The blade: each herb is judged of by its seed. That frown'd on Frederick; now secure may pass To talk with good men, or come near their haunts. The good Gherardo1; of Palazzo he, In Gallic phrase more fitly the plain Lombard. "O Marco!" I replied, "thine arguments 1 That land.] Lombardy. 2 Ere the day.] Before the Emperor Frederick II. was defeated before Parma, in 1248. G. Villani, lib. vi. cap. 35. 3 The old time.] L'antica età. It is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 4. 4 The good Gherardo.] Gherardo di Camino, of Trevigi. He is honourably mentioned in our Poet's Convito, p. 173. "Let us suppose that Gherardo da Camino had been the grandson of the meanest hind that ever drank of the Sile or the Cagnano, and that his grandfather was not yet forgotten; who will dare to say that Gherardo da Camino was a mean man, and who will not agree with me in calling him noble? Certainly no one, however presumptuous, will deny this; for such he was, and as such let him ever be remembered." Tiraboschi supposes him to have been the same Gherardo with whom the Provençal poets were used to meet a hospitable reception. "This is probably that same Gherardo, who, together with his sons, so early as before the year 1254, gave a kind and hospitable reception to the Provençal poets." Mr. Mathias's edition, tom. i. p. 137. 5 Conrad.] Currado da Palazzo, a gentleman of Brescia. 6 Guido of Castello.] Of Reggio. All the Italians were called Lombards by the French. 7 Fallen into the mire.] There is a passage resembling this in the De Vulg. Eloq. lib. ii. cap. 4. "Ante omnia ergo dicimus unumquemque debere materiæ pondus propriis humeris excipere æquale, ne forte humerorum nimio gravatam virtutem in cænum cespitare necesse sit." Who that Gherardo is, that as thou sayst Behold The dawn with white ray glimmering through the mist. I must away-the angel comes-ere he Appear." He said, and would not hear me more. The Poet issues from that thick vapour; and soon after his fancy represents to him in lively portraiture some noted examples of anger. This imagination is dissipated by the appearance of an angel, who marshals them onward to the fourth cornice, on which the sin of gloominess or indifference is purged; and here Virgil shows him that this vice proceeds from a defect of love, and that all love can be only of two sorts, either natural, or of the soul; of which sorts the former is always right, but the latter may err either in respect of object or of degree. CALL to remembrance, reader, if thou e'er Hast on an Alpine height2 been ta'en by cloud, 1 His daughter Gaïa.] A lady equally admired for her modesty, the beauty of her person, and the excellency of her talents. Gaïa, says Tiraboschi, may perhaps lay claim to the praise of having been the first among the Italian ladies, by whom the vernacular poetry was cultivated. This appears (although no one has yet named her as a poetess) from the MS. Commentary on the Commedia of Dante, by Giovanni da Serravalle, afterwards bishop of Fermo, where, commenting on Canto xvi. of the Purgatory, he says: istâ Gajâ filiâ dicti boni Gerardi, possent dici multæ landes, quia fuit prudens domina, literata, magni consilii, et magnæ prudentiæ, maximæ pulchritudinis, quæ scivit bene loqui rhytmatice in vulgari." "De 2 On an Alpine height.] "Nell' alpe." Although the Alps, as Landino remarks, are properly those mountains which divide Italy from France, yet from them all high mountains are in the Tuscan language, though not in the Latin, termed Alps. Milton uses the word thus generally in the Samson Agonistes: Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. And this is a sufficient answer to the charge of impropriety, which is brought by Doctor Johnson, on the introduction of it into that drama. See the Rambler, No. 140. Through which thou saw'st no better than the mole The sun, that bedward now his couch o'erhung. O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost Whose form was changed into the bird, that most To aught that ask'd admittance from without. Delights itself in song.] I cannot think with Vellutello, that the swallow is here meant. Dante probably alludes to the story of Philomela, as it is found in Homer's Odyssey, b. xix. 518. rather than as later poets have told it. "She intended to slay the son of her husband's brother Amphion, incited to it by the envy of his wife, who had six children, while herself had only two, but through mistake slew her own son Itylus, and for her punishment was transformed by Jupiter into a nightingale." Cowper's note on this passage. În speaking of the nightingale, let me observe, that while some have considered its song as a melancholy, and others as a cheerful one, Chiabrera appears to have come nearest the truth, when he says, in the Alcippo, act i. sc. 1. Non mai si stanca d'iterar le note, O gioconde o dogliose, Al sentir dilettose. Unwearied still reiterates her lays, Jocund or sad, delightful to the ear. See a very pleasing letter on this subject by a late illustrious statesman. Address to the reader prefixed to For's History of James II. Edit. 1808, p. xii.; and a beautiful poem by Mr. Coleridge. I know not whether the following lines by a neglected poet have yet been noticed, as showing the diversity of opinions that have prevailed respecting the song of this bird. The cheerful birds With sweetest notes to sing their Maker's praise, With swete and swete, her breast against a thorn, Ringes out all night. Vallans, Tale of Two Swannes. Next shower'd into my fantasy a shape I could not chuse but gaze. As 'fore the sun, 1 One crucified.] Haman. See the book of Esther, c. vii. "In the Lunetta of Haman, we owe the sublime conception of his figure (by Michael Angelo) to this passage." Fuseli, Lecture iii. note. 2 Like a bubble.] The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, Shakspeare, Macbeth, act i. sc. iii. 3 A damsel.] Lavinia, mourning for her mother Amata, who, impelled by grief and indignation for the supposed death of Turnus, destroyed herself. En. lib. xii. 595. 4 The broken slumber quivering ere it dies.] Venturi suggests that this bold and unusual metaphor may have been formed on that in Virgil. Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus ægris En. lib. ii. 268. For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need My o'ertoil'd sinews slacken. We had reach'd 66 66 My son," he thus began, was without love, Or natural3, or the free spirit's growth. If on ill object bent, or through excess Of vigour, or defect. 1 The peace-makers.] While e'er it seeks1 "Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God." Matt. v. 9. 2 The love.] "A defect in our love towards God, or lukewarmness in piety, is here removed." 3 Or natural.] Lombardi refers to the Convito, Canz. i. Tratt. 2. cap. 3. where this subject is diffusely treated by our Poet. 4 While e'er it seeks.] So Frezzi: E s'egli è ben, che d'altro ben dipenda, Se vuoi, che quando è tolto, non t'offenda. X Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. 14. |