With four feet covers and enforks his bed,1
Ere this opinion courteous will be seal❜d
Upon thy mind with more effectual aid
Than words of other men can ever yield;
If judgment in her course be not delay'd."

1 "The Sun will not be seven times again in Aries; that is to say, seven years will not have elapsed, before thou wilt realize the effectual aid of Morello Malespina's hospitality."

2 "If the Divine Providence be not hindered in the fulfilment of its purposes." And as that is impossible, the event is most certain.

CANTO IX.

THE ARGUMENT.

Dante's morning dream, of an eagle carrying him up to the sphere of fire. On awaking, he finds himself at the gate of Purgatory, whither while asleep he had been borne by Lucia. The three symbolical stairs and the portal. The Angel of Penitence, throned on a rock of diamond, commissioned by St. Peter to guard its entrance. He opens the gate and gives Dante admission, bidding him not look back. Voices are heard singing the Te Deum laudamus.

ALREADY leaving her sweet lover's arms,

She, of Tithonus old the concubine,1

Show'd o'er the eastern cliff her pale bright charms:

1 It was elegantly fabled of Tithonus, that being wedded to Aurora (Morning), his wife petitioned Jupiter that he might enjoy the gift of immortality. The request was granted; but as she had forgotten to ask for him exemption from the infirmities and decrepitude of age, when these overtook him, as he could not die he was changed into a grasshopper.

"And now first Aurora, leaving the saffron bed of Tithouus, Scatter'd anew the daylight over the nations."

Eneid. iv. 585; ix. 459. See also Georg. i. 417. Ovid also calls Aurora thebride (nupta) and wife (conjux) of Tithonus.-Fasti. i. 461; iii. 403.

Dante is here supposed to refer to the dawn of moonlight—a secondary or improper Aurora, whom he calls the concubine of Tithonus. Thus the old French poet Du Bartas (as translated by Sylvester, in the reign of James I.) calls "Fire, aire, and water, but heaven's concubines;" and "Earth his owne lawful wife.”Divine Weekes and Workes, Ed. 1st. As it was more than four

10

With brilliant jewels did her forehead shine;
The form of that cold animal they bear
Whose tail inflicts on men such deadly tine.
And in the place where we at this time were,
Two steps of her ascent the Night had gain'd,
And towards the third her wings were waving there;1
When I, who much of Adam still retain'd,2
O'ercome with sleep lay on the grass along,
Where sitting we all five had yet remain❜d.3
Just when the swallow her low plaintive song
Commences, as the dawn begins to shine,
Perhaps in memory of her ancient wrong
And when the soul, whom cares then least confine,
Most free from flesh on pilgrimage can wend,
Is in her vision as it were divine;

4

days after full moon, and the Sun was in Aries, the Moon was rising at the antipodes, preceded by the constellation Scorpio, two hours after sunset, or at the commencement of the third hour of night.

1 The steps are hours: see conclusion of the preceding note. 2 So much of human weakness and mortality derived from fallen Adam.

Virgil, Dante, Sordello, Nino, and Conrad.

4 Procne, or Progne, daughter of king Pandio of Athens, and wife of Tereus king of Thrace.

"And as to me so grisly was his dede,

That whan that I this foulè storie rede,
Mine iyen wexen foule and sore also."

She took a fierce and terrible revenge on her false and cruel husband.-OVID. Metam. vi. 424–676. Progne and her sister Philomela died broken-hearted for the injuries inflicted by Tereus on themselves, and their family; and by the poets have been changed into the swallow and the nightingale, on account of the peculiarly plaintive and mournful note of these two birds.-See Canto xvii. 20, note.

I in a dream an eagle saw suspend1

His flight in heaven, and golden plumes had he,
With wings apart and hovering to descend.
And in that very place I seem'd to be,

Where Ganymede forsook his friends that day,
When caught up to the high consistory.2
I thought, perhaps he's wont to strike the prey
Here only; and perhaps disdains elsewhere
It in his talons upwards to convey.

I saw him wheel about an instant there,
Then terrible as lightning he descended,
And caught me up even to the fiery sphere.3

20

1 CHAUCER has copied this dream in his House of Fame, i. ii. 2 "And in needlework wrought was the royal youth of Ida,

30

Seemingly breathless, but ardent with his spear in chasing
The swiftest harts through the leafy woods of Mount Ida:
Whence he is snatch'd on high by the talons of Jove's eagle.
In vain their hands to the stars his aged guardians are
stretching,

And the dogs appear to fill the air with their barking."-
Eneid. v. 252.

See also Eneid. i. 28. HOR. Carm. iv. 4, 1. 1-4.
him cup-bearer to Jupiter; Metam. x. 155—61.

speaks of him as

Ovid makes

And Chaucer

And made the goddès buteler."-House of Fame, lib. ii.

3 In the Middle Ages the element of Fire was supposed to have its appropriate region above the atmosphere, but below the circle of the Moon. Du Bartas calls it "the fiery vault,' ""the fiery ceiling," and "th' upper fire."— Weeks and Works, pp. 35, 36, 54.

"Behold the fire which God did round extend:

As neer to heav'n, the same is cleer and pure;
Ours heer belowe, sad, smoaky, and obscure."-188.

There, as it seem'd, for me and him contended
The flame, and so intense the imagined burning,
No marvel that thereby my sleep was ended.
Not otherwise Achilles shook when turning1

His waken'd eyes on every side, nor knew

Where then he was, which he to know was yearning, From Chiron when his mother as she flew

To Scyros bore him sleeping in her arms,
From whence, long after, him the Greeks withdrew.
For so I started at those fancied harms

That sleep forsook me; deadly pale beside
I grew, like one whom freezing fear alarms.
My only comforter was at my side:

The sun was now above two hours in height,
And I had turn'd me towards the ocean-tide.
My master said, “Thyself do not affright;
A good position here, be sure, we gain :
Relax not, but exert thy utmost might.
Thou now to Purgatory dost attain;

The rock which doth enclose it round survey,
And see the entrance where 'tis cleft in twain.
Before the dawn which ushers in the day,

When in a deep soul-slumber thou wert laid Upon the flowers with which yon vale is gay, A lady came, and, I am Lucia,' said;2

"This man who sleeps let me bear on a space, And I will ease his toil.' Sordello stay'd, And th' other gentle forms, within that place.

She took thee up, and as the day grew bright,
Came hither up, while I her footsteps trace.

1 See Inferno, xii. 65; xxvi. 63, and notes.

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50

60

2 By Divine Light he is borne to the Gate of Repentance. See Inferno, ii. 53, and note, 100.