The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri

Canto IX. PURGATORY. 163 The shadow who erewhile to Nino drew When he was called by him, throughout the fight ^^ One moment from me had not turned his view. " So may the lamp which leads you to the height Find in your free will oil enough to wait Until you reachest to the Infinite," Thus he began : " If you will but relate ^^* All that you know*st of Valdimagra famed, And the surrounding parts where I was great. Currado^ Malaspina was I named : Not the elder, though from him descent I own ; The love I bore my people here is tamed." ^^ ** O," said I to him, " though I ne'er have gone Within your country, wheresoe'er one dwells Throughout all Europe, is it not well known ? The fame, which of your house the honour swells. Alike the nobles and the country cry, ^ That, though by him unwitnessed, each one tells. I swear tp you, so may I reach on high. Your honoured race has fallen not away In prise of arms and liberality. So are they privileged by habit's sway, ^^ That though the world may squint its evil head, Straight on they go, and spurn the evil way." And he : " Now go : the sun within that bed Will not be laid seven times on which the Earn With its four feet o'ercovering does tread, ^^ Ere this opinion which you do proclaim Will be close riveted within your head With better clamps than by this general fame. Unless the course of judgment can be stayed." Line 109. Currado Malaspina, father of the Matchese Marcello Malaspina, by whom Dante was liberally received in his exile, as is alluded to in Srophecy by Cnrrado at the close of the Canto. The marquisate of Vaiimagra is now called the Lunigiana, from the city of Lnni, at the mouth of the River Magra. Line 133. The sun will not revisit the constellation of Aries seven times — ^ that is, seven years will not pass.

CANTO IX. Dante dreams that he is tarried by an eagle to the sphere of fire. On waking he finds himself alone with Yirgil, who tells him that in his sleep he was borne up by Lucia to that spot, which is close to the gate of Purgatory. Beaching the portal, they are admitted by the Angel who stands in ward over it, as the vicar of Saint Peter.

164 PURGATORY. Cauto IX. The eternal mistress of Tithonus old, Already wliitened in the eastern height, Quitting the dear arms that around her fold. With jewels was her forehead shining bright, Arranged in shape of that cold-blooded beast * That with its poisonous tail does piercing smite. And of the footsteps with the which she paced, Night had made two already where we were, And with droopt wings the third now downwards past. When I, who Adam's body with me bear, ^® Conquered by slumber on the grass repose, Where five in number we were seated there. What time commences with sad fall and close The swallow's song, the hour before the mom. Perchance in memory of her early woes, ^^ And when this mind of ours is chiefly borne Out of the flesh, and least overcome by thought, Grows in its visions half divinely bom, Meseemed in a dream I saw upcaught, With golden plumes, an eagle in the sky, ^ Prepared to swoop adown, with wings outraught. Meseemed on that olden mount to lie Where Ganymede his comrades erst did quit. When he was carried to the conclave high. I thought perchance this bird of prey does smite ^ By habit here, and in aught other place Disdains to bear aloft his prey in flight. Meseemed then it wheeled with swifter pace, And terrible as lightning downwards came, And dragged me upwards to the blazing space. ^ Meseemed there we both were burnt in the flame. And so the imagined burning singed me keen. That sleep itself was broken by the dream. Achilles roused himself with such a mien, Gazing around with eyes just wakened, ^ And knowing not the place where he had been, What time his mother had from Chiron fled To Scyros, he asleep upon her arm. There, whence in after times the Greeks him led. Line 7* These footsteps are supposed to mean the four watches into which the night is divided, the third of which being just closed, it is three hours before sunrise. At this hour Dante places the first 'rising of the dawn, as described in the first terzina. Line 15. Alluding to the story of Progne in Ovid's " Metamorphoses," b. vi. Line 30. To the sphere of fire, supposed to be under the moon's concave.