If there were other with me; but perceiving

That fond imagination quench'd, with tears

Thus spake: "If thou through this blind prison go'st,
Led by thy lofty genius and profound,

Where is my son1? and wherefore not with thee?"
I straight replied: "Not of myself I come;
By him, who there expects me, through this clime
Conducted, whom perchance Guido thy son
Had in contempt 2." Already had his words.

1 My son.] Guido, the son of Cavalcante Cavalcanti; "he whom I call the first of my friends," says Dante in his Vita Nuova, where the commencement of their friendship is related. From the character given of him by contemporary writers, his temper was well formed to assimilate with that of our Poet. "He was," according to G. Villani, lib. viii. c. xli. "of a philosophical and elegant mind, if he had not been too delicate and fastidious." And Dino Compagni terms him "a young and noble knight, brave and courteous, but of a lofty, scornful spirit, much addicted to solitude and study." Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. t. 9. lib. i. p. 481. He died, either in exile at Serrazana, or soon after his return to Florence, December 1300, during the spring of which year the action of this poem is supposed to be passing.

2

-Guido thy son

Had in contempt.] Guido Cavalcanti, being more given to philosophy than poetry, was perhaps no great admirer of Virgil. Some poetical compositions by Guido are, however, still extant; and his reputation for skill in the art was such as to eclipse that of his predecessor and namesake Guido Guinicelli; as we shall see in the Purgatory, Canto xi. in the notes to which the reader will find specimens of the poems that have been left by each of these writers. His " Canzone sopra il Terreno Amore" was thought worthy of being illustrated by numerous and ample commentaries. Crescimbeni, Ist. della Volg. Poes. lib. v. Our author addressed him in a playful sonnet, of which the following spirited translation is found in the notes to Hayley's Essay on Epic Poetry. Ep. iii.:

Henry! I wish that you, and Charles, and I,

By some sweet spell within a bark were placed,
A gallant bark with magic virtue graced,
Swift at our will with every wind to fly;

So that no changes of the shifting sky,

No stormy terrors of the watery waste,

Might bar our course, but heighten still our taste

Of sprightly joy, and of our social tie:

Then that my Lucy, Lucy fair and free,

With those soft nymphs, on whom your souls are bent,

The kind magician might to us convey,

To talk of love throughout the live-long day;
And that each fair might be as well content,

As I in truth believe our hearts would be.

The two friends, here called Henry and Charles, are, in the original, Guido and Lapo, concerning the latter of whom see the Life of Dante prefixed: and Lucy is Monna Bice. A more literal version of the sonnet may be found in the "Canzoniere of Dante, translated by Charles Lyell, Esq." 8vo. Lond. 1835. p. 407.

And mode of punishment read me his name,
Whence I so fully answer'd. He at once

Exclaim'd, up starting, "How! said'st thou, he had1?
No longer lives he? Strikes not on his eye

The blessed daylight?" Then, of some delay

I made ere my reply, aware, down fell

Supine, nor after forth appear'd he more.

Meanwhile the other, great of soul, near whom
I yet was station'd, changed not countenance stern,
Nor moved the neck, nor bent his ribbed side.
"And if," continuing the first discourse,

66 They in this art," he cried, "small skill have shown;
That doth torment me more e'en than this bed.
But not yet fifty times 2 shall be relumed

Her aspect, who reigns here queen of this realm3,
Ere thou shalt know the full weight of that art.
So to the pleasant world mayst thou return*,
As thou shalt tell me why, in all their laws,
Against my kin this people is so fell."

"The slaughter5 and great havoc," I replied,

1 Said'st thou, he had?] In Eschylus, the shade of Darius is represented as inquiring with similar anxiety after the fate of his son Xerxes. Atossa. Μονάδα δὲ Ξέρξην ἔρημόν φασιν οὐ πολλῶν μέτα Darius. Πῶς δε δὴ καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾷν; ἔστι τις σωτηρία ;

ПIEPZAI. 741. Blomfield's Edit.

Atossa. Xerxes astonish'd, desolate, alone-
Ghost of Dar. How will this end? Nay, pause not. Is he safe?
The Persians. Potter's Translation.

2 Not yet fifty times.] "Not fifty months shall be passed, before thou shalt learn, by woeful experience, the difficulty of returning from banishment to thy native city.' 3 Queen of this realm.] The moon, one of whose titles in heathen mythology, was Proserpine, queen of the shades below. + So to the pleasant world mayst thou return.]

E se tu mai nel dolce mondo reggi.

Lombardi would construe this: "And if thou ever remain in the pleasant world." His chief reasons for thus departing from the common interpretation, are, first that "se" in the sense of "so" cannot be followed by "mai," any more than in Latin "sic" can be followed by "unquam;" and next, that "reggi" is too unlike "riedi" to be put for it. A more intimate acquaintance with the early Florentine writers would have taught him that "mai" is used in other senses than those which "unquam

appears to have had, particularly in that of "pur," "yet;" as may be seen in the notes to the Decameron, p. 43. Ed. Giunti, 1573; and that the old writers both of prose and verse changed "riedo" into "reggio," as of "fiedo" they made "feggio.' Inf. c. xv. v. 39. and c. xvii. v. 75. See page 98 of the same

notes to the Decameron, where a poet before Dante's time is said to have translated "Redeunt flores,' Reggiono i fiori," 5 The slaughter.] "By means of Farinata degli Uberti, the Guelfi were conquered by the army of

"That colour'd Arbia's flood with crimson stain-
To these impute, that in our hallow'd dome
Such orisons ascend." Sighing he shook
The head, then thus resumed: "In that affray
I stood not singly, nor, without just cause,
Assuredly, should with the rest have stirr'd;
But singly there I stood2, when, by consent
Of all, Florence had to the ground been razed,
The one who openly forbade the deed."

99

"So may thy lineage3 find at last repose,'
I thus adjured him, "as thou solve this knot,
Which now involves my mind. If right I hear,
Ye seem to view beforehand that which time
Leads with him, of the present uninform'd."

"We view1, as one who hath an evil sight,”

king Manfredi, near the river Arbia, with so great a slaughter, that those who escaped from that defeat took refuge, not in Florence, which city they considered as lost to them, but in Lucca." Macchiavelli, Hist. of Flor. b. ii. and G. Villani, lib. vi. c. lxxx. and lxxxi. 1 Such orisons.] This appears to allude to certain prayers which were offered up in the churches of Florence, for deliverance from the hostile attempts of the Uberti: or, it may be, that the public councils being held in churches, the speeches delivered in them against the Uberti are termed "orisons," or prayers. 2 Singly there I stood.] Guido Novello assembled a council of the Ghibellini at Empoli; where it was agreed by all, that, in order to maintain the ascendancy of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, it was necessary to destroy Florence, which could serve only (the people of that city being Guelfi) to enable the party attached to the church to recover its strength. This cruel sentence, passed upon so noble a city, met with no opposition from any of its citizens or friends, except Farinata degli Uberti, who openly and without reserve forbade the measure; affirming, that he had endured so many hardships, and encountered so many dangers, with no other view than that of being able to pass his days in his own country. Macchiavelli, Hist. of Flor. b. ii.

3 So may thy lineage.] Deh se riposi mai vostra semenza.

Here Lombardi is again mistaken, as at v. 80, above. Let me take this occasion to apprise the reader of Italian poetry, that one not well versed in it is very apt to misapprehend the word "se," as I think Cowper has done in translating Milton's Italian verses. A good instance of the different meanings, in which it is used, is afforded in the following lines by Bernardo Capello: E tu, che dolcemente i fiori e l' erba Con lieve corso mormorando bagni, Tranquillo fiume di vaghezza pieno; Se'l cielo al mar sì chiaro t' accompagni ; Se punto di pietade in te si serba:

Le mie lagrime accogli entro al tuo seno.

Here the first "se" signifies "so," and the second "if."

+ We view.] "The departed spirits know things past and to come; yet are ignorant of things present. Agamemnon foretels what should happen unto Ulysses, yet ignorantly inquires what is become of his own son." Brown on Urne Burial. Ch. iv.

He answer'd, "plainly, objects far remote;
So much of his large splendour yet imparts
The Almighty Ruler: but when they approach,
Or actually exist, our intellect

Then wholly fails; nor of your human state,
Except what others bring us, know we aught.
Hence therefore mayst thou understand, that all
Our knowledge in that instant shall expire,
When on futurity the portals close."

Then conscious of my fault', and by remorse
Smitten, I added thus: "Now shalt thou say
To him there fallen, that his offspring still
Is to the living join'd; and bid him know,
That if from answer, silent, I abstain'd,
'Twas that my thought was occupied, intent
Upon that error, which thy help hath solved."

But now my master summoning me back
I heard, and with more eager haste besought
The spirit to inform me, who with him
Partook his lot. He answer thus return'd:
"More than a thousand with me here are laid.
Within is Frederick2, second of that name,
And the Lord Cardinal3; and of the rest

I speak not." He, this said, from sight withdrew.
But I my steps toward the ancient bard
Reverting, ruminated on the words
Betokening me such ill.

Onward he moved,

1 My fault.] Dante felt remorse for not having returned an immediate answer to the inquiry of Cavalcante, from which delay he was led to believe that his son Guido was no longer living. 2 Frederick.] The Emperor Frederick the Second, who died in 1250. See notes to Canto xiii. 3 The Lord Cardinal.] Ottaviano Ubaldini, a Florentine, made cardinal in 1245, and deceased about 1273. On account of his great influence, he was generally known by the appellation of "the Cardinal." It is reported of him, that he declared, if there were any such thing as a human soul, he had lost his for the Ghibellini. "I know not," says Tiraboschi, "whether it is on sufficient grounds that Crescimbeni numbers among the poets of this age the Cardinal Uttaviano, or Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a Florentine, archdeacon and procurator of the church of Bologna, afterwards made Cardinal by Innocent IV. in 1245, and employed in the most important public affairs, wherein, however, he showed himself, more than became his character, a favourer of the Ghibellines. He died, not in the year 1272, as Ciaconio and other writers have reported, but at soonest after the July of 1273, at which time he was in Mugello with Pope Gregory X." Tiraboschi Della Poes. It. Mr. Mathias's Edit. t. i. p. 140.

The road

Back to their bodies. No long space my flesh
Was naked of me1, when within these walls
She made me enter, to draw forth a spirit
From out of Judas' circle. Lowest place
Is that of all, obscurest, and removed
Furthest from heaven's all-circling orb.
Full well I know: thou therefore rest secure.
That lake, the noisome stench exhaling, round
The city of grief encompasses, which now
We may not enter without rage." Yet more
He added: but I hold it not in mind,
For that mine eye toward the lofty tower
Had drawn me wholly, to its burning top;
Where, in an instant, I beheld uprisen

At once three hellish furies stain'd with blood:
In limb and motion feminine they seem'd ;
Around them greenest hydras twisting roll'd
Their volumes; adders and cerastes2 crept
Instead of hair, and their fierce temples bound.
He, knowing well the miserable hags
Who tend the queen of endless woe, thus spake :
"Mark thou each dire Erynnis. To the left,
This is Megæra; on the right hand, she
Who wails, Alecto; and Tisiphone

I' th' midst." This said, in silence he remain❜d.

sal. 1. vi. was employed by Sextus, son of Pompey the Great, to conjure up a spirit, who should inform him of the issue of the civil wars between his father and Cæsar.

1

No long space my flesh

Was naked of me.]

Quæ corpus complexa animæ tam fortis inane. Ovid. Met. 1. xiii. fab. 2. Dante appears to have fallen into an anachronism. Virgil's death did not happen till long after this period. But Lombardi shows, in opposition to the other commentators, that the anachronism is only apparent. Erictho might well have survived the battle of Pharsalia long enough to be employed in her magical practices at the time of Virgil's decease.

2 Adders and cerastes.]

Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis. Virg. Æn. 1. vi. 281.
spinâque vagi torquente cerastæ

Lucan. Pharsal. 1. ix. 719.

P. L. b. x. 524.

So Milton: Scorpion and asp, and amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, hydrus and elops drear,
And dipsas.-