enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." 39. See Canto XIV. 147. 42. The next stairway leading from the second to the third circle. 51. The Litany of All Saints. 70. Belamy, Treatise on Falconry, p. 34, says :— "Before the invention of the hood, in order to blindfold the hawks, falconers had recourse to an operation termed sealing, or seeling, which was performed by passing a needle and thread through the upper and under eyelid, by means of which they were brought together and secured, the bird being thus, as occasion served, deprived of its sight.” 92. Latian for Italian. 109. A Sienese lady living in banishment at Colle, where from a tower she witnessed the battle between her townsmen and the Florentines. 66 Sapia hated the Sienese," says Benvenuto, "and placed herself at a window not far from the field of battle, waiting the issue with anxiety, and desiring the rout and ruin of her own people. Her desires being verified by the entire discomfiture of the Sienese, and the death of their captain," (Provenzan Salvani, see Canto XI. Note 121,) "exultant and almost beside herself, she lifted her bold face to heaven, and cried, 'Now, O God, do with me what thou wilt, do me all the harm thou canst; now my prayers are answered, and I die content.'" 110. Gower, Confes. Amant., II. : Whan I have sene another blithe Of love and hadde a goodly chere, Of thilke sore which prively Mine hertes thought withinne brenneth. 114. Convito, IV. 23: "Every effect, in so far as it is effect, receiveth the likeness of its cause, as far as it can retain it. Therefore, inasmuch as our life, as has been said, and likewise that of every living creature here below, is caused by the heavens, and the heavens reveal themselves to all these effects, not in complete circle, but in part thereof, so must its movement needs be above; and as an arch retains all lives nearly, (and, I say, retains those of men as well as of other living creatures,) ascending and curving, they must be in the similitude of an arch. Returning then to our life, of which it is now question, I say that it proceeds in the image of this arch, ascending and descending." 117. Namely, the defeat of the Sienese. 122. The warm days near the end of January are still called in Lombardy I giorni della merla, the days of the blackbird; from an old legend, that once in the sunny weather a blackbird sang, "I fear thee no more, O Lord, for the winter is over." 128. Peter Pettignano, or Pettinajo, was a holy hermit, who saw visions and wrought miracles at Siena. Forsyth, Italy, 149, describing the festival of the Assumption in that city in 1802, says: : "The Pope had reserved for this great festival the Beatification of Peter, a Sienese comb-maker, whom the Church had neglected to canonize till now. Poor Peter was honored with all the solemnity of music, high-mass, an officiating cardinal, a florid panegyric, pictured angels bearing his tools to heaven, and combing their own hair as they soared; but he received five hundred years ago a greater honor than all, a verse of praise from Dante." 138. Dante's besetting sin was not envy, but pride. 144. On the other side of the world. 153. The vanity of the Sienese is also spoken of, Inf. XXIX. 123. 152. Talamone is a seaport in the Maremma, 66 many times abandoned by its inhabitants," says the Ottimo, 66 on account of the malaria. The town is utterly in ruins; but as the harbor is deep, and would be of great utility if the place were inhabited, the Sienese have spent much money in repairing it many times, and bringing in inhabitants; it is of little use, for the malaria prevents the increase of population." Talamone is the ancient Telamon, where Marius landed on his return from Africa. 153. The Diana is a subterranean river, which the Sienese 66 were in search of for many years to supply the city with water. 'They never have been able to find it," says the Ottimo, "and yet they still hope." In Dante's time it was evidently looked upon as an idle dream. To the credit of the Sienese be it said, they persevered, and finally succeeded in obtaining the water so patiently sought for. The Pozzo Diana, or Diana's Well, is still to be seen at the Convent of the Carmen. 154. The admirals who go to Talamone to superintend the works will lose there more than their hope, namely, their lives. CANTO XIV. 1. The subject of the preceding canto is here continued. Compare the introductory lines with those of Canto V. 7. These two spirits prove to be Guido del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli. 17. A mountain in the Apennines, northeast of Florence, from which the Arno takes its rise. Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 246, thus describes this region of the Val d' Arno. "Farther on is another tower, the tower of Porciano, which is said to have been inhabited by Dante. From there I had still to climb the summits of the Falterona. I started towards midnight in order to arrive before sunrise. I said to myself, How many times the poet, whose footprints I am following, has wandered in these mountains! It was by these little alpine paths that he came and went, on his way to friends in Romagna or friends in Urbino, his heart agitated with a hope that was never to be fulfilled. I figured to myself Dante walking with a guide under the light of the stars, receiving all the impressions produced by wild and weather-beaten regions, steep roads, deep valleys, and the accidents of a long and difficult route, impressions which he would transfer to his poem. It is enough to have read this poem to be certain that its author has travelled much, has wandered much. Dante really walks with Virgil. He fatigues himself with climbing, he stops to take breath, he uses his hands when feet are insufficient. He gets lost, and asks the way. He observes the height of the sun and stars. In a word, one finds the habits and souvenirs of the traveller in every verse, or rather at every step of his poetic pilgrimage. "Dante has certainly climbed the top of the Falterona. It is upon this summit, from which all the Valley of the Arno is embraced, that one should read the singular imprecation which the poet has uttered against this whole valley. He follows the course of the river, and as he advances marks every place he comes to with fierce invective. The farther he goes, the more his hate redoubles in violence and bitterIt is a piece of topographical satire, of which I know no other example." ness. 32. The Apennines, whose long chain ends in Calabria, opposite Cape Peloro in Sicily. Æneid, III. 410, Davidson's Tr.: "But when, after setting out, the wind shall waft you to the Sicilian coast, and the straits of narrow Pelorus shall open wider to the eye, veer to the land on the left, and to the sea on the left, by a long circuit; fly the right both sea and shore. These lands, they say, once with violence and vast desolation convulsed, (such revolutions a long course of time is able to produce,) slipped asunder; when in continuity both lands were one, the sea rushed impetuously between, and by its waves tore the Italian side from that of Sicily; and with a narrow frith runs between the fields and cities separated by the shores. Scylla guards the right side, implacable Charybdis the left, and thrice with the deepest eddies of its gulf swallows up the vast billows, headlong in, and again spouts them out by turns high into the air, and lashes the stars with the waves." And Lucan, Phars., II. : And still we see on fair Sicilia's sands And Shelley, Ode to Liberty: O'er the lit waves every Eolian isle From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus. 40. When Dante wrote this invective against the inhabi tants of the Val d' Arno, he probably had in mind the following passage of Boethius, Cons. Phil., IV. Pros. 3, Ridpath's Tr.: "Hence it again follows, that everything which strays from what is good ceases to be; the wicked therefore must cease to be what they were; but that they were formerly men, their human shape, which still remains, testifies. By degenerating into wickedness, then, they must cease to be men. But as virtue alone can exalt a man above what is human, so it is on the contrary evident, that vice, as it divests him of his nature, must sink him below humanity; you ought therefore by no means to consider him as a man whom vice has rendered vicious. Tell me, What difference is there betwixt a wolf who lives by rapine, and a robber whom the desire of another's wealth stimulates to commit all manner of violence? Is there anything that bears a stronger resemblance to a wrathful dog who barks at passengers, than a man whose dangerous tongue attacks all the world? What is liker to a fox than a cheat, who spreads his snares in secret to undermine and ruin you? to a lion, than a furious man who is always ready to devour you? to a deer, than a coward who is afraid of his own shadow? to an ass, than a mortal who is slow, dull, and indolent? to the birds of the air, than a man volatile and inconstant ? and what, in fine, is a debauchee who is immersed in the lowest sensual gratifications, but a hog who wallows in the mire ? Upon the whole, it is an unquestionable truth that a man who forsakes virtue ceases to be a man ; and, as it is impossible that he can ascend in the scale of beings, he must of necessity degenerate and sink into a beast." 43. The people of Casentino. Forsyth, Italy, p. 126 : "On returning down to the Casentine, we could trace along the Arno the mischief which followed a late attempt to clear some Apennines of their woods. Most of the soil, which was then loosened from the roots and washed down by the torrents, lodged in this plain; and left immense beds of sand and large rolling stones on the very spot where Dante describes Li ruscelletti che de' verdi colli Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno, |