Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

For of so subtle texture is this veil,

That thou with ease mayst pass it through unmark'd.

I saw that gentle band silently next

Look up, as if in expectation held,

Pale and in lowly guise; and, from on high,
I saw, forth issuing descend beneath,

Two angels, with two flame-illumined swords,
Broken and mutilated of their points.

Green as the tender leaves but newly born,
Their vesture was, the which, by wings as green
Beaten, they drew behind them, fann'd in air.
A little over us one took his stand;

The other lighted on the opposing hill;

So that the troop were in the midst contain'd.
Well I descried the whiteness on their heads;
But in their visages the dazzled eye
Was lost, as faculty that by too much
Is overpower'd. "From Mary's bosom both
Are come," exclaim'd Sordello, “as a guard
Over the vale, 'gainst him, who hither tends,
The serpent." Whence, not knowing by which path
He came, I turn'd me round; and closely press'd,
All frozen, to my leader's trusted side.

Sordello paused not: "To the valley now
For it is time) let us descend; and hold

what has been before said, that these spirits sung the whole of the hymn 'Te lucis ante terminum' throughout, even that second strophe of it

Procul recedant somnia,
Et noctium phantasmata,

Hostemque nostrum comprime,

Ne polluantur corpora;

and he must imply, that these souls, being incorporeal, did not offer up this petition on their own account, but on ours, who are yet in this world; as he afterwards makes those other spirits, who repeat the Pater Noster, expressly declare, when after that prayer they add,

This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves, &c.

Canto xi.

As, therefore, if we look through a very fine veil, the sight easily passes on, without perceiving it, to objects that lie on the other side; so here the poet fears that our mind's eye may insensibly pass on to contemplate these spirits, as if they were praying for the relief of their own wants; without discovering the veil of our wants, with which they invest themselves in the act of offering up this prayer."

1 As faculty.]

My earthly by his heavenly overpower'd

As with an object, that excels the sense,
Dazzled and spent.

Milton, P. L. b. viii. 457.

Converse with those great shadows: haply much
Their sight may please ye." Only three steps down
Methinks I measured, ere I was beneath,

And noted one who look'd as with desire
To know me. Time was now that air grew dim;
Yet not so dim, that, 'twixt his eyes and mine,
It clear'd not up what was conceal'd before.
Mutually towards each other we advanced.
Nino, thou courteous judge1! what joy I felt,
When I perceived thou wert not with the bad.
No salutation kind on either part
Was left unsaid. He then inquired: "How long,
Since thou arrived'st at the mountain's foot,
Over the distant waves ?"-" Oh!" answer'd I,
Through the sad seats of woe this morn I came ;
And still in my first life, thus journeying on,
The other strive to gain." Soon as they heard
My words, he and Sordello backward drew,
As suddenly amazed. To Virgil one,
The other to a spirit turn'd, who near
Was seated, crying: "Conrad2! up with speed:
Come, see what of his grace high God hath will'd."
Then turning round to me: "By that rare mark
Of honour, which thou owest to him, who hides
So deeply his first cause it hath no ford;
When thou shalt be beyond the vast of waves,
Tell my Giovanna3, that for me she call
There, where reply to innocence is made.
Her mother, I believe, loves me no more;

1 Nino, thou courteous judge.] Nino di Gallura de' Visconti, nephew to Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi, and betrayed by him. See Notes to Hell, Canto xxxiii.

2 Conrad.] Currado, father to Marcello Malaspina.

3 My Giovanna.] The daughter of Nino, and wife of Riccardo da Camino of Trevigi, concerning whom see Paradise, c. ix. 48.

4 Her mother.] Beatrice, Marchioness of Este, wife of Nino, and after his death married to Galeazzo de' Visconti of Milan. It is remarked by Lombardi, that the time which Dante assigns to this journey, and consequently to this colloquy with Nino Visconti, the beginning, that is, of April, is prior to the time which Bernardino Corio, in his history of Milan, part the second, fixes for the nuptials of Beatrice with Galeazzo; for he records her having been betrothed to that prince after the May of this year (1300), and her having been solemnly espoused at Modena on the 29th of June. Besides, however, the greater credit due to Dante, on account of his having lived at the time when these events happened, another circumstance in his favour is the discrepancy remarked by Giovambatista Giraldi (Commentar. delle cose di Ferrara) in those writers by whom the history of

S

Since she has changed the white and wimpled folds',
Which she is doom'd once more with grief to wish.
By her it easily may be perceived,

How long in woman lasts the flame of love,
If sight and touch do not relume it oft.
For her so fair a burial will not make
The viper2, which calls Milan to the field,
As had been made by shrill Gallura's bird3."
He spoke, and in his visage took the stamp
Of that right zeal, which with due temperature
Glows in the bosom. My insatiate eyes
Meanwhile to heaven had travel'd, even there
Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel
Nearest the axle; when my guide inquired:
"What there aloft, my son, has caught thy gaze?"
Ianswer'd: "The three torches, with which here
The pole is all on fire." He then to me:

"The four resplendent stars, thou saw'st this morn, Are there beneath; and these, risen in their stead." While yet he spoke, Sordello to himself

Drew him, and cried: "Lo there our enemy!"
And with his hand pointed that way to look.
Along the side, where barrier none arose
Around the little vale, a serpent lay,

Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food 5.
Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake

Beatrice's life has been recorded. Nothing can set the general accuracy of our poet, as to historical facts, in a stronger point of view, than the difficulty there is in convicting him of even so slight a deviation from it as is here suspected.

1 The white and wimpled folds.] The weeds of widowhood. 2 The viper.] The arms of Galeazzo and the ensign of the Milanese.

3 Shrill Gallura's bird.] The cock was the ensign of Gallura, Nino's province in Sardinia. Hell, xxii. 80, and notes. It is not known whether Beatrice had any further cause to regret her nuptials with Galeazzo, than a certain shame which appears, however unreasonably, to have attached to a second marriage.

The three torches.] The three evangelical virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. These are supposed to rise in the evening, in order to denote their belonging to the contemplative; as the four others, which are made to rise in the morning, were probably intended to signify that the cardinal virtues belong to the active life: or perhaps it may mark the succession, in order of time, of the Gospel to the heathen system of morality.

5 Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food.] Compare Milton's description of that serpent in the ninth book of the Paradise Lost.

Came on, reverting oft his lifted head;

And, as a beast that smooths its polish'd coat,
Licking his back. I saw not, nor can tell,
How those celestial falcons from their seat
Moved, but in motion each one well descried.
Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes,
The serpent fled; and, to their stations, back
The angels up return'd with equal flight.

The spirit, (who to Nino, when he call'd,
Had come) from viewing me with fixed ken,
Through all that conflict, loosen'd not his sight.
"So may the lamp', which leads thee up on high,
Find, in thy free resolve, of wax so much,
As may suffice thee to the enamel'd height,"
It thus began : If any certain news
Of Valdimagra2 and the neighbour part

Thou know'st, tell me, who once was mighty there.
They call'd me Conrad Malaspina; not
That old one; but from him I sprang.
I bore my people is now here refined."

The love

"In your domains," I answer'd, "ne'er was I. But, through all Europe, where do those men dwell, To whom their glory is not manifest?

The fame, that honours your illustrious house,
Proclaims the nobles, and proclaims the land;
So that he knows it, who was never there.
I swear to you, so may my upward route
Prosper, your honour'd nation not impairs
The value of her coffer and her sword.
Nature and use give her such privilege,
That while the world is twisted from his course
By a bad head, she only walks aright,

And has the evil way in scorn." He then :
"Now pass thee on seven times the tired sun4
Revisits not the couch, which with four feet

1 May the lamp.] "May the divine grace find so hearty a co-operation on the part of thy own will, as shall enable thee to ascend to the terrestrial paradise, which is on the top of this mountain."

2 Valdimagra.] See Hell, Canto xxiv. 144, and notes.

3 That old one.] An ancestor of Conrad Malaspina, who was also of that name.

4 Seven times the tired sun.] "The sun shall not enter into the constellation of Aries seven times more, before thou shalt have still better cause for the good opinion thou expressest of Valdimagra, in the kind reception thou shalt there meet with." Dante was hospitably received by the Marchese Marcello, or Morello Malaspina, during his banishment, A. D. 1307.

The forked Aries covers, ere that kind
Opinion shall be nail'd into thy brain

With stronger nails than other's speech can drive; If the sure course of judgment be not stay'd."

CANTO IX.

ARGUMENT.

Dante is carried up the mountain, asleep and dreaming, by Lucia; and, on wakening, finds himself, two hours after sunrise, with Virgil, near the gate of Purgatory, through which they are admitted by the angel deputed by Saint Peter to keep it.

Now the fair consort of Tithonus old1,
Arisen from her mate's beloved arms,
Look'd palely o'er the eastern cliff; her brow,
Lucent with jewels, glitter'd, set in sign
Of that chill animal2, who with his train
Smites fearful nations: and where then we were,
Two steps of her ascent the night had past;
And now the third was closing up its wing",

1 Now the fair consort of Tithonus old.] La concubina di Titone antico.

So Tassoni, Secchia Rapita, c. viii. st. 15.

La puttanella del canuto amante.

Venturi, after some of the old commentators, interprets this to mean an Aurora, or dawn of the moon; but this seems highly improbable. From what follows it may be conjectured, that our Poet intends us to understand that it was now near the break of day.

2 Of that chill animal.] The scorpion.

3 The third was closing up its wing.] The night being divided into four watches, I think he may mean that the third was past, and the fourth and last was begun, so that there might be some faint glimmering of morning twilight; and not merely, as Lombardi supposes, that the third watch was drawing towards its close, which would still leave an insurmountable difficulty in the first verse. At the beginning of Canto xv. our Poet makes the evening commence three hours before sunset, and he may now consider the dawn as beginning at the same distance from sunrise. Those, who would have the dawn, spoken of in the first verse of the present Canto, to signify the rising of the moon, construe the "two steps of her ascent which the night had past," into as many hours, and not watches; so as to make it now about the third hour of the night. The old Latin annotator on the Monte Casino MS. alone, as far as I know, supposing the division made by St. Isidore (Orig. lib. 5.) of the night into seven parts to be adopted by our Poet, concludes that it was

« AnteriorContinuar »