In natures most sincere. I did but smile1,
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade
Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best
Our looks interpret. "So to good event

66

Mayst thou conduct such great emprize," he cried,
Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,
The lightning of a smile." On either part
Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,
The other to silence binds me: whence a sigh
I utter, and the sigh is heard. Speak on,'
The teacher cried: "and do not fear to speak;
But tell him what so earnestly he asks."
Whereon I thus: "Perchance, O ancient spirit!
Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room
For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smiled,
Leave it as not the true one; and believe
Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause."
Now down he bent to embrace my teacher's feet;
But he forbade him: "Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade."
He, rising, answer'd thus: "Now hast thou proved
The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And, as a substance, treat an empty shade."

Dante, Virgil, and Statius mount to the sixth cornice, where the sin of gluttony is cleansed, the two Latin Poets discoursing by the way. Turning to the right, they find a tree hung with sweet-smelling fruit, and watered by a shower that issues from the rock. Voices are heard to proceed from among the leaves, recording examples of temperance. Now we had left the angel, who had turn'd To the sixth circle our ascending step; One gash from off my forehead razed; while they, Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth, "Blessed!" and ended with "I thirst:" and I,

1 I did but smile.] "I smiled no more than one would do who wished by a smile to intimate his consciousness of any thing to another person."

2 Blessed.] "Blessed be they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Matt. v. 6.

66

More nimble than along the other straits,
So journey'd, that, without the sense of toil,
I follow'd upward the swift-footed shades;
When Virgil thus began: Let its pure flame
From virtue flow, and love can never fail
To warm another's bosom, so the light
Shine manifestly forth. Hence, from that hour,
When, 'mongst us in the purlieus of the deep,
Came down the spirit of Aquinum's bard',
Who told of thine affection, my good will
Hath been for thee of quality as strong
As ever link'd itself to one not seen.

Therefore these stairs will now seem short to me.
But tell me and, if too secure, I loose
The rein with a friend's licence, as a friend
Forgive me, and speak now as with a friend :
How chanced it covetous desire could find
Place in that bosom, 'midst such ample store
Of wisdom, as thy zeal had treasur'd there ?"
First somewhat moved to laughter by his words,
Statius replied: "Each syllable of thine
Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear,
That minister false matter to our doubts,
When their true causes are removed from sight.
Thy question doth assure me, thou believest
I was on earth a covetous man; perhaps
Because thou found'st me in that circle placed.
Know then I was too wide of avarice:
And e'en for that excess, thousands of moons
Have wax'd and waned upon my sufferings.
And were it not that I with heedful care
Noted, where thou exclaim'st as if in ire
With human nature, 'Why2, thou cursed thirst
Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide
The appetite of mortals ?' I had met
The fierce encounter3 of the voluble rock.
Then was I ware that, with too ample wing,
The hands may haste to lavishment; and turn'd,

1 Aquinam's bard.] Juvenal had celebrated his contemporary, Statius, Sat. vii. 82; though some critics imagine that there is a secret derision couched under his praise. 2 Why.] Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,

Auri sacra fames?

Virg. Æn. lib. iii, 57. Venturi supposes, that Dante might have mistaken the meaning of the word sacra, and construed it "holy," instead of" cursed." But I see no necessity for having recourse to so improbable a conjecture.

3 The fierce encounter.] See Hell, Canto vii. 26.

Ne'er lightens; nor Thaumantian1 Iris gleams,
That yonder often shifts on each side heaven.
Vapour adust doth never mount above
The highest of the trinal stairs, whereon
Peter's vicegerent stands. Lower perchance,
With various motion rock'd, trembles the soil:
But here, through wind in earth's deep hollow pent,
I know not how, yet never trembled: then
Trembles, when any spirit feels itself
So purified, that it may rise, or move
For rising; and such loud acclaim ensues.
Purification, by the will alone,

Is proved, that free to change society
Seizes the soul rejoicing in her will.
Desire of bliss is present from the first;
But strong propension hinders, to that wish2
By the just ordinance of heaven opposed;
Propension now as eager to fulfil

The allotted torment, as erewhile to sin.
And I, who in this punishment had lain
Five hundred years and more, but now have felt
Free wish for happier clime. Therefore thou felt'st
The mountain tremble; and the spirits devout
Heard'st, over all his limits, utter praise

To that liege Lord, whom I entreat their joy
To hasten." Thus he spake: and, since the draught
Is grateful ever as the thirst is keen,

No words may speak my fulness of content.

66

Now," said the instructor sage, "I see the net3 That takes ye here; and how the toils are loosed; Why rocks the mountain, and why ye rejoice. Vouchsafe, that from thy lips I next may learn Who on the earth thou wast; and wherefore here,

1 Thaumantian.] Figlia di Taumante.

Θάυμαντος θυγάτης.

Hesiod. Theog. 780. Compare Plato. Theæt. v. ii. p. 76. Bip. edit. Virg. Æn. ix. 5. and Spenser, Faery Queen, b. v. c. iii. st. 25.

Fair is Thaumantias in her crystal gown.

Drummond.

2 To that wish.] Lombardi here alters the sense by reading with the Nidobeatina, "con tal voglia," instead of "contra voglia," and explains it: "With the same ineffectual will, with which man was contrary to sin, while he resolved on sinning, even with the same, would he wish to rise from his torment in Purgatory, at the same time that through inclination to satisfy the divine justice he yet remains there."

3 I see the net.] "I perceive that ye are detained here by your wish to satisfy the divine justice."

So many an age, wert prostrate."-" In that time,
When the good Titus1, with Heaven's King to help,
Avenged those piteous gashes, whence the blood
By Judas sold did issue; with the name2
Most lasting and most honour'd, there, was I
Abundantly renown'd," the shade replied,
"Not yet with faith endued. So passing sweet
My vocal spirit; from Tolosa3, Rome
To herself drew me, where I merited
A myrtle garland 4 to inwreathe my brow.
Statius they name me still. Of Thebes I sang,
And next of great Achilles but i' the way
Fell with the second burthen. Of my flame
Those sparkles were the seeds, which I derived
From the bright fountain of celestial fire
That feeds unnumber'd lamps; the song I mean
Which sounds Æneas' wanderings: that the breast
I hung at; that the nurse, from whom my veins
Drank inspiration : whose authority

Was ever sacred with me.

To have lived

Coeval with the Mantuan, I would bide
The revolution of another sun

Beyond my stated years in banishment."

The Mantuan, when he heard him, turn'd to me ; And holding silence, by his countenance Enjoin'd me silence: but the power, which wills, Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears Follow so closely on the passion prompts them, They wait not for the motions of the will

1. When the good Titus.] When it was so ordered by the divine Providence that Titus, by the destruction of Jerusalem, should avenge the death of our Saviour on the Jews. 2 The name.] The name of Poet.

3 From Tolosa.] Dante, as many others have done, confounds Statius the poet, who was a Neapolitan, with a rhetorician of the same name, who was of Tolosa, or Thoulouse. Thus Chaucer, Temple of Fame, b. iii.

The Tholason, that height Stace.

And Boccaccio, as cited by Lombardi:

E Stazio di Tolosa ancora caro. Amoros. Vis. Cant. 5.

4 A myrtle garland.]

Et vos, O lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte.

Qual vaghezza di lauro? o qual di mirto?

Virg. Ecl. ii.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown.

5 Fell.] Achilleid.

Petrarca.

Milton, Lycidas.

Statius lived to write only a small part of the

66

In natures most sincere. I did but smile',
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade
Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best
Our looks interpret. "So to good event
Mayst thou conduct such great emprize," he cried,
"Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,
The lightning of a smile." On either part
Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,
The other to silence binds me: whence a sigh
I utter, and the sigh is heard. Speak on,'
The teacher cried: " and do not fear to speak;
But tell him what so earnestly he asks."
Whereon I thus: "Perchance, O ancient spirit!
Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room
For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smiled,
Leave it as not the true one; and believe
Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause."
Now down he bent to embrace my teacher's feet;
But he forbade him: " Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade."
He, rising, answer'd thus: "Now hast thou proved
The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And, as a substance, treat an empty shade."

Dante, Virgil, and Statius mount to the sixth cornice, where the sin of gluttony is cleansed, the two Latin Poets discoursing by the way. Turning to the right, they find a tree hung with sweet-smelling fruit, and watered by a shower that issues from the rock. Voices are heard to proceed from among the leaves, recording examples of temperance. Now we had left the angel, who had turn'd To the sixth circle our ascending step; One gash from off my forehead razed; while they, Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth, "Blessed!" and ended with "I thirst:" and I,

1 I did but smile.] "I smiled no more than one would do who wished by a smile to intimate his consciousness of any thing to another person."

2 Blessed.] "Blessed be they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Matt. v. 6.