Locusts and honey were the food whereon

The Baptist in the lonely desert fed;

And hence the greatness, and the fame he won, As in the Gospel history may be read."

CANTO XXIII

ARGUMENT.

151

Among a number of pale emaciated spirits doing penance for gluttony, Dante recognises his friend Forese; who informs him that their pain consists in a keen desire to partake of the fruit cf the tree. He takes occasion to inveigh against the immodesty of the Florentine women. WHILE through the foliage green, with stedfast gaze

I looked intent, like one who in the vain Pursuit of little birds consumes his days, "Come now," to me my more than father cried; "The time allotted us, my son, I fain

Would wish to some more useful task applied." I turned my looks and steps with equal speed Unto those Sages; charmed by whose discourse Of that laborious road I took no heed. And lo, a song, in plaintive tone, was heard― "My lips, O Lord"-whose soul subduing force Both sorrow and delight at once conferred. "O my loved sire, what voices these ?" said I. "Spirits are hastening yonder," answered he, "Perchance their knot of duty to untie." As pilgrims, eager to pursue their way,

O'ertaking strangers, turn their looks to see; Yet, as they gaze, speed on without delay; Thus, from behind us, urged by greater haste,

A band of spirits came, and with fixed stare, Devout and silent, kenned us as they passed. Hollow the eye of each, and dark-their look Pallid-and all their features were so spare, That from the bones, the skin its figure took. Thessalian Erisichthon was, I ween,

Less dried and withered in the form he wore,

Through long continued hunger, when most lean.

1

13

19

25

25

11. "O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise."-Psalm li. 15. 25. Erisichthon of Thessaly cut down a grove sacred to Ceres, and was afflicted by the goddess with insatiable hunger

"Behold," immersed in inward thought, I said,
"The race who lost Jerusalem of yore,
When Mary on her infant offspring fed."
The sockets seemed like rings without the gems:
Who readeth "omo on man's visage, he
Had there full plainly recognised the m's.
Who could believe, unless instructed first,
How water and an apple's scent could be
So potent in producing want and thirst?
Now was I wondering at their being so thin;
For not as yet could I discover why
So meagre and so shrivelled was their skin,
When from the deep recesses of the head
A spirit turning fixed on me his eye;
Then, "O what grace is this!" aloud he said.
His countenance had not his name revealed;
But in his voice I could not fail to trace
That which his withered features had concealed.
This spark it was that lighted up amain
My recollection of his altered face,
And brought Forese to my mind again.
"The scaly blotches that deface my skin-
Oh! look not on them, nor,” such was his
"Regard the wretched plight that I am in.
But let me know the truth concerning thee;
And who are those two spirits with thee there-
Make no delay in telling all to me."

prayer,

I answered him: "Erewhile I wept thee dead;
But now with no less grief am I distressed
To see thy visage so disfigured.

Then, prithee, say, what doth thy features mar:
Bid me not speak while wonder fills my breast;
He ill can speak whose thoughts are wandering far."

31

37

43

49

55

30. The Hebrew lady-who suffering the pangs of starvation during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, fed on her own son-thus fulfilling the prophecy of Moses, Deut. xxviii. 56. See Eusebius, b. iii. 116. 32. The word 'omo' (i. e. uomo, or man,) is supposed to be represented in the face -the two eyes forming the O's, and the eyebrow and nose the M, more distinctly marked in these emaciated countenances. 35. The tree and the stream mentioned in the last canto, lines 131, 137, and again in the present, line 62, &c. 18. Forese was a great friend of Dante,

and the brother of Corso Donati.

:

Then he to me: "By ordinance divine
Into the plant and water left behind
A virtue is instilled; and hence I pine.
All these who wail in mournful songs,

that erst

To excess in food their appetites inclined,
Regain their purity by want and thirst.
Desire to eat and drink is rendered keen

By the rich odour of the fruit and spray,
Which shed their fragrance o'er the foliage green.
Nor once alone is this sad circuit made,

61

67

To renovate our pain-pain do I say,
When 'solace' is the word I should have said?

For that same will conducts us to the tree,
Which led Christ joyful 'Eli' to exclaim,

73

When with his precious blood he set us free."
And I to him: "Forese, from that day
When to the better life thy spirit came,
Not yet five little years have passed away.-
of sinning ceased in thee, before
power
Arrived the season of that wholesome woe,
Which unto God espouses us once more,
How was it that so high thy spirit soared?
Thee had I thought to find far down below,

If

Where time mispent, by time must be restored."

"It was my Nella, who so soon," he said,

"Led me to drink of suffering's wormwood sweet,
By her fond tears for me profusely shed.

She, through her prayers devout and sighs unfeigned,
Released me from the coast that stays our feet,

my

And from the other rounds freedom gained.
So much more dear in sight of heaven is she-
My widowed wife, by me beloved so well,
As she is single in her piety:

79

85

91

74. "Eli, Eli, lama

72. i. e. Pleasure in satisfying divine justice. sabachthani." As Christ joyfully underwent death to save mankind, so these souls voluntarily returned to the tree, and underwent the pain of thirst for the purpose of obtaining purification. 81. In his Convito, Dante says that "the loyal soul in the fourth period of life re-espouses herself to God, contemplating the end which it anticipates." Canzone, Trat. iv. 84. In the outskirts of Purgatory. 85. Forese's young and virtuous widow.-Through her intorcession for the soul of her husband the period was shortened of admission into Purgatory

For that Barbagia is of chaster life,

Where all Sardinia's wandering outcasts dwell,
Than that Barbagia where I left my wife.

What, O dear brother, wouldst thou have me say? 97
A future time already I behold,

Nor ancient then shall be the present dayWhen from the pulpit it shall be declared

In Florence, that no more her ladies bold Shall walk in public with their bosoms bared. What barbarous or what Moorish women e'er

Required or church or other discipline,

To make them in the streets some covering wear? But if the unblushing ones could haply know,

103

109

What heaven's swift vengeance doth for them design,
Full many a mouth to howl would not be slow:
For if my foresight doth not lead me wrong,
Grief shall be their's, ere bearded is his face
Who now is lulled to sleep with nurse's song.
Brother, no more conceal thyself I pray :
Behold, not I alone, but all this race
With wonder gaze on the divided ray."

I answered him: "If what thou wert with me,
Thou call to mind, and what with thee was I,
Still bitter will the recollection be.

That life I left, at his persuasive prayer

Who guides my steps, not many days gone by,
When (to the Sun I point) his sister fair

121

Full orbed displayed herself; know this is he,
Who from the truly dead, through night profound,
Hath in my real flesh conducted me.

Proceeding on by his encouragement,

I climbed the mountain, and about it wound,—

That mount which straighteneth what the world hath

And he hath vowed his succour still to deign,

Till I arrive where Beatrice shall be ;
There, reft of him behoves it I remain.
Lo Virgil, who these words of comfort spake;"

[bent: 128

94. The mention of his wife's piety and worth leads Forese into a severe invective against the Florentine ladies of that day. Barbagia is a tract in Sardinia, to which Florence is compared for the immodesty of its

And him I pointed out :-" that other, he,
For whom but now you felt your kingdom shake
With joy, his happy exit hence to see."

CANTO XXIV.

ARGUMENT.

Conversation continued between Dante and Forese. In the presence of Statius, Porese confesses the superiority of his friend's poetry. Forese predicts the violent death of Corso Donati, Dante's political enemy. Another tree.-Voices issue from it, recording examples of gluttony. An Angel invites the three poets up to the seventh and last circle.

OUR progress checked not the discourse we held,

Nor checked discourse our progress ;-on we went,
Like to a ship by favouring gale impelled.

The shades, that seemed as things that twice had died,
Drew through their deep sunk eyes astonishment,
When of my breathing fully certified.

And I, continuing my discourse, thus spake :
"That spirit mounts perchance more tardily
Than else it would, for its companions' sake.
But say where dwells Piccarda, if thou know;
And tell, if any one of note I see

Among this crowd who gaze upon me so."
"My sister, good and beautiful-which most
I know not-triumphs in Olympus' height,
Bearing her crown amid the joyful host."
He spake; then added this: ""Tis lawful here
To call each one by name-so lost to sight
All trace of likeness, through our fast severe.—
This," pointing with his finger to a shade-
"Is Buonagiunta the Lucchese ;-that face
Beyond, through fasting most unsightly made,
Held in his arms erewhile the Church divine:

1

13

19

10. Piccarda Donati, sister of Forese and of Corso Donati, was a most beautiful maiden, who took the veil in the convent of St. Clara, and devoted herself to the service of God. Her brothers, however, who had promised her in marriage to a Florentine, forced her to marry him against her will. Her health immediately declined, and she shortly died. She is assigned a place in the Paradiso, (iii. 49.) 20. A poet of Lucca.The lean face beyond, Simon of Tours, afterwards Pope Martin IV—a great Epicure.