Embracing, so much more of grief contains,
Provoking bitter moans. There Minos stands,
Grinning with ghastly feature1: he, of all
Who enter, strict examining the crimes,
Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath,
According as he foldeth him around:

For when before him comes the ill-fated soul,
It all confesses; and that judge severe
Of sins, considering what place in hell
Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft
Himself encircles, as degrees beneath

He dooms it to descend. Before him stand
Alway a numerous throng; and in his turn
Each one to judgment passing, speaks, and hears
His fate, thence downward to his dwelling hurl'd.
"O thou! who to this residence of woe
Approachest!" when he saw me coming, cried
Minos, relinquishing his dread employ,

"Look how thou enter here; beware in whom Thou place thy trust; let not the entrance broad Deceive thee to thy harm." To him my guide: "Wherefore exclaimest? Hinder not his way By destiny appointed; so 't is will'd,

Where will and power are one. Ask thou no more."
Now 'gin the rueful wailings to be heard.
Now am I come where many a plaining voice
Smites on mine ear. Into a place I came
Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groan'd
A noise, as of a sea in tempest torn

By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell
With restless fury drives the spirits on,

Whirl'd round and dash'd amain with sore annoy.
When they arrive before the ruinous sweep,
There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans,
And blasphemies 'gainst the good Power in heaven.
I understood, that to this torment sad
The carnal sinners are condemn'd, in whom
Reason by lust is sway'd. As in large troops
And multitudinous, when winter reigns,
The starlings on their wings are borne abroad;
So bears the tyrannous gust those evil souls.
On this side and on that, above, below,

1 Grinning with ghastly feature.] Hence Milton:

It drives them: hope of rest to solace them
Is none, nor e'en of milder pang. As cranes',
Chanting their dolorous notes, traverse the sky,
Stretch'd out in long array; so I beheld
Spirits, who came loud wailing, hurried on
By their dire doom. Then I: "Instructor! who
Are these, by the black air so scourged?"-"The first
'Mong those, of whom thou question'st," he replied,
"O'er many tongues was empress. She in vice
Of luxury was so shameless, that she made
Liking2 be lawful by promulged decree,
To clear the blame she had herself incurr'd.
This is Semiramis, of whom 't is writ,
That she succeeded Ninus her espoused3;
And held the land, which now the Soldan rules.
The next in amorous fury slew herself,
And to Sicheus' ashes broke her faith:
Then follows Cleopatra, lustful queen."

There mark'd I Helen, for whose sake so long The time was fraught with evil; there the great Achilles, who with love fought to the end.

As cranes.] This simile is imitated by Lorenzo de Medici, in his Ambra, a poem, first published by Mr. Roscoe, in the Appendix to his Life of Lorenzo :

Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried;
And each with outstretch'd neck his rank maintains,
In marshal'd order through th' ethereal void.

Roscoe, v. i. c. v. p. 257, 4to. edit.

Compare Homer II. iii. 3. Virgil, Æn. 1. x. 264. Oppian Halieut. lib. i. 620. Ruccellai, Le Api, 942. and Dante's Purgatory, xxiv. 63.

2 Liking.] His lustes were as law in his degree.

Chaucer. Monke's Tale, Nero.

3 That she succeeded Ninus her espoused.]

Che succedette a Nino e fu sua sposa.

M. Artaud, in his Histoire de Dante, p. 589, mentions a manuscript work called Attacanti's Quadragesimale de reditu peccatoris ad Deum, in which the line is thus cited: Che sugger dette a Nino e fu sua sposa.

"Who suckled Ninus, and was his wife."

This remarkable reading had been before noticed by Federici. Intorno ad alcune varianti nel testo della Divina Commedia. Ed. Milan. 1836. See the Biblioteca Italiana. Tom. 82. p. 282. It appears from the treatise De Monarchia (1. ii.) that Dante derived his knowledge of Assyrian history from his favourite author Orosius, (1. i. c. iv.) who relates that Semiramis both succeeded Ninus through the artifice of personating her son, and that she committed incest with her son; but as the name of her husband Ninus only is there recorded, and as other historians call the son Ninias, it is probable that the common reading is right.

Paris I saw, and Tristan; and beside,

A thousand more he show'd me, and by name
Pointed them out, whom love bereaved of life.

When I had heard my sage instructor name
Those dames and knights of antique days,o'erpower'd
By pity, well-nigh in amaze my mind
Was lost; and I began: "Bard! willingly
I would address those two together coming,
Which seem so light before the wind." He thus:
"Note thou, when nearer they to us approach.
Then by that love which carries them along,
Entreat; and they will come." Soon as the wind
Sway'd them toward us, I thus framed my speech:
"O wearied spirits! come, and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrain'd." As doves
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along;
Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks,
They, through the ill air speeding: with such force
My cry prevail'd, by strong affection urged.

"O gracious creature and benign! who go'st Visiting, through this element obscure1, Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued; If, for a friend, the King of all, we own'd, Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise, Since thou hast pity on our evil plight.

Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse

It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that
Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind,
As now, is mute. The land2, that gave me birth,
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams.

"Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt3,

1 Element obscure.] "L'aer perso." Much is said by the commentators concerning the exact sense of the word "perso." It cannot be explained in clearer terms than those used by Dante himself in his Convito: "Il perso è un colore misto di purpureo e nero, ma vince il nero." p. 185. "It is a colour mixed of purple and black, but the black prevails." The word recurs several times in this poem. Chaucer also uses it, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Doctour of Phisike :

In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle.

2 The land.] Ravenna.

3 Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt.] Amor, ch' al cor gentil ratto s'apprende. A line taken by Marino, Adone, c. cxli. st. 251.

Entangled him by that fair form, from me
Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still:
Love, that denial takes from none beloved1,
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well,
That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not.
Love brought us to one death: Caïna2 waits
The soul, who spilt our life." Such were their words;
At hearing which, downward I bent my looks,
And held them there so long, that the bard cried :
"What art thou pondering ?" I in answer thus:
"Alas! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire
Must they at length to that ill pass have reach'd!"
Then turning, I to them my speech address'd,
And thus began:
66 Francesca3! your sad fate
Even to tears my grief and pity moves.

That the reader of the original may not be misled as to the exact sense of the word "s'apprende," which I have rendered" is learnt," it may be right to apprise him that it signifies" is caught," and that it is a metaphor from a thing taking fire. Thus it is used by Guido Guinicelli, whom indeed our poet seems here to have had.in view: Fuoco d' Amore in gentil cor s'apprende, Come vertute in pietra preziosa.

Sonetti, &c. di diversi Antichi Toscani. Ediz.
Giuati, 1527. 1. ix. p. 107.

The fire of love in gentle heart is caught,
As virtue in the precious stone.

1 Love, that denial takes from none beloved.]

Amor, ch' a null' amato amar perdona.

So Boccaccio, in his Filocopo, 1. 1.

Amore mai non perdonò l'amore a nullo amato.

And Pulci, in the Morgante Maggiore, c. iv.

E perchè amor mal volontier perdona,
Che non sia al fin sempre amato chi ama.

Indeed many of the Italian poets have repeated this verse. 2 Caina.] The place to which murderers are doomed.

3 Francesca.] Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, was given by her father in marriage to Lanciotto, son of Malatesta, lord of Rimini, a man of extraordinary courage, but deformed in his person. His brother Paolo, who unhappily possessed those graces which the husband of Francesca wanted, engaged her affections; and being taken in adultery, they were both put to death by the enraged Lanciotto. See Notes to Canto xxvii. v. 38 and 43. Troya relates, that they were buried together; and that three centuries after, the bodies were found at Rimini, whither they had been removed from Pesaro, with the silken garments yet fresh. Veltro Allegorico di Dante. Ediz. 1826. p. 33.

The whole of this passage is alluded to by Petrarch, in his Triumph of Love, c. iii :

But tell me; in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what, and how Love granted, that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes?" She replied:
"No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand1.

That kens

Thy learn'd instructor. Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day,
For our delight we read of Lancelot2,

How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Oft-times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our alter'd cheek.
Alone we fell.

But at one point3

When of that smile we read,

Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni
Lancilotto Tristano e gli altri erranti :
Onde convien che'l vulgo errante agogni;
Vedi Ginevra, Isotta e l'altre amanti;
E la coppia d'Arimino che' nsieme
Vanno facendo dolorosi pianti.

Mr. Leigh Hunt has expanded the present episode into a beautiful poem, in his "Story of Rimini."

1 No greater grief than to remember days

Of joy, when misery is at hand.]

Imitated by Chaucer:

For of Fortunis sharp adversite
The worste kind of infortune is this,
A man to have been in prosperite,
And it remembir when it passid is.

By Marino:

Troilus and Creseide, b. iii.

Che non ha doglia il misero maggiore,
Che ricordar la gioia entro il dolore.

And by Fortiguerra:

Adone, c. xiv. st. 100.

-Rimembrare il ben perduto

Fa più meschino lo presente stato.

Ricciardetto, c. xi. st. 83.

The original, perhaps, was in Boëtius de Consol. Philosoph. "In omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem et non esse." 1. 2. pr. 4. Boëtius, and Cicero de Amicitiâ, were the two first books that engaged the attention of Dante, as he himself tells us in the Convito, p. 68.

2 Lancelot.] One of the Knights of the Round Table, and the lover of Ginevra, or Guinever, celebrated in romance. The incident alluded to seems to have made a strong impression on the imagination of Dante, who introduces it again, in the Paradise, Canto xvi.

3 At one point.]

Questo quel punto fù, che sol mi vinse.

Tasso, Il Torrismondo, a. i. s. 3.