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a lui, in Dante's usual manner. It is certainly a beauty, that a pupil, almost always so prompt in answering his revered Conductor, is now absorbed to such a degree by his own melancholy reflections, that he gives no answer whatever to his question; but, pursuing his own train of feelings, bursts out with the exclamation O lasso ec. Alas! etc.' and, after that, turns again to the pair of lovers. This remark, made to me by the chief Italian poet of this day, the Chevalier Monti, I thought so just, that in order to direct the reader's attention to it more forcibly (and particularly by reason of his having been perhaps already misled by other translations) I took the liberty of inserting a syllable and changed And, answering, I began into 'And I, in answer's lieu;' as it at present stands,

Dubbiosi desiri, 'dubious desires,' is the original; and the absolute signification of the tiercet is, how did you become conscious of your mutual desires (1)? for a couple so young and pure might have long continued in their situation without making the dangerous discovery; and previous to the making of it their desires must have been full of doubt, because they were not known to each other. But this naked meaning is veiled in an

(1) A perilous knowledge, says the old commentator, Buti; for were people conscious of each others wishes, all shame would be bau. ished from the earth. Bib. Ricc. M. S. Cod. 1006,

CANTO V.

exquisite poetry, of which there is really little or no vestige in M. Ginguené's version. 'In the season of sweet sighs' is the original, and it means in the spring of life: so that to interpolate your, as that Gentleman and Mr. Cary do, is to injure the image by obliterating its generalization. The Italian calls our attention to the tender years of the couple; but dans le temps de vos doux soupirs, as well as "in the time of your sweet sighs," are words applicable to lovers at any age. Concedette implies a reproach that is very touching; as if it were both strange and cruel in Love to permit two so dear to acquire the terrible knowledge of each other's secret wishes. For to a fanciful mind this epithet dubious applied to desires, is nearly akin with that of uncertain applied by Virgil to the moon; and both, besides their primary and obvious signification, suggest another, of treachery and peril. That these criticisms penetrate the spirit of my Author, I trust; whether my verses have succeeded in conveying it, is a very different thing; my confidence of the former nearly equals my diffidence of the latter.

X. — CXXII.

This imitates Virgil

Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem (1); but literally translates Boëtius in omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii

(1) Aeneid. Lib. 11. v. 3.

H

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fuisse felicem (1). This latter book, along with Tully,
was Dante's first solace after Beatrice's death, as
he tells us himself in the Convito. After I had
lost the early delight of my soul, I remained long
in a state of desolation that nothing could alleviate.
At last however my understanding, admitting the
possibility of a cure, engaged me to recur to those
topics of consolation, which had been found useful
to others in their woes; and so I applied myself
to the reading of the volume (not known to many)
which Boëtius composed to assuage the suffering
of his captivity and exile; and learning that Tully,
in his treatise on Friendship, wrote to condole with
good Lelius on the death of his friend, Scipio, I
began to read that also. And although I found it
rather difficult at first to enter entirely into the
spirit of those compositions, nevertheless, what
with the grammatical lore I had acquired, and
what with some little genius of my own, I became
imbued with their thought, and had, as it were in
a dream of the fancy, a succession of visions as
may be seen in the Vita Nuova (2). These last
expressions show, that those commentators who
describe the book of Boëtius as being first resorted
to by Dante for consolation in his exile, have made
a mistake: for he had been familiar with it, from
the period of the decease of 'the earliest delight
of his soul,' Beatrice, and before he had finished

(1) De Consol. Lib. 2. Cap. 4.

(2) Convito, p. 95.

CANTO V.

composing his Vita Nuova; that is, before the close of his twenty-sixth year, in 1291, or ten years previous to his exile (1). This tract of Boëtius, which was little noticed in Dante's age, is less so now: it has however been in great fashion at different times, and not unfrequently been even a royal manual; James 1, of Scotland, read it in the Tower of London; Alfred turned it into Saxon, and queen Elisabeth into English (2). The tiercet that immediately follows is an imitation of Virgil:

Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros,

Quanquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit, Incipiam (3).

and, notwithstanding what is borrowed from Boëtius, the title Dottore naturally refers to Virgil, for several reasons, but particulary because he was there present, so that Francesca pointed to him while she spoke.

They were reading Launcelot of the lake, (as I said before) a romance in which the hero finds himself with the fair Ginevra and kisses her. There was a confidant on the occasion; whose name, Galeotto, became so synonimous with that

(1) Hell, Comment, Canto 11. p. 114-133.

(2) Hume. Hist. Vol. 1. p. 130.- Boetii op. omnia, p. 902. fog. Basil. 1570.

(3) Aeneid. Lib. 11. v. 10.

CANTO Y.

of an abettor of illicit amours, that, the early editions of the Decameron were inscribed PRINCE GALEOTTO in the title-page, in order to warn the reader of their sensual tendency. This is the reason that Francesca calls both the Romance that misled them and its author, Galeotto; that is to say, impure and false: M. Ginguené does not preserve this idea of culpability, for he construes Galeotto messagers d'amour. Neither is he happy in rendering disiato riso; besides which, he does not give all trembling;' but what would have most merited M. Biagioli's severity is the converting of la bocca mi baciò into il colla sur mes levres sa bouche for surely nothing can be worse adapted to express the first fluttering kiss of timid love than the word coller. How wide is it from Boccaccio's observation: 'excellently doth our Author paint the mode of proceeding among such as love fervently; for these, whatever be the favours of fered them, can never without trembling cull them for the first time (1). Disiato riso seems taken from Catullus' desiderio meo nitenti words rendered by the scholiast my beautiful girl (2):' and perhaps the discolouring of their cheeks, scolorocci il viso, from Sapho, or the Latin of Longinus. If Dante truly had Longinus in his memory all trembling may have come from the same

(1) Comento, Vol. 1.

P. 321.

(2) . . . puellæ meæ formosa. Desiderium vocatur puella cujus desiderio amator flagrat. Carm. 2. ex recen. Doering.