Fell to the ground and left her temples bare;
Her usual features vanished from their place,
Her body lessened all, but most her face.
Her slender fingers, hanging on each side
With many joints, the use of legs supplied;
A spider's bag the rest, from which she gives
A thread, and still by constant weaving lives."

46. In the revolt of the Ten Tribes. 1 Kings xii. 18: "Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute ; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died; therefore King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.

66

50. Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he went to the Theban war, concealed himself, to avoid going. His wife Eriphyle, bribed by a golden necklace set with diamonds, betrayed to her brother Adrastus his hiding-place, and Amphiaraus, departing, charged his son Alcmeon to kill Eriphyle as soon as he heard of his

death.

Ovid, Metamorph., IX. :—

Of all

advice, collected all the forces of her the combats in which the barbarians have kingdom, and gave him battle. engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest. . . . The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed, and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years. Search was made among the slain, by order of the queen, for the body of Cyrus, and when it was found, she took a skin, and filling it full of human blood, she dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus insulted the corse, 'I live and have conquered thee in fight, and yet by thee am I ruined; for thou tookest my son with guile; but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.' Of the many different accounts which are given of the death of Cyrus, this which I have followed appears to be the most worthy of credit."

59. After Judith had slain Holofernes. Judith xv. 1: "And when they that were in the tents heard, they were astonished at the thing that was done. And fear and trembling fell upon them, so that there was no man that durst abide in the sight of his neighbour, but, rushing out altogether, they fled into every way of the plain and of the hill country.. Now when the children

blood,

them with one consent, and slew them unto Chobai."

61. This tercet unites the "I saw," “O," and "Displayed," of the preceding passage, and binds the whole as with a selvage.

Its

67. Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 19: "There was probably never a period in which the influence of art over the minds of men seemed to depend less on its merely imitative power, than the close of the thirteenth century. No painting or sculpture at that time reached more than a rude resemblance of reality. despised perspective, imperfect chiaros curo, and unrestrained flights of fantastic imagination, separated the artist's work from nature by an interval which there was no attempt to disguise, and little to diminish. And yet, at this very period, the greatest poet of that, or perhaps of any other age, and the attached friend o.

36. Matthew v. 44: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.'

39. See Canto XIV. 147.

122. The warm days near the end of January are still called in Lombardy I giorni della merla, the days of the blackbird; from an old legend, that once in the sunny weather a blackbird sang, “I fear thee no more, O Lord, for the winter is over.

128. Peter Pettignano, or Pettinajo, was a holy hermit, who saw visions and

51. The Litany of All Saints. 92. Latian for Italian.

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109. A Sienese lady living in banishment at Colle, where from a tower she witnessed the battle between her townsmen and the Florentines. 'Sapia hated the Sienese," says Benvenuto, "and placed herself at a window not far from the field of battle, waiting the issue with anxiety, and desiring the rout and ruin of her own people. Her desires being verified by the entire discomfiture of the Sienese, and the death of their captain," (Provenzan Salvani, see Canto XI. Note 121,) "exultant and almost beside herself, she lifted her bold face to heaven, and cried,Now, O God, do with me what thou wilt, do me all the harm thou canst; now my prayers are answered, and I die content.

110. Gower, Confes. Amant., II. :—

"Whan I have sene another blithe

Of love and hadde a goodly chere,
Ethna, which brenneth yere by yere,
Was thanne nought so hote as I
Of thilke sore which prively

Mine hertes thought withinne brenneth."

114. Convito, IV. 23: "Every effect, in so far as it is effect, receiveth the likeness of its cause, as far as it can retain it. Therefore, inasmuch as our life, as has been said, and likewise that of every living creature here below, is caused by the heavens, and the heavens reveal themselves to all these effects, not in complete circle, but in part thereof, so must its movement needs be above; and as an arch retains all lives nearly, (and, I say, retains those of men as well as of other living creatures,) ascending and curving, they must be in the similitude of an arch. Returning then to our life, of which it is now question, I say that

Italy, 149, describing the festival of the Assumption in that city in 1802, says :-

"The Pope had reserved for this great festival the Beatification of Peter, a Sienese comb-maker, whom the Church had neglected to canonize till now. Poor Peter was honoured with all the solemnity of music, high-mass, and officiating cardinal, a florid panegyric, pictured angels bearing his tools to heaven, and combing their own hair as they soared; but he received five hundred years ago a greater honour than all, a verse of praise from Dante."

138. Dante's besetting sin was not envy, but pride.

144. On the other side of the world. 153. The vanity of the Sienese is also spoken of Inf. XXIX. 123.

152. Talamone is a seaport in the Maremma, "many times abandoned by its inhabitants," says the Ottimo, "on account of the malaria. The town is

utterly in ruins; but as the harbour is deep, and would be of great utility if the place were inhabited, the Sienese have spent much money in repairing it many times, and bringing in inhabitants; it is of little use, for the malaria prevents the increase of population."

Talamone is the ancient Telamon, where Marius landed on his return from Africa.

153. The Diana is a subterranean river, which the Sienese were in search of for many years to supply the city with water. "They never have been able to find it,' says the Ottimo, "and yet they still hope." In Dante's time it was evidently looked upon as an idle dream. credit of the Sienese be it said, they persevered, and finally succeeded in obtaining the water so patiently sought for. The Pozzo Diana, or Diana's Well, is

To the

still to be seen at the Convent of the Carmen.

154. The admirals who go to Talamone to superintend the works will lose there more than their hope, namely, their lives.

CANTO XIV.

1. The subject of the preceding canto is here continued. Compare the introductory lines with those of Canto V.

7. These two spirits prove to be Guido del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli.

17. A mountain in the Apennines, north-east of Florence, from which the Arno takes its rise. Ampère, l'oyage Dantesque, p. 246, thus describes this region of the Val d' Arno. "Farther on is another tower, the tower of Porciano, which is said to have been inhabited by Dante. From there I had still to climb the summits of the Falterona. I started towards midnight in order to arrive before sunrise. I said to myself, How many times the poet, whose footprints I am following, has wandered in these mountains! It was by these little alpine paths that he came and went, on his way to friends in Romagna or friends in Urbino, his heart agitated with a hope that was never to be fulfilled. I figured to myself Dante walking with a guide under the light of the stars, receiving all the impressions produced by wild and weather-beaten regions, steep roads, deep valleys, and the accidents of a long and difficult route, impressions which he would transfer to his poem. It is enough to have read this poem to be certain that its author has travelled much, has wandered much. Dante really walks with Virgil. He fatigues himself with climbing, he stops to take breath, he uses his hands when feet are insufficient. He gets lost, and asks the way. He observes the height of the sun and stars. In a word, one finds the habits and souvenirs of the traveller in every rerse, or rather at every step of his poetic pilgrimage.

Dante has certainly climbed the top of the Falterona. It is upon this summit, from which all the Valley of the Arno is embraced, that one should read the singular imprecation which the poet

has uttered against this whole valley. He follows the course of the river, and as he advances marks every place he comes to with fierce invective. The farther he goes, the more his hate redoubles in violence and bitterness. It is a piece of topographical satire, of which I know no other example."

32. The Apennines, whose long chain ends in Calabria, opposite Cape Peloro in Sicily. Æneid, III. 410, Davidson's Tr.:

"But when, after setting out, the wind shall waft you to the Sicilian coast, and the straits of narrow Pelorus shall open wider to the eye, veer to the land on the left, and to the sea on the left, by a long circuit; fly the right both sea and shore. These lands, they say, once with violence and vast desolation convulsed, (such revolutions a long course of time is able to produce,) slipped asunder; when in continuity both lands were one, the sea rushed impetuously between, and by its waves tore the Italian side from that of Sicily; and with a narrow frith runs between the fields and cities separated by the shores. Scylla guards the right side, implacable Charybdis the left, and thrice with the deepest eddies of its gulf swallows up the vast billows, headlong in, and again spouts them out by turns high into the air, and lashes the stars with the waves.'

And Lucan, Phars., II. :"And still we see on fair Sicilia's sands Where part of Apennine Pelorus stands." And Shelley, Ode to Liberty:"O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle From Pithecusa to Pelorus

Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus."

40. When Dante wrote this invective against the inhabitants of the Val d'Arno, he probably had in mind the following passage of Boethius, Cons. Phil., IV. Pros. 3, Ridpath's Tr. :—

Hence it again follows, that every thing which strays from what is good ceases to be; the wicked therefore must cease to be what they were; but that they were formerly men, their human shape, which still remains, testifies. degenerating into wickedness, then, they must cease to be men. But as virtue alone can exalt a man above what is

By

human, so it is on the contrary evident, that vice, as it divests him of his nature, must sink him below humanity; you ought therefore by no means to consider him as a man whom vice has rendered vicious. Tell me, What difference is there betwixt a wolf who lives by rapine, and a robber whom the desire of another's wealth stimulates to commit all manner of violence? Is there anything that bears a stronger resemblance to a wrathful dog who barks at passengers, than a man whose dangerous tongue attacks all the world? What is liker to a fox than a cheat, who spreads his snares in secret to undermine and ruin you? to a lion, than a furious man who is always ready to devour you? to a deer, than a coward who is afraid of his own shadow? to an ass, than a mortal who is slow, dull, and indolent? to the birds of the air, than a man volatile and inconstant? and what, in fine, is a debauchee who is immersed in the lowest sensual gratifications, but a hog who wallows in the mire? Upon the whole, it is an unquestionable truth that a man who forsakes virtue ceases to be a man; and, as it is impossible that he can ascend in the scale of beings, he must of necessity degenerate and sink into a beast."

43. The people of Casentino. Forsyth, Italy, p. 126:

gentleman at whose house I slept here, ascribed the superior flavour of their hams, which are esteemed the best in Italy and require no cooking, to the dryness of the air, the absence of stagnant water, and the quantity of chestnuts given to their hogs. Bibbiena has been long renowned for its chestnuts, which the peasants dry in a kiln, grind into a sweet flour, and then convert into bread, cakes, and polenta."

46. The people of Arezzo. Forsyth, Italy, p. 128:

"The Casentines were no favourites with Dante, who confounds the men with their hogs. Yet, following the divine poet down the Arno, we came to a race still more forbidding. The Aretine peasants seem to inherit the coarse, surly visages of their ancestors, whom he styles Bottoli.

Meeting one girl, who appeared more cheerful than her neighbours, we asked her how far it was from Arezzo, and received for answer, 'Quanto c'è.'

"The valley widened as we advanced, and when Arezzo appeared, the river left us abruptly, wheeling off from its environs. at a sharp angle, which Dante converts into a snout, and points disdainfully against the currish race.

"On entering the Val di Chiana, we passed through a peasantry more civil and industrious than their Aretine neigh

'Li ruscelletti che de' verdi colli

Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno, Facendo i lor canali e freddi e molli.' "I was surprised to find so large a town as Bibbiena in a country devoid of manufactures, remote from public roads, and even deserted by its landholders; for the Niccolini and Vecchietti, who possess most of this district, prefer the obscurer pleasures of Florence to their palaces and pre-eminence here. The only commodity which the Casentines trade in is pork. Signore Baglione, a

whom we accosted, was driving a laden ass, bearing a billet of wood on her head, spinning with the rocca, and singing as she went on. Others were returning with their sickles from the fields which they had reaped in the Maremma, to their own harvest on the hills. That contrast which struck me in the manners of two cantons so near as Cortona to Arezzo, can only be a vestige of their ancient rivality while separate republics. Men naturally dislike the very virtues of their enemies, and affect qualities as remote from theirs as they can well defend."

50. The Florentines. 53. The Pisans.

57. At the close of these vituperations, perhaps to soften the sarcasm by making it more general, Benvenuto appends this note: "What Dante says of