The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri

5^ HELL. Cahto XIY. Its bottom and the banks on either side With some slight margin had been changed to stone, Prom which I knew our path must there be tried. *' 'Midst all the things that I to you have shown Since we have entered through that hateful gate. Whose threshold has been ever locked to none. Nothing yet witnessed by your eyes has weight Against this present river notable. O'er which the endless flames their heat abate.'* ^ Such were the words that from my master fell ; On which I prayed him to complete the feast For which his speech had made me hunger well. " Far in mid ocean lies a desert waste," He told me then, '^ of which the name is Crete, Beneath whose king the world of old was chaste. There is a mountain which of old was sweet With water and with leafage, Ida hight. Now 'tis deserted like a worn-out seat. As a safe cradle Bhea chose the site ^^ For her young son, and to conceal his cries She filled the place with sounds of mad delight. Within the mount an old man's form does rise Whose back is turned towards Damiata old, And like a glass on Bome he keeps his eyes. His head is fashioned all of finest gold, Of purest silver are the arms and breast. Of copper to the fork descends the mould ; Thence down of choicest iron is the rest. Except the right foot, formed of potter's clay, And standing most on that his weight is prest. f]ach part except the gold is cracked away With a deep fissure from the which <Lrop tears, At first collected, then they form a bay. Line 95. Crete, the kingdom of Satnm, who ruled in the Golden Age of Earth. Line 100. Ehea, the wife of Satnm, waa obliged to conceal her children, Jupiter, Juno, &c., in Mount Ida, to save them &om her husband, who had the unfortunate habit of devouring his offspring. Line 103. The old man is Time, and the whole allegory is thus explained : The statue is placed in Crete, because there Time began with the Golden Am of Saturn's rule. Its back is turned to the east, and it gazes towards ue west (Damiata and Rome), symbolical of the Fftst and Future. The different metals of the statue, the same as those described in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, represent the different ages of the world, tiie foot of potter's day being the present. Every portion except the head of gold — i.e., all time except the Golden Age — is rent with vice, from which fissure descend the tears that fonu all the rivers in Hell.

Cavto XT. HELL. 66 Its course into this valley then it sheers, ^^' Acheron, Stjx, and Fhlegethon they make ; Then downwards bj this narrow pipe it steers Even to the bottom, where it forms a lake, Cocjtus, and as that you soon will see Of its appearance here I nothing speak." ^ And I to him : *^ If this same streamlet be Derived in truth from our own world on high, Why on this margin is't first seen by me P" And he : ^* This place is round you do descry. And though you have in truth a long way come, '^ Descending ever leftwards as we hie, You have not yet encircled all the dome. Wherefore should anything its newness claim The marvel need not in your face find home." And I again : " O master, where these streams, ^^ Lethe and Phlegethon, you spokest of one Thus formed, but you the other did not name P" " Certes your questions please me well, my son," He answered, " but the boiling crimson wave Should well have solved one doubt that you have shown. ^^ Lethe you'lt see, but not within this grave. There when repentance does the sin remove The spirits go, their memories to lave." Then said he, " Now 'tis time from out this grove- To issue ; follow on my steps intent. ^*^ The unbumt margins make a way to move, And over them is every vapour spent J' Line 124^ &c. Dante having expressed surprise that they had not before met with this nver in their descent through the circles of Hell, Virgil explains that in their conrse, though they have by ever keeping to the left traversed a great portion of the oirde, there is part yet to be gone over, through which the river might have descended so far as yet nnseen by Dante. Line 134. The boiling crimson wave before them is the river Fhlegethon, about which Dante has inquired. Lethe is not in Hell, but on iiie other side of Purgatory, and therein the purified spixits wash away all memory of sin< and sorrow. CANTO XV. Following the petrified margins of the stream through the cirde, they meet a troop of tormented spirits who have committed violence against Nature. Amongst those Dante recogpiises his old preceptor, Ser Brunette, who accompanies him for some distance, and predicts his coming exile. We travel now along the margins hard, And the stream's vapours o'er it raise a shade The water and the banks from fire to guard.

66 HELL. CMjno XV. Such betwixt Ghent and Bruges the Flemings made. Fearing the flood-tides which above them beat, ^ Their dykes, to save them, when the seas invade. And such the Paduans, on the Brenta's seat, From floods to save their towns and castles, rear, When Chiarentana feels the summer heat. In such a fashion were the dykes made here, '® Save that they were not quite so high and broad, Whoever may have been the engineer. Already we had travelled from the wood So &r that I its place had not descried. Though to behold it I had turned and stood, ^ When there a band of spirits towards us hied, Who came 'longside the bank, and each one nigh Begarded us, as in the eventide At new moon one his fellow must espy. Even so towards us their eyes they sharply peer, '^ Like an old tailor in his needle's eye. Thus stared at by that family of fear, One recognised me, who my garment caught By the border, and cried out, " What marvel's here!'* And I, when he towards me his hand had raught, ^ Upon his Hell-burnt face so fixed my eyes That even those scorched-up features to my thought Brought back a memory I could recognise. And bending down my hand towards his face : " What, Ser Brunetto ?" answered in surprise. ** And he : '* O son of mine, grant it your grace If old Brunetto tums back with you. And lets his troop move on some little space." I said to him, '' That, all I can, I pray. And if you will that I with you should rest ^ I'll do it, if my friend and guide agree." ** son," he said, " if one of us should rest A moment, we a hundred years must bide Powerless one scathing fire-flake to arrest. Line 9. ** When Chiarentana feels the summer heat." That portion of the Alps where the Brenta rises, and which rises into floods when the ■mnmer melts the snow on the mountains. Line 30. " ' What, Ser Brunetto P' answered in{ surprise." Brunetto Latini was the instructor of Dante in his youth, and although he places him in HeU for a crime evidently not uncommon in the Middle Ages, he treats him with marked respect. Brunetto was a most learned man, and the author of a poem called the " Tesoretto," and a philosophical treatise in French called the " Tr^sor." This work he recommends to Dante's care as his last wish on parting with him, with an author's natural predilection for the childxeiD of nis brain.