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him sorrowing in his house," and calling on the Gascons for aid.

on earth; and one had challenged the other to determine their quarrel by singie combat.

"The wager of battle between the kings," says Milman, Latin Christianity, VI. 168, "which maintained its solemn dignity up almost to the appointed time, ended in a pitiful comedy, in which Charles of Anjou had the ignominy of

113. Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily and Naples (1265). Villani, VII. 1, thus describes him: "This Charles was wise and prudent, and valiant in arms, and rough, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings of the world; magnanimous and of a high spirit; steadfast in carrying on every great enter-practising base and disloyal designs prise, firm in every adversity, and true to every promise, speaking little and doing much. He laughed but little; was chaste as a monk, catholic, harsh in judgment, and of a fierce countenance; large and muscular in person, with an olive complexion and a large nose, and looked the king more than any other lord. He sat up late at night, and slept little, and was in the habit of saying that a great deal of time was lost in sleeping. He was generous to his knights, but eager to acquire land, lordship, and money wherever he could, to furnish means for his enterprises and wars. In courtiers, minstrels, and players he never took delight.'

Yet this is the monarch whose tyrrany in Sicily brought about the bloody revenge of the Sicilian Vespers; which in turn so roused the wrath of Charles, that he swore that, "if he could live a thousand years, he would go on razing the cities, burning the lands, torturing the rebellious slaves. He would leave Sicily a blasted, barren, uninhabited rock, as a warning to the present age, an example to the future."

116. Philip the Third of Aragon left four sons, Alfonso, James, Frederick, and Peter. Whether the stripling here spoken of is Alfonso or Peter does not appear.

121. Chaucer, Wif of Bathes Tale:

"Wel can the wise poet of Florence,

That highte Dant, speken of this sentence:
Lo, in swiche maner rime is Dantes tale.
Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale
Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse
Wol that we claime of him our gentillesse :
For of our elders may we nothing claime
But temporel thing, that man may hurt and

maime.'

124. It must be remembered that these two who are singing together in this Valley of Princes were deadly foes

against his adversary; Peter, that of eluding the contest by craft, justifiable only as his mistrust of his adversary was well or ill grounded, but much too cunning for a frank and generous knight. He had embarked with his knights for the South of France; he was cast back by tempests on the shores of Spain. He set off with some of his armed companions, crossed the Pyrenees undiscovered, appeared before the gates of Bordeaux, and summoned the English Seneschal. To him he proclaimed himself to be the king of Aragon, demanded to see the lists, rode down them in slow state, obtained an attestation that he had made his appearance within the covenanted time, and affixed his solemn protest against the palpable premedi tated treachery of his rival, which made it unsafe for him to remain longer at Bordeaux. Charles, on his part, was furious that Peter had thus broken through the spider's web of his policy. He was in Bordeaux when Peter ap peared under the walls, and had challenged him in vain. Charles presented himself in full armour on the appointed day, summoned Peter to appear, and proclaimed him a recreant and a dastardly craven, unworthy of the name of knight."

Charles of Anjou, Peter the Third of Aragon, and Philip the Third of France, all died in the same year, 1285.

126. These kingdoms being badly governed by his son and successor, Charles the Second, called the Lame.

128. Daughters of Raymond Berenger the Fifth, Count of Provence; the first married to St. Louis of France, and the second to his brother, Charles of Anjou.

129. Constance, daughter of Manfredi of Apulia, and wife of Peter the Third of Aragon.

131. Henry the Third (1216-1272,) of whom Hume says: "This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much celebrated by ancient writers. He was engaged in a dispute with Louis the Ninth of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses; he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he would rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear twenty of the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise."

Alessandria della Paglia (of the Straw); either from the straw used in the bricks, or more probably from the supposed insecurity of a city built in so short a space of time.

CANTO VIII.

1. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, III. 302 :

"It was the hour when every traveller
And every watchman at the gate of towns
Begins to long for sleep, and drowsiness
Is falling even on the mother's eyes
Whose child is dead."

Dickens, Child's History of England, Also Byron, Don Juan, III. 108:— Ch. XV., says of him: "He was as much of a king in death as he had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow of a king at all times."

His "better issue" was Edward the First, called, on account of his amendment and establishment of the laws, the English Justinian, and less respectfully Longshanks, on account of the length of his legs. "His legs had need to be strong," says the authority just quoted, "however long, and this they were; for they had to support him through many difficulties on the fiery sands of Syria, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died, deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess made light of it, and he said, "I will go if I go on with no other follower than my groom."

on,

134. The Marquis of Monferrato, a Ghibelline, was taken prisoner by the people of Alessandria in Piedmont, in 1290, and, being shut up in a wooden cage, was exhibited to the public like a wild beast. This he endured for eighteen months, till death released him. bloody war was the consequence between Alessandria and the Marquis's provinces of Monferrato and Canavese.

A

135. The city of Alessandria is in Piedmont, between the Tanaro and the Bormida, and not far from their junction. It was built by the Lombard League, to protect the country against the Emperor Frederick, and named in honour of Pope Alexander the Third, a protector of the Guelphs. It is said to have been built in a single year, and was called in derision, by the Ghibellines,

"Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;

Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,

Seeming to weep the dying day's decay.
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something
mourns!"

4. The word "pilgrim" is here used Dante in a general sense, meaning any traveller.

by

6. Gray, Elegy:

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."

13. An evening hymn of the Church, sung at Complines, or the latest service of the day :

"Te lucis ante terminum,

Rerum creator, poscimus
Ut pro tua clementia
Sis presul ad custodiam.

Procul recedant somnia
Et noxium phantasmata,
Hostemque nostrum comprime,
Ne polluantur corpora.

Presta, Pater piissime,
Patrique compar Unice,
Cum Spiritu Paraclito
Regnans per omne sæculum."

This hymn would seem to have no
great applicability to disembodied spir-
its; and perhaps may have the same
reference as the last petition in the
Lord's Prayer, Canto XI. 19:—
"Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome,

Put not to proof with the old Adversary,
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver.

fying heavenly love and heavenly truth." The same colours were given to St. John

This last petition verily, dear Lord,
Not for ourselves is made, who need it not,

But for their sake who have remained be- the Evangelist, with this difference,

hind us. "

Dante seems to think his meaning very easy to penetrate. The commentators have found it uncommonly difficult.

26. Genesis iii. 24: "And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

27. Justice tempered with mercy, say the commentators.

28. Green, the colour of hope, which is the distinguishing virtue of Purgatory. On the symbolism of colours, Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, Introd.,

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that he wore the blue tunic and the red mantle; in later pictures the colours are sometimes red and green.

"YELLOW, or gold, was the symbol of the sun; of the goodness of God; initiation, or marriage; faith, or fruitfulness. St. Joseph, the husband of the Virgin, wears yellow. In pictures of the Apostles, St. Peter wears a yellow mantle over a blue tunic. In a bad sense, yellow signifies inconstancy, jealousy, deceit; in this sense it is given to the traitor Judas, who is generally habited in dirty yellow.

"GREEN, the emerald, is the colour of spring; of hope, particularly hope in immortality; and of victory, as the colour of the palm and the laurel.

"VIOLET, the amethyst, signified love and truth; or, passion and suffering. Hence it is the colour often worn by the martyrs. In some instances our Saviour, after his resurrection, is habited in a violet, instead of a blue mantle. The Virgin also wears violet after the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene, who as patron saint wears the red robe, as penitent wears violet and blue, the colours of sorrow and of constancy. In the devotional representation of her by Timoteo della Vite, she wears red and green, the colours of love and hope.

"GRAY, the colour of ashes, signified mourning, humility, and innocence accused; hence adopted as the dress of the Franciscans (the Gray Friars); but it has since been changed for a dark rusty brown.

"BLACK expressed the earth, darkness, mourning, wickedness, negation, death; and was appropriate to the Prince of Darkness. In some old illuminated MSS., Jesus, in the Temptation, wears a black robe. White and black together signified purity of life, and mourning or humiliation; hence adopted by the Dominicans and the Carmelites."

50. It was not so dark that on a near approach he could not distinguish objects indistinctly visible at a greater distance.

Saviour's mantle is generally a deep rich viɔlet. In the Spanish schools the colour of our

53. Nino de' Visconti of Pisa, nephew of Count Ugolino, and Judge of Gallura in Sardinia. Dante had known him at the siege of Caprona, in 1290, where he saw the frightened garrison march out under safeguard. Inf. XXI. 95. It was this "gentle Judge," who hanged Friar Gomita for peculation. Inf. XXII. 82. 71. His daughter, still young and in

nocent.

75. His widow married Galeazzo de' Visconti of Milan, "and much discomfort did this woman suffer with her husband," says the Ottimo, "so that many a time she wished herself a widow." 79. Hamlet, IV. 5:—

"His obscure funeral,

No trophy, sword, or hatchment o'er his grave."

80. The Visconti of Milan had for their coat of arms a viper; and being on the banner, it led the Milanese to battle. 81. The arms of Gallura. "Accord ing to Fara, a writer of the sixteenth century," says Valery, Voyage en Corse et en Sardaigne, II. 37, "the elegant but somewhat chimerical historian of Sardinia, Gallura is a Gallic colony; its arms are a cock; and one might find some analogy between the natural vivacity of its inhabitants and that of the French." Nino thinks it would look better on a tombstone than a viper.

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114. In the original al sommo smalto to the Terrestrial Paradise, enamelled to the highest enamel; referring either with flowers, or to the highest heaven enamelled with stars. The azure-stone, pierre d'azur, or lapis lazuli, is perhaps a fair equivalent for the smalto, particu larly if the reference be to the sky.

which runs the Magra, dividing the 116. The valley in Lunigiana, through Genoese and Tuscan territories. Par. IX. 89:

"The Magra, that with journey short Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese."

118. Currado or Conrad Malaspina, father of Marcello Malaspina, who six years later sheltered Dante in his exile, from the convent of the Corvo, overas foreshadowed in line 136. It was

89. These three stars are the Alpha of Euridanus, of the Ship, and of the Golden Fish; allegorically, if any allegory be wanted, the three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. The four morning stars, the Cardinal Virtues of active life, are already set; these announce the evening and the life contem-looking the Gulf of Spezia, in Lunigiplative.

100. Compare this with Milton's description of the serpent, Parad. Lost, IX. 434-496 :

"Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers
Imbordered on each bank.

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ana, that Frate Ilario wrote the letter cloister. See Illustrations at the end of describing Dante's appearance in the Inferno.

131. Pope Boniface the Eighth.

134. Before the sun shall be seven times in Aries, or before seven years are passed.

137. Ecclesiastes, xii. 11: "The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies."

139. With this canto ends the first day in Purgatory, as indicated by the description of evening at the beginning, and the rising of the stars in line 89.

With it closes also the first subdivision of this part of the poem, indicated, as the reader will not fail to notice, by the elaborate introduction of the next canto.

CANTO IX.

1. "Dante begins this canto," says Benvenuto da Imola, “by saying a thing that was never said or imagined by any other poet, which is, that the aurora of the moon is the concubine of Tithonus. Some maintain that he means the aurora of the sun; but this cannot be, if we closely examine the text." This point is elaborately discussed by the commentators. I agree with those who interpret the passage as referring to a lunar aurora. It is still evening; and the hour is indicated a few lines lower down.

To Tithonus was given the gift of immortality, but not of perpetual youth. As Tennyson makes him say :

"The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality

Consumes I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,

A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream
The ever silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn."

2. Don Quixote, I. 2: "Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus spread the golden tresses of his beauteous hair over the face of the wide and spacious earth, and scarcely had the painted little birds, with the sweet and mellifluous harmony of their serrated tongues, saluted the approach of rosy Aurora, when, quitting the soft couch of her jealous husband, she disclosed herself to mortals through the gates and balconies of the Manchegan horizon."

5. As the sun was in Aries, and it was now the fourth day after the full moon, the Scorpion would be rising in the dawn which precedes the moon.

8. This indicates the time to be two hours and a half after sunset, or half past eight o'clock. Two hours of the ascending night are passed, and the third is half over.

This circumstantial way of measuring the flight of time is Homeric.

Iliad, X. 250: "Let us be going, then, for the night declines fast, and the morning is near. And the stars have already far advanced, and the greater portion of the night, by two parts, has gone by, but the third portion still remains."

10. Namely, his body.

12. Virgil, Sordello, Dante, Nino, and Conrad. And here Dante falls

upon the grass and sleeps till dawn. There is a long pause of rest and sleep between this line and the next, which makes the whole passage doubly beautiful. The narrative recommences like the twitter of early birds just beginning to stir in the woods.

14. For the tragic story of Tereus, changed to a lapwing, Philomela to a nightingale, and Procne to a swallow, see Ovid, Metamorph., VI. :—

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And now, on real wings themselves they raise,
And steer their airy flight by different ways;
One to the woodland's shady covert hies,
Around the smoky roof the other flies;
Whose feathers yet the marks of murder
stain,

Where stamped upon her breast the crimson spots remain.

Tereus, through grief and haste to be revenged,

Shares the like fate, and to a bird is changed; Fixed on his head the crested plumes appear, Long is his beak, and sharpened like a spear: Thus armed, his looks his inward mind display,

And, to a lapwing turned, he fans his way."

See also Gower, Confes. Amant., V. :—

"And of her suster Progne I finde
How she was torned out of kinde
Into a swalwe swift of wing,
Which eke in winter lith swouning
There as she may no thing be sene,
And whan the worlde is woxe grene
And comen is the somer tide,

Then fleeth she forth and ginneth to chide
And chitereth out in her langage
What falshede is in mariage,
And telleth in a maner speche
Of Tereus the spouse breche."

18. Pope, Temple of Fame, 7 :—

"What time the morn mysterious visions brings While purer slumbers spread their golden wings."

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