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., says: fying heavenly love and heavenly truth." The same colours were given to St. John the Evangelist, with this difference,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. 66 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 "In very early Art we find colours used in a symbolical or mystic sense, and, until the ancient principles and traditions were wholly worn out of memory or set aside by the later painters, certain colours were appropriated to certain subjects and personages, and could not arbitrarily be applied or misapplied. In the old specimens of stained glass we find these significations scrupu-wears violet and blue, the colours of lously attended to. Thus : 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. In the Spanish schools the colour of our Saviour's mantle is generally a deep rich violet. 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 66 their coat of arms a viper; and being on the banner, it led the Milanese to battle. 81. The arms of Gallura. According 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. 114. In the original al sommo smalto to the highest enamel; referring either to the Terrestrial Paradise, enamelled 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, particularly if the reference be to the sky. 116. The valley in Lunigiana, through which runs the Magra, dividing the 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, as foreshadowed in line 136. It was from the convent of the Corvo, over 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 ana, that Frate Ilario wrote the letter describing Dante's appearance in the cloister. See Illustrations at the end of 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. II: "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, awl the rising of the stars in line 89 With it closes also the first subdivision Iliad, X. 250: "Let us be going, then, of this part of the poem, indicated, as for the night declines fast, and the the reader will not fail to notice, by the morning is near. And the stars have elaborate introduction of the next canto.already far advanced, and the greater portion of the night, by two parts, has gone by, but the third portion still remains," CANTO IX. 1. "Dante begins this canto," says Benvenuto da Imola, "by saying a thug 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. 39 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, Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream 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. 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 beauti. ful. 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, :— course. And now, on real wings themselves they raise, 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 Then fleeth, she forth and ginneth to chide 22. Mount Ida. ledge. 132. Luke ix. 62: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." And xvii. 32: "Remember Lot's 118. The golden key is the authority 30. To the region of fire. Brunetto of the confessor; the silver, his knowLatini, Tresor, Ch. CXIII., says: "After the environment of the air is seated the fourth element: this is an orb of fire, which extends to the moon and surrounds this atmosphere in which we are. And know that above the fire is in the first place the moon, and the other stars, which are all of the nature of fire." 37. To prevent Achilles from going to the siege of Troy, his mother Thetis took him from Chiron, the Centaur, and concealed him in female attire in the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros. 53. As Richter says: "The hour when sleep is nigh unto the soul." 55. Lucia, the Enlightening Grace of heaven. Inf. II. 97. 58. Nino and Conrad. 63. Ovid uses a like expression : "Sleep and the god together went away." 94. The first stair is Confession; the second, Contrition; and the third, Penance. 97. Purple and black. See Inf. V. Note 89. 105. The gate of Paradise is thus described by Milton, Parad. Lost, III. 501 : "Far distant he descries, Ascending by degrees magnificent Up to the wall of heaven, a structure high; heaven.' of wife." Boëthius, Cons. Phil., Lib. III. Met. 12 "Heu! noctis prope terminos 136. Milton, Parad. Lost, II. 879 :- With impetuous recoil and jarring sound 138. When Cæsar robbed the Roman treasury on the Tarpeian hill, the tribune Metellus strove to defend it; but Cæsar, drawing his sword, said to him, "It is easier to do this than to say it." Lucan, Phars., III..:~ "The tribune with unwilling steps withdrew, While impious hands the rude assault renew The brazen gates with thundering strokes resound, And the Tarpeian mountain rings around. Her long impending ruin to prevent. 140. The hymn of St. Ambrose, universally known in the churches as the Te Deum. 144. Thomson, Hymn : "In swarming cities vast Assembled men to the deep organ join The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear At solemn pauses through the swelling bass, And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardour rise to heaven.' CANTO X. 1. In this canto is described the First Circle of Purgatory, where the sin of Pride is punished. 14. It being now Easter Monday, and the fourth day after the full moon, the hour here indicated would be four hours after sunrise. And as the sun was more than two hours high when Dante found himself at the gate of Purgatory (Canto IX. 44), he was an hour and a half in this needle's eye. 30. Which was so steep as to allow of no ascent; dritto di salita being used in the sense of right of way. 32. Polycletus, the celebrated Grecian sculptor, among whose works one, representing the body-guard of the king of Persia, acquired such fame for excellence as to be called "the Rule." 33. With this description of the sculptures on the wall of Purgatory compare that of the shield which Vulcan made for Achilles, Iliad, XVIII. 484, Buckley's Tr. : "On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea, the unwearied sun, and the full moon. On it also he represented all the constellations with which the heaven is crowned, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear, which they also call by the appellation of the Wain, which there revolves, and watches Orion; but it alone is free from the baths of the ocean. "In it likewise he wrought two fair cities of articulate speaking men. In the one, indeed, there were marriages and feasts; and they were conducting the brides from their chambers through the city with brilliant torches, and many a bridal song was raised. The youthful dancers were wheeling round, and among them pipes and lyres uttered a sound; and the women standing, each at her portals, admired. And people were crowded together in an assembly, and there a contest had arisen; for two men contended for the ransom-money of a slain man: the one affirmed that he had paid all, appealing to the people; but the other denied, averring that he had received naught: and both wished to find an end of the dispute before a judge. The people were applauding both, sup porters of either party, and the heralds were keeping back the people; but the elders sat upon polished stones, in a sacred circle, and the pleaders held in their hands the staves of the clear-voiced heralds; with these then they arose, and alternately pleaded their cause. Moreover, in the midst lay two talents of gold, to give to him who should best establish his claim among them. But round the other city sat two armies of people glit tering in arms; and one of two plans was agreeable to them, either to waste it, or to divide all things into two parts, the wealth, whatever the pleasant city contained within it. They, however, had not yet complied, but were secretly arming themselves for an ambuscade. Meanwhile, their beloved wives and young children kept watch, standing above, and among them the men whom old age possessed. But they (the younger men) advanced; but Mars was their leader, and Pallas Minerva, both golden, and clad in golden dresses, beautiful and large, along with their armour, radiant all round, and indeed like gods; but the people were of humbler size. But when they now had reached a place where it appeared fit to lay an ambuscade, by a river, where there was a watering-place for all sorts of cattle, there then they settled, clad in shining steel. There, apart from the people, sat two spies, watching when they might perceive the sheep and crooked-horned oxen. These, however, soon advanced, and two shepherds accompanied them, amusing them. selves with their pipes, for they had not yet perceived the stratagem. Then they, discerning them, ran in upon them, and immediately slaughtered on all sides the herds of oxen, and the beautiful flocks of snow-white sheep; and slew the shep. herds besides. But they, when they heard the great tumult among the oxen, previously sitting in front of the assembly, mounting their nimble-footed steeds, pur. sued; and soon came up with them. |