Was, and is not1: let him, who hath the blame,
Hope not to scare God's vengeance with a sop2.
Without an heir for ever shall not be

That eagle3, he, who left the chariot plumed,
Which monster made it first and next a prey.
Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars
E'en now approaching, whose conjunction, free
From all impediment and bar, brings on
A season, in the which, one sent from God,
(Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out)
That foul one, and the accomplice of her guilt,
The giant, both, shall slay. And if perchance
My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx,
Fail to persuade thee, (since like them it foils
The intellect with blindness) yet erelong
Events shall be the Naïads4, that will solve

Was, and is not.] "The beast that was, and is not." Rev. xvii. 11.

2 Hope not to scare God's vengeance with a sop.] "Let not him who hath occasioned the destruction of the church, that vessel which the serpent brake, hope to appease the anger of the Deity by any outward acts of religious, or rather superstitious ceremony; such as was that, in our Poet's time, performed by a murderer at Florence, who imagined himself secure from vengeance, if he ate a sop of bread in wine upon the grave of the person murdered, within the space of nine days."

3 That eagle.] He prognosticates that the Emperor of Germany will not always continue to submit to the usurpations of the Pope, and foretels the coming of Henry VII. Duke of Luxemburgh, signified by the numerical figures DVX; or, as Lombardi supposes, of Can Grande della Scala, appointed the leader of the Ghibelline forces. It is unnecessary to point out the imitation of the Apocalypse in the manner of this prophecy.

Troya assigns reasons for applying the prediction to Uguccione della Faggiola rather than to Henry or Can Grande. Veltro Allegorico di Dante. Ediz. 1826. p. 143. But see my note. H. i. 102.

4 The Naiads.] Dante, it is observed, has been led into a mistake by a corruption in the text of Ovid's Metam. 1. vii. 757, where he found

Carmina Naïades non intellecta priorum
Solvunt.

instead of

Carmina Laïades non intellecta priorum
Solverat.

as it has been since corrected by Heinsius.

Lombardi, after Rosa Morando, questions the propriety of this emendation, and refers to Pausanias, where the Nymphs" are spoken of as expounders of oracles, for a vindication of the poet's accuracy.

This knotty riddle; and no damage light1

On flock or field. Take heed; and as these words By me are utter'd, teach them even so

To those who live that life, which is a race

To death: and when thou writest them, keep in mind
Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant,
That twice2 hath now been spoil'd. This whoso robs,
This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed
Sins against God, who for his use alone
Creating hallow'd it. For taste of this,
In pain and in desire, five thousand years3
And upward, the first soul did yearn for him
Who punish'd in himself the fatal gust.

Thy reason slumbers, if it deem this height, And summit thus inverted 4, of the plant,

Without due cause: and were not vainer thoughts,
As Elsa's numbing waters, to thy soul,

And their fond pleasures had not dyed it dark
As Pyramus the mulberry; thou hadst seen",
In such momentous circumstance alone,
God's equal justice morally implied

In the forbidden tree. But since I mark thee,

In understanding, harden'd into stone,

Should the reader blame me for not departing from the error of the original (if error it be), he may substitute Events shall be the Edipus will solve, &c.

1 No damage light.]

Protinus Aoniis immissa est bellua Thebis,
Cessit et exitio multis; pecorique sibique
Ruricolæ pavere feram.

Ovid. ibid.

2 Twice.] First by the eagle and next by the giant. See the last Canto, v. 110, and v. 154.

3 Five thousand years.] That such was the opinion of the church, Lombardi shows by a reference to Baronius. Martyr. Rom. Dec. 25. Anno a creatione mundi, quando a principio creavit Deus cœlum et terram, quinquies millesimo centesimo nonagesimo-Jesus Christus-conceptus. Edit. Col. Agripp. 4to. 1610. p. 858.

4 Inverted.] The branches, unlike those of other trees, spreading more widely the higher they rose. See the last Canto, v. 39.

5 Elsa's numbing waters.] The Elsa, a little stream, which flows into the Arno about twenty miles below Florence, is said to possess a petrifying quality. Fazio degli Uberti, at the conclusion of Cap. viii. 1. 3. of the Dittamondo, mentions a successful experiment he had himself made of the property here attributed to it.

6 Thou hadst seen.] This is obscure. But it would seem as if he meant to inculcate his favourite doctrine of the inviolability of the empire, and of the care taken by Providence to protect it.

And, to that hardness, spotted too and stain'd,
So that thine eye is dazzled at my word;

I will, that, if not written, yet at least

Painted thou take it in thee, for the cause, [palm'."
That one brings home his staff inwreathed with
I thus: "As wax by seal, that changeth not
Its impress, now is stamp'd my brain by thee.
But wherefore soars thy wish'd-for speech so high
Beyond my sight, that loses it the more,

The more it strains to reach it ?"- "To the end
That thou mayst know," she answer'd straight, "the
That thou hast follow'd; and how far behind, [school,
When following my discourse, its learning halts :
And mayst behold your art2, from the divine
As distant, as the disagreement is
[orb."
"Twixt earth and heaven's most high and rapturous
"I not remember," I replied, "that e'er
I was estranged from thee; nor for such fault
Doth conscience chide me.' Smiling she return'd:

1 That one brings home his staff inwreath'd with palm.] "For the same cause that the palmer, returning from Palestine, brings home his staff, or bourdon, bound with palm," that is, to show where he has been.

Che si reca 'l bordon di palma cinto.

"It is to be understood," says our Poet in the Vita Nuova, "that people, who go on the service of the Most High, are probably named in three ways. They are named palmers, inasmuch as they go beyond sea, from whence they often bring back the palm. Inasmuch as they go to the house of Galicia, they are called pilgrims; because the sepulchre of St. James was further from his country than that of any other Apostle. They are called Romei," (for which I know of no other word we have in English except Roamers) "inasmuch as they go to Rome." p. 275.

"In regard to the word bourdon, why it has been applied to a pilgrim's staff, it is not easy to guess. I believe, however, that this name has been given to such sort of staves, because pilgrims usually travel and perform their pilgrimages on foot, their staves serving them instead of horses or mules, then called bourdons and burdones, by writers in the middle ages." Mr. Johnes's Translation of Joinville's Memoirs, Dissertation xv. by M. du Cange, p. 152, 4to edit.

The word is thrice used by Chaucer in the Romaunt of the Rose.

2 Mayst behold your art.] The second persons, singular and plural, are here used intentionally by our author, the one referring to himself alone, the second to mankind in general. Compare Hell, xi. 107. But I will follow the example of Brunck, who in a note on a passage in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, v. 369, where a similar distinction requires to be made, says that it would be ridiculous to multiply instances in a matter so well known.

"If thou canst not remember, call to mind
How lately thou hast drunk of Lethe's wave;
And, sure as smoke doth indicate a flame,
In that forgetfulness itself conclude
Blame from thy alienated will incurr'd.
From henceforth, verily, my words shall be
As naked, as will suit them to appear

In thy unpractised view." More sparkling now,
And with retarded course, the sun possess'd
The circle of mid-day, that varies still
As the aspect varies of each several clime;
When, as one, sent in vaward of a troop
For escort, pauses, if perchance he spy
Vestige of somewhat strange and rare; so paused1
The sevenfold band, arriving at the verge
Of a dun umbrage hoar, such as is seen,
Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches, oft
To overbrow a bleak and alpine cliff.

And, where they stood, before them, as it seem'd,
I, Tigris and Euphrates2 both, beheld

Forth from one fountain issue; and, like friends,
Linger at parting. "O enlightening beam!
O glory of our kind! beseech thee say

What water this, which, from one source derived,
Itself removes to distance from itself?"

To such entreaty answer thus was made: "Entreat Matilda, that she teach thee this." And here, as one who clears himself of blame Imputed, the fair dame return'd: "Of me He this and more hath learnt; and I am safe That Lethe's water hath not hid it from him."

And Beatrice: "Some more pressing care, That oft the memory 'reaves, perchance hath made His mind's eye dark. But lo, where Eunoe flows!

1 So paused.] Lombardi imagines that the seven nymphs, who represent the four cardinal and the three evangelical virtues, are made to stop at the verge of the shade, because retirement is the friend of every virtuous quality and spiritual gift.

2 I, Tigris and Euphrates.]

Quaque caput rapido tollit cum Tigride magnus
Euphrates, quos non diversis fontibus edit
Persis.

Lucan. Phars. lib. iii. 258.

Tigris et Euphrates uno se fonte resolvunt.

Boetius de Consol. Philosoph. lib. v. Metr. 1.

là oltre ond' esce

D'un medesimo fonte Eufrate e Tigre.

Petrarca, Son. Mie Venture, &c.

Lead thither; and, as thou art wont, revive
His fainting virtue." As a courteous spirit,
That proffers no excuses, but as soon

As he hath token of another's will,

Makes it his own; when she had ta'en me, thus
The lovely maiden moved her on, and call'd
To Statius, with an air most lady-like :

66

Come thou with him." Were further space allow'd,
Then, Reader! might I sing, though but in part,
That beverage, with whose sweetness I had ne'er
Been sated. But, since all the leaves are full,
Appointed for this second strain, mine art
With warning bridle checks me. I return'd
From the most holy wave, regenerate,

E'en as new plants renew'd' with foilage new,
Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars.

1 Renew'd.]

come piante novelle Rinnovellate da novella fronda.

So new this new-borne knight to battle new did rise. Spenser, Faery Queene, b. i. c. xi. st. 34. "Rinnovellate" is another of those words which Chaucer in vain endeavoured to introduce into our language from the Italian, unless it be supposed that he rather borrowed it from the French. "Certes ones a yere at the lest way it is lawful to ben houseled, for sothely ones a yere all things in the earth renovelen." The Persone's Tale.