CANTO III.

THE ARGUMENT.

Dante, starting at his own shadow, is reassured by Virgil, who explains the reason why he himself projects no shadow on the ground. Finding no path to ascend the steep, they inquire of a party of Souls whom they meet, who are amazed at Dante's appearance. They direct the poets where to find a practicable path. With one of them Dante converses: this is Manfredi, king of Naples, who relates the particulars of his death in battle.

WHEN thus the Shades with unexpected flight,

Their devious way pursuing through the plain,
Turn'd to the mountain, thither urged aright;1
I to my faithful feere myself restrain :

For without him how could I speed my course?
How could I hope the mountain-top to gain?
To me he seem'd to feel some self-remorse.2
O faithful conscience, delicately clear,

Of how small fault feel'st thou the biting force!

By Cato, in the preceding canto. Right reason should prompt men to repent, and make satisfaction for the wrongs which they have committed.

2 Virgil smarts under Cato's reproach for delay, having so often blamed it in Dante.

Soon as his feet left off, in his career,
That haste which strips each act of decency,1
My mind which was at first restrain'd by fear,
Its purpose now enlarged as eagerly:

And I against the mountain turn'd my gaze,
Where heaven-ward it rose highest from the sea.
The sun all red which did behind me blaze,
Before was broken, and my form portray'd,
Just as it intercepted there his rays.
Starting I turn'd me on one side, afraid

That I had been forsaken, when I spied
The ground before with but my single shade.
"Why still distrustful," my consoler cried;

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As, turn'd quite round, his looks on me he bent; "Think'st thou I am not with thee-still thy guide?

1 "For joy, indeed, O dearest, I'm compell'd,

Forgetting decency, to speed me hither."

SOPHOCLES, Electra, 877.

Among other gestures to be avoided, Cicero reckons "too much haste in walking, so as to produce quick breathing, a flushed countenance, and difficulty of speaking."-De officiis, i. 36. And Horace says of Tigellius, “He would often run as if pursued by an enemy."-Sat. i. 3.

2 Now, for the first time since Dante entered into "the valley of the dolorous abyss," the Sun shines on his path. He is therefore startled at seeing no shadow but his own projected on the ground, until reminded that the incorporeal presence of his guide is necessarily shadowless.

The negroes imported into the West Indies brought from Africa the belief, that a living man could be deprived of his shadow by magical influence, but that such privation would be fatal. At the trial of a notorious Obeah-man, one of the witnesses was asked, "Do you know the prisoner to be an Obeah-man ?" "Ees, massa, shadow-catcher, true.” “ What do you mean by a Shadow-catcher?” "Him ha coffin" (a little coffin was here produced), “him set for catch dem shadow." "What shadow do you mean ?" "When

Now it is evening where in earth is pent
The body wherein I a shadow made;
Naples contains it, from Brundusium sent.1
Therefore if I before me cast no shade,

No marvel, since we in yon heavens behold
How in their interchange no beam is stay'd.2
To suffer torments both of heat and cold,
Like bodies that Celestial Energy

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Bestows, which will its prowess not unfold. How vain to hope the Infinite can be

Explain'd by reasoning of the Sons of Earth, Since He one substance holds in Persons Three! As to the wherefore, ye of human birth,

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Content yourselves, for there no need had been
Had you seen all, that Mary should bring forth.*
Such longing without fruit yourselves have seen

In men who might have slaked their eager thirst,
Now felt eternally with anguish keen.5

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him set Obeah for somebody, him catch dem shadow, and dem go dead." And dead they soon were, when he pretended to have caught their shadows.

1 Virgil is said to have died at Brundusium and been buried at Naples, where his presumed sepulchre is shown.

2 In allusion to the diaphonous and concentric spheres, in which, according to the Ptolemaic theory, the planets and fixed stars are set.

3 "Not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon." 2 Cor. v. 4. The notion, that the soul in its disembodied state is clothed with some kind of material or etherial substance, was not peculiar to the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, but has been more or less common in all ages, and may be traced in the writings of Platonic Philosophers, Jewish Rabbis, and Christian Fathers.

Had mankind been omniscient they would not have sinned, nor consequently have needed redemption.

5 Inferno, iv, 42.

"T was thus with Aristotle, Plato erst,

And many others."1 Here he stoop'd him low, With troubled aspect, and no more conversed. Now to the mountain's foot we came, and lo, The rock we found so steep and roughly faced, Our feet in vain had there essay'd to go. "Twixt Lerici and Turbia the most waste Untrodden path, to that is but a stair, Easy and open, for convenience placed.

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Now, on which side the mountain slopes, and where Who knows," my master said, his footsteps staying, "That he who hath not wings to mount may dare?" And while he held his visage low, essaying

With mind attentive to find out the road, And I look'd up around, the rock surveying; Upon our left hand there appear'd a crowd

Of souls, who toward us now their footsteps plied, Yet seem'd not moving, they so slowly strode.3 "Lift up thine eyes," I to my master cried,

"See those from whom, if thou thyself hast none, Fit counsel we may gain." Then he replied,

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1 Virgil pauses; overcome with grief to think that he himself was one of those eternally doomed to hopeless desire.

2 The state of the old roads from Lerici at the entrance and Turbia at the extremity of the Genoese republic, is here alluded to. The road along the coast is called the Cornichè (Cornice), from the nature of the narrow path which existed before the present magnificent road was made. The Cornichè was then a mere ledge on the side of the rock, a relic of the Roman Aurelian way, overhanging the sea in many parts, hardly wider than was needful for a single horse or mule, and of which the terrors were equal to the beauties.

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3 Theirs had been a reluctant and late repentance.

While me with cheerful air he look'd upon,

"Let us move towards them, since their steps are slow, And thou, continue in thy hope, my son."

When we had made a thousand steps or so,
And yet as distant was that company

As a good marksman with his hand could throw;
They all together drew, and steadily

Stood by the crags of the high rock erect,

As one who walks in doubt might pause to see.1 "O ye who ended well! O souls elect!"

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Virgil commenced, "now by your heavenly hopes-
That peace which, I believe, you all expect-
Inform us in what part the mountain slopes,
So that its top we may at last behold;

For with delay, most grieved the wisest copes."
Like sheep when they are issuing from the fold,
One, two, and three, and all the rest stand still,
And towards the ground their timid faces hold,
And what the foremost does the others will;
Crowding behind her, if some hindrance balk,
Simple and calm, nor of the cause have skill; 2
So saw I towards us then advancing stalk
The vanguard of that favour'd company,
Modest in face, and decent in their walk.

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Amazed at seeing the two poets approach in an opposite and unusual direction.

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2 Dante employs the same comparison in his Convito :—" These may be called flocks of sheep and not men; for if one sheep should throw himself down a precipice of a thousand feet, all the rest would follow; and if one for any cause in passing a road should leap, all the rest would do the same, though they saw nothing to leap over."