"Again behold the brothers! When the fire Now clash, then part, and shed a transient 56. The most cunning of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, now united in their punishment, as before in warlike wrath. II. 19, Miss Williams's Tr., has this the torrid zone, we were never wearied passage: From the time we entered with admiring, every night, the beauty of the Southern sky, which, as we advanced towards the south, opened new constellations to our view. We feel an indescribable sensation, when, on approaching the equator, and particularly on passing from one hemisphere to the other, we see those stars, which we have contemplated from our infancy, progressively sink, and finally disappear. Nothing awakens in the traveller a livelier remembrance of the immense distance by which he is separated from his country, than the aspect of an un 59. As Troy was overcome by the fraud of the wooden horse, it was in a poetic sense the gateway by which Aneas went forth to establish the Ro-known firmament. man empire in Italy. 62. Deidamia was a daughter of Lycomedes of Scyros, at whose court Ulysses found Achilles, disguised in woman's attire, and enticed him away to the siege of Troy, telling him that, according to the oracle, the city could not be taken without him, but not telling him that, according to the same oracle, he would lose his life there. 63. Ulysses and Diomed together stole the Palladium, or statue of Pallas, at Troy, the safeguard and protection of the city. 75. The Greeks scorned all other nations as "outside barbarians." Even Virgil, a Latin, has to plead with Ulysses the merit of having praised him in the Æneid. 108. The Pillars of Hercules at the straits of Gibraltar; Abyla on the African shore, and Gibraltar on the Spanish; in which the popular mind has lost its faith, except as symbolized in the columns on the Spanish dollar, with the legend, Plus ultra. Brunetto Latini, Tesor. IX. 119: "Appresso questo mare, Per mostrare alla gente La terra e terminata." The grouping of the stars of the first magnitude, some scattered nebulæ, rivalling in splendour the milky way, and tracks of space remarkable for their extreme blackness, give a particular physiog nomy to the Southern sky. This sight fills with admiration even those who, uninstructed in the branches of accurate science, feel the same emotion of delight in the contemplation of the heavenly vault, as in the view of a beautiful landscape, or a majestic site. A traveller has no need of being a botanist, to recognize the torrid zone on the mere aspect of its vegetation; and without having acquired any notions of astronomy, without any acquaintance with the celestial charts of Flamstead and De la Caille, he feels he is not in Europe, when he sees the immense constellation of the Ship, or the phosphorescent clouds of Magellan, arise on the horizon." 142. Compare Tennyson's Ulysses :— "There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail : There gloom the dark broad seas. My ma riners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and That ever with a frolic welcome took old: Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Moans round with many voices. Come, my Tis not too late to seek a newer world. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are ; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will Te strive to seek, to find, and not to yield." CANTO XXVII. 1. The subject of the preceding Canto is continued in this. 7. The story of the Brazen Bull of Perillus is thus told in the Gesta Romanorum, Tale 48, Swan's Tr. : “Dionysius records, that when Perillus desired to become an artificer of Phalaris, a cruel and tyrannical king who depopu lated the kingdom, and was guilty of many dreadful excesses, he presented to him, already too well skilled in cruelty, a brazen bull, which he had just constructed. In one of its sides there was a secret door, by which those who were sentenced should enter and be burnt to death. The idea was, that the sounds produced by the agony of the sufferer confined within should resemble the roaring of a bull; and thus, while nothing human struck the ear, the mind should be unimpressed by a feeling of mercy. The king highly applauded the invention, and said,Friend, the value of thy industry is yet untried: more cruel even than the people account me, thou thyself shalt be the first victim.' Also in Gower, Confes. Amant., VII. : "He had of counseil many one, Let forge and make a bulle of bras, 17? 21. Virgil being a Lombard, Dante suggests that, in giving Ulysses and Diomed license to depart, he had used the Lombard dialect, saying, Issa l'en See Canto XXIII. Note 7. The inhabitants of the province of Romagna, of which Ravenna is the capital. va." 28. 29. It is the spirit of Guido da Montefeltro that speaks. The city of Montefeltro lies between Urbino and that part of the Apennines in which the Tiber rises. Count Guido was a famous warrior, and one of the great Ghibelline leaders. He tells his own story sufficiently in detail in what follows. 40. Lord Byron, Don Juan, III. 105, gives this description of Ravenna, with an allusion to Boccaccio's Tale, versified by Dryden under the title of Theodore and Honoria:— "Sweet hour of twilight-in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, To where the last Caesarean fortress stood, Ever-green forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee! "The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper-bell's that rose the bougns along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng, Which learned from this example not to fly Dryden's Theodore and Honoria begins with these words :- "Of all the cities in Romanian lands, The chief, and most renowned, Ravenna Adorned in ancient times with arms and arts, It was at Ravenna that Dante passed the last years of his life, and there he died and was buried. 41. The arms of Guido da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, Dante's friend, and father (or nephew) of Francesca da Rimini, were an eagle half white in a field of azure, and half red in a field of gold. | Cervia is a small town some twelve miles from Ravenna. 43. The city of Forlì, where Guido da Montefeltro defeated and slaughtered the French in 1282. See Canto XX. Note 118. 45. A Green Lion was the coat of arms of the Ordelaffi, then Lords of Forlì. had been deceived in the election, and were rebellious under the rule of Boniface. The Cardinals of the great Ghibelline house took no pains to conceal their ill-will toward the Guelf Pope. Boniface, indeed, accused them of plotting with his enemies for his overthrow. The Colonnas, finding Rome unsafe, had withdrawn to their strong town of Palestrina, whence they could issue forth at will for plunder, and where they could give shelter to those who shared in their hostility toward the Pope. On the other hand, Boniface, not trusting himself in Rome, withdrew to the secure height of Orvieto, and thence on the 14th of De46. Malatesta, father and son, ty- cember, 1297, issued a terrible bull for a rants of Rimini, who murdered Mon- crusade against them, granting plenary tagna, a Ghibelline leader. Verrucchio indulgence to all (such was the Christian was their castle, near the city. Of temper of the times, and so literally were this family were the husband and lover the violent seizing upon the kingdom of of Francesca. Dante calls them mas- heaven,) who would take up arms against tiffs, because of their fierceness, making these rebellious sons of the Church and "wimbles of their teeth" in tearing and march against their chief stronghold, their devouring. 'alto seggio' of Palestrina. They and their 49. The cities of Faenza on the La-adherents had already been excommunimone, and Imola on the Santerno. They were ruled by Mainardo, surnamed "the Demon," whose coat of arms was a lion azure in a white field. 52. The city of Cesena. cated and put under the ban of the Church; they had been stripped of all dignities and privileges; their property had been confiscated; and they were now by this bull placed in the position of ene 67. Milton, Parad. Lost, III. 479 :- mies, not of the Pope alone, but of the Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised." 70. Boniface VIII., who in line 85 is called "the Prince of the new Pharisees." 81. Dante, Convito, IV. 28, quoting Cicero, says: "Natural death is as it were a haven and rest to us after long navigation. And the noble soul is like a good mariner; for he, when he draws near the port, lowers his sails, and enters it softly with feeble steerage." 86. This Papal war, which was waged against Christians, and not against pagan Saracens, nor unbelieving Jews, nor against the renegades who had helped them at the siege of Acre, or given them aid and comfort by traffic, is thus described by Mr. Norton, Travel and Study in Italy, p. 263: "This war near the Lateran' was a war with the great family of Colonna. Two of the house were Cardinals. They Church Universal. Troops gathered against them from all quarters of Papal Italy. Their lands were ravaged, and they themselves shut up within their stronghold; but for a long time they held out in their ancient high-walled moun tain-town. It was to gain Palestrina that Boniface had war near the Lateran.' The great church and palace of the Lateran, standing on the summit of the Coelian Hill, close to the city wall, overlooks the Campagna, which, in broken levels of brown and green and purple fields, reaches to the base of the encir cling mountains. Twenty miles away, crowning the top and clinging to the side of one of the last heights of the Sa bine range, are the gray walls and roofs of Palestrina. It was a far more con spicuous place at the close of the thir teenth century than it is now; for the great columns of the famous temple of Fortune still rose above the town, and the ancient citadel kept watch over it riot to the place where the bath was to be prepared, the mothers of these children threw themselves in his way with dishevelled hair, weeping, and crying aloud for mercy. Then Constantine was moved to tears, and he ordered his chariot to stop, and he said to his nobles and to his attendants who were around him, Far better is it that I should die, than cause the death of these innocents!' And then he commanded that the children should be restored to their mothers with great gifts, in recompense of what they had suffered; so they went away full of joy and gratitude, and the Empe ror returned to his palace. from its high rock. At length, in September, 1298, the Colonnas, reduced to the hardest extremities, became ready for peace. Boniface promised largely. The two Cardinals presented themselves before him at Rieti, in coarse brown dresses, and with ropes around their necks, in token of their repentance and > submission. The Pope gave them not only pardon and absolution, but hope of being restored to their titles and possessions. This was the lunga promessa con l' attender corto;' for, while the Colonnas were retained near him, and these deceptive hopes held out to them, Boniface sent the Bishop of Orvieto to take possession of Palestrina, and to destroy "On that same night, as he lay asleep, it utterly, leaving only the church to St. Peter and St. Paul appeared at his stand as a monument above its ruins. bedside: and they stretched their hands The work was done thoroughly;-a over him and said, 'Because thou hast plough was drawn across the site of the feared to spill the innocent blood, Jesus unhappy town, and salt scattered in the Christ has sent us to bring thee good furrow, that the land might thenceforth counsel. Send to Sylvester, who lies be desolate. The inhabitants were re- hidden among the mountains, and he moved from the mountain to the plain, shall show thee the pool in which, havand there forced to build new homes for ing washed three times, thou shalt be themselves, which, in their turn, two clean from thy leprosy; and henceforth years afterwards, were thrown down and thou shalt adore the God of the Chris. burned by order of the implacable Pope. tians, and thou shalt cease to persecute This last piece of malignity was accom- and to oppress them.' Then Constanplished in 1300, the year of the Jubilee, tine, awaking from this vision, sent his the year in which Dante was in Rome, soldiers in search of Sylvester. And and in which he saw Guy of Montefeltro, when they took him, he supposed that it the counsellor of Boniface in deceit, was to lead him to death; nevertheless burning in Hell." he went cheerfully; and when he ap 94 The story of Sylvester and Con-peared before the Emperor, Constantine stantine is one of the legends of the arose and saluted him, and said, ‘I would Legenda Aurea. The part of it relating know of thee who are those two gods to the Emperor's baptism is thus con- who appeared to me in the visions of densed by Mrs. Jameson in her Sacred the night?' And Sylvester replied, and Legendary Art, II. 313'They were not gods, but the apostles of "Sylvester was born at Rome of vir- the Lord Jesus Christ.' Then Constantuous parents; and at a time when Con- tine desired that he would show him the stantine was still in the darkness of idola- effigies of these two apostles; and Syltry and persecuted the Christians, Sylvester sent for two pictures of St. Peter vester, who had been elected Bishop of and St. Paul, which were in the possesRome, fled from the persecution, and sion of certain pious Christians. dwelt for some time in a cavern, near the stantine, having beheld them, saw that summit of Monte Calvo. While he lay they were the same who had appeared there concealed, the Emperor was at to him in his dream. Then Sylvester tacked by a horrible leprosy : and having baptized him, and he came out of the called to him the priests of his false gods, font cured of his malady." they advised that he should bathe himself in a bath of children's blood, and three thousand children were collected for this purpose. And as he proceeded in his cha Con Gower also, Confes. Amantis, II., tells "And in the while it was begunne Fro heven into the place come 102. See Note 86 of this Canto. Dante calls the town Penestrino from its Latin name Præneste. 105. Pope Celestine V., who made "the great refusal," or abdication of the papacy. See Canto III. Note 59. lay promiscuously on the field, as chance had thrown them together, either in the battle, or flight. Some, whom their wounds, being pinched by the morning cold, had roused from their posture, were put to death by the enemy, as they were Francis-rising up, all covered with blood, from the midst of the heaps of carcasses. Some they found lying alive, with their thighs and hams cut, who, stripping their necks and throats, desired them to spill what remained of their blood. Some were found, with their heads buried in the earth, in holes which it appeared they had made for themselves, and covering their faces with earth thrown over them, had thus been suffocated. The attention of all was particularly attracted by a living Numidian with his nose and ears mangled, stretched under a dead Roman, who lay over him, and who, when his hands had been rendered unable to hold a weapon, his rage being exasperated to madness, had expired in the act of tear. are ing his antagonist with his teeth." 118. Gower, Confes. Amantis, II. : "For shrifte stant of no value To him, that woll him nought vertue, For worde is wind, but the maistrie CANTO XXVIII. I. The Ninth Bolgia, in which punished the Schismatics, and "where is paid the fee By those who sowing discord win their den;" a burden difficult to describe even with untrammelled words, or in plain prose, free from the fetters of rhyme. 9. Apulia, or La Puglia, is in the south-eastern part of Italy, "between the spur and the heel of the boot." When Mago, son of Hamilcar. carried the news of the victory to Carthage, bur-"in confirmation of his joyful intelligence," says the same historian, XXIII. 12, "he ordered the gold rings taken from the Romans to be poured down in the porch of the senate-house, and of these there was so great a heap that, according to some writers, on being mea sured, they filled three pecks and a half; but the more general account, and likewise the more probable, is, that they amounted to no more than one peck. He also explained to them, in order to show the greater extent of the slaughter, that none but those of equestrian rank, and of these only the principal, wore this ornament." 10. The people slain in the conquest of Apulia by the Romans. Of the battle of Maleventum, Livy, X. 15, says :— "Here likewise there was more of flight than of bloodshed. Two thousand of the Apulians were slain, and Decius, despising such an enemy, led his legions into Samnium." II. Hannibal's famous battle at Cannæ, in the second Punic war. Accord ing to Livy, XXII. 49, "The number of the slain is computed at forty thousand foot, and two thousand seven hundred horse." He continues, XXII. 51, Baker's Tr.: "On the day following, as soon as light appeared, his troops applied themselves to the collecting of the spoils, and view ing the carnage made, which was such as shocked even enemies; so many thousand Romans, horsemen and otmen, 14. Robert Guiscard, the renowned Norman conqueror of southern Italy. Dante places him in the Fifth Heaven of Paradise, in the planet Mars. For an account of his character and achieve ments see Gibbon, Ch. LVI. See also Parad. XVIII. Note 20. Matthew Paris, Giles's Tr. I. 171, A.D. 1239, gives the following account of the manner in which he captured the monastery of Monte Cassino: "In the same year, the monks of Monte Cassino (where St. Benedict had |