Had not ill-lording1, which doth desperate make2
The people ever, in Palermo raised

The shout of death,' re-echoed loud and long.
Had but my brother's foresight3 kenn'd as much,
He had been warier, that the greedy want
Of Catalonia might not work his bale.
And truly need there is that he forecast,
Or other for him, lest more freight be laid
On his already over-laden bark.

Nature in him, from bounty fallen to thrift,
Would ask the guard of braver arms, than such
As only care to have their coffers fill'd."

My liege! it doth enhance the joy thy words Infuse into me, mighty as it is,

To think my gladness manifest to thee,
As to myself, who own it, when thou look'st
Into the source and limit of all good,

[speak,

There, where thou markest that which thou dost Thence prized of me the more. Glad thou hast made me :

Now make intelligent, clearing the doubt

Thy speech hath raised in me; for much I muse,
How bitter can spring up1, when sweet is sown."
I thus inquiring; he forthwith replied:
"If I have power to show one truth, soon that
Shall face thee, which thy questioning declares

1 Had not ill-lording.] "If the ill conduct of our governors in Sicily had not excited the resentment and hatred of the people, and stimulated them to that dreadful massacre at the Sicilian vespers;" in consequence of which the kingdom fell into the hands of Peter III. of Arragon, in 1282. Miracol parve ad ogni persona

Che ad una voce tutta la Cicilia

Si rubellò dall' una all' altra nona,
Gridando, mora mora la famiglia

Di Carlo, mora mora gli franceschi,
E così ne tagliò ben otto miglia.

O quanto i forestier che giungon freschi
Nell' altrui terre, denno esser cortesi,
Fuggir lussuria e non esser maneschi.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo. lib. ii. cap. 39. 2 Desperate make.] "Accuora." Monti in his Proposta construes this "afflicts." Vellutello's interpretation of it, which is "makes desperate," appears to be nearer the mark.

3 My brother's foresight.] He seems to tax his brother Robert with employing necessitous and greedy Catalonians to administer the affairs of his kingdom.

4 How bitter can spring up.] "How a covetous son can spring from a liberal father." Yet that father has himself been accused of avarice in the Purgatory, Canto xx. 78; though his general character was that of a bounteous prince.

Behind thee now conceal'd. The Good1, that guides And blessed makes this realm which thou dost Ordains its providence to be the virtue

[mount, In these great bodies: nor the natures only The all-perfect mind provides for, but with them That which preserves them too; for nought, that Within the range of that unerring bow, [lies But is as level with the destined aim, As ever mark to arrow's point opposed. Were it not thus, these heavens, thou dost visit, Would their effect so work, it would not be Art, but destruction; and this may not chance, If th' intellectual powers, that move these stars, Fail not, and who, first faulty made them, fail. Wilt thou this truth more clearly evidenced ?" To whom I thus: "It is enough: no fear, I see, lest nature in her part should tire." He straight rejoin'd: "Say, were it worse for man, If he lived not in fellowship on earth ?" "Yea," answer'd I; 66 nor here a reason needs." "And may that be, if different estates Grow not of different duties in your life? Consult your teacher2, and he tells you 'no'." Thus did he come, deducing to this point,

1 The Good.] The Supreme Being uses these spheres as the intelligent instruments of his providence in the conduct of terrestrial natures; so that these natures cannot but be conducted aright, unless these heavenly bodies should themselves fail from not having been made perfect at first, or the Creator of them should fail. To this Dante replies, that nature, he is satisfied, thus directed must do her part. Charles Martel then reminds him, that he had learned from Aristotle, that human society requires a variety of conditions, and consequently a variety of qualifications in its members. Accordingly, men, he concludes, are born with different powers and capacities, caused by the influence of the heavenly bodies at the time of their nativity; on which influence, and not on their parents, those powers and capacities depend. Having thus resolved the question proposed, Charles Martel adds, by way of corollary, that the want of observing their natural bent in the destination of men to their several offices in life, is the occasion of much of the disorder that prevails in the world.

2 Consult your teacher.] Aristotle, ie¡ ¿1⁄2 àvoμoíwv ñ ñóLIS, κ.τ.λ. De Rep. lib. iii. cap. 4. 66 Since a state is made up of members differing from one another; (for even as an animal, in the first instance, consists of soul and body; and the soul, of reason and desire; and a family, of man and woman; and property, of master and slave; in like manner a state consists both of all these, and besides these of other dissimilar kinds;) it necessarily follows, that the excellence of all the members of the state cannot be one and the same."

And then concluded: "For this cause behoves,
The roots, from whence your operations come,
Must differ. Therefore one is Solon born;
Another, Xerxes; and Melchisedec

A third; and he a fourth, whose airy voyage
Cost him his son'. In her circuitous course,
Nature, that is the seal to mortal wax,
Doth well her art, but no distinction owns
"Twixt one or other household. Hence befals

That Esau is so wide of Jacob2: hence
Quirinus of so base a father springs,

He dates from Mars his lineage. Were it not
That Providence celestial overruled,
Nature, in generation, must the path
Traced by the generator still pursue
Unswervingly. Thus place I in thy sight
That, which was late behind thee. But, in sign
Of more affection for thee, 't is my will
Thou wear this corollary. Nature ever,
Finding discordant fortune, like all seed
Out of its proper climate, thrives but ill.
And were the world below content to mark
And work on the foundation nature lays,
It would not lack supply of excellence.
But ye perversely to religion strain

Him, who was born to gird on him the sword,
And of the fluent phraseman make your king:
Therefore your steps have wander'd from the path."

2 Esau is so wide of Jacob.] Genesis, xxv. 22. Venturi blames our Poet for selecting an instance, which, as that commentator says, proves the direct contrary of that which he intended, as they were born under the same ascendant; and, therefore, if the stars had any influence, the two brothers should have been born with the same temperament and disposition. This objection is well answered by Lombardi, who quotes a passage from Roger Bacon, to show that the smallest diversity of place was held to make a diversity in the influence of the heavenly bodies, so as to occasion an entire discrepancy even between children in the same womb. It must be recollected, that whatever power may be attributed to the stars by our Poet, he does not suppose it to put any constraint on the freedom of the human will; so that chimerical as his opinion appears to us, it was, in a moral point of view at least, harmless.

3 Quirinus.] Romulus, born of so obscure a father, that his parentage was attributed to Mars.

Therefore.] "The wisdom of God hath divided the genius of men according to the different affairs of the world; and

CANTO IX.

ARGUMENT.

The next spirit, who converses with our Poet in the planet Venus, is the amorous Cunizza. To her succeeds Folco, or Folques, the Provençal bard, who declares that the soul of Rahab the harlot is there also; and then, blaming the Pope for his neglect of the holy land, prognosticates some reverse to the papal power.

AFTER Solution of my doubt, thy Charles,
O fair Clemenza1, of the treachery2 spake,
That must befal his seed: but, "Tell it not,"
Said he," and let the destined years come round."
Nor may I tell thee more, save that the meed
Of sorrow well-deserved shall quit your wrongs.
And now the visage of that saintly light3
Was to the sun, that fills it, turn'd again,
As to the good, whose plenitude of bliss
Sufficeth all. O ye misguided souls!
Infatuate, who from such a good estrange
Your hearts, and bend your gaze on vanity,
Alas for you! And lo! toward me, next,
Another of those splendent forms approach'd,
That, by its outward brightening, testified
The will it had to pleasure me.
The eyes
Of Beatrice, resting, as before,
Firmly upon me, manifested forth
Approval of my wish. "And O," I cried,
"Blest spirit! quickly be my will perform'd;
And prove thou to me, that my inmost thoughts

varied their inclinations according to the variety of actions to be performed therein. Which they who consider not, rudely rushing upon professions and ways of life unequal to their natures, dishonour not only themselves and their functions, but pervert the harmony of the whole world." Brown on Vulgar Errors. b. i. ch. 5.

10 fair Clemenza.] Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife of Louis X. of France.

2 The treachery.] He alludes to the occupation of the kingdom of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother's son Carobert, or Charles Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani. lib. viii. c. 112.

4 Prove thou to me.] The thoughts of all created minds being seen by the Deity, and all that is in the Deity being the object of vision to beatified spirits, such spirits must consequently see the thoughts of all created minds. Dante therefore requests of the spirit, who now approaches him, a proof of this truth with regard to his own thoughts. See v. 70.

I can reflect on thee." Thereat the light,
That yet was new to me, from the recess,
Where it before was singing, thus began,
As one who joys in kindness: "In that part1
Of the depraved Italian land, which lies
Between Rialto and the fountain-springs
Of Brenta and of Piava, there doth rise,
But to no lofty eminence, a hill,

From whence erewhile a firebrand did descend,
That sorely shent the region. From one root
I and it sprang; my name on earth Cunizza2:
And here I glitter, for that by its light
This star o'ercame me. Yet I nought repine3,
Nor grudge myself the cause of this my lot:
Which haply vulgar hearts can scarce conceive.
"This jewel, that is next me in our heaven,
Lustrous and costly, great renown hath left,
And not to perish, ere these hundred years
Five times absolve their round. Consider thou,

1 In that part.] Between Rialto in the Venetian territory, and the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava, is situated a castle called Romano, the birth-place of the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the brother of Cunizza who is now speaking. The tyrant we have seen in "the river of blood." Hell, Canto xii. v. 110.

2 Cunizza.] The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino of Padua, lib. i. cap. 3. in Muratori. Rer. It. Script. tom. viii. p. 173. She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello, (See Purg. Canto vi. and vii.) with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same city; and on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo: lastly, when he also had fallen by the same hand, she, after her brother's death, was again wedded in Verona.

3 Yet I nought repine.] "I am not dissatisfied that I am not allotted a higher place."

4 This.] Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provençal poet, commonly termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was perhaps bishop. Many errors of Nostradamus, concerning him, which have been followed by Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are detected by the diligence of Tiraboschi. Mr. Mathias's edit. v. i. p. 18. All that appears certain, is what we are told in this Canto, that he was of Genoa; and by Petrarch, in the Triumph of Love, c. iv. that he was better known by the appellation he derived from Marseilles, and at last assumed the religious habit.

One of his verses is cited by Dante. De Vulg. Eloq. lib. iii. c. 6.

5 Five times.] The five hundred years are elapsed: and