He bade me with melodious voice refrain:

Then knew I who he was, and pray'd that he, To hold some converse with me, would remain. "Dear as thou wert to me alive-so dear

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Art thou," he answer'd me, "from bondage free; Wherefore I pause-but thou, why art thou here?" "This journey, my Casella, have I made With purpose to retrace my steps again; But thy arrival, why so long delay'd?” "No hardship do I suffer," he replied,

"If he, who taketh whom he lists, and when, Hath oft this passage to my prayer denied ; For of his will is righteous Will the guide.

He in his vessel hath for three months ta'en
All who were anxious to pass o'er the tide :
Whence I (my face directed to the strand
Where Tiber's waters mingle with the main)
Was kindly added to his former band.
And thither now his wings doth he direct;
For all the souls, not doom'd to join the throng
By Acheron's shore, at Tiber's mouth collect."
Then I: "If here no ordinance annul

Memory or practice of that amorous song,
Which erst was wont my every care to lull-

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Be pleased therewith to soothe my soul awhile,
Which, journeying hither with its earthly frame,
Is so encumber'd and oppress'd by toil."

"Love that within me speaks," in accent clear

Forth from his lips anon so sweetly came, That still its sweetness vibrates on mine ear. Such full contentment that illustrious sage

And those who stood around him testified, Naught else, it seem'd, their senses could engage. We all were fix'd in rapture on his song,

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115

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Listening attent,-when lo, the old man cried: "How now ye lingering souls? Why here so long? Haste,―to the mountain swiftly take the road; And let your eyelids from those scales be freed Which rob you of the presence of your God." As when, collecting either tare or blade, The doves, united quietly to feed,

(Awhile their custom'd haughtiness allay'd) If aught appear that causes them alarm,

All on a sudden quit the loved repast, Assail'd by greater care and fear of harm ;So I beheld the band who join'd us last,

Forsake the song, and speed them to the height, Like one not knowing whither bound :—so fast We hasted, eager to pursue our flight.

C

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NOTES.

Page 12. (Line 1.) Various indices are used by Dante, according to the notions and geography of those times, to show that as the sun was setting at Jerusalem, it was rising at the antipodes to that place, viz. the mountain of Purgatory.

Page 13. (Line 26.) The two white objects which arose, line 22, one on either side of this Angel, prove, on his nearer approach, to be his wings. "Apparser ali" is the reading adopted, instead of "aperser ali," the common readingthus making clear a passage otherwise obscure. The face of the Angel first-his wings next- and lastly his white robes appear. (27) The Angel is called "the pilot," as conducting spirits to Purgatory over the sea-his wings forming a sail to the boat. See line 32.

Page 14. (Line 44.) "And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads."-Rev. xxii. 4. See also Rev. xiv. 1. (46.) “When Israel came out of Egypt," &c.—Psalm cxiv. "Most appropriately is this psalm sung by the spirits on their arrival at Purgatory-having escaped the bondage of sin, and now on their way to Paradise, the land of promise."Landino.

Page 15. (Line 73.) A similar picture is given in the Inferno, xxviii. 54, of the anxiety of the spirits to see Dante, "in wonderment forgetting all their woes." (79.) Imitated from Virgil. Æn. ii. 790.

"Hæc ubi dicta dedit, lacrymantem et multa volentem
Dicere deseruit, tenuesque recessit in auras.

Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum;
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,
Par levibus ventis, volucrique simillima somno."

So Eschylus describes the illusion of a dream.—Agamemnon, 412:- “ Μάταν γὰρ, εὖτ ̓ ἄν ἐσθλα τις δοκῶν ὁρᾷν,

Παραλλάξασα δια χερων

Βέβακεν ὄψις ου μεθύστερον

Πτεροῖς οπαδοις ὄπνου κελεύθοις.”

Page 16. (Line 86.) Casella was an excellent musician, and an intimate friend of Dante, who took great delight in his songs. Dante expresses his surprise that Casella, who had been dead some years, was only now arriving at Purgatory. (94.) Casella answers, that the will of the Angel, who had denied him an earlier passage, depended on the will of God, and therefore must not be inquired into:-that he was, however, received into the vessel, when he directed his face towards the Tiber, i.e. the Church of Rome, whither the Angel was returning to fetch a new cargo of spirits. Casella, dying contumacious, was unable to obtain a passport to Purgatory. But during the great Jubilee held by Pope Boniface, in 1300, i.e. three months before, see line 98, he availed himself of the prayers offered up for all souls not irrevocably doomed to Hell.

Page 17. (Line 112.) "Amor che nella mente mi ragiona." This is the first line of one of Dante's own sonnets, quoted in his Convito, cap. xii. where he explains this love to be the love of Wisdom. Casella thus not only complies with Dante's request, but courteously selects one of his own songs. Milton has noticed this interview, Sonnet xiii. 12.

"Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher

Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,

Met in the milder shades of Purgatory."

(115.) Thus Virgil. Georg. iv. 471 :

"At cantu commota Erebi de sedibus imis

Umbræ ibant tenues, simulacraque luce carentum.”

CANTO III.

ARGUMENT.

THE Poets inquire the way up the mount from a troop of spirits they see advancing. One of these-Manfred, King of Naples makes himself known to Dante, and relates the particulars of his death.

SOON as, dispersed throughout the holy plain,

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Those lingering souls had to the mount repair'd,
Whose summit reason urges us to gain,

I drew me closer to my faithful guide;

For how without his succour had I fared?

And who had lured me up the mountain side?

Inward remorse appear'd his soul to wring:

O noble conscience, upright and refined, How slight a fault inflicts a bitter sting; Soon as his feet that eager haste forsook, Which robs each act of dignity,-my mind, On one sole object erst intent-now took

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