Flies and advances. "Here some little art
Behoves us," said my leader, "that our steps
Observe the varying flexure of the path.'

Thus we so slowly sped, that with cleft orb The moon once more o'erhangs her watery couch, Ere we that strait have threaded. But when free, We came, and open, where the mount above One solid mass retires; I spent with toil1, And both uncertain of the way, we stood, Upon a plain more lonesome than the roads

That traverse desert wilds. From whence the brink
Borders upon vacuity, to foot

Of the steep bank that rises still, the space
Had measured thrice the stature of a man:
And, distant as mine eye could wing its flight,
To leftward now and now to right dispatch'd,
That cornice equal in extent appear'd.

Not yet our feet had on that summit moved,
When I discover'd that the bank, around,
Whose proud uprising all ascent denied,
Was marble white; and so exactly wrought
With quaintest sculpture, that not there alone
Had Polycletus, but e'en nature's self

Been shamed. The angel, (who came down to earth
With tidings of the peace so many years
Wept for in vain, that oped the heavenly gates
From their long interdict) before us seem'd,
In a sweet act, so sculptured to the life,
He look'd no silent image. One had sworn
He had said "Hail2!" for she was imaged there,
By whom the key did open to God's love;
And in her act as sensibly imprest

That word, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord,"
As figure seal'd on wax. "Fix not thy mind
On one place only," said the guide beloved,
Who had me near him on that part where lies
The heart of man. My sight forthwith I turn'd,
And mark'd, behind the virgin mother's form,

1 I spent with toil.] Dante only was wearied, because he only had the weight of a bodily frame to encumber him.

2 Hail.]

On whom the angel Hail
Bestow'd, the holy salutation used
Long after to blest Mary, second Eve.

Milton, P. L. v. 387.

"The basso relievo on the border of the second rock, in Purgatory, furnished the idea of the Annunziata, painted by Marcello Venusti from his (Michael Angelo's) design in the sacristy of St. Giov. Lateran." Fuseli. Lecture iii, note.

Upon that side where he that moved me stood,
Another story graven on the rock.

I past athwart the bard, and drew me near,
That it might stand more aptly for my view.
There, in the self-same marble, were engraved
The cart and kine, drawing the sacred ark,
That from unbidden office awes mankind1.
Before it came much people; and the whole
Parted in seven quires. One sense cried "Nay,"
Another, "Yes, they sing." Like doubt arose
Betwixt the eye and smell, from the curl'd fume
Of incense breathing up the well-wrought toil.
Preceding the blest vessel, onward came
With light dance leaping, girt in humble guise,
Israel's sweet harper: in that hap he seem'd
Less, and yet more, than kingly. Opposite,
At a great palace, from the lattice forth
Look'd Michol, like a lady full of scorn
And sorrow. To behold the tablet next,
Which, at the back of Michol, whitely shone,
I moved me. There, was storied on the rock
The exalted glory of the Roman prince,
Whose mighty worth moved Gregory 3 to earn
His mighty conquest, Trajan the Emperor 4.

1 That from unbidden office awes mankind.] "And when they came to Nachon's threshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it."

"And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God." 2 Sam. c. vi. 7.

2 Preceding.] "And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod." 2 Sam. vi. 14.

3 Gregory.] St. Gregory's prayers are said to have delivered Trajan from hell. See Paradise, Canto xx. 40.

4 Trajan the Emperor.] For this story, Landino refers to two writers, whom he calls "Helinando," of France, by whom he means Elinand, a monk and chronicler, in the reign of Philip Augustus, and " Polycrato," of England, by whom is meant John of Salisbury, author of the Polycraticus de Curialium Nugis, in the twelfth century. The passage in the text I find nearly a translation from that work. lib. v. c. 8. The original appears to be in Dio Cassius, where it is told of the Emperor Hadrian, lib. lxix. μiλes yuvaixòs, x.r.λ. "when a woman appeared to him with a suit, as he was on a journey, at first he answered her, I have no leisure; but she crying out to him,' then reign no longer,' he turned about, and heard her cause." Lombardi refers also to Johannes Diaconus. Vita S. Gregor, lib. ii. cap. 44; the Euchology of the Greeks, cap. 96; and St. Thomas Aquinas Supplem. Quæst. 73, art. 5 ad 5. Compare Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, lib. ii. cap. 6.

A widow at his bridle stood, attired

In tears and mourning. Round about them troop'd
Full throng of knights; and overhead in gold
The eagles floated1, struggling with the wind.
The wretch appear'd amid all these to say: [heart,
"Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this
My son is murder'd." He replying seem'd:
"Wait now till I return." And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief: "O Sire! if thou
Dost not return ?"" Where I am, who then is,
May right thee."-" What to thee is other's good.
If thou neglect thy own ?"-" Now comfort thee;"
At length he answers. "It beseemeth well
My duty be perform'd, ere I move hence:
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay."

He, whose ken nothing new surveys, produced
That visible speaking, new to us and strange,
The like not found on earth. Fondly I gazed
Upon those patterns of meek humbleness,
Shapes yet more precious for their artist's sake;
When "Lo!" the poet whisper'd," where this way,
(But slack their pace) a multitude advance.
These to the lofty steps shall guide us on."

Mine eyes, though bent on view of novel sights, Their loved allurement, were not slow to turn. Reader! I would not that amazed thou miss

Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God
Decrees our debts be cancel'd. Ponder2 not
The form of suffering. Think on what succeeds:
Think that, at worst, beyond the mighty doom
It cannot pass.
"Instructor!" I began,

"What I see hither tending, bears no trace
"Of human semblance, nor of aught beside
That my foil'd sight can guess." He answering thus:
"So courb'd to earth, beneath their heavy terms
Of torment stoop they, that mine eye at first
Struggled as thine. But look intently thither;
And disentangle with thy labouring view,
What, underneath those stones, approacheth: now,
E'en now, mayst thou discern the pangs of each."

1 The eagles floated.] See Perticari's Letter on this passage. Opere, vol. iii. p. 552. Ed. Bol. 1823. The eagles were of metal; not worked on a standard, as Villani supposed.

2 Ponder.] This is, in truth, an unanswerable objection to the doctrine of Purgatory. It is difficult to conceive how the best can meet death without horror, if they believe it must be followed by immediate and intense suffering.

Christians and proud! O poor and wretched ones! That, feeble in the mind's eye, lean your trust Upon unstaid perverseness: know ye not That we are worms, yet made at last to form The winged insect1, imp'd with angel plumes, That to heaven's justice unobstructed soars ? Why buoy ye up aloft your unfledged souls? Abortive2 then and shapeless ye remain, Like the untimely embryon of a worm. As, to support incumbent floor or roof, For corbel, is a figure sometimes seen, That crumples up its knees unto its breast; With the feign'd posture, stirring ruth unfeign'd In the beholder's fancy; so I saw

These fashion'd, when I noted well their guise.

1 The winged insect.] L'angelica farfalla.

The butterfly was an ancient and well-known symbol of the human soul. Venturi cites some lines from the Canzoni Anacreontiche of Magalotti, in which this passage is imitated.

2 Abortive.] The word in the original is entomata. Some critics, and Salvini amongst the rest, have supposed that Dante, finding in a vocabulary the Greek word "vropa with the article r placed after it to denote its gender, mistook them for one word. From this error he is well exculpated by Rosa Morando in a passage quoted by Lombardi from the Osserv. Parad. III. where it is shown that the Italian word is formed, for the sake of the verse, in analogy with some others used by our Poet; and that Redi himself, an excellent Greek scholar and a very accurate writer, has even in prose, where such licences are less allowable, thus lengthened it. It may be considered as some proof of our author's acquaintance with the Greek language, that in the Convito, p. 26, he finds fault with the version of Aristotle's Ethics made by Taddeo d'Alderotto, the Florentine physician; and that in the treatise de Monarchiâ, lib. i. p. 110, he quotes a Greek word from Aristotle himself. On the other hand, he speaks of a passage in the same writer being doubtful, on account of its being differently interpreted in two different translations, a new and an old one. Convito, p. 75. And for the word "autentin," he refers to a vocabulary compiled by Uguccione Bentivegna of Pisa, a MS. that is, perhaps, still remaining, as Cinelli, in his MS. history of Tuscan writers referred to by Biscioni in the notes on the Convito, p. 142, speaks of it as being preserved in the library of S. Francesco at Cesena. After all, Dante's knowledge of Greek must remain as questionable as Shakspeare's of that language and of Latin.

3 As, to support.] Chillingworth, cap. vi. § 54, speaks of "those crouching anticks, which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear." And Lord Shaftesbury has a similar illustration in his Essay on Wit and Humour p. 4. § 3.

Each, as his back was laden, came indeed
Or more or less contracted; and it seem'd
As he, who show'd most patience in his look,
Wailing exclaim'd: "I can endure no more."

CANTO XI.

ARGUMENT.

After a prayer uttered by the spirits, who were spoken of in the last Canto, Virgil enquires the way upwards, and is answered by one, who declares himself to have been Omberto, son of the Count of Santafiore. Next our Poet distinguishes Oderigi, the illuminator, who discourses on the vanity of worldly fame, and points out to him the soul of Provenzano Salvani.

"O THOU Almighty Father1! who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confined,
But that, with love intenser, there thou view'st
Thy primal effluence; hallow'd be thy name:
Join, each created being, to extol

Thy might; for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom's peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,
With all our striving, thither tend in vain.
As, of their will, the angels unto thee
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne
With loud hosannas; so of their's be done
By saintly men on earth. Grant us, this day,
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each
Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou
Benign, and of our merit take no count.
'Gainst the old adversary, prove thou not
Our virtue, easily subdued; but free

From his incitements, and defeat his wiles.
This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves; since that were needless now;
But for their sakes who after us remain."

Thus for themselves and us good speed imploring, Those spirits went beneath a weight like that

10 thou Almighty Father.] The first four lines are borrowed by Pulci. Morg. Magg. c. vi.

Dante, in his Credo,' has again versified the Lord's Prayer, if, indeed, the 'Credo' be Dante's, which some have doubted; and in the preface to Allacci's Collection it is ascribed to Antonio di Ferrara.