Till his o'erbreathed lungs keep temperate time; Proceed, behind them lingering at my side, My wishes will before me have arrived: "Go now," he cried: "lo! he2, whose guilt is most, 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 At length, as undeceived, they went their way: And come not near. Stands higher up the wood, 66 He cried; "here must ye turn. This way he goes, 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 Milton, Samson Agonistes. On freshen'd wing the air of May, and breathes Blow gently, and the moving of a wing 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 And to the Scorpion left the night. As one, 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: 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, With mimic motion vibrates; what now seems 66 The secrets of heaven's vengeance, let me plead 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 Pindar. Isthm. v. 60. Full many a shaft of sounding rhyme 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. Then vivifies what its own substance made To operate, that now it moves, and feels, No organ for the latter's use assign'd. 66 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 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. |