the wind is still, Dante addresses these "wearied spirits." Invoked in the name of that love, which had brought them into hell, and still maintains its power over them, amid their everlasting torments, they obey his call. Francesca having told a portion of her tale, Dante weeps at the recital. She then mourns over the remembrance of lost happiness, as the deepest of afflictions, and continues her sad history,-extenuating her guilt so far only as to tell us that it was not premeditated; while Paolo, who stands by, moans so bitterly, that Dante is entirely overcome by compassion. Pity indeed may well be excited by the relation of human frailty, and human suffering ;-nor does a word escape the poet that is calculated to excite any other feelings than those of sympathy with these wretched spirits, whose undying love is but an aggravation of their sufferings, in the reflection that they have ruined one another, and, as Francesca mournfully intimates, alienated themselves from the favour of God for ever. The facts of the case certainly in some degree extenuate Francesca's guilt. "Guido engaged to give his daughter in marriage to Lanciotto, the eldest son of his enemy, the master of Rimini. Lanciotto, hideously deformed in countenance and figure, foresaw that if he presented himself in person, he should be rejected by the lady. He therefore resolved to marry her by proxy, and sent as his representative his youngest brother, Paolo, the handsomest and most accomplished man in all Italy. Francesca saw Paolo arrive, and imagined she beheld her future husband. That mistake was the commencement of her passion."-Boccacio. But Dante pleads not this excuse. Nor is Divine justice weighed down in the scales by human frailty. Tender hearted as the poet was, he allows not his sympathy for the afflicted to overcome his zeal for truth, or in the least to countenance immorality, which he so constantly and earnestly denounces. So chaste are Dante's touches in this exquisitely finished picture, that few persons are perhaps capable of appreciating its extreme delicacy. (77.) Thus Spenser, Fairy Queen, iv. 10: "All these, and all that ever had been tied In bonds of friendship, there did live for ever, Whose lives, although decay'd, yet loves decayed never." (82.) The motion through the air is merely caused by the will of the bird, without any mechanical exertion. This is the main beauty of the picture. Virgil has the same idea, in part, but imperfectly brought out, when, speaking of the dove, he says, "Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.”— En. v. 217. Doves were considered by the antients as a symbol of the most constant fidelity. Page 44. (Line 88.) Francesca speaks. See note, line 74. She first adopts the plural "we," to shew the perfect unani. mity of her lover's feelings with her own; she then proceeds, line 97, to give an account of herself. (90.) i.e., with their own blood, at the time they were murdered. (100.) "In the heart of a man of gentle or noble birth."-Walter Scott. Notes to Dryden's Trans. "The words' gentile' and 'gentilezza', as used by the best writers from Dante to the present day, denote rather nobleness of soul than amiableness of manners. Gentilezza is a propensity towards all that is beautiful and generous; and is the alliance of delicacy of sentiment with high courage. Ariosto says of the lion; "ha il cor gentile." -Ugo Foscolo. Edin. Review, No. LX. Hence Shakspeare's "noble loving nature." (103.) This is imitated at large by D Pulci in his Morg. Mag., and has been thus elegantly translated by Lady Dacre : "And because love not willingly excuses One who is loved and loveth not again, (For tyrannous were deemed the rule he uses, Should they who sue for pity sue in vain)." Page 45. (Line 121.) "Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old.”—Lament. of Jeremiah, i. 7. Thus Menelaus, in answer to a question as to the cause of his tears, says, "he weeps to think of his present state compared,— πρὸς τας πάροιθεν συμφορας ευδαιμονας.” — Euripides. Helena, line 463. The sentiment is wisely reversed by Amralkeisi, the celebrated Arabian poet: "Let the memory of your past happiness soothe your present griefs."-Sismondi. Lit. Trouveres, Roscoe's Trans. Cap. i. (123.) "Dottore" is explained "guida” by Volpi ;" and is applied to Vigil in this very canto, line 70. (124.) "Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros."-En. ii. 10. Lancilot was one of the Knights of the Round Table, and the lover of Genevra, celebrated in romance. An extract from the scarce old romance of Sir Lancilot may be found in the Landscape Annual for 1831.-Art. Rimini. Page 46. (Line 137.) i.e., the book was to Francesca and Paolo what Galeotto, or Galehaut, in the romance they had been reading, was to Lancilot and Genevra; and Galeotto is thus synonimous with the Pandarus of Shakspeare, in Troilus and Cressida. The Writer was also Galeotto, in the sense of a convict or galley-slave: so that the term having a double meaning in the Italian cannot be adequately expressed in English. (138.) The following remarks upon the story are by Ugo Foscolo:-" Francesca imputes the passion her bro ther-in-law conceived for her not to depravity, but nobleness of heart in him, and to her own loveliness... She confesses that she loved him, because she was beloved. That charm had deluded her...She goes on to relieve her brother-in-law from all imputation of having seduced her. Alone, and unconscious of their danger they read a love story together. They gazed upon each other, pale with emotion, but the secret of their mutual passion never escaped their lips. "For when we read," &c. line 133. After this avowal, she hastens to complete the picture with one touch: "We read no more that day." She utters not another word: and yet we fancy her before us, with her downcast and glowing looks, while her lover stands by her side listening in silence and in tears. Dante too, who had hitherto questioned her, no longer ventures to inquire in what manner her husband had put her to death, but is so overcome by pity that he sinks into a swoon... Francesca, to justify herself, must have criminated her father, and thus diminished the affecting magnanimity with which her character is studiously endowed by the poet... She was the daughter of Guido da Polenta, Dante's protector and most faithful friend. The poet had probably known her when a girl, blooming in innocence and beauty under the paternal roof. He must at least have often heard the father mention his ill-fated child. He must therefore have recollected her early happiness, when he beheld the spectacle of her eternal torment; and this, we think, is the true account of the overwhelming sympathy with which her form overpowers him. The episode, too, was written by him in the very house in which she was born, and in which he had himself, during the last ten years of his exile, found a constant asylum." The tale has been translated by Lord Byron. CANTO VI. ARGUMENT. ON recovering his senses, Dante finds himself in the third circle, where the gluttons are punished. Ciacco foretels to Dante the future change of parties in Florence, where he says only two just men are to be found. Soon as my mind its wonted powers renew❜d, Which, at the sufferings of that kindred pair, By overwhelming sorrows were subdued,— New torments all around me I descry; Tormented spirits I behold, where'er I move or turn, where'er I cast mine eye. No change-no respite in this dread domain. 1 7 |