Embracing, so much more of grief contains, For when before him comes the ill-fated soul, He dooms it to descend. Before him stand "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." By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell Whirl'd round and dash'd amain with sore annoy. 1 Grinning with ghastly feature.] Hence Milton: It drives them: hope of rest to solace them 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 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 When I had heard my sage instructor name "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 "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 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. The fire of love in gentle heart is caught, 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, 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, That kens Thy learn'd instructor. Yet so eagerly How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no But at one point3 When of that smile we read, Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni 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 By Marino: Troilus and Creseide, b. iii. Che non ha doglia il misero maggiore, 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. |