CANTO XXV I. 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 counsellors, 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 1 thy wings But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn, Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance 1 O'er land and sea.] For he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas. Milton, Son. viii. 2 But if our minds.] Namque sub Auroram, jam dormitante lucernâ, Ovid, Epist. xix. The same poetical superstition is alluded to in the Purgatory, Cantos ix. and xxvii. Shalt feel what Prato.] The Poet prognosticates the calamities which were soon to befal his native city, and which, he says, even her nearest neighbour, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more 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 consequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagration, that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen hundred houses, many of them sumptuous buildings. See G. Villani, Ilist. lib. 8. cap. Ixx. and Ixxi. 4 As time.] "I shall feel all calamities more sensibly as I am further advanced in life." 5 The flinty steps.] Ventura, after Daniello and Volpi, explains the word in the original, "borni," to mean the stones that project from a wall, for other buildings to be joined to, which the workmen call" toothings." Among the crags and splinters of the rock, As in that season, when the sun least veils Elijah's chariot, when the steeds erect Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes, meanwhile, Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenn'd: Een thus along the gulf moves every flame, That none exhibits token of the theft. Upon the bridge I forward bent to look, And grasp'd a flinty mass, or else had fallen, Though push'd not from the height. The guide, who mark'd "Within these ardours are the spirits, each Swath'd in confining fire."-" Master! thy word," I answer'd, "hath assured me; yet I deem'd Already of the truth, already wish'd To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes Ascending from that funeral pile 3 where lay 1 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. 2 As he, whose wrongs.] 2 Kings, ii. 3 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. The Theban brothers." He replied: "Within, Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore Which sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile And there is rued the stratagem that Troy He thus: "Thy prayer is worthy of much praise, Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine; For they were Greeks,2 might shun discourse with thee." When there the flame had come, where time and place "O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire! If, living, I of you did merit aught, In what clime death o'ertook him self-destroy'd." Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire That labours with the wind, then to and fro Threw out its voice, and spake: "When I escaped Had held me near Caieta 3 by her charms, Ecce iterum fratris primos ut contigit artus Ignis edax, tremuere rogi, et novus advena busto Alternosque apices abruptâ luce coruscant. Statins, Theb. lib. 12. Compare Lucan, Pharsal. lib. 1. 145. 1 The ambush of the horse.] "The ambush of the wooden horse, that caused Eneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman empire." For they were Greeks.] By this it is, perhaps, implied that they were haughty and arrogant. So, in our Poet's twenty-fourthi Sonnet, of which a translation is inserted in the Life prefixed, he says: Ed ella mi rispose, come un Greco. 3 Caieta.] Virgil, Eneid, lib. 7. 1. Ere thus Æneas yet had named the shore; That should have crown'd Penelope with joy, To explore the world, and search the ways of life, Into the deep illimitable main, With but one bark, and the small faithful band And the Sardinian and each isle beside Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age On the other hand already Ceuta past. 'O brothers!' I began, who to the west Through perils without number now have reach'd; Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn 1 Nor fondness for my son.] Imitated by Tasso, G. L. c. viii. st. 7: Ne vaghezza del regno, ne pietade Del vecchio genitor, si degno affetto This imagined voyage of Ulysses into the Atlantic is alluded to by Pulci: E sopratutto commendava Ulisse, Che per veder nell' altro mondo gisse. Morg. Magg. c. xxv. And by Tasso, G. L. c. xv. 25. 2 The strait pass.] The straits of Gibraltar. 3 Made our oars wings.] Οὐδ ̓ εὐήρε ἐρετμα, τά τε πτερὰ νηυσὶ πέλονται. Hom. Od. 11. 124. So Chiabrera, Canz. Eroiche, xiii. : And Tasso, ibid. 26. Farò de' remi un volo. Canz. xxxvii. 1. 4 Night now beheld.] Petrarch is here cited by Lombardi : And ours so low, that from the ocean floor 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 still'd its light 1 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. 2. dist. 17. Thus Lombardi. 2 Thrice.] -Ast illum ter fluctus ibidem 3 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 further 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. 4 The Sicilian bull.] The engine of torture invented by Perillus, for the tyrant Phalaris. |