The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri

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34 HELL. CaxtoIX. you, whose intellects are clear, divine The doctrine which is ever foond concealed Beneath the veiling of each strangest line. And now there came, o'er the dark waves revealed, The crashing of a sound replete with dread, ^ At which the shores on each side, trembling, reeled. Not otherwise than like a wind makes head. Impetuous, sweeping through the heated air, That smites a wood, and irresistibly sped. Strikes off, and bears awav the branches bare ; Onwards it goes in its dusty pride, Chasing the shepherds and the beasts from lair. My eyes he loosed, and said, " Now boldly guide Your eyesight upwards o'er yon hoary scum, There, where the vapour densest is descried." Like frogs who see their foe the adder come Into the water, straightway from it flee. And on the earth lie heaped, all cowering, dumb. More than a thousand lost souls did I see Thus fly in front of one who, walking there ** With foot unwetted crost o'er Styx's sea. From 'fore his countenance the thickened air, With his left hand, he ever waved away, That was the only pain he seemed to share. Well did I know a messenger of Day, And to my master turned, who made a sign That I should bow in silence to his sway. Ah, how he seemed replete with scorn divine ! He reached the gate, and smiting with his rod. Oped it in spite of every stay malign. " O chased from Heaven, race hateful to your God ! So o'er the horrible threshold he began, " Whence was there nursed this ultra-hardihood ? Why do you kick against the heavenly plan. Whose purposed end you never could abate. And which has oft increased your suffering's span ?

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Lines 61 to 63. Supposed to caU the reader's attention to the mystic meaning of the present Canto, and not of Virgil's present action alone.

Tluit hidden sense is explained by Landino to be, that mere carnal sins, such as those previously punished, can be restrained by Beason, which is figured in the person of Virgil ; but that the heinous cnmes which are to follow can only be guarded against by a special grace of God, represented by the AngeX, There is no doubt that Dante intended his whole Poem in an allegorical sense, and this is not the only place where he cautions the reader not to over his hidden meaning.

Cahto IX. HELL. 35 In what ayails it you to joust with Fate ? Your Cerberus, you may remember well, With maw and throat all peeled, still feels the weight.*' Then he turned back into that pathway fell, ^•^ And made no sign to us, but kept the guise Of one, o'er whom some other care holds spell Than his, who at the time before him lies. We moved our footsteps then towards the land. Safe in those holy words from all surprise. *®* Without more strife within the walls we stand, And I, whose first desire was to behold The state in which such fortress had been planned, Soon as I entered, round my eyesight rolled, And saw on each hand stretch a champaign large ^^® All full of grief and torment manifold. Just as at Aries, where stagnates Bhone's discharge, And as at Pola, near Camaro's waves. Which bounds Italy and bathes its marge. The place is wholly studded o'er with graves, ^^* So were they scattered here on every side. Save that their fashion greater horror craves : For 'twixt the tombstones flames were scattered wide. By which they were enkindled to such glow That iron forging never with it vied. ^^ The covering stones to all were open low. And from them issued forth laments so keen, 'Twas clear they came from wretched souls in woe. And I : '* O master, who may these have been. That buried underneath each curvM stone, ^ By sighs of anguish make their presence seen ?*' And he to me : " Here heretics make moan With their disciples of each sect, and more Than you would credit, do these chamels own. Lines 98 and 99. " Your Cerbems, you may remember well, With maw and tbroat all peeled, still feels the weight." Alluding to the story rdated by Ovid, of Hercules dragging Cerberus from Hell Dy an iron chain, on his attempted opposition to the hero. Line 112. Aries, a city in Provence, and once the seat of the Boman provincial Government : the extent of Boman rains in the place give to it the appearance of a oity of tombs, and its recollection was clearly vivid in Dante's mmd when he introduced it in this very striking simile, or rather illustration. Line 113. Fola, a city of Istria, on the Gtuph of Quarnaro. It is now in the possession of the Austrians, who have created there a iirst-class naval port. Line 127. " Here heretics make moan With their disciples of each sect." The acute and discriminating Father Yenturi is led^ by his Catholic prejudices into an amusing anaclu'cmsm in explaining this Une. Amongst the