soberly and temperately should avert their eyes from beholding, and their ears from hearing, the meretricious, lewd, and fetid manners of that island, which, with God's permission, the Genoese have now invaded, captured, and evil entreated and laid under contribution."

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

37. King David, who carried the Ark of the Covenant from Kirjathjearim to the house of Obed-Edom, and thence to Jerusalem. See 2 Samuel, vi.

41. In so far as the Psalms were the result of his own free will, and not of divine inspiration. As in canto vi. 118:

But in commensuration of our wages
With our desert is portion of our joy,

Because we see them neither less nor greater.

44. The Emperor Trajan, whose soul was saved by the prayers of Saint Gregory. For the story of the poor widow, see "Purgatorio,” X. 73, and note.

49. King Hezekiah.

51. 2 Kings, xx. II: "And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord; and he

ward, by which it had

brought the shadow ten degrees backgone down in the dial of Ahaz."

55. Constantine, who transferred the seat of empire, the Roman laws, and the Roman standard to Byzantium, thus in a poetic sense becoming a Greek.

56. This refers to the supposed gift of Constantine to Pope Sylvester, known in ecclesiastical history as the patrimony of Saint Peter. 'Inferno,” xxi. 115:

Ah, Constantine! of how much woe was mother,

Not thy conversion, but that marriage-dower
Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!

See also the note.

62. William the Second, surnamed the Good, son of Robert Guiscard, and king of Apulia and Sicily, which kingdoms were then lamenting the living presence of such kings as Charles the Lame, the Cripple of Jerusalem," king of Apulia, and Frederick of Aragon, king of Sicily.

"King Gulielmo," says the "Ottimo,' "was just and reasonable, loved his subjects, and kept them in such peace, that living in Sicily might then be esteemed living in a terrestrial paradise. He was liberal to all, and proportioned his bounties to the virtue [of the receiver]. And he had this rule, that if a vicious or evil-speaking courtier came to his court, he was immediately noticed by the masters of ceremony, and provided with gifts and robes, so that he might have a cause to depart. If he was wise, he departed; if not, he was politely dismissed." The Vicar of Wakefield seems to have followed the example of the good King William, for he says: "When any one of our relations was found to be a person of very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them."

68. A Trojan hero slain at the sack of Troy. "Eneid," II. 426: "Ripheus also falls, the most just among the Trojans, and most observant of the right."

Venturi thinks that, if Dante must needs introduce a Pagan into Paradise, he would have done better to have chosen Æneas, who was the hero of his master, Virgil, and, moreover, the founder of the Roman Empire.

In spring-time when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they, among fresh dews and flowers,
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state-affairs.

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a world to come.

Landor, Pentameron," p. 92, says: " All the verses that ever were written on the nightingale are scarcely worth the beautiful triad of this divine poet on the lark. In the first of them, do not you see the twinkling of her wings against the sky? As often as I repeat them, my ear is satisfied, my heart (like hers) contented."

Bernard de Ventadour, a troubadour of the twelfth century, says in one of his songs:

Quan vey laudeta mover

De joi sas alas contra'l rai,

Que s'oblida e s' laissa cazer

Per la doussor qu'al cor li 'n vai.

92. In scholastic language the quiddity of a thing is its essence, or that by which it is what it is.

94. Matthew, XI. 12: "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

100. Trajan and Ripheus.

105. Ripheus lived before Christ, and Trajan after. Shakespeare, King Henry IV.," 1. 1:

66

In those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed,

For our advantage, on the bitter cross.

106. Trajan.

III. Being in hell, he could not repent; being resusci

tated, his inclinations could turn towards good.

112. The legend of Trajan is, that by the prayers of Saint

Gregory the Great he was restored to life, after he had been dead four hundred years; that he lived long enough to be baptized, and was then received into Paradise. See " Purgatorio," . note 73.

118. Ripheus.

This is a fiction of our author," says

Buti, as the intelligent reader may imagine; for there is no proof that Ripheus the Trojan is saved."

127. Faith, Hope, and Charity. “Purgatorio," xxix. 121:

Three ladies at the right wheel in a circle

Came onward dancing; one so very red
That in the fire she hardly had been noted.
The second was as if her flesh and bones
Had all been fashioned out of emerald;
The third appeared as snow but newly fallen.

130. Romans, ix. 20: Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Had not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"

CANTO XXI

1. The Heaven of Saturn, where are seen the Spirits of the Contemplative.

Dante,

"This planet," says Brunetto Latini, is cruel, felonious, and of a cold nature. Convito," II. 14, makes it the symbol of Astrology. "The Heaven of Saturn,' he says, has two properties by which it may be compared to Astrology. The first is the slowness of its movement through the twelve signs; for, according to the writings of Astrologers, its revolution requires twenty-nine years and more. The second is, that it is the highest of all the planets. And these two properties are in Astrology; for in completing its circle, that is, in learning it, a great space of time passes; both on account of its demonstrations, which are more than in any of the above mentioned sciences, and on account of the experience which is necessary to judge rightly in it. And, moreover, it is the highest of all; for, as Aristotle says at the

beginning of his treatise on the Soul, Science is of high nobility, from the nobleness of its subject, and from its certainty; and this more than any of the above mentioned is noble and high, from its noble and high subject, which is the movement of the heavens; and high and noble from its certainty, which is without any defect, as one that proceeds from a most perfect and regular source. And if any one thinks there is any defect in it, the defect is not on the side of the Science, but, as Ptolemy says, it comes from our negligence, and to that it should be attributed."

Of the influences of Saturn, Buti, quoting Albumasar, says: "The nature of Saturn is cold, dry, melancholy, sombre, of grave asperity, and may be cold and moist, and of ugly color, and is of much eating and of true love. . . . And it signifies ships at sea, and journeyings long and perilous, and malice, and envy, and tricks, and seductions, and boldness in dangers, . . . and singularity, and little companionship of men, and pride and magnanimity, and simulation and boasting, and servitude of rulers, and every deed done with force and malice, and injuries, and anger, and strife, and bonds and imprisonment, truth in words, delight, and beauty, and intellect; experiments and diligence in cunning, and affluence of thought, and profoundness of counsel. And it signifies old and ponderous men, and gravity and fear, lamentation and sadness, embarrassment of mind, and fraud, and affliction, and destruction, and loss, and dead men, and remains of the dead; weeping and orphanhood, and ancient things, ancestors, uncles, elder brothers, servants and muleteers, and men despised, and robbers, and those who dig graves, and those who steal the garments of the dead, and tanners, vituperators, magicians, and warriors, and vile men."

6. Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, who besought her lover, Jupiter, to come to her, as he went to Juno, “in all the pomp of his divinity." Ovid, "Metamorphoses," III., Addison's translation:

The mortal dame, too feeble to engage

The lightning's flashes and the thunder's rage,
Consumed amidst the glories she desired,

And in the terrible embrace expired.