Is shatter'd. By the ruin ye may mount: Among the rest was said, 'He is a liar,2 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 tormented by venomous and pestilent serpents. The soul of Vanni Fucci, who had pillaged the sacristy of Saint James in Pistoia, predicts some calamities that impended over that city, and over the Florentines. In the year's early nonage,3 when the sun 1 He warn'd us ill.] He refers to the falsehood told him by the demon. Canto xxi. 108. 2 He is 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. 3 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 hoarfrosts in the morning often wear the appearance of snow, but are melted by the rising sun." 4 Her dazzling sister's image.] λιγνὺν μέλαιναν, ἀιόλην πυρὸς κάσιν. Eschyl. Septem Contra Thebas, v. 490. Blomfield's edit. κάσις anλou Eúvougos, difía nós. Eschyl. Agamemnon, v. 478. Blomfield. 5 Whom fails his wintry store.] A cui la roba manca. So in the Purgatorio, c. xiii. 61: Così gli ciechi a cui la roba manca. There paces to and fro, wailing his lot, As a discomfited and helpless man; Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope The world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook, Inclining of the nethermost abyss, The site of every valley hence requires, That one side upward slope, the other fall. At length the point from whence the utmost stone Juts down, we reach'd; 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 1 From whence.] Mr. Carlyle notes the mistake in my former translation; and I have corrected it accordingly. Not on downy plumes.] Lettor, tu dei pensar che, senza ardire, Senza affanno soffrir, l'uomo non puote Fama acquistar, ne gran cose fornire. Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, lib. 4. cap. iv. Nessun mai per fuggir, o per riposo, Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. 2. 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 છે Della virtù riposto è il nostro bene. Tasso, G. L. c. xvii. st. 61. Of canopy reposing, fame is won; I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent Though on the arch that crosses there I stood, We from the bridge's head descended, where Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape And hideous, that remembrance in my veins Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands 3 Let Lybia vaunt no more: if Jaculus, Pareas and Chelyder be her brood, Cenchris and Amphisbæna, plagues so dire Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she show'd, 1 Vanquish thy weariness.] -Quin corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat unâ, Atque affigit humi divinæ particulam auræ. Hor. Sat. ii. lib. 2. 78. 2 Serpents.] Vidi locum horridum tenebrosum fœtoribus exhalantibus flammis crepitantibus serpentibus, draconibus Visio, sec. 12. 3. Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars. lib. 9. 703. repletum. Alberici Not with all Ethiopia, and whate'er With serpents were their hands behind them bound, Near to our side, darted an adder up, And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied, The Arabian Phoenix,2 when five hundred years Heliotrope.] Viridi colore est (gemma heliotropion) non ita acuto sed nubilo magis et represso, stellis puniceis superspersa. Causa nominis de effectu lapidis est et potestate. Dejecta in labris aeneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu, utraque aquâ splendorem aëris abjicit et avertit. Etiam illud posse dicitur, ut herbâ ejusdem nominis mixta et præcantationibus 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, Scaltrimento 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. c. vi. Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which I may at will from others' eyes conceal me. Compare Ariosto, Il Negromante, act iii. sc. 3; Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv.; and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17. Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, lib. 7., enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun : Jaspis and helitropius. 2 The Arabian Phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. lib. 15.: Una est quæ reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales; Assyrii Phoenica vocant. Nec fruge neque herbis Sed thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi. See also Petrarch, Canzone: Qual piu, etc. He tastes, but tears of frankincense 1 alone And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls, He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs; Oh! how severe God's judgment, that deals out I then to Virgil: "Bid him stir not hence; The sinner heard and feign'd not, but towards me I have no power permitted to deny What thou inquirest. I am doom'd thus low And with the guilt another falsely charged. 1 Tears of frankincense.] Incenso e mirra è quello onde si pasce. Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, in a gorgeous description of the Phoenix, lib. 2. cap. v. 2 Gazeth around.] Su mi levai senza far più parole, Cogli occhi intorno stupido mirando, Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. 2. cap. iii. 3 Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring 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. 4 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. 8. cap. xliv. |