Till his o'erbreathed lungs keep temperate time;
E'en so Forese let that holy crew

Proceed, behind them lingering at my side,
And saying: " When shall I again behold thee?"
"How long my life may last," said I, "I know not:
This know, how soon soever I return,

My wishes will before me have arrived:
Sithence the place 1, where I am set to live,
Is, day by day, more scoop'd of all its good;
And dismal ruin seems to threaten it."

"Go now," he cried: "lo! he2, whose guilt is most,
Passes before my vision, dragg'd at heels
Of an infuriate beast. Toward the vale,
Where guilt hath no redemption, on it speeds,
Each step increasing swiftness on the last;
Until a blow it strikes, that leaveth him
A corse most vilely shatter'd. No long space
Those wheels have yet to roll," (therewith his eyes
Look'd up to heaven) "ere thou shalt plainly see
That which my words may not more plainly tell.
I quit thee time is precious here: I lose
Too much, thus measuring my pace with thine."
As from a troop of well rank'd chivalry,
One knight, more enterprising than the rest,
Pricks forth at gallop, eager to display
His prowess in the first encounter proved;
So parted he from us, with lengthen❜d strides ;
And left me on the way with those twain spirits,
Who were such mighty marshals of the world.

When he beyond us had so fled, mine eyes No nearer reach'd him, than my thought his words; The branches of another fruit, thick hung,

1 The place.] Florence.

2 He.] Corso Donati was suspected of aiming at the sovereignty of Florence. To escape the fury of his fellow-citizens, he fled away on horseback, but falling, was overtaken and slain, A.D. 1308. The contemporary annalist, after relating at length the circumstances of his fate, adds, "that he was one of the wisest and most valorous knights, the best speaker, the most expert statesman, the most renowned and enterprising man of his age in Italy, a comely knight and of graceful carriage, but very worldly, and in his time had formed many conspiracies in Florence, and entered into many scandalous practices for the sake of attaining state and lordship." G. Villani, lib. viii. cap. 96. The character of Corso is forcibly drawn by another of his contemporaries, Dino Compagni. lib. iii. Muratori Rer. Ital. Script. tom. ix. p. 523. Guittone d'Arezzo's seventh Letter is addressed to him. is in verse.

It

And blooming fresh, appear'd. E'en as our steps
Turn'd thither; not far off, it rose to view.
Beneath it were a multitude, that raised
Their hands, and shouted forth I know not what
Unto the boughs; like greedy and fond brats,
That beg, and answer none obtain from him,
Of whom they beg; but more to draw them on,
He, at arm's length, the object of their wish
Above them holds aloft, and hides it not.

At length, as undeceived, they went their way:
And we approach the tree, whom vows and tears
Sue to in vain; the mighty tree.
"Pass on,

And come not near. Stands higher up the wood,
Whereof Eve tasted: and from it was ta'en [came.
This plant." Such sounds from midst the thickets
Whence I, with either bard, close to the side
That rose, pass'd forth beyond. "Remember," next
We heard," those unblest creatures of the clouds1,
How they their twyfold bosoms, overgorged,
Opposed in fight to Theseus: call to mind
The Hebrews2, how, effeminate, they stoop'd
To ease their thirst; whence Gideon's ranks were
As he to Madian 3 march'd adown the hills." [thinn'd,
Thus near one border coasting, still we heard
The sins of gluttony, with woe erewhile
Reguerdon'd. Then along the lonely path,
Once more at large, full thousand paces on
We travel'd, each contemplative and mute.
"Why pensive journey so ye three alone?"
Thus suddenly a voice exclaim'd: whereat
I shook, as doth a scared and paltry beast;
Then raised my head, to look from whence it came.
Was ne'er, in furnace, glass, or metal, seen
So bright and glowing red, as was the shape
I now beheld. If ye desire to mount,"

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He cried; "here must ye turn. This way he goes,
Who goes in quest of peace." His countenance
Had dazzled me; and to my guides I faced
Backward, like one who walks as sound directs.
As when, to harbinger the dawn, springs up

1 Creatures of the clouds.] The Centaurs. Ovid. Met. lib. xii. fab. 4.

2 The Hebrews.] Judges, vii.

3 To Madian.]

The matchless Gideon in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquisht kings.

Milton, Samson Agonistes.

On freshen'd wing the air of May, and breathes
Of fragrance, all impregn'd with herb and flowers;
E'en such a wind I felt upon my front

Blow gently, and the moving of a wing
Perceived, that, moving, shed ambrosial smell ;
And then a voice: "Blessed are they, whom grace
Doth so illume, that appetite in them

Exhaleth no inordinate desire,

Still hungering as the rule of temperance wills."

CANTO XXV.

ARGUMENT.

Virgil and Statius resolve some doubts that have arisen in the mind of Dante from what he had just seen. They all arrive on the seventh and last cornice, where the sin of incontinence is purged in fire; and the spirits of those suffering therein are heard to record illustrious instances of chastity.

It was an hour, when he who climbs, had need
To walk uncrippled: for the sun1 had now
To Taurus the meridian circle left,

And to the Scorpion left the night. As one,
That makes no pause, but presses on his road,
Whate'er betide him, if some urgent need
Impel; so enter'd we2 upon our way,
One before other; for, but singly, none
That steep and narrow scale admits to climb.
E'en as the young stork lifteth up his wing
Through wish to fly, yet ventures not to quit
The nest, and drops it; so in me desire
Of questioning my guide arose, and fell,
Arriving even to the act that marks

A man prepared for speech. Him all our haste

1 The sun.] The sun had passed the meridian two hours, and that meridian was now occupied by the constellation of Taurus, to which as the Scorpion is opposite, the latter constellation was consequently at the meridian of night.

2 So enter'd we.]

Davanti a me andava la mia guida:
E poi io dietro per una via stretta
Seguendo lei come mia scorta fida.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. 3.

The good prelate of Foligno has followed our Poet so closely throughout this Capitolo, that it would be necessary to transcribe almost the whole of it in order to show how much he has copied. These verses of his own may well be applied to him on the occasion.

Restrain'd not; but thus spake the sire beloved : "Fear not to speed the shaft', that on thy lip Stands trembling for its flight." Encouraged thus, I straight began: "How there can leanness come2, Where is no want of nourishment to feed ?"

If thou," he answer'd, "hadst remember'd thee, How Meleager3 with the wasting brand

Wasted alike, by equal fires consumed;

This would not trouble thee: and hadst thou thought,
How in the mirror1 your reflected form

With mimic motion vibrates; what now seems
Hard, had appear'd no harder than the pulp
Of summer-fruit mature. But that thy will
In certainty may find its full repose,
Lo Statius here! on him I call, and pray
That he would now be healer of thy wound."
If, in thy presence, I unfold to him

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The secrets of heaven's vengeance, let me plead
Thine own injunction to exculpate me."
So Statius answer'd, and forthwith began:
"Attend my words, O son, and in thy mind
Receive them; so shall they be light to clear
The doubt thou offer'st. Blood, concocted well,
Which by the thirsty veins is ne'er imbibed,
And rests as food superfluous, to be ta'en
From the replenish'd table, in the heart
Derives effectual virtue, that informs

1 Fear not to speed the shaft.] "Fear not to utter the words that are already at the tip of thy tongue."

Πολλὰ μὲν ἀρτιεπὴς

Γλῶσσα μοι τοξεύματ ̓ ἔχει περὶ κείνων
Κελαδήσαι.

Pindar. Isthm. v. 60.

Full many a shaft of sounding rhyme
Stands trembling on my lip

Their glory to declare.

2 How there can leanness come.] "How can spirits, that need not corporeal nourishment, be subject to leanness?" This question gives rise to the following explanation of Statius respecting the formation of the human body from the first, its junction with the soul, and the passage of the latter to another world.

3 Meleager.] Virgil reminds Dante that, as Meleager was wasted away by the decree of the fates, and not through want of blood; so by the divine appointment, there may be leanness where there is no need of nourishment.

4 In the mirror.] As the reflexion of a form in a mirror is modified in agreement with the modification of the form itself; so the soul, separated from the earthly body, impresses the image or ghost of that body with its own affections.

The several human limbs, as being that

Which passes through the veins itself to make them.
Yet more concocted it descends, where shame
Forbids to mention: and from thence distils
In natural vessel on another's blood.
There each unite together; one disposed
To endure, to act the other, through that power
Derived from whence it came1; and being met,
It 'gins to work, coagulating first;

Then vivifies what its own substance made
Consist. With animation now indued,
The active virtue (differing from a plant
No further, than that this is on the way,
And at its limit that) continues yet

To operate, that now it moves, and feels,
As sea-sponge clinging to the rock and there
Assumes the organic powers its seed convey'd.
This is the moment, son! at which the virtue,
That from the generating heart proceeds,
Is pliant and expansive; for each limb
Is in the heart by forgeful nature plann'd,
How babe of animal becomes, remains
For thy considering. At this point, more wise,
Than thou, has err'd4, making the soul disjoin'd
From passive intellect, because he saw

No organ for the latter's use assign'd.

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Open thy bosom to the truth that comes. Know, soon as in the embryo, to the brain Articulation is complete, then turns

The primal Mover with a smile of joy

On such great work of nature; and imbreathes
New spirit replete with virtue, that what here

1 From whence it came.] "From the heart," as Lombardi rightly interprets it.

2 As sea-sponge.] The foetus is in this stage a zoöphyte.

3 Babe.] By "fante," which is here rendered "babe," is meant "the human creature." "The creature that is distinguished from others by its faculty of speech," just as Homer calls men,

γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων.

4 More wise,

Than thou, has err'd.] Averroes is said to be here meant. Venturi refers to his commentary on Aristotle, De Anim. lib. iii. cap. 5. for the opinion that there is only one universal intellect or mind pervading every individual of the human race. Much of the knowledge, displayed by our Poet in the present Canto, appears to have been derived from the medical work of Averroes called the Colliget, lib. ii. f. 10. Ven. 1490. fol.