In the year's early nonage1, when the sun
Tempers his tresses in Aquarius' urn,

And now towards equal day the nights recede;
Whenas the rime upon the earth puts on
Her dazzling sister's image2, but not long
Her milder sway endures; then riseth up
The village hind, whom fails his wintry store3,
And looking out beholds the plain around
All whiten'd; whence impatiently he smites
His thighs, and to his hut returning in,
There paces to and fro, wailing his lot,
As a discomfited and helpless man ;

Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope
Spring in his bosom, finding e'en thus soon

The world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook,
And forth to pasture drives his little flock:
So me my guide dishearten'd, when I saw
His troubled forehead; and so speedily
That ill was cured; for at the fallen bridge
Arriving, towards me with a look as sweet,
He turn'd him back, as that I first beheld
At the steep mountain's foot. Regarding well
The ruin, and some counsel first maintain'd
With his own thought, he open'd wide his arm
And took me up.
As one, who, while he works,
Computes his labour's issue, that he seems
Still to foresee the effect; so lifting me
Up to the summit of one peak, he fix'd
His eye upon another. "Grapple that,"
Said he, "but first make proof, if it be such
As will sustain thee." For one capt with lead
This were no journey. Scarcely he, though light,
And I, though onward push'd from crag to crag,

1 In the year's early nonage.] "At the latter part of January, when the sun enters into Aquarius, and the equinox is drawing near, when the hoar-frosts in the morning often wear the appearance of snow, melted by the rising sun.'

but are

* Her dazzling sister's image.] λιγνὺν μέλαιναν, ἀιόλην πυρὸς κάσιν. Eschyl. Septem Contra Thebas, v. 490. Blomfield's edit.

κάσις

πnλou Evvovoos, difía Kóvis. Eschyl. Agamemnon, v. 478. Blomfield. 3 Whom fails his wintry store.] A cui la roba manca. So in the Purgatorio, c. xiii. 61. Così gli ciechi a cui la roba manca.

Could mount.

And if the precinct of this coast

Were not less ample than the last, for him

I know not, but my strength had surely fail'd.
But Malebolge all toward the mouth

Inclining of the nethermost abyss,

The site of every valley hence requires,

That one side upward slope, the other fall.

At length the point from whence the utmost stone
Juts down, we reach'd; soon as to that arrived,
So was the breath exhausted from my lungs

I could no further, but did seat me there.

"Now needs thy best of man ;" so spake my guide:
"For not on downy plumes 2, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, fame is won ;

Without which whosoe'er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth,
As smoke in air or foam upon the wave.
Thou therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness3
By the mind's effort, in each struggle form'd
To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight
Of her corporeal frame to crush her down.
A longer ladder yet remains to scale.
From these to have escaped sufficeth not,
If well thou note me, profit by my words."

I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent
Than I in truth did feel me. 66
On," I cried,

"For I am stout and fearless." Up the rock

1 From whence.] Mr. Carlyle notes the mistake in my former translation; and I have corrected it accordingly.

2 Not on downy plumes.]

Lettor, tu dei pensar che, senza ardire,

Senza affanno soffrir, l'uomo non puote

Fama acquistar, ne gran cose fornire.

Nessun mai per fuggir, o per riposo,

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, lib. iv. cap. iv.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. ii.

Venne in altezza fama ovver in gloria.

Signor, non sotto l'ombra in piaggia molle

Tra fonti e fior, tra Ninfe e tra Sirene,

Ma in cima all' erto e faticoso colle

Della virtù riposto è il nostro bene. Tasso, G. L. c. xvii. st. 61.

3 Vanquish thy weariness.]

Quin corpus onustum

Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat unâ,

Atque affigit humi divinæ particulam auræ. Hor. Sat. ii. lib. ii. 78.

Our way we held, more rugged than before,
Narrower, and steeper far to climb. From talk
I ceased not, as we journey'd, so to seem

Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss
Did issue forth, for utterance suited ill.

Though on the arch that crosses there I stood,
What were the words I knew not, but who spake
Seem'd moved in anger. Down I stoop'd to look ;
But my quick eye might reach not to the depth
For shrouding darkness; wherefore thus I spake :
"To the next circle, teacher, bend thy steps,
And from the wall dismount we; for as hence
I hear and understand not, so I see

Beneath, and nought discern."- I answer not,"
Said he, “but by the deed.
To fair request

Silent performance maketh best return.'

We from the bridge's head descended, where
To the eighth mound it joins; and then, the chasm
Opening to view, I saw a crowd within

Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape

And hideous, that remembrance in my
Yet shrinks the vital current.

veins

Of her sands 2

Let Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus,
Pareas and Chelyder be her brood,

Cenchris and Amphisbæna, plagues so dire
Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she show'd,
Not with all Ethiopia, and whate'er
Above the Erythræan sea is spawn'd.

Amid this dread exuberance of woe

Ran naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear,
Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope3 to charm them out of view.

1 Serpents.] Vidi locum horridum tenebrosum fœtoribus exhalantibus flammis crepitantibus serpentibus, draconibus repletum. Alberici

Visio, § 12. 2 Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars. lib. ix. 703. 3 Heliotrope.] Viridi colore est (gemma heliotropion) non ita acuto sed nubilo magis et represso, stellis puniceis superspersa. Causa nominis de effectu lapidis est et potestate. Dejecta in labris æneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu, utraque aqua splendorem aëris abjicit et avertit. Etiam illud posse dicitur, ut herba ejusdem nominis mixta et præcantationibus legitimis consecrata, eum, a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahat visibus obviorum. Solinus, c. xl. "A stone," says Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino, "which we lapidaries call heliotrope, of such extraordi

With serpents were their hands behind them bound,
Which through their reins infix'd the tail and head,
Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one

Near to our side, darted an adder up,

And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,
Transpierced him. Far more quickly than e'er pen
Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and changed
To ashes all, pour'd out upon the earth.
When there dissolved he lay, the dust again
Uproll'd spontaneous, and the self-same form
Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell,

The Arabian Phoenix', when five hundred years
Have well nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith
Renascent blade nor herb throughout his life
He tastes, but tears of frankincense 2 alone
And odorous amomum: swaths of nard

And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,
He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd
To earth, or through obstruction fettering up
In chains invisible the powers

of man,

nary virtue, that the bearer of it is effectually concealed from the sight of all present." Decam. G. viii. N. 3. In Chiabrera's Ruggiero, Scaltrimento begs of Sofia, who is sending him on a perilous errand, to lend him the heliotrope.

-In mia man fida

L'elitropia, per cui possa involarmi
Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui.

Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which

I may at will from others' eyes conceal me.

c. vi.

Compare Ariosto, Il Negromante, a. 3. s. 3. Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv. and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17. Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii. enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun :—

Jaspis and helitropius.

1 The Arabian Phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. lib. xv. :Una est quæ reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales;

Assyrii Phonica vocant. Nec fruge neque herbis,

Sed thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.

Hæc ubi quinque suæ complevit secula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis, tremulæve cacumine palmæ,
Unguibus et pando nidum sibi construit ore.
Qua simul ut casias, et nardi lenis aristas,
Quassaque cum fulvâ substravit cinnama myrrha,
Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.

See also Petrarch, Canzone:-Qual piu, &c.

Tears of frankincense.] Incenso e mirra è quello onde si pasce.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, in a gorgeous description of the Phoenix, lib. ii. cap. v.

Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around',
Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony
He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs;
So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.

Oh! how severe God's judgment, that deals out
Such blows in stormy vengeance.
Who he was,

My teacher next inquired; and thus in few
He answer'd: "Vanni Fucci2 am I call'd,
Not long since rained down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleased, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoia found my worthy den."

I then to Virgil:."Bid him stir not hence;
And ask what crime did thrust him hither: once
A man I knew him, choleric and bloody."

The sinner heard and feign'd not, but towards me
His mind directing and his face, wherein
Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake:
"It grieves me more to have been caught by thee
In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than
When I was taken from the other life.

I have no power permitted to deny
What thou inquirest. I am doom'd thus low
To dwell, for that the sacristy by me
Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,

And with the guilt another falsely charged.
But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,
So as thou e'er shalt 'scape this darksome realm,
Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.
Reft of the Neri first Pistoia 3 pines;

Then Florence changeth citizens and laws;

1 Gazeth around.] Su mi levai senza far più parole,

Cogli occhi intorno stupido mirando,
Si come l'Epilentico far suole.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. iii 2 Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege; in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death.

Pistoia.] "In May 1301, the Bianchi party of Pistoia, with the assistance and favour of the Bianchi, who ruled Florence, drove out the party of the Neri from the former place, destroying their houses, palaces, and farms." Giov. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. xliv. Then Florence.] "Soon after the Bianchi will be expelled from Florence, the Neri will prevail, and the