CANTO XII.

THE ARGUMENT.

Humbled by the foregoing scene and conversation, Dante pursues his journey with Virgil, who directs his attention to the marble road, on which lie sculptured, like memorials of the dead, the representations of pride abased and punished-Lucifer, Briareus, Nimrod, Niobe, Saul, Arachne, Rehoboam, Eriphyle, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Holofernes, Troy. Conducted by an angel to the foot of the stair leading to the next round, they mount, and their ears are saluted by melodious voices chanting Beati pauperes spiritu.

ABREAST, like oxen moving in the yoke,

Did I with that o'erburden'd soul proceed,

Long as my guide allow'd. But when he spoke
And said, "Now leave him and thy footsteps heed;
For here 'tis fit that every nerve we strain,
With sail and oar each one his bark to speed.”
Like one disposed to travel on amain,

Upright myself I raised and yet in me

My thoughts bow'd low and humble still remain. Advancing now I follow'd willingly

Along the pathway where my master led,

And both already show'd how light were we. "Turn thine eyes downward," then to me he said, ""Twill make thy way seem shorter to explore The ground which forms thy footsteps' marble bed." Like rude memorials which we see placed o'er

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Those who lie sepulchred in tombs terrene,
The sculptured signs of what they were before,
Whence grief revives whenever these are seen,

Waking that sad remembrance which alone
The pitying breast can pierce with anguish keen.
Such saw I there, but much more life-like shown,1
According to the sculptor's art engraven,

Far as the mount for path was forward thrown.
On one side, him to whom at first was given

A nature which all creatures else excell❜d,

I saw hurl'd downward thunderstruck from heaven.2 On the other hand, Briareus3 I beheld,

With spear celestial pierced, a heavy load

On earth, and in the ice of death lie quell'd. I saw Thimbræus, Pallas, Mars, who crowd

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Around their Father; still in arms they lower,
And view the giants' limbs before them strow'd.
Lo, Nimrod at the foot of his high tower,

As if confounded, gazing on the train
Whose banded aid in Shinar form'd his power.5
O Niobè, carved on the trodden plain,

I saw thee while thy weeping eyes deplored,
On either side thee seven, thy children slain.

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Dante had seen, sculptured on the high perpendicular cliff, the examples of humility; and he now sees the opposite instances of pride carved on the pavement over which he treads.-Luke xiv. 11.

2 "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."—Luke x. 18. 3 See Inferno, xxxi. 98, and note.

4 "Thymbræus Apollo."-VIRG. Georg. iv. 323. See also Eneid. iii. 85. So called from the Trojan city Thymbra, where he had a temple. See Inferno, xxxi, 96, note.

5 Genesis x. 8-10; xi. 1-9.

"Daughter of Tantalus king of Lydia, and wife of Amphion king

O Saul, how ghastly, fallen on thine own sword,

Was there thine aspect, in mount Gilboa dead, Whose heavens thenceforth no rain or dew afford.1 O mad Arachnè, there I saw thee sped,

Already turn'd half spider, sadly thou

Sitt'st o'er the woven threads by thee ill spread.2
O Rehoboam, not with threatening brow,
But full of terror there thine image went
Ere yet pursued, borne in thy chariot now.3
The hard pavement further yet made evident
Alemæon, whose resentment made so dear
His mother's lamentable ornament.4

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of Thebes, by whom, according to Ovid and Apollodorus, she had seven sons and seven daughters. The number of her children so excited her pride that she preferred herself to Latona, and ridiculed the worship of that goddess, who had only two. Latona, provoked at this insolence, entreated her children to punish it: accordingly, all the sons of Niobe perished by the shafts of Apollo, and all her daughters except two by those of Diana; on seeing which the wretched mother wept until turned to stone.— Iliad. xxiv. OVID. Metam. vi. Bryant thought it borrowed from the history of Lot's wife.

11 Sam. xxxi. 4; 2 Sam. i, 21.

2 See Inferno, xvii, 18, note.

3 1 Kings xii. 18.

Eriphyle, daughter of Talaus and Lysimache, was bribed by Polynices with a golden necklace to betray the place of her husband's concealment. See Inferno, xx. 33, note. On the death of Amphiaraus, and in fulfilment of his injunction, his son Alemæon avenged the perfidious injury by killing his mother. “ And hateful Eriphyle,

Who accepted precious gold in exchange for her dear husband." Odyss. xi. 355-6.

"And he saw sad Eriphyle

Showing the wounds which her cruel son had given her."

Eneid. vi. 445-6.

It made Sennacherib and his sons appear,
When even in the temple of his god

They overpower'd and left him slaughter'd there.1 ́
The ruin and the cruel wounds it show'd

Which Tomyris made, when she to Cyrus said, "Blood was thy wish, now quench thy thirst in blood!"2 It show'd how overcome, the Assyrians fled,

When they the death of Holofernes learn'd,
And of that slaughter too the relics red.3
Troy there I saw to dust and ruins turn'd:
O Ilion, how abject and how vile

The sculpture show'd thee, as 'twas there discern'd! What master of the pencil or the style

Did to these forms and deeds their fashion give,
Which might the ablest mind of praise beguile?
The dead seem'd dead, the living seem'd to live.
Not better could one see reality,

Than I, what stooping as I tread, perceive.
Be proud then, and with haughty looks march ye,
Children of Eve, stoop not your countenance,
That you your evil pathway may not see.4

"Those bowels from which he sprung he transfix'd

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With steel, and a necklace was the cause of the punishment.” OVID. Amorum, Lib. I. Eleg. x. 1. 51, 52.

12 Kings xix. 35, 36; Isaiah xxxvii. 37, 38.

2 "The head of Cyrus being cut off, the Queen commanded it to be thrown into a vessel filled with human blood, thus upbraiding his cruelty; 'Satiate thyself,' she said, 'with blood for which thou hast thirsted, and for which thou wert insatiable." "-JUSTIN, lib. i. cap. 8.

3 Judith xiii. The story of Holofernes very much resembles what Quintus Curtius relates of the death of Spitamenes, viii. 13.

4 This is an irony.

We round the mount had further made advance,
And of his course much more the Sun had spent
Than while I mused had met my cognizance,
When he who onward always watchful went
Began to say, "Now raise thy head on high :

It is no time for thee to walk thus bent.

See there an angel ready to draw nigh

Towards us; and see, on silent pinions borne
From service, Day's sixth handmaid homeward fly.1

Thy acts and looks with reverence adorn,

That pleased he may assist our march above.
Think that this day will have no second morn."
Well was I used to hear my guide reprove

The waste of time; in that particular
I could not therefore inattentive prove.
The beauteous creature wafted from afar

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Had almost reach'd us, white-robed, and his face Seem'd like the sparkling of the morning star. His arms, and then his wings, he spread apace; And said; "Come, here are steps; with effort small Your path-way now ye may ascending trace.

Not many hasten to obey this call.2

O human creatures born to soar on high,
Why for a little wind should you thus fall?"s

He led us on to where a rock hard by

Was cut, then with his pinions brush'd my face,*

1 The handmaids of the Day are the hours.-Paradise Lost, vi. 2-4. The time here indicated is noon.

2 "For many be called, but few chosen."-Matt. xx. 16. 3 "O remember that my life is wind.”—Job. Why should you for the transitory pleasures or fame of this life neglect the higher and more enduring blessings of the life to come?"

• Canto ix. 112. The first of the seven P's was now effaced,