"Because they wished to see too far before them,
Backward they look, and backward make their way."
"But very uncouth sight was to behold
How he did fashion his untoward pace;
For as he forward moved his footing old,
So backward still was turned his wrinkled face."
"I will tell of the sixth, a man most prudent and in valor the best, the seer, the mighty Amphiaraus.... And through his mouth he gives utterance to this speech.... `I, for my part, in very truth shall fatten this soil, seer as I am, buried beneath a hostile earth.'"
Statius, Thebaid, VIII. 47, Lewis's TR.: --
"Bought of my treacherous wife for cursed gold,
And in the list of Argive chiefs enrolled,
Resigned to fate I sought the Theban plain;
Whence flock the shades that scarce thy realm contain;
When, how my soul yet dreads! an earthquake came,
Big with destruction, and my trembling frame,
Rapt from the midst of gaping thousands, hurled
To night eternal in thy nether world."
"It happen'd once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction view'd,
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he view'd
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood:
`And if,' says he, `such virtue in you lie,
That he who dares your slimy folds untie
Must change his kind, a second stroke I'll try.'
Again he struck the snakes, and stood again
New-sex'd, and straight recovered into man...........................
When Juno fired,
More than so trivial an affair required,
Deprived him, in her fury, of his sight,
And left him groping round in sudden night.
But Jove (for so it is in heav'n decreed
That no one god repeal another's deed)
Irradiates all his soul with inward light,
And with the prophet's art relieves the want of sight."
Ford, Lady's Trial: --
"Now the down of
Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age."
See also Purg. I. 42.
"Of these the chief, for learning famed and age,
Aruns by name, a venerable sage,
At Luna lived."
Ruskin, Modern Painters, III. p. 246, says: --
"But in no part of the poem do we find allusion to mountains in any other than a stern light; nor the slightest evidence that Dante cared to look at them. From that hill of San Miniato, whose steps he knew so well, the eye commands, at the farther extremity of the Val d'Arno, the whole purple range of the mountains of Carrara, peaked and mighty, seen always against the sunset light in silent outline, the chief forms that rule the scene as twilight fades away. By this vision Dante seems to have been wholly unmoved, and, but for Lucan's mention of Aruns at Luna, would seemingly not have spoken of the Carrara hills in the whole course of his poem: when he does allude to them, he speaks of their white marble, and their command of stars and sea, but has evidently no regard for the hills themselves. There is not a single phrase or syllable throughout the poem which indicates such a regard. Ugolino, in his dream, seemed to himself to be in the mountains, `by cause of which the Pisan cannot see Lucca'; and it is impossible to look up from Pisa to that hoary slope without remembering the awe that there is in the passage; neverthelss it was as a hunting-ground only that he remembered these hills. Adam of Brescia, tormented with eternal thirst, remembers the hills of Romena, but only for the sake of their sweet waters."
"Verona seems
To him remoter than the swarthy Ind;
He deems the Lake Benacus as the shore
Of the Red Sea."
"Mincius crowned with sea-green reeds."
Milton, Lycidas: --
"Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds."
The reader will recall the midnight scene of the monk of St. Mary's and William of Deloraine in Scott's Law of the Last Minstrel, Canto II.: --
"In these far climes it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And, warrior, I could say to thee
The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone;
But to speak them were a deadly sin;
and for having but thought them my heart within,
A treble penance must be done."
And the opening of the tomb to recover the Magic Book: --
"Before their eyes the wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;
His left hand held his book of might;
A silver cross was in his right;
The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face: --
They trusted his soul had gotten grace."
See also Appendix to the Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Benvenuto da Imola reports the following anecdote of the same personages. "As the Count was standing one day in the large and beautiful square of Forlì, there came a rustic mountaineer and gave him a basket of pears. And when the Count said, `Stay and sup with me,' the rustic answered, `My Lord, I wish to go home before it rains; for infallibly there will be much rain today.' The Count, wondering at him, sent for Guido Bonatti, as a great astrologer, and said to him, `Dost thou hear what this man says?' Guido answered, `He does not know what he is saying; but wait a little.' Guido went to his study, and, having taken his astrolable, observed the aspect of the heavens. And on returning he said that it was impossible it should rain that day. But the rustic obstinately affirmed what he had said, Guido asked him, `Howe dost thou know?' The rustic answered, `Because to-day my ass, in coming out of the stable, shook his head and picked up his ears, and whenever he does this, it is a certain sign that the weather will soon change.' Then Guido replied, `Supposing this to be so, how dost thou know there will be much rain"' `Because,' said he, `my ass, with his eyes pricked up, turned his head aside, and wheeled about more than usual.' Then, with the Count's leave, the rustic departed in haste, much fearing the rain, though the weather was very clear. And an hour afterwards, lo, it began to thunder, and there was a great down-pouring of waters, like a deluge. Then Guido began to cry out, with great indignation and derision, `Who has deluded me? Who has put me to shame?' And for a long time this was a great source of merriment among the people."
Asdente, a cobbler of Parma. "I think he must have had acuteness of mind, although illiterate; some having the gift of prophecy by the inspiration of Heaven." Dante mentions him in the Convito, IV. 16, where he says that, if nobility consisted in being known and talked about, "Asdente the shoemaker of Parma would be more noble than any of his fellow-citizens."
The time here indicated is an hour after sunrise on Saturday morning.