Parlar,' diss' io, 'Maestro, assai ten prego : Ed egli a me 'La tua preghiera è degna Ma fa' che la tua lingua si sostegna. Dove parve al mio Duca tempo e loco, S' io meritai di voi mentre ch' io vissi, Lo maggior corno della fiamma antica Come fosse la lingua che parlasse, 67. Facci faccia. Nego, 'denial': of waiting for the 'horned flame.' 72. Si sostegna, 'restrain itself.' 73. Concetto, guessed.' it may 74. Schivi, 'shy': of thy speech. From these lines and XXVII, 33, be inferred that Virgil thought himself less remote than Dante from the ancient Greeks, and more likely to influence them. 78. Audivi udii. = 80. Virgil assumes that he has immortalized Ulysses and Diomed in his Eneid. 84. Per lui... gissi (si gì)=egli andò: for this curious construction, see I, 126. Gittò voce di fuori, e disse: 'Quando Me più d' un anno là presso a Gaeta,- Nè dolcezza di figlio, nè la pieta Sol con un legno e con quella compagna 90 95 100 105 110 91. Circe, daughter of the sun, was a sorceress who turned men into beasts: En., VII, 10 ff. Ulysses visited her and compelled her to restore her victims to human form: Met., XIV, 245 ff. 92. Æneas named the place in memory of his nurse Caieta, who had died there: Æn., VII, 1 ff.; Met., XIV, 441 ff. 94. Pièta, 'duty': to my 'old father.' 99. Valore, 'goodness.' 103. Ulysses explores both shores of the Mediterranean, and its islands. 108. 'Where Hercules set up his marks': the pillars of Hercules, on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. 109. Più oltre non ne plus ultra. 110. Sibilia: Seville. III. Setta: Ceuto. 112. Cf. the speech of Æneas beginning 'O socii': Æn., I, 198 ff. Milia mila. Perigli siete giunti all' occidente, Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza." Li miei compagni fec' io sì acuti, Con questa orazion picciola, al cammino, De' remi facemmo ali al folle volo, Vedea la notte, e il nostro tanto basso Lo lume era di sotto dalla luna Per la distanza, e parvemi alta tanto 115. Ch' è del rimanente, 'which is left.' 115 120 125 130 117. Diretro al sol, 'following the sun': sailing into the west. 'The world without men' is the Hemisphere of Water. 121. Acuti, 'keen.' 124. They turn their stern to the morning and sail forth, constantly gaining on the left; that is, their course is not due west, but southwest. 128. Vedea la notte may mean 'night beheld' or 'I beheld at night.' Il nostro our northern pole; when they pass the equator, the North Star sinks below the 'sea level.' 130. Casso, quenched.' They have sailed five months. 131. The light beneath the moon' may mean the moonlight on the water or the light on the under side of the moon (the side turned toward the earth). 133. Doubtless the mountain of Purgatory, directly opposite Jerusalem, in the middle of the Hemisphere of Water: cf. Purg. III, 15; Par. XXVI, 139. Bruna, 'murky.' Quanto veduta non n' aveva alcuna. nacque, E percosse del legno il primo canto. 135 Alla quarta levar la poppa in suso, 140 E la prora ire in giù, com' Altrui piacque, Infin che il mar fu sopra noi richiuso.' 137. Turbo-turbine, 'whirlwind.' 138. Il primo canto, 'the front end,' i. e., the prow. 139. Con tutte l'acque, 'together with the waters': cf. XXII, 147. 140. With levar (and with ire in l. 141) supply fe', i. e., fece. For the description of the shipwreck, cf. Æn., I, 113–7: 'Unam, quæ Lycios fidumque vehebat Orontem, Ipsius ante oculos ingens a vertice pontus In puppim ferit: excutitur pronusque magister Torquet agens circum, et rapidus vorat æquore vortex.' CANTO XXVII ARGUMENT GUIDO DA MONTEFELTRO, the great Ghibelline general, was one of the foremost Italians of the 13th century. He was famous for his valor, wisdom, courtesy, and especially for his skill in strategy, which won for him the name of 'fox.' Dante's story of his final seduction by Boniface VIII, to whom he was induced, by promise of absolution, to give the evil counsel of taking Palestrina by false pledges, is corroborated by the chronicle of Pipino, written in 1314. The discovery of this early account would seem to settle the much debated question whether the incident was invented by the poet. What Dante probably did invent is a struggle between Heaven and Hell for the possession of Guido's soul. St. Francis of Assisi, to whose order Guido belonged, comes to claim the departing spirit; but he is opposed by 'one of the black cherubim,' who, after a brief discussion, is victorious. Such a conflict occurs in the Commedia in only one other case, that of Guido's son Buonconte, whose tale is told in Purg. V, 88 ff. In both instances the theme is introduced to emphasize an important doctrine, namely, that the eternal fate of a soul depends on its intrinsic condition at the moment of death. Though absolved by a Pope, Guido had not genuinely repented of his last misdeed, and therefore the absolution was invalid. Buonconte, on the other hand, though neglectful of his religious duties during life, has, when mortally wounded, an instant of true repentance and love of God, and thus wins salvation. The two contrasted examples are as extreme as the poet could contrive them, and they are the more striking in that the two men are father and son. For Pipino's text, see Tor., p. 225. For a discussion of the episode: D'Ovidio, 202, 533; E. Gorra, Il soggettivismo di Dante, 43-59; H. Honig, Guido da Montefeltro (reviewed in Giorn. stor., XXXIX, 422); G. Petraglione in Giorn. dant., XI, 136. Già era dritta in su la fiamma e queta, Per non dir più, e già da noi sen gìa 3. The words of the permission are given in l. 21. |