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By night were seen the Thebans' furious throng,
When they to call on Bacchus were inclined;
So, curving through that circle, troop'd along
Those whom, from what I saw, as on they hied,
Good will impell'd, and just affection strong.
Soon they were on us, for with rapid stride
Came rushing onward all that concourse vast;
And two in front of them lamenting cried :-
"To the hill country Mary went with haste;
And Cæsar once, Ilerda to subdue,

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1

Massilia stung, then into Spain he pass'd." 2
Haste, haste, let no more time be wasted through
Slackness of love;" the rest who them pursued
Exclaim'd, "for zeal in good will grace renew."
ye who now by ardent promptitude

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Perchance make up for negligence remiss, Through your lukewarmness once in doing good; This man who lives (no lying tale is this)

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At dawn would climb the mountain," said my guide; 110 "Inform us, therefore, where the opening is."

ticularly described, that later writers appear to have taken their accounts from it.

'And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.”—Luke i. 39, 40.

2 Ilerda (now Lerida, in Catalonia) on the river Sicoris (Segre), a branch of the Iberus (Ebro) in Spain. It is renowned for the resistance which it made against Cæsar. On his way thither from Rome, in the time of the civil wars, he went to Missilia (Marseilles), where he left Brutus and Trebonius with a part of his army to besiege the city, while he hastened into Spain, and defeated Afranius and Petreius, the generals of Pompey.-CÆSAR, De Bello Civile, i. 32–73; LUCAN, Pharsalia, iv. 13. These examples of despatch are here cited to stimulate the lukewarm and indolent.

And of that spirit-band one thus replied,
"Let him but follow us, and with our leading
The pass he seeks will quickly be espied.
We are so fill'd with ardour for proceeding,
Forgive us, that with ceaseless tread we hie;
Nor let our duty seem to you ill-breeding.
St. Zeno's abbot at Verona I

Was, while good Barbarossa held firm sway,
Whose mention yet wakes Milan's mournful cry.1 120
A man with one foot in the grave this day

There is, who soon with sadness and with shame, Will mourn that in his power that abbey lay; Because his son, deform'd in his whole frame,

And worse in mind, of birth with baseness stain'd, He placed there, maugre the true pastor's claim."2 Whether he added more or mute remain'd,

I know, not, he so far had from us pass'd: But this I heard, and with delight retain❜d. And he, my help at every need, at last

Said, "Hither turn, and see these two; 'tis theirs, As they advance, reproach on sloth to cast." Behind the rest they cried; "That people bears

Their sin, for whom the sea on each hand rose;

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1 Frederick I., surnamed Barbarossa (Red-beard), to punish the Milanese for their oppression of Lodi, Como, and other cities, placed Milan under the ban of the empire, marched into Italy, and with the assistance of six neighbouring Italian republics, in 1162, took the city, exiled its whole population, and razed it to the ground, which he caused to be ploughed and sown with salt. Dante calls him "good," ironically.

2 Alberto della Scala, Lord of Verona, already old, who in 1292 forcibly made his illegitimate son Giuseppe, abbot of San Zeno, although deformed in body and mind.

They died ere Jordan saw his destined heirs.1
And those who would not suffer to the close
Vexatious hardships with Anchises' son,
Life without glory for their portion chose.” 2
Then when those shades had so far from us gone,
That them no more my sight could recognise,
A new thought in me rose, and with that one
Grew many others, and in different guise;
Thus my wild fancy roved from theme to theme,
Till wearied with delight I closed my eyes, 3
And changed my meditation to a dream.

140.

1 The Israelites who, as a punishment for their offences (Num. xiv.), were not permitted to pass over Jordan; so that, with two exceptions, only those who were under the age of twenty when they left Egypt, or who had been born in the wilderness, were permitted to enter Canaan.

2 Those companions of Eneas who, discouraged and wearied with the voyage to Sicily and its difficulties, were permitted by him to build a city there and dwell in it, without proceeding with him and their other countrymen into Italy.

"They enrol for the city mothers, and leave behind them of the people

Those who wish it, with souls not eager for glory."

3

Eneid. v. 750, 751.

"Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep."-BYRON, The

Island.

CANTO XIX.

THE ARGUMENT.

Dante's morning dream of the Siren. On his awaking, the Poets are conducted by an angel up the rocky way, with Beati qui lugent. They reach the fifth circle, where the Avaricious and the Prodigal are chastised. The Avaricious are prone on the ground. Among them Dante finds and converses with Pope Adrian V., who refuses the poet's homage, and speaks feelingly of his own kinswoman Alagia, as the only uncorrupt member of his family.

'Twas now the hour in which the heat of day

No more can warm the coldness of the moon,
Quell'd by the Earth or by dull Saturn's ray;
When geomancers, in the east their boon

Of Greater Fortune see, ere morning light,
Rise by a dusk path which will brighten soon.1

'The geomancers were accustomed to strike the earth with a staff, and to divine from the configuration of particles or points thus casually produced. This was called casting a figure; the most fortunate being that which resembled the sixteen stars that form the end of Aquarius and beginning of Pisces, called the Greater Fortune. Thus CHAUCER:

"And Lucifer the dayis messager

'Gan for to rise, and out his bemìs throwe,

And estward rose, to him that could it knowe
Fortuna Major."-Troilus and Cresseide, B. iii.

When the Sun is in Aries this group rises before him about three hours therefore the time indicated is about three A.M., or

:

My dream presented there before my sight

A stammering female, squinting, with lame feet,
Her hands lopp'd off, and colour deadly white.
I gazed on her, and as the solar heat

From our chill'd limbs the night-cold will eject,
So did my glance her power of speech complete;
In little time she rose and stood erect,

And then her faded face was instantly
With colour, such as love delights in, deck'd.
And when she found her tongue at liberty,

mind

She raised her voice in
song, so that my
To turn from listening had been hard for me.

"I am," she said, "the Siren sweetly kind,
Who charm the seamen on the ocean wide;
Such perfect pleasure they in listening find.
I drew Ulysses from his course aside

By my soft song; and whoso dwells with me.
Seldom departs, with me so satisfied."
Her mouth yet scarcely closed again had she,
When straight a dame in holiness array'd,
Close by appear'd to expose her infamy.2

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a little later, if we suppose it sufficiently high above the horizon to be conspicuous.

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'None that go unto hér return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.”—Prov. ii. 19.

2 In the beautiful and well-known allegory of Prodicus, the preceptor of Socrates and Euripides, Pleasure offers to Hercules a life of indulgence and repose; but Virtue succeeds in obtaining the adhesion of the hero, as her votary; who in consequence, by a life of labour obtained immortal renown, and a seat among the gods.-See Tatler, No. 97.

The account of Ulysses in Dante's dream, differs from that of Homer, by confounding the Siren, who exerted her influence on the ocean-wanderer in vain, with Circe, who by her charms detained him a whole year, and turned his companions into swine.

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