With serpents were their hands behind them bound,
Which through their reins infix'd the tail and head,
Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one
Near to our side, darted an adder

up,
And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,
Transpierc'd him. Far more quickly than e'er pen
Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and chang'd
To ashes all, pour'd out upon the earth.
When there dissolv'd he lay, the dust again
Uprolld spontaneous, and the self same form

100

c. xl.

æneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu, utraque aquâ splendorem aeris abjicit et avertit. Etiam illud posse dicitur, ut herbâ ejusdem nominis mixta et præcantationibus legitimis consecrata, eum, a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahat visibus obviorum. Solinus,

“ A stone,” says Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino,“ which we lapidaries call heliotrope, of such extraordinary virtue, that the bearer of it is effectually concealed from the sight of all present.” Decam. G. viji. N. 3.

In Chiabrera's Ruggiero, Scaltrimento begs of Sofia, who is sending him on a perilous errand, to lend him the heliotrope.

In mia man fida
L' elitropia, per cui possa involarmi
Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui.

c. vi.

Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which

I may at will from others' eyes conceal me. Compare Ariosto, Il Negromante, a. 3. s. 3. Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv. and Fortinguerra, Ricciardetto, c. X. st. 17.

Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii. enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun :

Jaspis and helitropius.

Instant resum’d. So mighty sages tell,
The' Arabian Phoenix *, when five hundred years
Have well nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith
Renascent: blade nor herb throughout his life
He tastes, but tears of frankincense alone
And odorous amomum: swaths of nard
And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,
He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg’d
To earth, or through obstruction fettering up
In chains invisible the powers of man,
Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around +,

110

* The Arabian Phænix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. lib. xv. :

Una est quæ reparat, seque ipsa reseminat, ales ;
Assyrii Phænica vocant. Nec fruge neque herbis,
Sed thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.
Hæc ubi quinque suæ complevit secula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis, tremulæve cacumine palmæ,
Unguibus et pando nidum sibi construit ore.
Qua simul ut casias, et nardi lenis aristas,
Quassaque cum fulvå substravit cinnama myrrhå,

Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.
See also Petrarch, Canzone :-

Qual piu, &c. + Gazeth around.]

Su mi levai senza far più parole,

Cogli occhi intorno stupido mirando,
Si come l'Epilentico far suole.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. ii.

120

Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony
He hath endur'd, and wildly staring sighs;
So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.

Oh! how severe God's judgment, that deals out
Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was
My teacher next inquir’d, and thus in few
He answerd: “ Vanni Fucci * am I callid,
Not long since rained down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleas'd, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoia found my worthy den.”

I then to Virgil : “ Bid him stir not hence,
And ask what crime did thrust him hither: once
A man I knew him, choleric and bloody.”,

The sinner heard and feign'd not, but towards me His mind directing and his face, wherein Was dismal shame depictur'd, thus he spake: 130 “It grieves me more to have been caught by thee In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than When I was taken from the other life. I have no power permitted to deny

* Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege, in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death.

140

What thou inquirest. I am doom'd thus low
To dwell, for that the sacristy by me
Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,
And with the guilt another falsely charg’d.
But that thou may’st not joy to see me thus,
So as thou e'er shalt 'scape this darksome realm,
Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.
Reft of the Neri first Pistoia * pines;
Then Florencef changeth citizens and laws;
From Valdimagra I, drawn by wrathful Mars,
A vapour rises, wrapt in turbid mists,
And sharp and eager driveth on the storm

* Pistoia.] “ In May 1301, the Bianchi party of Pistoia, with the assistance and favour of the Bianchi who ruled Florence, drove out the party of the Neri from the former place, destroying their houses, palaces, and farms.” Giov. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. xliv.

+ Then Florence.] “ Soon after the Bianchi will be expelled from Florence, the Neri will prevail, and the laws and people will be changed."

* From Valdimagra.] The commentators explain this prophetical threat to allude to the victory obtained by the Marquis Morello Malaspina of Valdimagra (a tract of country now called the Lunigiana), who put himself at the head of the Neri, and defeated their opponents, the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon after the occurrence related in the preceding note on v. 142. Of this engagement I find no mention in Villani. Currado Malaspina is introduced in the eighth Canto of the Purgatory; where it appears that although on the present occasion they espoused contrary sides, some important favours were nevertheless conferred by that family on our poet, at a subsequent period of his exile, in 1307.

With arrowy hurtling o'er Piceno's field,
Whence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike
Each helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground.
This have I told, that grief may rend thy heart.”

150