THE VISION; OR HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE, OF DANTE ALIGHIERI TRANSLATED BY THE REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY, A. M. VOL. II. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL F. BRADFORD, FOR JOHN LAVAL, PHILADELPHIA; JAMES EASTBURN, NEW YORK; AND CHARLES EWER AND TIMOTHY BEDLINGTON, BOSTON. William Brown, Printer. PURGATORY. CANTO XIV. ARGUMENT. Our Poet on this second cornice finds also the souls of Guido del Duca of Brettinoro, and Rinteri da Calboli of Romagna; the latter of whom, hearing that he comes from the banks of the Arno, inveighs against the degeneracy of all those who dwell in the cities visited by that stream; and the former, in like manner. against the inhabitants of Romagna. On leaving these, our Poets hear voices recording noted instances of envy. "SAY,* who is he around our mountain winds, Or ever death has prun'd his wing for flight; That opes his eyes, and covers them at will ?” "I know not who he is, but know thus much; He comes not singly. Do thou ask of him, For thou art nearer to him; and take heed, Accost him gently, so that he may speak," Thus on the right two spirits, bending each Toward the other, talk'd of me; then both Addressing me, their faces backward lean'd, And thus the onet began: "O soul, who yet Pent in the body, tendest towards the sky! For charity, we pray thee, comfort us; Recounting whence thou com'st, and who thou art: 10 *Say.] The two spirits who thus speak to each other are, Guido del Duca of Brettinoro, and Rinieri da Calboli of Ro. magna. The one.] Guido del Duca. For thou dost make us, at the favour shown thee, Marvel, as at a thing' that ne'er hath been." 20 "There stretches through the midst of Tuscany," I straight began, "a brooklet,* whose well-head Springs up in Falterona; with his race Not satisfied, when he some hundred miles Hath measur'd. From his banks bring I this frame. To tell you who I am were words mis-spent: For yet my name scarce sounds on rumour's lip." "If well I do incorp'rate with my thought The meaning of thy speech," said he, who first Addrest me, "thou dost speak of Arno's wave." 30 To whom the other:† "Why hath he conceal'd The title of that river, as a man Doth of some horrible thing?" The spirit, who Thereof was question'd, did acquit him thus: "I know not: but 'tis fitting well the name Should perish of that vale; for from the source,‡ Where teems so plenteously the Alpine steep Maim'd of Pelorus,§ (that doth scarcely pass|| Beyond that limit,) even to the point * A brooklet.] The Arno, that rises in Falterona, a mountain in the Appennine. Its course is a hundred and twenty miles, according to G. Villani, who traces it accurately. The other.] Rinieri da Calboli. From the source.] "From the rise of the Arno in that 'Alpine steep,' the Apennine, from whence Pelorus in Sicily was torn by a convulsion of the earth, even to the point where the same river unites its waters to the ocean, Virtue is persecuted by all," § Maim'd of Pelorus.] Virg. Æn. lib. iii. 414. Torn from Peloras. A hill Milton, P. L. b. i. 232. That doth scarcely pass.] "Pelorus is in few places higher than Falterona, where the Arno springs." Lombardi explains this differently, and, I think, erroneously. |