opera, Basil. 1571,
p. 266.

1. 114. Beside the Adriatic.| Some editions and manuscripts have
‘fu’, instead of ‘fui’. According to the former of these readings,
S. Pietro Damiano is made to distinguish himself from 8S. Pietro

542 NOTES

degli Onesti, surnamed ‘ I] Peccator’, founder of the monastery of
S. Maria del Porto, on the Adriatic coast, near Ravenna, who died
1119, at about eighty years of age. If it could be ascertained that
there was no religious house dedicated to the blessed Virgin, before
that founded by Pietro degli Onesti, to which the other Pietro might
have belonged, this reading would, no doubt, be preferable ; but at
present it seems very uncertain which is the right.

]. 117. The hat.| The cardinal’s hat.

1. 118. Cephas.] St. Peter.

1.119. The Holy Spirit's vessel.] St. Paul. See Hell, Canto II. 30.

]. 130. Round this.| Round the spirit of Pietro Damiano.

CANTO XXII
1]. 4. Like the mother. ]

Come la madre, che ’! figliuol ascolta
Dietro a se piangner, si volge, ed aspetta,
Poi il prende per mano e da la volta.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. III, cap. 21.

1. 14. The vengeance.] Beatrice, it is supposed, intimates the ap-
proaching fate of Boniface VIII. See Purgatory, Canto XX. 86.

1. 36. Cassino.] A castle in the Terra di Lavoro. ‘The learned
Benedictine, D. Angelo della Noce, in his notes on the chronicle of
the monastery of Cassino (Not. cxi), corrects the error of Cluverius
and Eftenus, who describe Cassino as situated in the same place
where the monastery now is; at the same time commending the
veracity of our author in this passage, which places Cassino on the
side of the mountain, and points out the monastery founded by
Saint Benedict on its summit.’ Lombardi.

1. 37. Frequented by a race.| Lombardi here cites an apposite
passage from the writings of Pope St. Gregory. ‘ Mons tria millia,’
&e. Dialog., Lib. II, cap. 8. ‘The mountain rising for the space of
three miles stretches its top towards the sky, where was a very
ancient temple, in which, after the manner of the old heathens,
Apollo was worshipped by the foolish rustics. On every side, groves
had sprung up in honour of the false gods; and in these, the mad
multitude of unbelievers still tended on their unhallowed sacrifices.
There then the man of God (Saint Benedict) arriving, beat in pieces the
idols ; overturned the altar ; cut down the groves ; and, in the very
temple of Apollo, built the shrine of Saint Martin, placing that of
Saint John where the altarof Apollohadstood; and, by his continual
preaching, called the multitude that dwelt round about, to the true
faith.’

1. 38. J tt was.] ‘ A new order of monks, which in a manner absorbed
all the others that were established in the west, was instituted,
A.D. 529, by Benedict of Nursia, a man of piety and reputation for
the age he livedin.’ Maclaine’s Mosheim, Eccles. Hist., vol. ii, cent. vi,
p. il, c. ii, § 6.

1. 48. Macarius.] There are two of this name enumerated by
Mosheim among the Greek theologians of the fourth century, vol. 1.
cent. iv, p. xi, chap. ii, § 9. In the following chapter, § 10, it is said,
* Macarius, an Egyptian monk, undoubtedly deserves the first rank

PARADISE, CANTO XXII 543

among the practical writers of this time, as his works displayed, some
few things excepted, the brightest and most lovely portraiture of
sanctity and virtue.’

1. 48. Romoaldo.] S. Romoaldo, a native of Ravenna, and the
founder of the order of Camaldoli, died in 1027. He was the author
of a commentary on the Psalms.

1. 61. In the last sphere.| The Empyrean, where he afterwards sees
St. Benedict, Canto XXXII. 30. Beatified spirits, though they have
different heavens allotted them, have all their seat in that higher
sphere.

1. 70. The patriarch Jacob.| ‘ And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder
set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold
the angels of God ascending and descending on it.’ Gen. xxvili. 12.
So Milton, P. L., Book III. 510:

The stairs were such, as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright.

1. 107. The sign.] The constellation of Gemini.

1. 112. The parent.) The sun was in the constellation of the Twins
at the time of Dante’s birth.

1.115. The lofty wheel.| The eighth heaven; that of the fixed stars.

1. 130. This globe.] So Chaucer :

And doun from thennes faste he gan avyse
This litel spot of erthe, that with the see
Enbraced is, and fully gan despyse
This wrecched world.
Trowlus and Criseyde, Book V, st. 260.

Al the world as to myn yé
No more semed than a prikke.
Hous of Fame, Book II, 398.

Compare Cicero, Somn. Scip., ‘Iam ipsa terra ita mihi parva visa
est,’ &c. Lucan, Phars., Lib. IX. 11, and Tasso, G. L.,c. xiv, st. 9,
10,11;

1. 136. Without the shadow.] See Canto II. 71.

1. 138. Of thy son.] The sun.

1. 140. Maia and Dione.| The planets Mercury and Venus: Dione
being the mother of the latter, and Maia of the former deity.

1. 141. ’T'wixt his sire and son.| Betwixt Saturn and Mars.

CANTO XXIII

1. 11. That region.| Towards the south, where the course of the sun
appears less rapid, than when he is in the east or the west.

1. 25. Trivia.] A name of Diana.

]. 26. The eternal nymphs.] The stars.

Serava Te Kat aidépa,

La Ont 3 , ,
Aaprad, iv wrvOoat vuppar
‘Immevovoa 6. dppvaias.

Eurip. Supp. 992.

Those starry nymphs, which dance about the pole.
Drummond, Sonne.

544 NOTES

Musgrave and Herman would dismiss the word viyga, ‘ nymphs,’
from this passage in Euripides; but the use of it by our author in
the text, tends to prove that it is the genuine reading: and it is
thus that poets of the most distant ages, and without any knowledge
of each other’s writings (for we can scarcely imagine Dante to have
read the plays of Euripides), may often protect one another against
the verbal critics. Drummond, I believe, had learning enough to
be indebted to either of his predecessors. Expressions somewhat
similar, in Theocritus and Tibullus, are observed by Markland.

1. 36. The Might.| Our Saviour.

]. 48. A forgotten dream.|

You might as well
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.
Wordsworth, Hart-Leap Well.

]. 71. The rose.| The Virgin Mary, who, says Lombardi, is termed
by the church Rosa Mystica. ‘I was exalted like a palm-tree in
En-gaddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho.’ Ecclus. xxiv. 14.

]. 73. The lilies.| The Apostles. ‘ And give ye a sweet savour as
frankincense, and flourish as a lily.’ Eeclus. xxxix. 14.

1. 84. Thou didst exalt thy glory.| The divine light retired upwards,
to render the eyes of Dante more capable of enduring the spectacle
which now presented itself.

1. 85. The name

Of that fair flower.]| The name of the Virgin.

]. 92. A cresset.| The angel Gabriel.

]. 98. That lyre.| By synecdoche, the lyre is put for the angel.

1. 99. The goodliest sapphire.| The Virgin.

J. 110. The robe.] The ninth heaven, the primum mobile, that en-
folds and moves the eight lower heavens.

]. 116. The crowned flame.] The Virgin, with the angel hovering
over her.

1.117. The seed.] Our Saviour.

]. 123. Regina Coeli.| ‘The beginning of an anthem, sung by the
church at Easter, in honour of our Lady.’ Volpi.

]. 126. Those rich-laden coffers.| Those spirits, who, having sown
the seed of good works on earth, now contain the fruit of their pious
endeavours.

J. 129. In the Babylonian exile.| During their abode in this world.

]. 133. He.] St. Peter, with the other holy men of the Old and New
Testament.

CANTO XXIV

1]. 17. Their carols.| Carole. The annotator on the Monte Cassino
MS. observes, ‘ carolae dicuntur tripudium quoddam quod fit saliendo,
ut Napolitani faciunt et dicunt.? The word had also that significa-
tion, which is now the only one that common use attaches to it.
‘ Au tiers jour il s’en partit’” (the king of Cyprus coming from Canter-
bury to Edward III), ‘et chevaucha le chemin de Londres; et fit
tant qu'il vint a Altem; ou le roi se tenoit, et grand foison de Sei-
gneurs appareillés pour le recevoir. Ce fut un dimanche a heure de
relevee qu'il vint la. Si eut entre cette heure et le souper grans

a Ll

PARADISE, CANTO XXIV 545

danses et grans karolles. La etoit le jeune Seigneur de Coucy qui
s’efforcoit de bien danser et de bien chanter quand son tour venoit,’
&c. Froissart, vol. i, cap. 219, fol. edit., 1559.

This folk, of which I telle you so,
Upon a carole wenten tho:
A lady caroled hem, that highte
Gladnesse, [the] blisful, the lighte,
Wel coude she singe and lustily.
Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose, 743.

I saw hir daunce so comlily,
Carole and singe so swetely.
Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 848.

1.19. The riches.| Lombardi here reads with the Nidobeatina
edition, ‘ dalla richezza,’ instead of ‘ della ricchezza’, and construes
it of the amplitude of the circles, according to which the Poet esti-
mated their greater or less degree of velocity. I have followed the
other commentators.

1. 20. From that.| St. Peter.

1. 28. Such folds.| Pindar has the same bold image :

tpvey mrvxais. OL, TeY70:

which both the Scholiast and Heyne, I think erroneously, understand
of the return of the strophes. Since this note was written, I have
found the same interpretation of Pindar’s expression as that I had
adopted, in the manuscript notes on that poet collected by Mr. St.
Amand, and preserved in the Bodleian Library, No. 42. ‘ Notandum :
maximum decus vestimenti antiquitus sinus existimabantur, ita ut
vix unquam a poetis tam Graecis quam Latinis vestis pulchra de-
scribatur sine hoc adiuncto.’

1. 37. Tent.] Tenta. The word ‘tent’, try, is used by our old
writers, who, I think, usually spell it ‘taint’; as Massinger, Parlia-
ment of Love, act iv, sc. 3. * Do not fear, I have a staff to taint, and
bravely.’

1. 49. To approve.| ‘ Per approvarla.’ Landino has ‘ aiutarla ’.
‘The bachelor, or disputant in the school, arms or prepares himself
to discuss the question proposed by the master, whose business it is
to terminate it.” Such is Vellutello’s interpretation ; and it has the
merit of being, at least, more intelligible than Lombardi’s, who, with-
out reason, accuses the other commentators, except Venturi (whose
explanation he rejects), of passing over the difficulty.

]. 65. Faith.| Heb. xi. 1. So Marino, in one of his sonnets,
which he calls Divozioni :

Fede € sustanza di sperate cose,
E delle non visibili argomento.

1. 82. Current.| ‘ The answer thou hast made, is right: but let me
know if thy inward persuasion be conformable to thy profession.’

1. 87. Next issued.] ‘ We find that the more men have been ac-
quainted with the practice of Christianity, the greater evidence they
have had of the truth of it, and been more fully and rationally per-
suaded of it. To such I grant there are such powerful evidences of
the truth of the doctrine of Christ by the effectual workings of the

546 NOTES

Spirit of God upon their souls, that all other arguments, as to their
own Satisfaction, may fall short of these. As to which, those verses
of the poet Dante, rendered into Latin by F. S8., are very pertinent
and significant; for when he had introduced the Apostle Peter, ask-
ing him what it was which his faith was founded on, he answers,

Deinde exivit ex luce profunda
Quae illic splendebat pretiosa gemma, ~
Super quam omnis virtus fundatur.

i.e. That God was pleased by immediate revelation of himself, to dis-
cover that divine truth to the world whereon our faith doth stand as
on its sure foundation ; but when the Apostle goes on to enquire how
he knew this at first came from God, his answer to that is,

——— larga pluvia
Spiritus Sancti, quae est diffusa
Super veteres et super novas membranas
Est syllogismus ille qui eam mihi conclusit
Adeo acute, ut prae illa demonstratione
Omnis demonstratio alia mihi videatur obtusa.

i.e. That the Spirit of God doth so fully discover itself both in the
Old and New Testament, that all other arguments are but dull and
heavy if compared with this.’ Stillingfleet, Or. Sa., Book II, chap. ix,
sect. xix, §4. The reader will perceive that our learned divine has
made an error in his quotation of this passage.

1. 91. The ancient bond and new.] The Old and New Testament.

1. 104. That all the world.| ‘We cannot conceive how the world
should be at first induced to believe without manifest and uncon-
trolled miracles. For as Chrysostom speaks, ef onpueiwy xapis
émercav, moAAw pelloy TO Oadpa daivera. It was the greatest miracle
of all, if the world should believe without miracles. Which the poet
Dante hath well expressed in the twenty-fourth Canto of Paradise.
For when the Apostle is there brought in, asking the Poet upon what
account he took the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be
the word of God; his answer is,

Probatio quae verum hoc mihi recludit,
Sunt opera, quae secuta sunt, ad quae Natura
Non candefecit ferrum unquam aut percussit incudem.

i.e. The evidence of that is the Divine Power of miracles which was in
those who deliver’d those things to the world. And when the Apostle
catechiseth him further, how he knew those miracles were such as
they pretended to be, viz. that they were true and divine; his
answer is,

Si orbis terrae sese convertit ad Christianismum
Inquiebam ego, sine miraculis; hoe unum
Est tale, ut reliqua non sint eius centesima pars.

i.e. If the world should be converted to the Christian faith without
miracles, this would be so great a miracle, that others were not to be
compared with it. I conclude this, then, with that known saying of
St. Austin, Quisquis adhue prodigia, ut credat, inquiret, magnum est
ipse prodigium qui mundo credente non credit: He that seeks for
miracles still to induce him to faith, when the world is converted to

PARADISE, CANTO XXIV 547

the Christian faith, he needs not seek for prodigies abroad ; he wants
only a looking-glass to discover one. For, as he goes on, Unde
temporibus eruditis, et omne quod fieri non potest respuentibus, sine
ullis miraculis nimium mirabiliter incredibilia credidit mundus ?
Whence came it to pass that in so learned and wary an age as that
was which the Apostles preach’d in, the world without miracles
should be brought to believe things so strangely incredible as those
were which Christ and his Apostles preached.’ Stillingfleet, Or. Sa.,
Book IT, chap. x, sect. v, § 1. Donne, in his Sermons (vol. ii, p. 215,
fol. edit.), quotes a similar passage from Augustine, and applies it to
the demand for miracles, made by Roman Catholics on Protestants.

1. 114. That Worthy.| Quel Baron. In the next Canto, St. James
is called ‘ Barone’. So in Boccaccio, G. vi, N. 10, we find ‘ Baron
Messer Santo Antonio.’

]. 124. As to outstrip.| Venturi insists that the Poet has here
‘made a slip’; for that John came first to the sepulchre, though
Peter was the first to enter it. But let Dante have leave to explain
his own meaning, in a passage from his third book De Monarchia:
* Dicit etiam Johannes ipsum (scilicit Petrum) introivisse subito, quum
venit in monumentum, videns alium discipulum cunctantem ad
ostium’ (c. ix).

CANTO XXV

1. 6. The fair sheep-fold.| Florence, whence he was banished.

l. 13. For its sake.| For the sake of that faith.

1. 20. Galicia thronged with visitants.| See Mariana, Hist., Lib. XI,
cap. xili. ‘Enel tiempo,’ &c. ‘ At the time that the sepulchre of
the apostle St. James was discovered, the devotion for that place
extended itself not only over all Spain, but even round about to
foreign nations. Multitudes from all parts of the world came to visit
it. Many others were deterred by the difficulty of the journey, by
the roughness and barrenness of those parts, and by the incursions
of the Moors, who made captives many of the pilgrims.—The canons
of St. Eloy, afterwards (the precise time is not known), with a desire
of remedying these evils, built, in many places, along the whole road,
which reached as far as to France, hospitals for the reception of the
pilgrims. IntheConvito, II. xv, we find ‘la galassia’, &c., “the galaxy,
that is, the white circle which the common people call the way of
St. James’; on which Biscioni remarks: ‘The common people
formerly considered the milky way as a sign by night to pilgrims, who
were going to St. James of Galicia; and this perhaps arose from the
resemblance of the word galaxy to Galicia. I have often,’ he adds,
‘heard women and peasants call it the Roman road,’ ‘la strada di
Roma.’

‘Now,’ quod he tho, ‘cast up thyn yé;
See yonder, lo! the Galaxyé,
Which men clepeth the milky wey,
For hit is whyt, and somme, parfey,
Callen hit Watlinge Strete.
Chaucer, Hous of Fame, Book II, 427.

1. 24. One, of the other.] St. Peter and St. James.
1. 31. Who.] The Epistle of St. James is here attributed to the

CARY U

548 NOTES

elder apostle of that name, whose shrine was at Compostella, in
Galicia. Which of the two was the author of it, is yet doubtful.
The learned and candid Michaelis contends very forcibly for its having
been written by James the Elder. Lardner rejects that opinion as
absurd: while Benson argues against it, but is well answered by
Michaelis, who, after all, is obliged to leave the question undecided.
See his Jntroduction to the New Testament, translated by Dr. Marsh,
ed. Cambridge, 1793, vol. iv, cap. xxvi, § 1, 2, 3. Mr. Horne sup-
poses, that as the elder James ‘ was put to death by Herod Agrippa,
A.D. 44 (Acts xii), it is evident that he was not the author of the epistle
which bears the name of James, because it contains passages which
refer to a later period, viz. v. 1-8, which intimates the then immedi-
ately approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and the subversion of
the Jewish polity.’ Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge
of the Holy Scriptures, ed. 1818, vol. ii, p. 600.

1. 31. Largess.] He appears to allude to the Epistle of James,
i. 5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth
to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given
him.’ Or, toi. 17: ‘ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.’ Some editions,
however, read ‘ l’allegrezza’, ‘ joy’, instead of ‘la larghezza’.

1. 34. As oft.] Landino and Venturi, who read ‘ Quanto’, explain
this, that the frequency with which James had commended the virtue
of hope was in proportion to the brightness in which Jesus had
appeared at his transfiguration. Vellutello, who reads ‘ Quante’,
supposes that James three times recommends patient hope in the
last chapter of his Epistle; and that Jesus, as many times, showed
his brightness to the three disciples; once when he cleansed the
lepers (Luke v); again when he raised the daughter of Jairus
(Mark v); and a third time when he was transfigured. As to Lom-
bardi, who also reads ‘ Quante ’, his construction of the passage seems
to me scarcely intelligible.

1. 39. The second flame.] St. James.

1. 40. I lifted up.] ‘I looked up to the Apostles.’ ‘I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills,from whence cometh my help.’ Ps. exxi. 1.

1.59. From EgypttoJerusalem.| From the lower world to heaven.

1. 60. Both which.| One point Beatrice has herself answered ; ‘ how
that hope flourishes in him.’ The other two remain for Dante to
resolve.

1. 67. Hope.] This is from the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus.
‘ Est autem spes virtus, qua spiritualia et aeterna bona sperantur,
id est cum fiducia expectantur. Est enim spes certa expectatio
futurae beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei gratia et ex meritis praecedenti-
bus vel ipsam spem, quam natura praeit charitas ut rem speratam,
id est beatitudinem aeternam. Sine meritis enim aliquid sperare
non spes,sed praesumptio dici potest.’ Pet. Lomb. Sent., Lib. III,
dist. 26, ed. Bas, 1486, fol.

1. 74. His anthem.] ‘ They that know thy name will put their trust
in'thee:’*.. Psrixs dv:

1. 81. That mighty sheen.| The spirit of St. James.

1.90. Isaias.] ‘ He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.’ Isa. Ixi. 10.

1. 94. Thy brother.| St. John in the Revelation, vii. 9.

PARADISE, CANTO XXV 549

1. 101. Winter’s month.] ‘If a luminary, like that which now ap-
peared, were to shine throughout the month following the winter
solstice, during which the constellation Cancer appears in the east
at the setting of the sun, there would be no interruption to the light,
but the whole month would be as a single day.’

1. 103. Like asa virgin.| There is a pretty counterpart to this
simile in the Quadriregio of Frezzi.

Poi come donna, che fa reverenza
Lassando il ballo, tal’ atto fé ella.
Lib. IV, cap. v.

Then as a lady, when she leaves the dance,
Maketh obeisance, even so did she.

The same writer has another more like that in the text.

Come donzella, c’ha a guidar la danza,
Che a chi invita reverenzia face,
E po’ incomincia vergognosa e manza,
Cosi colei, &c.
Lib. IV, cap. ii.

1. 112. This.] St. John, who reclined on the bosom of our Saviour,
and to whose charge Jesus recommended his mother.

1. 121. So I.] He looked so earnestly, to descry whether St. John
were present there in body, or in spirit only ; having had his doubts
raised by that saying of our Saviour’s: ‘If I will that he tarry till
I come, what is that to thee ?’

1. 127. The two.] Christ and Mary, whom he has described in the
last Canto but one, as rising above his sight.

CANTO XXVI

1. 2. The beamy flame.] St. John.

l. 13. Ananias’ hand.] Who, by putting his hand on St. Paul,
restored his sight. Acts ix. 17.

1. 36. From him.| Some suppose that Plato is here meant, who, in
his Banquet,makes Phaedrus say: dpodovyetrat 6” Epws é€v Trois mpeaBuratos
civat. mpecBuratos 5é av, peyioTwv dyobav Hyiv airids éotiv. ‘ Love is
confessedly amongst the eldest of beings; and being the eldest,is the
cause to us of the greatest goods.’ Plat. Symp. 178 ce. Others have
understood it of Aristotle; and others, of the writer who goes by
the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, referred to in the twenty-
eighth Canto.

1. 40. J will make.] Exod. xxxiii. 19.

1. 42. At the outset.]| Johni. 1, &c.

1. 51. The eagle of our Lord.| St. John.

1. 62. The leaves.] Created beings.

1. 82. The first living soul.| Adam.

1. 97. Covering.] Lombardi’s explanation of this passage is some-
what ludicrous. By ‘un animal coperto’, he understands, not an
animal in its natural covering of fur or hair, but one dressed up with
clothes, as a dog, for instance, ‘so clad for sport’; ‘un cane per

550 NOTES

trastullo coperto.” Chaucer describes, as one of the tokens of pleasure
in a dog, ‘ the smoothing down of his hairs.’

Hit com and creep to me as lowe,
Right as hit hadde me y-knowe,
Hild doun his heed, and joyned his eres
And leyde al smothe doun his heres.
Book of the Duchesse, 391.

1. 107. Parhelion.| Who enlightens and comprehends all things ;
but is himself enlightened and comprehended by none.
1. 114. Not that I tasted.| So Frezzi:

—— per colpa fi I’ uom messo in bando,
Non solamente per gustar del pomo;
Ma perch’ e’ trapasso di Dio il comando.
Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. 1.

1. 117. Whence.] That is, from Limbo. See Hell, Canto II. 53.
Adam says that 5,232 years elapsed from his creation to the time of
his deliverance, which followed the death of Christ.

‘1. 124. The language.| ‘Hac forma locutionis locutus est Adam, hac
forma locutiones locuti sunt omnes posteri eius usque ad aedifica-
tionem turris Babel.’ De Vulg. Elog., Lib.I, cap. vi. ‘This form of
speech Adam used; this, all his posterity until the building of the
tower of Babel.’

1. 127. For naught.| There is a similar passage in the De Vulg.
Eloq., Lib. I, cap. ix. ‘Since, therefore, all our language, except that
which was created together with the first man by God, has been
repaired according to our own will and pleasure, after that confusion,
which was nothing else than a forgetfulness of the former ; and since
man is a being most unstable and variable, our language can neither
be lasting nor continuous; but, like other things which belong to us, as
customs and dress, must be varied by distances of places and times.’

1. 133. El.] Some read Un, ‘ One,’ instead of Hl: but the latter
of these readings is confirmed by a passage from Dante’s treatise
De Vulg. Elog., Lib. I, cap. iv. ‘Quod autem prius vox primi loquentis
sonaverit, viro sanae mentis in promptu esse non titubo ipsum fuisse
quod Deus est, videlicet El.’ St. Isidore, in the Origines, Lib. VII,
cap. i, had said, ‘ Primum apud Hebraeos Dei nomen El dicitur.’

1. 135. Use.] From Horace, Ars Poet. 62.

1. 138. All my life.| *‘ I remained in the terrestrial Paradise only to
the seventh hour.’ In the Historia Scolastica of Petrus Comestor, it
is said of our first parents: ‘ Quidam tradunt eos fuisse in Paradiso
septem horas,’ f. 9, ed. Par. 1513, 4to.

CANTO XXVII
1. 6. One universal smile. ]

Ivi ogni cosa intorno m’assembrava
Un’ allegrezza di giocondo riso.
Frezzi, Il Quadrir., Lib. IV, cap. ti.

all things smiled.
Milton, P. L., Book VIII. 265.

1. 10. Four torches.] St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam.

PARADISE, CANTO XXVII 551

1. 11. That.] St. Peter, who looked as the planet Jupiter would, if
it assumed the sanguine appearance of Mars.

l. 20. He.] Boniface VIII.

l. 25. Such colour. |

Qui color infectis adversi solis ab ictu
Nubibus esse solet; aut purpureae Aurorae.
Ovid, Met., Lib. III. 184.

1. 37. Of Linus, and of Cletus.] Bishops of Rome in the first century.
1.40. Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed,
And Urban.|

The former two, bishops of the same see, in the second ; and the
others, in the fourth century.

]. 42. No purpose was of ours.| ‘ We did not intend that our suc-
cessors should take any part in the political divisions among Chris-
tians ; or that my figure (the seal of St. Peter) should serve as a mark
to authorize iniquitous grants and privileges.’

1. 51. Wolves. ]

Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves.
Milton, P. L., Book XII. 508.

1. 53. Cahorsines and Gascons.| He alludes to Jacques d’Ossa,
a native of Cahors, who filled the papal chair in 1316, after it had
been two years vacant, and assumed the name of John XXII, and to
Clement V, a Gascon, of whom see Hell, Canto XIX. 86, and note.

1. 58. Thou, son.] Beatrus Petrus—multaque locutus est, et docuit
me de veteri testamento, de hominibus etiam adhuc in seculo adhuc
viventibus plura peccata intonuit mihi, precepitque, ut ea quae de illis
audieram eis referrem. Albericr Visio, § 45.

]. 63. The she-goat.] When the sun is in Capricorn.

1. 72. From the hour.| Since he had last looked (see Canto X XII)
he perceived that he had passed from the meridian circle to the eastern
horizon; the half of our hemisphere, and a quarter of the heaven.

1. 76. From Gades.| See Hell, Canto XXVI. 106.

1.78. The shore.] Phoenicia, where Europa, the daughter of Agenor,
mounted on the back of Jupiter, in his shape of a bull.

1. 80. The sun.| Dante was in the constellation of Gemini, and the
sun in Aries. There was, therefore, part of those two constellations,
and the whole of Taurus, between them.

1. 93. The fair nest of Leda.| *‘ From the Gemini’; thus called,
because Leda was the mother of the twins, Castor and Pollux.

1. 112. Ttme’s roots.| ‘ Here,’ says Beatrice, ‘ are the roots, from
whence time springs: for the parts, into which it is divided, the other
heavens must be considered.’ And she then breaks out into an
exclamation on the degeneracy of human nature, which does not lift
itself to the contemplation of divine things. Thus in the Quadriregio,
Lib. II, cap. vi.

Il tempo, e’l ciel, che sopra noi é volto,
una cosa, e non voltando il cielo,
Cid che da tempo pende saria tolto.

Time, and the heaven that turneth o’er our heads,
Are but as one; and if the heaven turned not,
That, which depends on time, were done away.

552 NOTES

1. 126. The fair child of him.] There is something very similar in our
Author’s treatise De Monarchia, Lib. I, cap. ix. ‘ Humanum genus
filius est coeli, quod est perfectissimum in omni opere suo; generat
enim homo hominem et sol, iuxta secundum de Naturali auditu.’
This, therefore, is intended for a philosophical truth, and not for
a figure, as when Pindar calls * the day’ ‘ child of the sun’ :

“Ayépay
—— maid’ ‘AXiov. Ol. 11,59.

1. 129. None.|] Because, as has been before said, the shepherds are
become wolves.

1. 131. Before the date.] ‘ Before many ages are past ; before those
fractions, which are dropped in the reckoning of every year, shall
amount to so large a portion of time, that January shall be no more
a winter month.’ By this periphrasis is meant ‘in a short time’ ;
as we say familiarly, such a thing will happen before a thousand years
are over, when we mean, it will happen soon. Thus Petrarch :—

Ben sa ch’ il prova, e fiati cosa piana
Anzi mill’ anni.
Trionfo d Amore, cap. i.

]. 135. Fortune shall be fain.) The commentators, in general, sup-
pose, that our Poet here augurs that great reform which he vainly
hoped would follow on the arrival of the Emperor Henry VII in Italy.
Lombardi refers the prognostication to Can Grande della Scala:
and when we consider that this Canto was not finished till after the
death of Henry, as appears from the mention that is made of
John XXII, it cannot be denied but the conjecture is probable.
Troya (Veltro Allegorico, p. 186) suggests Matteo Visconti, or Cas-
truccio Castracani, as the expected reformer.

CANTO XXVIII

1. 13. That volume.] The ninth heaven; as Vellutello, I think,
rightly interprets it.

1. 38. Heaven, and all nature, hangs upon that point.| é« tTovavrns
dpa apx ns nprnTu 6 ovpaves Kaly pdots. Aristot. Metaph.,Lib. XII, c. 7.
‘From that beginning depend heaven and nature.’

1. 45. Such difference.| The material world and the intelligential
(the copy and the pattern) appear to Dante to differ in this respect,
that the orbits of the latter are more swift, the nearer they are to the
centre, whereas the contrary is the case with the orbits of the former.
The seeming contradiction is thus accounted for by Beatrice. In the
material world, the more ample the body is, the greater is the good
of which it is capable ; supposing all the parts to be equally perfect.
But in the intelligential world, the circles are more excellent and
powerful, the more they approximate to the central point, which is
God. Thus the first circle, that of the seraphim, corresponds to the
ninth sphere, or primum mobile; the second, that of the cherubim,
to the eighth sphere, or heaven of fixed stars; the third, or circle of
thrones, to the seventh sphere, or planet of Saturn; and in like
manner throughout the two other trines of circles and spheres.

PARADISE, CANTO XXVIII 553

In orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb.

Milton, P. L., Book V. 594.

1. 72. The north.| By ‘ond’ @ pit leno’, some understand that
point from whence ‘the wind is mildest’; others, that ‘in which
there is most force’. The former interpretation is probably right.

1. 84. In number.] The sparkles exceeded the number which would
be produced by the sixty-four squares of a chess-board, if for the first
we reckoned one; for the next, two; for the third, four; and so
went on doubling to the end of the account.

1. 108. Fearless of bruising from the nightly ram.] Not injured, like
the productions of our spring, by the influence of autumn, when the
constellation Aries rises at sunset.

1. 112. Dominations.}

Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 600.

i 121. Dronysius.| The Areopagite, in his book De Coelesti Hier-
archia.

1. 126. Gregory.] Gregory the Great. ‘Novem vero angelorum
ordines diximus ; quia videlicet esse, testante sacro eloquio, scimus :
Angelos, archangelos, virtutes, potestates, principatus, dominationes,
thronos, cherubin atque seraphin.’ Divi Gregorii, Hom. xxxiv, f. 125,
ed. Par. 1518, fol.

1. 128. He had learnt.| Dionysius, he says, had learnt from St. Paul.
It is almost unnecessary to add, that the book, above referred to,
which goes under his name, was the production of a later age. In
Bishop Bull’s seventh sermon, which treats of the different degrees of
beatitude in heaven, there is much that resembles what is said on
the same subject by our Poet. The learned prelate, however,
appears a little inconsistent, when, after having blamed Dionysius
the Areopagite, ‘for reckoning up exactly the several orders of the
angelical hierarchy, as if he had seen a muster of the heavenly host.
before his eyes’ (v. i, p. 313), he himself then speaks rather more
particularly of the several orders in the celestial hierarchy than he
is warranted in doing by Holy Scripture.

CANTO XXIX

1. 1. No longer.] As short a space, as the sun and moon are in
changing hemispheres, when they are opposite to one another, the
one under the sign of Aries, and the other under that of Libra, and
both hang, for a moment, poised as it were in the hand of the zenith.

]. 22. For, not in process of before or aft.| There was neither ‘ before
nor after’, no distinction, that is, of time, till the creation of the
world.

]. 24. Simple and mixed, both form and substance.| Simple and un-
mixed form answers to ‘ pure intelligence’, 1. 33 (puro atto), the
highest of created being; simple and unmixed substance, to *‘ mere
power’, 1. 33 (pura potenza), the lowest; and form mixed with

554 NOTES

substance, to ‘ intelligence and power’, |. 35 (potenza con atto), that
which holds the middle place between the other two. This, which
appears sufficiently plain, Lombardi has contrived to perplex; not
being aware of the high sense in which our Poet here and elsewhere
uses the word ‘forma’, as the Greek writers employed the term
poppy, and particularly St. Paul, Philippians, ii. 6. The following
is a remarkable instance in our language: ‘A man, though he have
one form already, viz. the natural soul; it hinders not but he may
have also another, the quickening Spirit of God.’ Henry More,
Disc. xiii.

]. 30. His threefold operation.| He means that spiritual beings,
brute matter, and the intermediate part of the creation which par-
ticipates both of spirit and matter, were produced at once.

For, as there are three natures, schoolmen call
One corporal only, th’ other spiritual,
Like single; so there is a third commixt
Of body and spirit together, placed betwixt
Those other two.
Ben Jonson, Hupheme.

1. 38. On Jerome’s pages.| St. Jerome had described the angels as
created long before the rest of the universe : an opinion which Thomas
Aquinas controverted ; and the latter, as Dante thinks, had Scripture
on his side. ‘Sex millia nondum nostri orbis implentur anni; et
quantas prius aeternitates, quanta tempora, quantas saeculorum
origines fuisse arbitrandum est, in quibus Angeli, Throni, Domina-
tiones, caeteraeque Virtutes servierint Deo; et absque temporum
vicibus atque mensuris Deo iubente substiterint.’ Hieronym. Jn
Epist. ad Titum, 1. Paris edit. 1706, tom. iv, part i, p. 411. ° Dicen-
dum, quod supra hoc invenitur duplex sanctorum doctorum sententia,
illa tamen probabilior videtur, quod angeli simul cum creatura cor-
porea sunt creati. Angeli enim sunt quaedam pars universi. Non
enim constituunt per se unum universum, sed tam ipsi quam creatura
corporea in constitutionem unius universi conveniunt. Quod apparet
ex ordine unius creaturae ad aliam. Ordo enim rerum adinvicem est
bonum universi. Nulla autem pars perfecta est a suo toto separata.
Non est igitur probabile, ut Deus cuius perfecta sunt opera, ut dicitur
Deuteron. 32. creaturam angelicam seorsum ante alias creaturas
creaverit. Quamvis contrarium non sit reputandum erroneum, prae-
cipue propter sententiam Greg. Nazian. cuius tanta est in doctrina
Christiana authoritas, ut nullus unquam eius dictis calumniam
inferre praesumpserit sicut nec Athanasii Documentis, ut Hieron,
dicit. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theolog., P. 1™*, Quaest. LXI,
art. lil.

1. 40. Those penmen.| As in Gen. i. 1, and Ecclus. xviii. 1.

1. 43. Reason.| The heavenly ministers (motori) would have existed
to no purpose if they had been created before the corporeal world,
which they were to govern.

]. 48. The triple question.| He had wished to know where, when,
and how the angels had been created, and these three questions had
been resolved.

1. 51. Elements.| Alimenti was sometimes put for elementi, by the
old Tuscan writers. See the notes to Redi’s Bacco in Toscana, vol. i,

PARADISE, CANTO XXIX 555

p- 125, Redi, Opere, 8vo, Milan, 1809. There is therefore no necessity
for the alteration made in some editions.

1. 57. Pent.] See Hell, Canto XXXIV. 105.

1. 65. Meritorious.) The collator of the Monte Cassino MS. boasts
of that being the only text which has ‘ meritorio ’, ‘ concistorio’, and
‘aiutorio’. The reading is probably right, but I find it is in
Landino’s edition of 1484, and Vellutello’s of 1544; and it may, per-
haps, be in many others.

1. 111. Of Bindi and of Lapi.] Common names of men at Florence.

1.112. The sheep.| So Milton, Lycidas :—

The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly.

1. 117. Gave them truth.| ‘ Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature.’ Mark xvi. 15.
]. 121. The preacher.) Thus Cowper, Task, Book II. 466 :
Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul, &c.
1. 131.

Saint Anthony
Fattens with this his swine.

On the sale of these blessings the brothers of St. Anthony supported
themselves and their paramours. From behind the swine of St.
Anthony, our Poet levels a blow at the object of his inveterate
enmity, Boniface VIII, from whom, ‘in 1297, they obtained the
dignityand privilegesof an independentcongregation.’ See Mosheim’s
Eccles. History, in Dr. Maclaine’s Translation, v. ii, cent. xi, p. ii,
c. ii, § 28.

]. 134. With unstamped metal.| With false indulgences.

1. 140. Daniel.| ‘Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.’ Dan. vii. 10.

CANTO XXX

]. 1. Six thousand miles.] He compares the vanishing of the vision
to the fading away of the stars at dawn, when it is noonday six
thousand miles off, and the shadow, formed by the earth over the
part of it inhabited by the Poet, is about to disappear.

]. 13. Engirt.| ‘ Appearing to be encompassed by these angelic
bands, which are in reality encompassed by it.’

1. 18. This turn.] Questa vice. Hence perhaps Milton, P. L.,
Book VIII. 491.

This turn hath made amends.

]. 39. Forth.] From the ninth sphere to the empyrean, which is
mere light. ' ;

1. 44. Hither mighty host.| Of angels, that remained faithful, and
of beatified souls; the latter in that form which they will have at
the last day. ta veer

]. 54. For its own flame.| Thus disposing the spirits to receive its
own beatific light. '

1. 61. Light flowing.] ‘ And he shewed me a pure river of water of

556 NOTES

life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb.’ Rev. xxii. 1.

Underneath a bright sea flowed
Of jasper or of liquid pearl.
Milton, P. Z., Book IIT. 518.
. 80. Shadowy of the truth.

Son di lor vero ombriferi prefazii.
So Coleridge, in his Religious Musings, v. 396:
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth.

]. 88. —— the eaves

Of mine eyelids.]
Thus Shakespeare calls the eyelids *‘ penthouse lids’. Macbeth, 1. iii.
1. 96. Hither court.| See note to 1. 44.
1. 108. As some cliff.|
A lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
Her crystal mirror holds.

Milton, P. L., Book IV. 261.

1. 118. My view with ease. |

Far and wide his eye commands ;
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,
But all sunshine. Milton, P. L., Book III. 614.

1. 131. In that proud stall.| ‘ Ostenditque mihi circa Paradisum
lectum claris et splendidissimis operimentis adornatum—in quo lecto
quendam iacere conspexi cuius nomen ab Apostolo audivi, sed pro-
hibuit ne cui illud dicerem.’ Alberici Visio, § 31.

]. 135. Of the great Harry.] The Emperor Henry VII, who died in
1313. ‘Henry, Count of Luxemburg, held the imperial power three
years, seven months, and eighteen days, from his first coronation to
his death. He was a man wise, and just, and gracious; brave and
intrepid in arms; aman of honour and a good Catholic; and although
by his lineage he was of no great condition, yet he was of a magnani-
mous heart, much feared and held in awe ; and if he had lived longer,
would have done the greatest things.’ G. Villani, Lib. IX, cap. i.
Compare Dino Compagni, Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., tom. ix, lib. iii,
p- 524, and Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II, cap. 30.

]. 141. He.] Pope Clement V. See Canto XXVII. 53.

1.145. Alagna’s priest.] Pope Boniface VIII. Hell, Canto XIX. 79.

CANTO XXXI

1. 2. The saintly multitude.| Human souls, advanced to this state
of glory through the mediation of Christ.

]. 4. That other host.| The angels.

]. 6. Bees.| Compare Homer, Jliad, ii. 87; Virg. Aen. i. 430; and
Milton, P. L., Book I. 768.

1]. 12. Wings of gold.)

the middle pair

Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold.
Milton, P. L., Book V. 280.

PARADISE, CANTO XXxXI 557

1.27. To gild our storm below.| To guide us through the dangers to
which we are exposed in this tempestuous life.

1. 28. If the grim brood.| The northern hordes who invaded Rome.
Landino justly observes, that ‘ this is a most excellent comparison to
ree ae great his astonishment was at beholding the realms of the

est’.

]. 29. Helice.] Callisto, and her son Arcas, changed into the con-
stellations of the Greater Bear and Arctophylax, or Bodtes. See
Ovid, Met., Lib. II, fab. v. vi.

1. 32. The Lateran arose.]

quando Laterano
Alle cose mortali andod di sopra.

This reminds us of the celebrated passage in Akenside :

Mark how the dread Pantheon stands,
Amid the domes of modern hands.
Ode xviii, Book I.

It is remarkable that Dante has no allusion to the magnificence of
Gothie architecture, which was then in so much perfection, and
which, as Tirabosch‘endeavours to show, by a passage in Cassiodorus,
describing its peculiar character of slender columns and lanceated
arches, was introduced into Italy so early as the end of the fifth
century. See Stor. della Lett. Ital., tom. iii, lib. i.

1. 93. Bernard.) St. Bernard, the venerable abbot of Clairvaux, and
the great promoter of the second crusade, who died a.p. 1153, in his
sixty-third year. His sermons are called by Henault, ‘chefs-d’ ceuvres
de sentiment et de force.’ Abrégé Chron. de T Hist. de Fr., 1145.
They have even been preferred to all the productions of the ancients,
and the author has been termed the last of the fathers of the church.
It is uncertain whether they were not delivered originally in the
French tongue (ibid.). That the part he acts in the present poem
should be assigned to him, appears somewhat remarkable, when we
consider that he severely censured the new festival established in
honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, and ‘ opposed
the doctrine itself with the greatest vigour, as it supposed her being
honoured with a privilege which belonged to Christ alone.’ Dr. Mac-
laine’s Mosheim, vol. iii, cent. xii, part ii, c. 1ii, § 19.

1.95. Our Veronica. |

A vernicle hadde he sowed on his cappe.
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prol., 685.

‘Vernicle, diminutive of Veronike, Fr. A copy in miniature of the
picture of Christ, which is supposed to have been miraculously im-
printed upon a handkerchief preserved in the church of St. Peter at
Rome. Du Cange in v. Veronica. Madox, Form. Angl., 1. p. 428.
Testam. Joh. de Nevill. an. 1386. Item Domino Archiepiscopo
Eborum fratri meo, vestimentum rubeum de velvet cum le verouike
(r. Veronike) in granis rosarum de super Brondata (r. broudata). It
was usual for persons returning from pilgrimages, to bring with them
certain tokens of the several places which they had visited; and
therefore the Pardoner, who is just arrived from Rome. is represented
with a vernicle sewed upon hiscappe. See Piers the Plowman, 28, b.’
Tyrwhitt’s Glossary to Chaucer. Our Poet alludes to this custom in

558 NOTES

his Vita Nuova, § 41, ‘Avvenne in quel tempo,’ &c. ‘It hap.
pened, at that time, that many people were going to see that blessed
image which Jesus Christ left to us for a pattern of his most beautiful
form, which my lady now beholds in glory.’

1.101. Him.]| St. Bernard.

1. 108. The queen.) The Virgin Mary.

}. 119. Oriflamme.| Menage on this word quotes the Roman des
Royaux Lignages of Guillaume Ghyart.

Oriflamme est une banniere
De cendal roujoyant et simple
Sans portraiture d’autre affaire.

CANTO XXXII

1.3. She.] Eve.

1. 8. Ancestress.| Ruth, the ancestress of David.

]. 28. T'wo years.| The time that elapsed between the death of the
Baptist and his redemption by the death of Christ.

]. 30. Augustine.| Bishop of Hippo, in the fourth century; the
celebrated writer who has been mentioned before, Canto X. 117.

1. 30. Francis.] See Canto XI.

Benedict.| See Canto XXII.

1.57. Variously.| There can be no doubt but that ‘ Intra sé’, and
not ‘ Entrassi’, is the right reading at ]. 60 of the original. The
former seems to have been found in only a few MSS. ; but it appears
from Landino’s notes, that he had intended to adopt it; although
Lombardi has been, as far as I know, the first to admit it into the
text.

1. 60. In holy Scripture.| ‘And the children struggled together
within her.’ Gen. xxv. 22. ‘When Rebecca also had conceived by
one, even by our father Isaac ; (for the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God accord-
ing to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ;)
it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.’ Rom. ix.
10, 11, 12. Care must be taken that the doctrine of election is not
pushed further than St. Paul appears to have intended by this text,
which regards the preference of the Jews to the Gentiles, and not
merely the choice of particular persons, without any respect to merit.

1.112. The seer.] St. John.

]. 123. Lucia.] See Hell, Canto II. 97, and Purgatory, IX. 50.

CANTO XXXIII
1.1. O Virgin Mother.)

Thou mayde and mooder, doghter of thy sone,

Thou welle of mercy, sinful soules cure,

In whom that God for bountee chees to wone ;

Thou humble and heigh over every creature,

Thou nobledest so ferforth our nature,

That no desdeyn the maker hadde of kinde

His sone in blode and flesh to clothe and winde.
Withinne the cloistre blisful of thy sydes

PARADISE, CANTO XXXIII 559

Took mannes shap the eternal love and pees,
That of the tryne compas Lord and gyde is,
Whom erthe, and see, and heven out of relees
Ay herien; and thou virgin wemmelees
Bar of thy body, and dweltest mayden pure,
The Creatour of every creature.

Assembled is in thee magnificence
With mercy, goodnesse, and with swich pitee,
That thou that art the sonne of excellence
Nat only helpest hem that preyen thee,
But ofte tyme of thy benignitee
Ful frely, er that men thyn help biseche,
Thou goost biforn, and art hir lyves leche.

Chaucer, Seconde Nonnes Tale, 36.

In the stanza preceding these, Chaucer alludes to St. Bernard’s
writings :—

And thou that flour of virgines art alle,

Of whom that Bernard list so wel to wryte.

1. 7. To make himself his own creation. |
Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura.
I had translated this line,
Himself in his own work enclosed to dwell,

and have corrected it at the suggestion of my friend, the Rev. William
Digby, who points out a parallel passage in Bishop Hopkins, on the
Lord’s Prayer, ed. 1692, p. 190. ‘ In Him omnipotence became weak ;
eternity, mortal ; innocence itself, guilty ; God, man; the Creator,
a creature ; the Maker of all, his own workmanship.’
]. 16. Desire.]
Lo, his desyr wol flee with-outen winges.
Chaucer, T'roilus and Criseyde, Book III, st. 181.

Che °] desiderio sempre move l’ale
Dietro all’ oggetto della mente appreso.
Frezzi, Il Quadrir., Lib. III, cap 3.

1]. 32. Through thine own prayers.| Here again I am indebted to
Mr. Digby for noticing the omission of ‘ coi preghi tuoi’ in my former
translation of the passage, which stood thus :

That on the sovereign pleasure he may gaze.
This also I entreat of thee, O queen.

1. 63. The Sibyl’s sentence.| Virg. Aen. ill. 445.

1. 72. Such keenness. |

the air

No where so clear, sharpened his visual ray,
To objects distant far.

Milton, P. Z., Book IIT. 619.

1. 82. All properties.| Thus in the Parmenides of Plato, it is argued
that all conceivable quantities and qualities, however contradictory,
are necessarily inherent in our idea of a universe or unity.

1. 89. One moment.| ‘A moment seems to me more tedious than
five-and-twenty ages would have appeared to the Argonauts, when

560 NOTES

they had resolved on their expedition.’ Lombardi proposes a new
interpretation of this difficult passage, and would understand our
author to say that ‘one moment elapsed after the vision, occasioned
a greater forgetfulness of what he had seen, than the five-and-twenty
centuries, which passed between the Argonautic expedition and the
time of his writing this poem, had caused oblivion of the circum-
stances attendant on that event.’
1. 92. Argo’s shadow.

Quae simul ac rostro ventosum proscidit aequor,
Tortaque remigio spumis incanuit unda,
Emersere feri candenti e gurgite vultus
Aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes.
Catullus, De Nupt. Pel. et Thet., 12.

The wondred Argo, which in venturous piece
First through the Euxine seas bore all the flower of Greece.
Spenser, Faery Queen, Book II, c. 12, st. 44.

1. 109. Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound.| The Trinity.
This passage may be compared to what Plato, in his second Epistle,
enigmatically says of a first, second, and third, and of the impossi-
bility that the human soul should attain to what it desires to know
of them, by means of anything akin to itself.

1. 115. Less than little.

Che ’] pavon vi parrebbe men che poco.
Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, Lib. II., cap. 5.

1.118. Thou smiledst.| Some MSS. and editions instead of ‘ inten-
dente te a me arridi’, have ‘intendente te ami ed arridi’, ‘ who,
understanding thyself, lovest and enjoyest thyself’ ; which Lombardi
thinks much preferable.

1. 118. That circling.| The second of the circles, ‘ Light of Light,’
in which he dimly beheld the mystery of the Incarnation.

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

EITHER EXPRESSLY MENTIONED, OR SUPPOSED TO
BE REFERRED TO, IN THE PRECEDING POEM

Abati, Par. xvi. 109.

Abati, Bocca degli, H. xxxii. 105.

Abbagliato, H. xxix. 129.

Abel, H. iv. 53.

Abraham, H. iv. 55.

Absalom, H. xxviii. 132.

Abydos, Purg. xxviii. 74.

Accorso, Francesco d’, H. xv.
Lit:

Achan, Purg. xx. 107.

Acheron, H. iii. 72;
Purg. ti. 100.

Achilles, H. v. 65 ; xii. 68; xxvi.
63); xx fs) Purg.. 1x:.332)-
xxi. 93.

Acone, Par. xvi. 64.

Acquacheta, H. xvi. 97.

Acquasparta, Par. xii. 115.

Acre, H. xxvii. 84.

Adam, H. iii. 107; iv. 52. Purg.
ix.9; xi. 455 xxix. 845 xxxil.
ot5 XXxill. 62.) Par, siie255
Xi. 34) 77s xxv /S2)0100;3
xxxii. 108, 122.

Adamo (Maestro), of Brescia, H.
xxx. 60, DOS.

Adice, H. xii. 4. Purg. xvi. 117.
Par. ix. 44.

Adimari, Par. xvi. 113.

Adrian V, Purg. xix. 97.

Adriatic, Par. xxi. 114.

Aegina, H. xxix. 58.

Aeneas, H. i. 69; ii. 343 iv. 119;
xxvi. 61,92. Purg. xviii. 135 ;
xxi. 98. Par visa xvi2e:

Aeolus, Purg. xxviii. 21.

Aesop, H. xxiii. 5.

Aethiop, Purg. xxvi. 18.
xix. 108.

Agamemnon, Par. v. 69.

Agapete, Par. vi. 16.

ive, MT

Par.

Agatho, Purg. xxii. 105.

Aghinolfo da Romena, H. xxx.
76.

Aglauros, Purg. xiv. 142.

Agnello, H. xxv. 61.

Agobbio, Purg. xi. 80.

Agostino, Par. xii. 122.

Aguglione, Par. xvi. 54.

Ahasuerus, Purg. xvii. 28.

Ahitophel, H. xxviii. 133.

Alagia, Purg. xix. 141.

Alagna, Purg. xx. 86.
145.

Alardo, H. xxviii. 17.

Alba, Par. vi. 38.

Alberichi, Par. xvi. 87.

Alberigo, H. xxxiii. 116, 152.

Albero da Siena, H. xxix. 105.

Albert I, Purg. vi. 98. Par. xix.
114.

Alberti, Alberto degli, H. xxxii.
55

Par. Xxx.

Alberti, Alessandro degli, H.
xxxii. 53.

Alberti, Napoleone degli, H.
0.6.4 Brak
Alberto, Abbot of San Zeno,

Purg. xviii. 117.

Alberto della Scala, Purg. xviii.
121.

Albertus Magnus, Par. x. 95.

Alcides, H. xxv. 30; xxxi. 123.

Alemaeon, Purg. xii. 46. Par. iv.
100.

Aldobrandesco, Guglielmo, Purg.
xi. 59.

Aldobrandesco, Omberto, Purg.
xi. 58, 67.

Aldobrandi, Tegghiaio, H. vi. 79 ;
xvi. 42.

Alecto, H. ix. 48.

562

Alessandro da Romena, H. xxx.
76.

Alessio Interminei, H. xviii. 120.

Alexander the Great, H. xii.
106 (7); xiv. 28.

Alexander Pheraeus, H. xii.106(?).

Alexandria, Purg. vii. 137.

IATIROHE xoxvillle a2:

Alichino, H. xxi. 116; xxii. LL1.

Alighieri, son of Cacciaguida, Par.
xv. 86.

Alonzo III, King of Aragon,
Purg. vii. 116.

Alonzo X, of Spain, Par. xix.
122.

Alp, H.xx058:

Alpine, Purg. xiv. 33;
110; | Partvis52.

Alvernia, Par. xi. 98.

Amata, Purg. xvii. 34.

Amidei, Par. xvi. 135.

Amphiarais, H. xx. 31.
100.

Amphion, H. xxxii. 11.

Amyclas, Par. xi. 63.

Anacreon, Purg. xxii. 105.

Ananias, Par. xxvi. 13.

Ananias, the husband of Sap-
phira, Purg. xx. 109.
Anastagio, Purg. xiv. 109.

Anastasius, H. xi. 9.

Anaxagoras, H. iv. 135.

Anchises, H..1.. 69; ‘iv.
Par: xvi 2a: xix. 128.

Andes, Purg. xviii. 84.

Andrea, Jacomo da Sant’, H.
xill. 134.

Angiolello, H. xxviii. 73.

Ann, Saint, Par. xxxii. 119.

Annas, H. xxiii. 124.

Anselm, Par. xii. 128.

Anselm, son of Count Ugolino de’
Gherardeschi, H. xxxiii. 48.
Antaeus, H. xxxi. 92, 103, 131.

Antandros, Par. vi. 69.

Antenor, Purg. v. 75.

Antenora, H. xxxii. 89.

Anthony, Saint, Par. xxix. 131.

Antigone, Purg. xxii. 108.

Antiochus, H. xix. 90.

Apennine, H. xvi. 96; xx. 63.
Purg: v. 94; xxx. 86. (Bar.
x1. 97:

XXXILl.

Par. iv.

Hig:

INDEX

Apollo; Purg... xx. 127... Pari:
| rea ive?

Apulia, H. xxviii. 7. See Pouille.

Apulian, H. xxviii. 15.

Aquarius, H. xxiv. 2.

Aquinum, Purg. xxii. 14. Par.
x, OG; Xiv. U;

Arab, Par. vi. 50.

Arachne, H. xvii. 18. Purg. xii.

39.

Aragonia, Purg. iii. 113.

Arbia, H. x. 84.

Arca, Dell’, Par. xvi. 90.

Archiano, Purg. v. 93, 122.

Arctic, Par. xxxi. 28.

Ardinghi, Par. xvi. 91.

Arethusa, H. xxv. 89.

Arezzo, Hi. xxii. 63 )xxix:( 104;
AXR Se. Purge. vigvl4e pay.
49.

Argenti, Filippo, H. viii. 59.

Argia, Purg. xxii. 109.

Argive, H. xxviii. 81.

Argo, Par. xxxiii. 92.

Argonauts, Par. ii. 17;
91.

Argus, Purg. xxix. 91; xxxii. 63.

Ariadne, Par. xiii. 12.

Aries, Purg. vill. 135; xxxii. 52.
Par.if 39\ 39 xxvni..108:

Aristotle, H. iv. 128; xi. 104.
Purg. iii. 41. Par. viii. 125.

Arius, Par. xiii. 123.

Arles#H.axd 111:

Arnaut, Purg. xxvi. 134.

Arno, H. xilt. S489 xver DP :
XML OSG bexxyObc0 xx malig.
Purs. v. 123 > xave (26. soar.
xi. 99.

Arrigo, H. vi. 81.

Arrigucci, Par. xvi. 106.

Arthur, H. xxxii. 59.

Aruns, H. xx. 43.

Ascesi, Par. xi. 49.

Asciano, Caccia d’, H. xxix. 127.

Asdente, H. xx. 116.

Asopus, Purg. xviil. 92.

Assyrians, Purg. xii. 54.

Athamas, H. xxx. 4.

Athens, H. xii. 17. Purg. vi.
141; xv. 96. Par. xvii. 46.

Atropos, H. xxxiil. 124.

Attila, H. xii. 134; xiii. 150.

XXXIll.

INDEX

August, Purg. v. 38.

Augustine, Saint, Par. x. 117;
ood SO)

Augustus, Par. xxx. 136.
Caesar.

Aventine, H. xxv. 25.

Averroes, H. iv. 141.

Avicen, H. iv. 140.

Aulis, H. xx. 109.

Aurora, Purg. ii. 8; 1x. 1.

Ausonia, Par. viii. 63.

Ausonian, Par. xi. 98.

Austrian, H. xxxii. 26.

Azzo, Ugolin d’, Purg. xiv. 107.

Azzolino, H. xii. 110; Par. ix. 30.

See

Babylonian, Par. xxili. 129.

Bacchiglione, H. xv. 115. Par.
xed.

Bacchus, H. xx. 55. Purg. xviii.
93. Paryxit. 22:

Bagnacavallo, Purg. xiv. 118.

Bagnoregio, Par. xii. 119.

Baldo d@’ Aguglione, Par. xvi. 54.

Balearic, H. xxviii. 79.

Baliol, John, Par. xix. 121.

Baptist. See John.

Barbariccia, H. xxi. 118;
30, 57, 142.

Barbarossa. See Frederick.

Bari, Par: vi./64.

Barucci, Par. xvi. 102.

Battifolle, Federico Novello da,
Purge. vi. 17.

Beatrice, daughter of Folco Por-
tinari, passim.

Beatrice, Marchioness of Este,
Purg. viii. 73.

Beatrix, wife of Charles I, King
of Naples, Purg. vii. 129. Par.
vie 13D.

Beccaria, H. xxxii. 116.

Bede, Par. x. 127.

Begga (Buggea), Par. ix. 88.

Belacqua, Purg. iv. 119.

Belisarius, Par. vi. 25.

Bella, Giano della, Par. xvi. 130.

Bellincion Berti, Par. xv. 106;
xvi. 96, 119.

Bello, Geri del, H. xxix. 26.

Belus, Par. ix. 93.

Belzebub, H. xxxiv. 122.

Benacus, H. xx. 60, 72, 75.

Xxil,

563

Benedict, Saint, Par. xxii. 38;
xxxil. 30.

Benedict, Saint, the Abbey, H.
xvi. 100.

Benevento, Purg. iii. 124.

Benincasa Aretino, Purg. vi. 14.

Berenger, Raymond, Par. vi. 136.

Bergamese, H. xx. 70.

Bernard the Franciscan, Par. xi.
ae

Bernard, Saint, Par. xxxi. 55,
937,130; xxx Ws xxxi 47:

Bernardin di Fosco, Purg. xiv.
103.

Bernardone, Pietro, Par. xi. 83.

Berti, Bellincion, Par. xv. 106;
xvi. 96, 119.

Bertrand de Born, H. xxviii. 130;
5.6. CAAA

Bethlehem, Purg. xx. 135.

Bianco, H. xxiv. 149.

Billi, Par. xvi. 109.

Bindi, LaTraexxixe Wile

Birtha,wear., xi. 135.

Bisenzio, H. xxxii. 54.

Bismantua, Purg. iv. 25.

Bocca degli Abati, H. xxxii. 105.

Boéthius, Par. x. 119.

Bohemia, Purg. vii. 98.
abe JING),

Bohemian, Par. xix. 123.

Bologna, H. xviii. 58; xxiii. 105,
144. Purg. xiv. 102.

Bolognian, Purg. xi. 83.

Bolsena, Purg. xxiv. 25.

Bonaccorsi, Pinamonte de’, H.
xx. 95.

Bonagiunta degli Urbiciani, Purg.
xxiv. 20.

Bonatti, Guido, H. xx. 116.

Bonaventura, Saint, Par. xii. 25,
118.

Boniface, Purg. xxiv. 30.

Boniface VIII, H. vi. 69; xix. 55;
xxv. Sly Pury. «xx: | S6)5
KK. P47 Par sxe V3) = eae
82; xviii. 124; xxvii. 20; xxx.
145.

Bonturo, H. xxi. 40.

Borgo Sant’ Apostolo, Par. xvi.
Loe?

Born, Bertrand de, H. xxviil.
130); maxx. 27.

iar

564

Borneil, Giraud de, Purg. xxvi.
113.

Borsiere, Guglielmo, H. xvi. 70.

Bostichi, Par. xvi. 91.

Bottaio, Martino, H. xxi. 37.

Brabant, Purg. vi. 24.

Branca d’ Oria, H. xxxiii. 136,
138.

Branda, Fonte, H. xxx. 77.

Brennus, Par. vi. 44.

Brente; H. xv:8.°"'Par. rx. 28:

Brescia, H. xx. 66.

Brescian, H. xx. 70.

Brettinoro, Purg. xiv. 114.

Briareus, H. xxxi. 90. Purg.
mir. 2d:

Brigata, son of Count Ugolino de’
Gherardeschi, H. xxxiii. 88.
Brosse, Pierre de la, Purg. vi. 23.
Bruges, H. xv. 5. Purg. xx. 46.

Brundusium, Purg. iii. 26.

Brunelleschi, Agnello, H. xxv.
61.

Brunetto Latini, H. xv. 28, 102.

Brutus, Junius, the expeller of
Tarquin, H. iv. 123.

Brutus, Marcus, the slayer of
Caesar, H. xxxiv. 61. Par. vi.
76.

Bryso, Par. xiii. 121.

Buiamonti, Giovanni, H. xvii. 69.

Bulicame, H. xiv. 76.

Buonconte, Purg. v. 87.

Buondelmonti, Par. xvi. 65.

Buondelmonti, Buondelmonte
de’, H. xxviii. 102 (note).
Par. xvi. 139.

Buoso Donati, H. xxv.131; xxx.
44,

Caccia d’ Ascian, H. xxix. 127.

Cacciaguida, Par. xv. 84, 128;
Xvii. 6.

Caccianimico, Venedico, H. xviii.

Cacus, H. xxv. 24.

Cadmus, H. xxv. 89.

Caecilius, Purg. xxii. 97.

Caesar, H. xiii. 68. Purg. vi.
95, 116. "Pari - 292i 10;
KVI1..01.

Caesar, Augustus, H. i. 67. Purg.
vil. 5; xxix. LL: “Par. ve V5.

INDEX

Caesar, Julius, H. i. 65; iv. 120.
Pures 29 oes RRM nO,
Par. ‘xi, GE:

Caesar, Tiberius, Par. vi. 89.

Cagnano, the river, Par. ix. 48.

Cagnano, Angelo or Angiolello
Ga, H. xxviii. va:

Cagnazzo, H. xxi. 117; xxii. 105.

Cahors; Es x1. sae

Cahorsines, Par. xxvii. 53.

Caiaphas, H. xxiii. 117.

Caieta, H. xxvi. 91.

Cain, H. xx. 123. Purg. xiv. 134.
Par. Wi. "52:

Cana Hv: 105): kxxit a7:

Calabria, Par. xii. 131.

Calboli, Fulcieri da, Purg. xiv.
61.

Calboli, Rinieri da, Purg. xiv. 91,

Caleabrina,. Hi:- xxi. “LT? > xxii,
133.

Calchas, H. xx. 109.

Calfucci, Par. xvi. 104.

Callaroga, Par. xii. 48.

Calliope, Purg. i. 9.

Callisto, Purg, xxv. 126.

Callixtus I, Par. xxvii. 40.

Camaldoli, Purg. v. 94.

Camicion de’ Pazzi, H.
66.

Camilla, H. i. 104; iv. 120.

Cammino, Gherardo da, Purg.
Ry. 26. 137, 142s

Cammino, Riccardo da, Par. ix.

0-1) B

Camonica, Val, H. xx. 62.

Camparnatico, Purg. x1. 66.

Campaldino, Purg. v. 90.

Campi, Par. xvi. 48.

Canavese, Purg. vii. 138.

Cancellieri, Focaccia de’, H.

xxxll. 60.

Cancer, Par. xxv. 102.

Capaneus, H. xiv. 59.

Capet, Hugh, Purg. xx. 48.

Capocchio, H. xxix. 134; xxx.
28.

Caponsacco, Par. xvi. 120.

Caprara, H. xxxili. 82.

Capricorn, Purg. ti. 55.
xX Wil. Gue

Caprona, H. xxi. 92.

Par.

INDEX

Capulets, Purg. vi. 107.

Carisenda, H. xxxi. 128.

Carlino de’ Pazzi, H. xxxii. 67.

Carpigna, Purg. xiv. 100.

Carrara, H: xx. 45.

Casale, Par. xii. 115.

Casalodi, H. xx. 94.

Casella, Purg. ii. 88.

Casentino, H. xxx. 64. Purg. v.
92s xiv, 45.

Cassero, Guido del, H. xxviii. 73.

Cassero, Jacopo del, Purg. v. 66.

Cassino, Par. xxii. 36.

Cassius, H. xxxiv. 62. Par. vi. 76.

Castello, Guido da, Purg. xvi.
| Ar

Castile, Par. xii. 49.

Castrocaro, Purg. xiv. 118.

Catalano, H. xxiii. 105, 116.

Catalonia, Par. viii. 83.

Catellini, Par. xvi. 86.

Cato, H. iv. 124; xiv. 15. Purg.
tools ieee

Catria, Par xxi. 99:

Cattolica, fia, HO xxvii 7 7:

Cavalcanti, Gianni Schicchi de’,
1a Bebo. 1a

Cavalcanti, Cavalcante de’, H. x.

Cavalcanti, Francesco de’, H.
XKVE Go ios 140:

Cavaleanti, Guido, H. x. 62.
Purg. x1. 96.

Cecina, H. xiii. 10.

Celestine V, H. iii. 56;
101.

Centaurs,, H. xinv’53;"103; P16,
28), Ra) bg ee, PKA
120.

Ceperano, H. xxviii. 14.

Cephas, Par. xxi. 118.

Cerbaia, Count Orso da, Purg. vi.

XXVil.

Cerberus, H. vi. 12, 22, 31; ix.
97.

Cerchi, Par. xvi. 63.

Ceres, Purg. xxviii. 52.

Certaldo, Par. xvi. 48.

Cervia, H. xxvii. 40.

Cesena, H. xxvii. 50.

Ceuta, H. xxvi. 109.

Charlemagne, H. xxxi. 15. Par.
vi. 98; xviii. 39.

565

Charles of Lorraine, Purg. xx. 52.
Charles Martel, Par. viii. 50; ix.
1

Charles of Valois, H. vi. 69.
Pure. xx. 69.7 Parr vi. 1 1:
Charles I of Anjou, King of
Naples, H. xix. 103. Purg. v.
69 2 vil. T1412 aoe

XK 9s Os, ee arnwnl ese

Charles II, King of Naples, Purg.
Vil, eo." ars ‘xix 1h see
58.

Charon, H. iii. 77, 89, 101, 119.

Charybdis, H. vii. 22.

Chebar, Purg. xxix. 97.

Chiana, Par. xiii. 21.

Chiaramontesi, Purg. xii. 99.
Par: xvi. 103:

Chiarentana, H. xv. 10.

Chiascio, Par. xi. 40.

Chiassi, Purg. xxviii. 20.

Chiaveri, Purg. xix. 99.

Chiron, H. xii. 62, 68, 74, 95.
Pure. Boos

Chiusi, Par. xvi. 74.

Christ, Jesus, H. iv. 50; xxxiv.
110. Pure scx) 86); sexis G5 enrit.
GToxxyie lol xxi, LORY Par.
Vis toe ix VT xt) Ges soo,
99; xii. 35, 66, 68, 69; xiv.
96, 98, 101; xvii. 50; xix. 68,
102, FOS xed? sei
205 is PEKVS OOS XX VEL oO
xxix. 1035* 115 so xxx "33799
Kx 17, 19) OTS, Toe Tie

Christians, H. xxvii. 84. Purg. x.
110; xxii. 74, 90. Par. v. 74;
KV. 1280's" xix:Y9O8'2" soxe9Gs
xxiv. 53, 105; xxvii. 44:

Chrysostom, Saint, Par. xii. 128.

Ciacco, H. vi. 52, 58.

Ciampolo, H. xxii. 47.

Cianfa, H. xxv. 39.

Cianghella, Par. xv. 120.

Cieldauro, Par. x. 124.

Cimabue, Purg. xi. 93.

Cincinnatus. See Quintius.

Ciree, Ho txevi-* 9000 Puree eiy.
45.

Ciriatto; Ho xx. 120) )xxmn, 4:

Cirrhaean, Par. 1. 35.

Clare, Saint, Par. iii. 99.

Clement IV, Purg. iii. 122.

566
Clement V, H. xix. 86. Purg.
Xxx. 7149, Par, -xVil. Ss

EXVilu Oe wax 41h

Clemenza, Par. ix. 2.

Cleopatra, H. v. 62. Par. vi. 79.

Cletus, Par. xxvii. 37.

Clio, Purg. xxii. 58.

Clotho, Purg. xxi. 28.

Clymene, Par. xvii. 1.

Coan, Purg. xxix. 133.

Cocytus, H. xiv. 114; xxxi. 114;
KXxHl. 154; xxxiv. 48.

Colchos, H. xviii. 86. Par. ii. 18.

Colle, Purg. xiii. 108.

Cologne, H. xxiii. 63. Par. x. 95.

Colonnesi, H. xxvii. 82.

Conio, Counts of, Purg. xiv. 119.

Conrad. See Malaspina and
Palazzo.

Conrad ITI, Par. xv. 132.

Conradine, Purg. xx. 66.

Constance, Empress, Purg. ili.
Wiis Par. mi, 120 = av: 95.

Constantine the Great, H. xix.
LIS= xxviierS9.,.c Par. wie: ds
>. ©. eet

Conti Guidi, Par. xvi. 62.

Cormelia, Ha iv.cd25:), Paromy:
122.

Corneto, H. xiii. 10.

Corneto, Rinier da, H. xii. 137.

Corsica, Purg. xviii. 81.

Cortigiani, Par. xvi. 110.

Cosenza, Purg. iii. 121.

Costanza, Empress.
stance.

Costanza, Queen, Purg. iii. 112,
138 ; vii. 130.

Crassus, Purg. xx. 114.

Crete, H. xii. 13. xiv. 90.

Creusa, Par. ix. 94.

Croatia, Par. xxxi. 94.

Crotona, Par. viii. 64.

Cunizza, Par. ix. 32.

Cupid, Par. viii. 9.

Curiatii, Par. vi. 39.

Curio, H. xxviii. 97.

Cynthia, Purg. xxix. 77.

Cyprian, H. xxviii. 78. Par. viii.
3.

Cyrus, Purg. xii. 51.

Cytherea, Purg. xxv. 127; xxviii.
63.

See Con-

INDEX

Daedalus, H. xvii. 108;
112... Par: wii ksi:

Damiano, Pier, Par. xxi. 112.

Damiata, H. xiv. 100.

Daniel, Purg. xxii. 143. Par. iv.
Ii3i; xxix. 140:

Daniel, Arnaut, Purg. xxvi. 134.

Dante, Purg. xxx. 53.

Danube, H. xxxii. 26. Par. viii.
69.

Daphne, Purg. xxii. 112 (note).

Dati, Bonturo, H. xxi. 40.

David: Haw ig. 5D 5 eee soe
Purg. x. 60. Par. xx. 34; xxv.
kos |X ee. len

Decii, Par. vi. 48.

Deianira, H. xil. 65.

Deidamia, H. xxvi. 64.
xxiiy DEL

Deiphile, Purg. xxii. 108.

Delos, Purg. xx. 126.

Delphic, Par. i. 30.

Democritus, H. iv. 132.

Demophoon, Par. ix. 97.

Dente, Vitaliano del, H. xvii.
66.

Diana, Purg. xx. 127; xxv. 126.

Diana, a subterraneous stream
imagined at Siena, Purg. xiii.
144.

Dida; H. vy. ‘$4:
ibaeeRe

Diogenes, H. iv. 133.

Diomede, H. xxvi. 56.

Dione, Par. viii. 9; xxii. 140.

Dionysius, King of Portugal,
Pars aax.¢135.

Dionysius the Areopagite, Par. x.
LIZ st axyir 1215

Dionysius the tyrant, H. xii.
107.

Dioscorides, H. iv. 136.

Dis, H. vil. 66; x1. 68; xii. 37;
xxuly. 20.

Doleino, H. xxviii. 53.

Dominic, Saint, Par. x. 91; xi.
36; P13. x1. Dl, 64, 134.

Dominicans, Par. xi. 116.

Domitian, Purg. xxii. 83.

Donati, Buoso, H. xxv.
0.6.6.5 HEE

Donati, Cianfa, H. xxv. 39.

Donati, Corso, Purg. xxiv. 81.

O40. e

Purg.

‘Par ewvilie lt:

13h:

INDEX

Donati, Forese, Purg. xxiii. 40,
10: xxixw 72:

Donati, Piccarda, Purg. xxiv. 11.
Par. iii. 50; iv. 94, 108.

Donati, Ubertin, Par. xvi. 118.

Donatus, Par. xii. 129.

Douai, Pure. xx. 46.

Draghignazzo, H. xxi. 119; xxii.
(Ps

Duca, Guido del; da Brettinoro,
Purg. xiv. 84.

Duera, Buoso da, H. xxxii. 113.

Dyrrachium, Par. vi. 66.

Ebro, in Italy, Par. ix. 85.
Kbro, in Spain, Purg. xxvii. 4.
Eeho, Pari xni/12.
Edward I, King of England,
Purg. vil./ 133.) Par. xix, 12):
Egidius, Par. xi. 76.
Egypt, Purg. ii. 45.
59.
El, Par. xxvis 133:
Elbe, Purg. vii. 99.
Eleanor, wife of Henry III of
England, Par. vi. 135.
Electra, H. iv. 117.
Eli, Purg. xxiii. 68.
134.
Elias, Purg. xxxii. 79.
Blijah, Ho xxvii. 37.
Eliseo, Par. xv. 129.
Elisha, H. xxvi. 35.
Elsa, Purg. xxxiii. 67.
Elysian, Par. xv. 25.
Ema, Par. xvi. 142.
Empedocles, H. iv. 134.
England, Purg. vii. 132.
English, Par. xix. 121.
Ephialtes, H. xxxi. 85, 99.
Epicurus, H. x. 15.
Epirot, Par. vi. 44.
Erictho, H. ix. 24.
Eriphyle, Purg. xii. 46. Par. iv.
101.

IParexexcy:

Par sxxv 1:

Erisicthon, Purg. xxiii. 23.

Erynnis, H. ix. 46.

Erythraean, H. xxiv. 88.

Esau, Par. viii. 136.

Este, Purg. v. 77.

Esther, Purg. xvii. 29.

Esti, Obizzo da, H. xii.
xviii. 56.

Ihbs

567

Eteocles, H. xxvi. 55.
xxli. 57.

Ethiopia, H. xxiv. 87.

Euclid, H. iv. 139.

Eunoe, Purg. xxviii. 138; xxxiii.
126.

Euphrates, Purg. xxxiii. 112.

Euripides, Purg. xxii. 105.

Kuropa, Par. xxvii. 78.

Europe, Purg. viii. 121. Par. vi.
6; xl. 44.

Eurus, Par. viii. 71.

Euryalus, H. i. 105.

Eurypilus, H. xx. 111.

Hive; .Purg.« vill. 295); | cx.
RM POs, XXR EO:
Xi oo; xk eke.

Ezekiel, Purg. xxix. 96.

Purg.

Go's
Par.

Fabii, Par. vi. 48.

Fabricius, Purg. xx. 25.

Faenza, H. xxvii. 46; xxxii. 120.
Purg.) xiv, 103.

Falterona, mountain, Purg. xiv. 19.

Famagosta, Par. xix. 143.

Fano, H. xxviii. 72. Purg. v. 70.

Fantolin, Ugolin de’, Purg. xiv.
125s

Farfarello, H. xxi. 121; xxii. 93.

Farinata degli Uberti, H. vi. 79;
X. ooe

Felice Guzman, Par. xii. 73.

Feltro, Hi. i102.) Paryix.50:

Ferdinand IV of Spain, Par. xix.
L228

Ferrara, Par. ix. 54; xv. 130.

Fieschi, Purg. xix. 97.

Fiesole, Hi. xy. 62).73.., -Pars wi
D4. =xv.vEhOer xin ole

Fifanti, Par. xvi. 104.

Fifanti, Arrigo degli, H. vi. 81.

Fighine, Par. xvi. 48.

Filippeschi, Purg. vi. 108.

Filippi, Par. xvi. 86.

Filippo Argenti, H. viii. 59.

Flaccus, H. iv. 84.

Flemings, H. xv. 4.

Florence, so. x. 2016s) |xvilw los
Rxivi, 143 ss xxi. Lexx, Di
Purg: vi. 129); x1 ph bs, xi1196
XIV, OoipXxe 14... Exh 94.) Par.
XV. 92's xvi. 2a, Soul44nl4 ce
Xvli, 48; xxix. 109; xxxi. 36.

568

Florentine, H. viii. 60; xvii. 67;
xxxiii. 12. Par. xvi. 59, 85.

Focaccia, H. xxxii. 60.

Focara, H. xxviii. 85.

Foleo, Par. ix. 90.

Forese Donati, Purg. xxiii. 44,
10's sxeivs 72.

Forli, H. xvi. 99;
Purg. xxiv. 33.

Foseo, Bernardin di, Purg. xiv.
103.

France, H. xxvii. 42; xxix. 118.
Purg. xx. 49,69. Par. xv. 114.

Francesca, daughter of Guido
Novello da Polenta, H. v. 113.

Francis, Saint, H. xxvii. 65, 109.
Par. xt. 3469's x12 30 =) sexis.
$8 5) xxx. 30.

Franco Bolognese, Purg. xi. 83.

Frederick I, Emperor, Purg.
xviii. 119.

Frederick II, Emperor, H. x.

xxvii. 41.

120 ; xii. 61; xxin.66. Purg.
xvi 120) Par. Ti 122,
Frederick II, King of Sicily,

Purge. Mt. LIS: vit 126. -oPar:
mi oy se. S:
Frenchman, H. xxxii. 112.
Frieslanders, H. xxxi. 57.
Fucci, Vanni, H. xxiv. 120.
Furies, H. ix. 46; xxx 23.
Gabriel, Par. iv. 48; ix. 133;
xxxtiS3, Ol, FOO.

Gaddo, son of Count Ugolino de’
Gherardeschi, H. xxxiii. 66.
Gades, Par. xxvii. 76.

Gaeta, Par. viii. 64.

Gaia, Purg. xvi. 144.

Galen, H. iv. 140.

Galicia, Par. xxv. 20.

Galigaio, Par. xvi. 98.

Galli, Par. xvi. 102.

Gallia, Purg. vii. 111.

Gallura, H. xxii. 81.
Sl.

Galluzzo, Par. xvi. 51.

Ganellon, H. xxxii. 119.

Ganges, Purg. ii..5; ° xxvii. 5.
Par. xi. 48.

Ganymede, Purg. ix. 21.

Gardé, Tii:xx,'62,

Gardingo, H. xxiii. 110.

Purg. vill.

INDEX

Gascon, Par. xvii. 80; xxvii. 53

Gascony, Purg. xx. 64.

Gaville, H. xxv. 140.

Genoan, Par. ix. 87.

Genoese, H. xxxili. 149.

Gentiles, Par. xx. 96.

Gentucca, Purg. xxiv. 38.

Geri del Bello, H. xxix. 26.

German, H. xvii. 21. Purg. vi
98. Par. viii. 70.

Germany, H. xx. 59.

Geryon, H. xvi. 129; xvii. 93,
129; xviii. 21. Purg. xxvii. 24.

Ghent, H. xv. 5. Purg. xx. 46.

Gherardeschi, Count Ugolino de’,
H. xxxiil. 14, 86.

Gherardo da Cammino, Purg.
xvi. 126, 137, 142.

Ghibellines, Par. vi. 107.

Ghin di Tacco, Purg. vi. 15.

Ghisola, H. xviii. 55.

Gianfigliacci, H. xvii. 57.

Gibraltar, H. xxvi. 106.

Gideon, Purg. xxiv. 124.

Gilboa, Purg. xii. 37.

Giotto, Purg. xi. 95.

Giovanna, wife of Riccardo da
Cammino, Purg. viii. 71.

Giovanna, mother of
Dominic, Par. xii. 74.

Giovanna, wife of Buonconte da
Montefeltro, Purg. v. 88.

Giuda, Par. xvi. 121.

Giuliano, Monte San, H. xxxiii.
29.

Giuochi, Par. xvi. 102.

Glaucus, Par. i. 66.

Godfrey of Bouillon, Par. xviii.
43.

Gomita, Friar, H. xxii. 80.

Gomorrah, Purg. xxvi. 35.

Gorgon, H. ix. 57.

Gorgona, H. xxxili. 82.

Governo, H. xx. 77.

Graecia, H. xx. 107.
ole

Graffiacane, H. xxi. 120; xxii.
34.

Gratian, Par. x. 101.

Greci, Par. xvi. 87.

Grecian, Purg. xxii. 106.

Greece, H. xx. 107. Par. xx. 51.

Greek, Purg. xxii. 100.

Saint

Panirx:

INDEX

Greeks, H. xxvi. 76.
36; xxii. 87.

Gregory the Great, Purg. x. 68.
Pat. xx, 103.5, xxvii lQ6:

Griffolino d’ Arezzo, H. xxix.
1045 eax eee

Gualandi, H. xxxiii. 32.

Gualdo, Par. xi. 44.

Gualdrada, H. xvi. 38.

Gualterotti, Par. xvi. 132.

Guelphs, Par. vi. 110.

Guenever, Par. xvi. 15.

Guido. See Bonatti, Cassero,
Castello, Cavalcanti, Duca,
Guinicelli, Novello, Prata.

Guido, Conte, Par. xvi. 95.

Guido de Romena, H. xxx. 76.

Guidoguerra, H. xvi. 38.

Guinicelli, Guido, Purg. xi. 96;
Xxvi. 83.

Guiscard, Robert, H. xxviii. 12.
Par. xviii. 44.

Guittone d’ Arezzo, Purg. xxiv.
56; xxvi. 118.

Purg. ix.

Hacon, Par. xix. 136.

Haman, Purg. xvil. 26.

Hannibal, H. xxxi. 107. Par. vi.
dl.

Harpies, H. xiii. 99.

Hautefort, H. xxix. 28.

Hebrews, Purg. xxiv. 123. Par.
Xxxil. 14.

Hector, H. iv. 118. Par. vi. 71.

Hecuba, H. xxx. 16.

Helen, Hpiy.)G3.

Helice, Par. xxxi. 29.

Helicon, Purg. xxix. 38.

Heliodorus, Purg. xx. 111.

Hellespont, Purg. xxviii. 70.

Henry, nephew of Henry III of
England, H. xii. 119.

Henry of Navarre, Purg. vii. 105.

Henry II, King of Cyprus, Par.
xix. 144.

Henry II, King of England, H.
xxvii. 131.

Henry III, King of England,
Purg. vii. 132.

Henry VI, Emperor, Par. iii. 122.

Henry VII, Emperor, Purg. vi.
103, Par. xvil. 80.3; xxx. 135.

Heraclitus, H. iv. 134.

569

Hercules, H. xxv. 30; xxvi. 106;
xxxi, 123:. "Pat. 1x98.

Hesperian, Purg. xxvii. 4.

Hezekiah, Par. xx. 44.

Hippocrates, H. iv. 139. Purg.
xxix. 133.

Hippolytus, Par. xvii. 47.

Holofernes, Purg. xii. 54.

Homer, H. iv. 80. Purg. xxil.
100.

Honorius III, Par. xi. 90.

Horace, H. iv. 84.

Horatii, Par. vi. 39.

Hugh Capet, Purg. xx. 48.

Hugues of St. Victor, Par. xii.
125.

Hungary, Par. vill. 68; xix.
138.

Hyperion, Par. xxii. 138.

Hypsipile, H. xviii. $90. Purg.
xe LOE

Iarbas, Purg. xxxi. 69.

Iberia, H. xxvi. 101.

Learns... pcydis OSA Parivar:

132:

Ida, BH. xive 93;

Ilerda, Purg. xviii. 100.

Ilion, Purg. xii. 57.

Ihums, Hes. ik:

Illuminato, Par. xii. 121.

Imola, H. xxvii. 46.

Importuni, Par. xvi. 133.

Indian, H. xiv. 28. Purg. xxvi.
18,; xxxii, 41.4 Par. xxix. 108.

Indus, Par. xix. 67.

Infangato, Par. xvi. 122.

Innocent III, Par. xi. 85.

Ino, H. xxx. 5.

Interminei, Alessio, H. xviii. 120.

Tole, Par. ix. 98.

Iphigenia, Par. v. 70.

Iris, Purg. xxi. 49. Par. xii. 9;
XXvlil. 29.

Isaias, Par. xxv. 90.

Isere, Par. vi. 60.

Isidore, Par. x. 126.

Ismene, Purg. xxii. 110.

Ismenus, Purg. xvili. 92.

Israel, H. iv. 56. Purg. ii. 45.

Israelites, Par. v. 48.

Italian, H. xxxiii. 79. Purg. vi.
126. >, Par. pe26,

570

Ttalys) He i 1Oss" ix. TES 5) sx:
57.* Purge vie' 76 5vil. 955 -xii1.
89s xx. 655 xxx. 87. * Par: xxi.
O65) xxx SO:

Jacob, H. iv. 56.
¥x113 70!

Jacomo da Sant’
Siieloa.

James, King of Majorca and
Minorca, Par. xix. 133.

James, Saint; the elder, Par.
<xv. 19:

James II, King of Aragon, Purg.
HTS s vir 120) Par. xaxsi3e.

January, Par. xxvii. 133.

Janus, Par. vi. 83.

Jason, the Argonaut, H. xviii.
Sb: Par: 116/19:

Jason, the Jew, H. xix. 88.

Jephthah, Par. v. 64.

Jerome, Saint, Par. xxix. 38.

Jerusalem, Purg. iv. 65; xxiii. 26.
Par xix: 125 3! xxv. 59:

Jesus. See Christ.

Jews; EL. xxii 126%) xxviis So.
Par: v.81; vnl45 5! xxix.l08.

Joachim of Flora, Par. xii. 131.

Joanna, Par. xii. 74.

Jocasta, Purg. xxii. 57.

John the Baptist, H. xiii. 145;
Rie. 18s. exx jo.) Purg asc.
148. Par. iv. 29; xvi. 24, 45
xviii. 130; xxxii. 26.

John, King of England, H. xxviii.
130:

John, Saint; the Evangelist, H.
xix. 209) “Purg. ) xxix.) 101.
Par: iv. 29s xxivel2d: xy.
94° 112 voxxviy ob 3! xxx 112.

John XXI. See Peter of Spain.

John XXII, Par. xxvii. 53.

Jordan, Purg. xviii. 134.
xxii. 91.

Josaphat, H. x. 12.

Joseph, H. xxx. 96.

Joshua, Purg. xx. 108. Par. ix.
122 xvi St.

Jove, H. xiv. 48; xxxi. 39, 83.
Purg) xxix. 116: sea S110.
Par. ‘iv. 63 2) vii Grimes :
Xvili. 65; xxii. 141; xxvui.'18.

Juba, Par. vi. 73.

Par. viii. 136 ;

Andrea, H.

Par.

INDEX

Judas Iscariot, H. ix. 28; xxxi.
134; xxxiv.58. Purg. xx. 72;
Kal. 85.

Judas Maccabaeus, Par. xviii. 37.

Judecca, H. xxxiv. 112.

Judith, Par, xxxil.-7:

Julia, H. iv. 125:

Julius. See Caesar.

July, H. xxix. 46.

Juno; Hi xaxx../f.
XXvVlii. 29.

Jupiter. See Jove.

Justinian, Purg.vi.89. Par. vi.11.

Juvenal, Purg. xxii. 14.

Far x9 :

Lacedaemon, Purg. vi. 141.

Lachesis, Purg. xxi. 25; xxv. 81.

Laertes, Par. xxvii. 77.

Lambertaccio Fabbro, Purg. xiv.
102.

Lamberti, Par. xvi. 109.

Lamone, H. xxvii. 46.

Lancelot, H. v. 124.

Lanciotto, H. v. 106.

Lanfranchi, H. xxxiii. 32.

Langia, Purg. xxii. 110.

Lano, He xine 122:

Lapi, Par. xxix. 111.

Lateran, H. xxvii. 82.
a2.

Latian, H: xxi: 64 ; ‘xxvu."31 ;
XXvill. 68; xxix. 85.

Latini, Brunetto, H. xv. 28, 102.

Latinus, H. iv. 122.

Latium, H. xxvii. 24; xxix. 88.
Purg. vii. 15; xi. 58; xiii. 85.

Latona, Purg. xx. 126. Par. x.
645° xx4lod pox xe

Laurence, Saint, Par. iv. 82.

Lavagna, Purg. xix. 98.

Lavinia, H. iv. 123. Purg. xvii.
oi. ParAvi. 4.

Leah, Purg. xxvii. 102.

Leander, Purg. xxviii. 72.

Learchus, H. xxx. 10.

Leda, Purg. iv. 59. Par. xxvii. 93.

Lemnian, H. xviii. 86.

Lentino, Jacopo da, Purg. xxiv
56.

Lerice, Purg. iii. 49.

Lethe; H: xiv. 126, 131... Purg.
Kxvi- 1OW* xvii lot > | KEK
145; xxxiii. 94, 123.

Par’sxxi-

INDEX

Levi, Purg. xvi. 136.

Libanus, Purg. xxx. 12.

Libicocco, H. xxi. 119; xxii. 69.

Libra, Purg. xxvii. 3. Par. xxix.2.

Libya, H. xxiv. 83.

Lille, Purg. xx. 46.

Limbo, H. iv. 41.

Limoges, Purg. xxvi. 113.

Linus, Poet, H. iv. 138.

Linus, Pope, Par. xxvii. 37.

Livy, H. xxviii. 10.

Lizio, Purg. xiv. 99.

Loderingo, H. xxiii. 106.

Logodoro, H. xxii. 88.

Loire, Par. vi. 61.

Lombard, H. i. 64; xxii. 98;
XXViLs Is 7Pure.yi.662 3 xvi.
128. Par. vi. 96; xvii. 69.

Lombardo, Marco, Purg. xvi. 46,
iso.

Lombardo, Pietro, Par. x. 104.

Lombardy, H. xxviii. 70. Purg.
xvi. 46, 117.

Louis, Kings of France, Purg. xx.
49,

Lucan, H. iv. 85; xxv. 85.

Lucea, H. xviii. 120; xxxiii. 30.
Purg. xxiv. 21,36.

Lucia, H. ii. 97, 100. Purg. ix.
ol; , Parwxxxil, 123%

Lucifer, H. xxxi. 134; xxxiv. 82.

Lucretia, H. iv. 124. Par. vi. 41.

uke, Purgy xxii@3) xxix 13!

Lunt, Hi -xx344" Par txvi. 72:

Lybic, Purg. xxvi. 39.

Lycurgus, Purg. xxvi. 87.

Macarius, Par. xxii. 48.

Maccabee, Par. xviii. 37.

Maccabees, H. xix. 89.

Maecra, Paro ix" 86:

Mainardi, Arrigo, Purg. xiv. 100.

Mainardo Pagano, H. xxvii. 47.
Purg. xiv. 122.

Madian, Purg. xxiv. 125.

Maia, Par. xxii. 140.

Malacoda, H. xxi. 74, 77.

Malaspina, Currado, Purg. viii.
65241

Malatesta, Gianciotto, H. v. 105.

Malatesta, Paolo, H. v. 73.

Malatesta da Verrucchio, H.
xxvii. 43.

571

Malatestino da Rimini, H. xxvii.
43; xxviii. 81.

Malavolti, Catalano de’, H. xxiii.
105,, 016;

Malebolge, H. xviii. 2; xxi. 5;
XXIV. S16 /ERS, Oo.

Malta, Par. ix. 53.

Manfredi, Purg. ili. 110.

Manfredi, Alberigo de’, H. xxxiii.
LG 2!

Manfredi, Tribaldello de’, H.
0 -o tay ESD

Mangiadore, Pietro, Par. xii. 125.

MantowHe xx. 50:

Mantua, H.1i. 59); xx. (91) 2Purg.
vi. 72; xviii. 84.

Mantuan, H. i. 64. Purg. vi. 74;
vii. 86.

Marca Anconitana, Purg. v. 67.

Marcellus, Purg. vi. 127.

Mareia, HM. iv, 125: (Purgsn779,
85.

Marco Lombardo, Purg. xvi. 46,
3B

Maremma, H. xxv. 18;
47. Purg. v. 132.

Margaret, wife of Louis IX of
France, Purg.’ vi. 129) Par.
Vibwlaos

Mars, H. xiii.145; xxiv.144. Purg.
11.14 xi, 272) Par: tvs O43) vail.
138; xiv. 93; xvi. 45; xxvii. 13.

Marseilles, Purg. xviii. 100.

Marsyas, Par. i. 19.

Martin, Sir, Par. xiii. 135.

Martin IV, Purg. xxiv. 23.

Mary, Purg. xxiii. 26.

Mary of Brabant, Purg. vi. 24.

Mary,The Blessed Virgin, Purg. iii.
37; v.98; vill. 37; xill.45; xv.
87; xviil.98; xxii. 139; xxxiili.
6. Par. iv. 30; xi. 67; xiii. 79;
RIV. gos) RVOILZos xa ESOS:
NBR NB VIS" 5o-ay8 7/8 5.6-5.0, IR
EXXiL. 3,4) 273; 95: 101s xxx

Marzucco, Purg. vi. 19.

Mascheroni, Sassol, H. xxxii. 63.

Matilda, Purg. xxviii. 41; xxxii.
SO) xxx PETS:

Matteo d’Acquasparta, Par. xii.
15.

Matthias, Saint, H. xix. 98.

Medea, H. xviii. 94.

3.0.6 5.e

572

Medicina, Pier da, H. xxviii. 69.

Medusa, H. ix. 53.

Megaera, H. ix. 47.

Melchisedec, Par. viii. 130.

Meleager, Purg. xxv. 22.

Melissus, Par. xiii. 121].

Menalippus, H. xxxii. 128.

Mercabo, H. xxviii. 71.

Mercury, Par. iv. 64.

Metellus, Purg. ix. 130.

Michael, the Archangel, Purg. xiii.
AGH banaivetss

Michal, Purg. x. 63, 65.

Michel Zanche, H. xxii.
Xxxiii. 143.

Midas, Purg. xx. 105.

Midian, Purg. xxiv. 125.

Milan, Purg. viii. 80; xviii. 120.

Mincius, H. xx. 76.

Minerva, Purg. xxx. 66. Par. ii. 8.

Minos, H. v. 4,20; xiii. 99; xx.
Jog. Bevin 10 -. xxixe 4.
Purg. d(T

Minotaur, H. xii. 25.

Mira, Purg. v. 79.

Modena, Par. vi. 78.

Mohammed, H. xxviii. 31, 58.

Moldau, Purg. vii. 99.

Monaldi, Purg. vi. 108.

Monferrat, Purg. vii. 138

Mongibello, H. xiv. 53.

Montagna, H. xxvii. 44.

Montagues, Purg. vi. 107.

Montaperti, H. xxxil. 81.

Montefeltrano, Guido, H.

64.

Montefeltro, Purg. v. 87.

Montemalo, Par. xv. 103.

Montemurlo, Par. xvi. 63.

Montereggione, H. xxxi. 36.

Montfort, Guy de, H. xii. 119;
xxnu.- 112.

Montone, H. xvi. 94.

Mordecai, Purg. xvii. 29.

Mordred, H. xxxii. 59.

Morocco, H. xxvi. 102.

35:

Moronto, Par. xv. 129.

Mosea de’ Lamberti, H. vi. 81;
Xxvilii. 102.

Moses, H. iv. 54. Purg. xxxii.
19. Pari viva 293 .oxxiv Sb
xxvi. 39; xexii:116;

88 ;

XXVii.

Purg. iv.

INDEX

Mozzi, Andrea de’, H. xv. 113.

Mulciber, H. xiv. 54.

Muses, H. ii. 7; xxxii. 10. Purg.
leh SR, LOZ s . xa. aD't
Par. ii.9; xii. 6; xviii: 29, 75;
Rl. OD-

Mutius, Par. iv. 82.

Myrrha, H. xxx. 39.

Naiads, Purg. xxxili. 50.
Naples, Purg. ili. 26.

Narcissus, H xxx.128. Par.iii.17.
Nasidius, H. xxv. 87.
Naso, H. iv. 85.

Nathan, Par. xii. 127.
Navarre, H. xxii. 47, 121.
#x..04 )Par,,xix. 140.

Nazareth, Par. ix. 133.

Nebuchadnezzar, Par. iv. 13.

Nella, Purg. xxiii. 80.

Neptune, H. xxviii. 79.
xxxili. 91.

Neri, H. xxiv. 142.

Nerli, Par. xv. 110.

Nessus, H. xii. 96; xiii. 1.

Niccold de’ Bonsignori, H. xxix.
123.

Nicholas, Saint, Purg. xx. 30.

Nicholas III, H. xix. 33.

Nicosia, Par. xix. 144.

Nile, H. xxxiv. 41. Purg. xxiv.
63. Par. vi. 68.

Nimrod, H. xxxi. 70. Purg. xii.
900 <Par.xS Vi: ehZ5.

Nino. See Visconti.

Ninus, H. v. 58.

Niobe, Purg. xii. 33.

Nisus, H. i. 105.

Noah, H-iv.i63.. ‘Par. xiii15,

Nocera, Par. xi. 44.

Noli, Purg. iv. 24.

Nona, Vanni della,
138.

Norman, H. xxviii. 12.

Normandy, Purg. xx. 64 (note).

Norway, Par. xix. 136.

Novara, H. xxviii. 56.

Novello, Federico, Purg. vi. 17.

Novello, Guido; da Polenta, H.
xxvil. 38.

Purg.

Par.

Eee sie

Obizzo da Esti,
xviii. 56.

A: ) mais) ULL

INDEX

Octavius. See Caesar, Augustus.

Oderigi, Purg. xi. 79.

Oedipus, Purg. xxxiii. 50 (note).

Olympus, Purg. xxiv. 16.

Omberto, Purg. xi. 67.

Ordelaffi, H. xxvii. 41 (note).

Orestes, Purg. xiii. 29.

Oria, Branca d’, H. xxxiii. 136,
138.

Oriago, Purg. v. 80.

Orlando, H. xxxi. 14. Par. xviii.
40.

Ormanni, Par. xvi. 87.

Orosius, Paulus, Par. x. 116.

Orpheus, H. iv. 137.

Onsini, He xix.) 72

Orso, Count, Purg. vi. 20.

Ostiense, Par. xii. 77.

Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, H. x.
121.

Ottocar, Purg. vii. 100.

Ovid, Hiv: S53" xxv. S7-

Pachynian, Par. viil. 72.

Padua, Par. ix. 46.

Paduan, H. xvii. 67.

Paduans, H. xv. 7.

Paean, Par. xiii. 22.

Pagani, Purg. xiv. 121.

Pagano, Mainardo, H. xxvii. 47.
Purg. xiv. 122.

Palazzo, Currado da, Purg. xvi.
126:

Palermo, Par. viii. 79.

Palladium, H. xxvi. 66.

Pallas, son of Evander, Par. vi.
34.

Pallas, Minerva, Purg. xii. 27.

Paolo Malatesta, H. v. 131.

Parcitati, Montagna de’, H.
xxvii. 44.

Paris, city, Purg. xi. 81; xx. 51.

Paris, son of Priam, H. v. 66.

Parmenides, Par. xiii. 120.

Parnassian, Purg. xxii.
xxvill. 147.

Parnassus, Par: i. 15.

Pasiphae, H. xii. 14. Purg. xxvi.
36; 70:

Paul, Saint, H. ii. 34. Purg. xxix.
135: Par xvii, 128; [62 eexi:
119; xxviii. 130.

Pazzi, Camicion de’, H. xxxii. 66.

65;

573

Pazzi, Carlino de’, H. xxxii. 67.

Pazzo, Rinier, H. ii. 138.

Pegasaean, Par. xviii. 76.

Peleus, H. xxxi. 4. Purg. xxii.
ils}

Pelorus, Purg. xiv. 34. Par. viik
72.

Peneian, Par. i. 31.

Penelope, H. xxvi. 95.

Penestrino, H. xxvii. 98.

Penthesilea, H. iv. 121.

Pera, Della, Par. xvi. 124.

Perillus, H. xxvii. 7.

Persians, Par. xix. 111.

Persius, Purg. xxii. 99.

Perugia, Par. vi. 77; xi. 43.

Peschiera, H. xx. 69.

Peter; Saint.) H. i. 130); 1. .26¢
Xvili. 34; xix. 94, 97; xxxi. 54.
Purg..ixs/V19 ;'xini. 46 5) xix.)97;
XX! ido. Par ix. taoy xn
Xvill. 1287 182; xxis118i;)xx1h
86; xxill. 133; xxiv. 35; xxv.
14 ssxvii. \h] 3) xxxiti LIGA LES:

Peter of Spain, Par. xii. 126.

Peter the Lombard, Par. x. 104.

Peter III of Spain, Purg. vii.
| (id ty

Pettinagno, Pier, Purg. xiii. 119.

Phaedra, Par. xvii. 46.

Phaéton, H. xvii. 102. Purg. iv.
68. (Pan, sevitel ;, 6 xa LG

Pharisees, H. xxiii. 118; xxvii.
81.

Pharsalia, Par. vi. 67.

Philip III of France, Purg. vii.
104.

Philip IV of France, H. xix. 91.
Putg: wih bh! >.xx. 85. | (Batt
pd bal ol 2

Philips, Kings of France, Purg.
xx. 49.

Phlegethon, H. xiv. 111, 126.

Phlegraean, H. xiv. 55.

Phlegyas, H. viii. 18, 23.

Phoebus, H. xxvi. 115.

Phoenicia, Par. xxvii. 78.

Pholus, H. xii. 69.

Photinus, H. xi. 9.

Phrygian, Purg. xx. 113.

Phyllis, Par. ix. 96.

Pia, Purg. v. 131.

Piava, Par. ix. 28.

574

Piccarda, Purg. xxiv. ll. Par.

iii. 50; iv. 94, 108.
Piceno, Campo, H. xxiv. 147.
Pier da Medicina, H. xxviii. 69.
Pier Pettinagno, Purg. xiii. 119.
Pierian, Purg. xxxi. 141.
Pietrapana, H. xxxii. 29.
Pietro Lombardo, Par. x. 104.

Pietro Mangiadore, Par. xii. 125.

Pigli, Par. xvi. 100.
Pilate, Purg. xx. 91.
Pinamonte, H. xx. 95.
Pisa, H. xxxiil. 30, 77.
18.

Pisans, Purg. xiv. 55.
Pisces; Hi xi. 118-7 Burg. 1) 21.
Pisistratus, Purg. xv. 95.

Pistoia, H. xxiv. 124,142; xxv. 9.

Pius I, Par. xxvii. 40.
Pistoia: avail:
Par. iv. 24.
Plautus, Purg. xxii. 97.
Plutus, H. vi. 117; vii. 2.

Po, Hew. 97754 xx. 7./) Burg. bev.

O5G5 xvi L7-s. Parva 52:
Poitou, Purg. xx. 64.
Pola, Hy ix. P12.
Polenta, H. xxvii. 38.
Polycletus, Purg. x. 30.
Polydorus, H. xxx. 19.
xx Td.
Polyhymnia, Par. xxiii. 55.
Polymnestor, Purg. xx. 112.
Polynices, H. xxvi. 55.
Xx. 7
Polyxena, H. xxx. 18.
Pompeian, Par. vi. 74.
Pompeius, Par. vi. 54.
Ponthieu, Purg. xx. 64 (note).
Portugal, Par. xix. 135.
Pouille, Purg. vii. 127.
Prague, Par. xix. 116.

Prata, Guido da, Purg. xiv. 107.

Prato, H. xxvi. 9.
Pratomagno, Purg. v. 115.
Pressa, Della, Par. xvi. 98.
Priam, H. xxx: 15:

Priscian, H. xv. 110.
Proserpine, Purg. xxviii. 51.
Provengals, Par. vi. 132.

Provence, Purg. vii. 127; xx.

59. Par. vii. 60.

Provinzan Salvani, Purg. xi. 122.

Purg. vi.

Purg. iii. 41.

Purg.

Purg.

INDEX

Ptolemy, H. iv. 139.

Ptolemy, King of Egypt, Par. vi.
(lie

Ptolomea, H. xxxiii. 123.

Pygmalion, Purg. xx. 103.

Pyramus, Purg. xxvii. 38;
XXxlli. 69.

Pyrrhus, H. xii. 135. Par. vi. 44.

Quarnaro, Hii. 112:

Quintius Cincinnatus, Par. vi. 47;
xy. 122:

Quirinus, Par. viii. 137.

Raban, Par. xii. 130.

Rachel, H. ii. 102; iv. 57. Purg.
Xxvin Ob: jPart xxii 6.

Rahab, Par. ix. 12:

Raphael, Par. iv. 48.

Ratz barexixe lait.

Ravenna, H. xxvii. 37.
63.

Ravignani, Par. xvi. 94.

Raymond Berenger, Par. vi. 136.

Rebecca, Par. xxxii. 7.

Rehoboam, Purg. xii. 42.

Renard, Par. xviii. 43.

Reno, H. xviii. 61. Purg. xiv. 95.

Rhea, H. xiv. 95.

Rhine, Par. vi. 60.

Rhodope, Par. ix. 96.

Rhone; H. ix) bU1s)7Par.ovi62;
viii. 61.

Rialto; Partix) 27.

Riccardo de San Vittore, Par.
XZ 7.

Rigogliosi, Marchese de’, Purg.
SOGhyy

Rimini, Malatestino da, H. xxviii.

Par: vi:

Rinieri. See Calboli, Corneto,
Pazzo.

Riphaean, Purg. xxvi. 38.

Ripheus, Par. xx. 62.

Robert, Duke of Calabria, after-
wards King of Naples, Par. viii.
81.

Robert Guiscard, H. xxviii. 12;
Par. xvill. 44.

Robert, King of France, Purg.
xx. 57.

Rodolph, Emperor, Purg. vi.
104; vii. 94. Par. viii. 77.

INDEX 575

Romagna, H. xxvii. 25, 34;
Xxx. 152.) Burg: v.68 3. x1v.
1Ol = xve43:

Roman, Purg. x. 67; xxxii. 101.
Par, svi. 43:

Romano, Par. ix. 29.

Romans; (Hi xv eS eva 29.
Par. xix. 98:

Rome, eis ae 66k. te 22 ya XIV.
100 3 xvii 62s. xxvii. 10.
Purg. vi. 114; xvi. 109, 129;
Xvili. SOs pxix vlO7R eax!
xxil..142= Sexaxs ol <a cxoexit,
Ola) Pare viaole ixcmloo
xs) 119s, xvii Oe pox G47;

RXV Oo SX Ol
Romena, H. xxx. 72.
Romeo; Par. vi.j131.,137.
Romoaldo, Par. xxii. 48.
Romulus, Par. viii. 137.
Rubaconte, Purg. xii. 95.
Rubicante, H. xxi. 121; xxii. 40.
Rubicon, Par. vi. 64.
Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, H.
0.0.48) Ba USE
Rusticucci, Jacopo, H. vi.
xvi. 45.
Rush. Pars cexexdi 7:

80 ;

Sabellius, Par. xiii. 123.

Sabellus, H. xxv. 86.

Sabines, Par. vi. 41.

Sacchetti, Par. xvi. 101.

Saladin, H. iv. 126.

Salem, Purg. ii. 3.

Salimbeni, Niccold de’, H. xxix.
123:

Salterello, Lapo, Par. xv. 120.

Salvani, Provinzan, Purg. xi.
122.

Samaria, Purg. xxi. 2.

Samuel, Par. iv. 29.

Sancha, wife of Richard, King
of the Romans, Par. vi. 135.

Sanleo, Purg. iv. 23.

Sannella, Della, Par. xvi. 89.

Santafiore, Purg. vi. 113.

Santerno, H. xxvii. 46.

Sapia, Purg. xiii. 101.

Sapphira, Purg. xx. 109.

Saracens, H. xxvii. 83.
Xxlii. 97.

Sarah, Par. xxxii. 6.

Purg.

Sardanapalus, Par. xv. 102.

Sardinia, H. xxii. 89; xxix. 47.
Purg. xvili. 81; xxiii. 87.

Sardinian, H. xxvi. 103.

Satan, H. vii. 1.

Saturn, H. xiv. 95. Purg. xix. 4.
Par, xxi. 24.

Savena, H. xviii. 61.

Savio, H. xxvii. 50.

Saul, Purg. xii. 35.

Scaevola, Mutius, Par. iv. 82.

Scala, Alberto della, Purg. xviii.
PAL

Scala, Albuino della, Par. xvii.
69 (note).

Scala, Bartolommeo della, Par.
xvil. 69.

Scala, Can Grande della, H. i. 98.
Parexvil: 75:

Scarmiglione, H. xxi. 103.

Schicchi, Gianni, H. xxx. 33.

Sciancato, Puccio, H. xxv. 138.

Scipio, H. xxxi. 106. Purg. xxix.
NID.) Par: vi.b4)3 Xxvil_ov.

Sclavonian, Purg. xxx. 88.

Scornigiani, Farinata degli, Purg.
vi. 18.

Scornigiani,Marzucco degli, Purg.
vi. 19.

Scorpion, Purg. xxv. 4.

Scot, Par: xix) 121.

Scott, Michael, H. xx. 114.

Scrovigni, Rinaldo degli, H.
Xvli. 62.

Scyros, Purg. ix. 35.

Seine, Par. vi. 61; xix. 118.

Semele, H. xxx. 2. Par. xxi. 5.

Semiramis, H. v. 57.

Seneca, H. iv. 138.

Sennaar, Purg. xii. 32.

Sennacherib, Purg. xii. 48.

September, H. xxix. 46.

Serchio, H. xxi. 48.

Sestus, Purg. xxviii. 74.

Seville, H. xx. 125; xxvi. 108.

Sextus Tarquinius, or Sextus
Pompeius, H. xii. 135.

Sextus I, Par. xxvii. 40.

Sibyl, Par. xxxiil. 63.

Sichaeus, H. v. 61. Par. ix. 94.

Sicilian, H. xxvii. 6.

Sicily, H. xii. 108. Purg. iii. 113.
Par. xix. 128:

576

Siena, H. xxix. 105,118. Purg. v.
131; xi. 111, 124, 135; xiii. 98.

Sienese, H. xxix. 131. Purg. xi.
65.

Siestri, Purg. xix. 99.

Sifanti [Fifanti], Par. xvi. 102.

Sigebert, Par. x. 132.

Signa, Bonifazio da, Par. xvi. 54.

Sile, Par. ix. 48.

Silvius, H. ii. 14.

Simifonti, Par. xvi. 61.

Simois, Par. vi. 70.

Simon Magus, H. xix. 1.
MX Ks 4D:

Simonides, Purg. xxii. 106.

Sinigaglia, Par. xvi. 74.

sinonm, Haxxx. 97, Lia

Sion, Purg. iv. 65.

Siren, Purg. xix. 18. Par. xii. 7.

Sismondi, H. xxxiii. 32.

Sizii, Par. xvi. 106.

Socrates, H. iv. 131.

Sodom, H. xi. 53.
35, 72.

Soldan, H. 1v. 126; v.59; xxvii.
So) subairs xis G4:

Soldanieri, Par. xvi. 90.

Soldanier, Gianni de’, H. xxxii.
118.

Solomon, Par. x. 105; xiii. 88.

Solon, Par. viii. 129.

Soracte, H. xxvii. 89.

Sordello, Purg. vi. 59; vii. 2,
BZ; Vil: oo, 4a, O25 9a simtiDa.

Sorga, Par. viii. 61.

Spain, Purg. xviii. 101. Par. vi.
65; xii. 42. See Peter.

Spaniard, Par. xix. 122; xxix. 108.

Sphinx, Purg. xxxiii. 47.

Stagirite, Purg. iii. 41.

Statius, Purg. xxi. 9,92; xxii. 26;
xxv. 30, 35; «xxvii. 47; xxii.
28's XXX MDT iaS.

Stephen, Saint, Purg. xv. 105.

Stricca, H. xxix. 121.

Strophades, H. xiii. 12.

Stygian, H. vii. 110; ix. 80.

Styx, H. xiv. 111.

Suabia, Par. iii. 122.

Sylvester, the Franciscan, Par.
Ki, 20.

Sylvester, Pope, H. xxvii. 90.

Syrinx, Purg. xxxii. 64.

Par.

Purg. xxvi.

INDEX

Tabernicch, H. xxxii. 29.

Tabor, Purg. xxxii. 73.

Tacco, Ghin di, Purg. vi. 15.

Taddeo, Par. xii. 77.

Tagliacozzo, H. xxviii. 16.

Tagliamento, Par. ix. 44.

Talamone, Purg. xiii. 142.

Tanais; i. xxxii. 97:

Tarlati, Cione de’, Purg. vi. 15.

Tarpeian, Purg. ix. 129.

Tarquin, H. iv. 124.

Tartars, H. xvii. 16.

Taurus, Purg. xxv. 3. Par. xxii.
107.

Tegghiaio, H. vi. 79; xvi. 42.

Telemachus, H. xxvi. 93.

Tellus, Purg. xxix. 115.

Terence, Purg. xxii. 96.

Thais, He xvi 130.

Thales, H. iv. 135.

Thames, H. xii. 120.

Thaumantian, Purg. xxi. 49.

Theban, H. xiv. 653 xxvi. 55;
Xxx: ‘2:

Thebes, H. xx.30; xxv. 15: xxx.
23.3). xem RPS eeeine OOO,
Purg. xvill. 92 5 xxi.92 5) xxii.
88.

Themis, Purg. xxxiil. 47.

Theseus, H. ix. 55. Purg. xxiv.
Pad

Thetis, Purg. xxii. 112.

Thibault, King, H. xxii. 51.

Thisbe, Purg. xxvii. 37.

Thomas, Saint, Par. xvi. 128.

Thomas Aquinas, Saint, Purg.
xx. .67.°) Par..x. 96:7 xne-l03s.
133; xiii. 29; xiv. 6.

Thracia, Purg. xx. 112.

Thymbraean, Purg. xii. 26.

Tiber, H. xxvii. 28. Purg. ti. 97.
Par. xi. 99.

Tiberius, Par. vi. 89.

Tignoso, Federico, Purg. xiv. 108.

Tigris, Purg. xxxiil. 112.

Timaeus, Par. iv. 50.

Tiresias, H. xx. 37.
Li2:

Tisiphone, H. ix. 48.

Tithonus, Purg. ix. 1.

Titus, Purg. xxi. 83. Par. vi. 94.

Tityus, H. xxxi. 115.

Tobias, Par. iv. 49.

Pig. xxii.

INDEX

Tolosa, Purg. xxi. 89.

Tomyris, Purg. xii. 51.

Toppo, H. xiii. 123.

Torquatus, Par. vi. 46.

Tosa, Cianghella della, Par. xv.
120.

Tosinghi, Par. xv. 120; xvi. 110.

Tours, Purg. xxiv. 23.

Trajan, Purg. x. 69. Par. xx. 39.

Traversara, Casa, Purg. xiv. 109.

Traversaro, Piero, Purg. xiv. 100.

Trento, city, H. xii. 5; xx. 65.

Trento, river, Par. vili. 65.

Trespiano, Par. xvi. 52.

Tribaldello, H. xxxii. 119.

Trinacria, Par. viii. 73.

Tristan, H. v. 66.

Trivia, Par. xxiii. 25.

Trojan, H. xiii. 12;
Har, xx. 62:

Tronto, Par. viii. 65.

roy, H. 1° 70'5 > xxvi. (65/5 xxx:
14, 23, 97, 1M3:.” Purg.(xait 55,
Par. xv. 119:

Tully, H. iv. 138.

Tupino, Par. xi. 40.

Turbia, Purg. iii. 49.

Wurks, HH. xvii. 16:

Turnus, H. i. 105.

‘uscan, Hix: 23) xxi Ovo exIiE.
76, 92; xxviii. 104; xxxii. 63.
Pare. xi 08/5. xii 139). xiv:
105; 01287 sxval '4ie) Barscrx:
$7.3) xxi lie:

Tuscany, H. xxiv. 121. Purg. xi.
MLO exivAlis

iEydeus, Hi xxxii- 128:

Typhoeus, Par. viii. 74.

Typhon, H. xxxi. 115.

Dyrol We. xx. (59:

Xxviii. 8.

Ubaldin dalla Pila, Purg. xxiv. 29.
Ubaldini, Ottaviano degli, H. x.
121:

Ubaldini, Ruggieri degli, H.
xxxili. 15.
Ubaldini, Ugolino degli; of

Azzo, Purg. xiv. 107.
Ubaldini, Ugolino; of Faenza,
Purg. xiv. 124.

577

Ubaldo, Par. xi. 41.

Ubbriachi, H. xvii. 60.

Uberti, Farinata degli, H. vi.
79s "x oe.

Ubertin Donati, Par. xvi. 118.

Ubertino da Casale, Par. xii. 115.

Uccellatoio, Par. xv. 104.

Ughi, Par. xvi. 86.

Ugo di Brandimborgo, Par. xvi.
are

Ugolino. See Fantolini, Gherar-
deschi, and Ubaldini.

Uguccione, son of Count Ugolino
de’ Gherardeschi, H. xxxiii.
88.

Ulysses, H. xxvi. 56. Purg. xix.
DP are xxvillai ie

Urania, Purg. xxix. 39.

Urban I, Par. xxvii. 41.

Urbiciani, Bonagiunta
Purg. xxiv. 20.

Urbino, H. xxvii. 27.

Urbisaglia, Par. xvi. 72.

Utica. Purg. i. 74.

degli,

Valbona, Lizio da, Purg. xiv. 99.

Valdichiana, H. xxix. 45.

Valdigreve, Par. xvi. 65.

Val di Magra, H. xxiv. 144. Purg.
Vill, Li;

Val di Pado, Par. xv. 130.

Valéry, Erard de. See Alardo.

Vanni Fucci, H. xxiv. 120.

Varo, Par. vi. 60.

Varro, Purg. xxii. 97.

Vatican, Par. ix. 134.

Vecchio, Par. xv. 110.

Venedico Caccianimico, H. xviii.
50.

Venetians, H. xxi. 7.

Venice, Par. xix. 18.

Venus, Purge: 1 19);
XXvli. 94; xxviii.
vill. 3.

Vercelli, H. xxviii. 71.

Verde, Burg: i. 127. Par. yur
66

xxv, 127:
63: Par:

Verona: H. xv. 124. Purg. xviii.
Ire
Veronese, H. xx. 66.

578

Veronica, Par. xxxi. 95.

Verrucchio, H. xxvii. 43.

Veso, Monte, H. xvi. 95.

Vicenza, Par. ix. 47.

Victor, Hugues of Saint, Par. xii.
M25:

Victor, Richard of Saint, Par. x.
127.

Vigne, Pier delle, H. xiii. 60.

Virgil, passim.

Visconti di Milano, Purg. viii. 80,
108.

Visconti di Pisa, Nino, H. xxii.
82. Purg. viii. 53, 81, 108.

Visdomini, Par. xvi. 110.

Vitaliano, H. xvii. 66.

INDEX

Wenceslaus II, Purg. vii. 102.
Par. mse123:

William, Marquis of Monferrat,
Purg. vii. 136.

William of Orange, Par. xviii.
43.

William IT, of Sicily, Par. xx. 57.

Xerxes, Purg. xxviii. 70. Par.
viii. 130.

Zanche, Michel, H.
KX MI aoe

Zeno, H. iv. 136.

Zeno, San, Purg. xviii. 118,

Zita, Santa, H. xxi. 37.

xxii. 88;

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2.57

: : ne Wath ns ;
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