"So that they may behold their evil ways."
Iliad, XIII. 700: "And Ajax, the swift son of Oileus, never at all stood apart from the Telamonian Ajax ; but as in a fallow field two dark bullocks, possessed of equal spirit, drag the compacted plough, and much sweat breaks out about the roots of their horns, and the well-polished yoke alone divides them, stepping along the furrow, and the plough cuts up the bottom of the oil, so they, joined together, stood very near to each other."
Galatians iii. 24 : "The law was our schoolmaster (Paidagogos) to bring us unto Christ."
Milton, Parad.Lost, I. 44--
"Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."
He was struck by tbe thunderbolt of Jove, or by a shaft of Apollo, at the battle of Flegra. "Ugly medley of sacred and profane, of revealed truth and fiction !" exclaims Venturi.
Genesis xi. 8 : "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth ; and they left to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel ; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord sccatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."
See also Inf XXXI. Note 77.
"This sepulchre within it has no corse ;
This corse without here has no sepulchre,
But to itself is sepulchre and corse."
Ovid, Metamorph., VI., Croxall's Tr. : -
"Widowed and childless, lamentable state !
A doleful sight, among the dead she sate ;
Hardened with woes , a statue of despair,
To every breath of wind unmoved her hair ;
Her cheek still reddening, but its colour dead,
Faded her eyes, and set within her head.
Mo more her pliant tongue its motion keeps,
But stands congealed within her frozen lips.
Stagnate and dull, within her purple veins,
Its current stopped, the lifeless blood remains.
Her feet their usual offices refuse,
Her arms and neck their graceful gestur lose :
Action and life from every part are gone,
And even her entrails turn to solid stone ;
Yet still she weeps, and whifled by storn winds,
Borne through the air, her native country finds
There fixed, she stands upon a bleaky hill,
There yet her marble cheeks eternal tears distil."
But Ovid, Metamorph., VI., says :--
Seven are my daughters of a form divine, With seven fair sons, an indefective line."
"One at the loom so excellently skilled,
It was rather an unfair trial of skill, at the end of which Minerva, getting angry, struck Arachne on the forehead with her shuttle of box-wood.
"The unhappy maid, impatient of die wrong,
Ovid, Metamorph., IX.:--
"Fair Eriphyle the rich gift beheld,
The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed, and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years. Search was made among the slain, by order of the queen, for the body of Cyrus, and when it was found, she took skin, and filling it full of human blood, dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus insulted the corse, 'I live and have conquered thee n fight, and yet by thee am I ruined ; for thou tookest my son with guile ; but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.' Of the many different accounts which are given of the death of Cyrus, this which I have followed appears to be the most worthy of credit."
Now when the children of Israel heard it, they all fell upon them with one consent, and slew them unto Chobai."
'Qual di pennel fu maestro, e di stile
Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than that it should bring back, as in a mirror or vision, the aspect of things passed or absent. The scenes of which he speaks are, on the pavement, for ever represented by angelic power, so that the souls which traverse this circle of the rock may see them, as if the years of the world had been rolled back, and they again stood beside the actors in the moment of action. Nor do I think that Dante's authority is absolutely necessary to compel us to admit that such art as this might indeed be the highest possible. Whatever delight we may have been in the habit of taking in pictures, if it were but truly offered to us to remove at our will the canvas from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed for ever, the image of some of those mighty scenes which it has been our way to make mere themes for the artist's fancy,--if, for instance, we could again behold the Magdalene receiving her pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples sitting with him at the table of Emmaus,--and this not feebly nor fancifully, but as, if some silver mirror, that had leaned against the wall of the chamber, had been miraculously commanded to retain for ever the colours that had flashed upon it for an instant,--would we not part with our picture, Titian's or Veronese's though it might be?"
It must be observed that all the Latin lines in Dante should be chanted with an equal stress on each syllable, in order to make them rhythmical.
That to the goddess she refused to yield
Low was her birth, and small her native town,
She from her art alone obtained renown.
Nor would the work, when finished, please so
much
As, while she wrought, to view each graceful
touch;
Whether the shapeless wool in balls she
wound,
Or with quick motion turned the spindle
round,
Or with her pencil drew tile neat design,
Pallas her mistress shone in every line.
This the proud maid with scornful air denies
And even the goddess at her work defies ;
Disowns her heavenly mistress every hour,
Nor asks her aid, nor deprecates her power.
Let us, she cries, but to a trial come,
And if she conquers, let her fix my doom."
Down from a beam her injured person hung;
When Pallas, pitying her wretched state,
At once prevented and pronounced her fate :
Live : but depend, vile wretch !' the goddess cried,
'Doomed in suspense for ever to be tied ;
That all your race, to utmost date of time,
May feel the vengeance and detest the crime.
Then, going off, she sprinkled her with juice
Which leaves of baneful aconite produce.
Touched with the poisonous drug her flowing
hair
Fell to the ground and left her temples bare ;
Her usual features vanished from their place,
Her body lessened all, but most her face.
Her slender fingers, hanging on each side
With many joints, the use of legs supplied :
A spider's bag the rest, from which she gives
A thread, , and still by constant weaving lives."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.046
In the revolt of the Ten Tribes. I Kings xii. i8 : "Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute ; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died ; therefore King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to
his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.050
Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he went to the Theban war, concealed himself, to avoid going. His wife Eriphyle, bribed by a "golden necklace set with diamonds," betrayed to her brother Adrastus his hiding-place, and Amphiaraus, departing, charged his son Alcmeon to kill Eriphyle as soon as he heard of his death.
"The son shall bathe his hands in parent's blood,
And in one act be both unjust and good."
Statius, Theb., II. 355, Lewis's Tr. :--
And her sick breast with secret envy swelled.
Not the late omens and.the well-known tale .
To cure her vain ambition aught avail.
O had the wretch by self-experience known
The future woes and sorrows not her own !
But fate decrees her wretched spouse must
bleed,
And the son's frenzy clear the mother's deed."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.053
Isaiah xxxvii. 38 : "And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword ; and they escaped into the land of Armenia, and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.056
Herodotus, Book I. Ch. 214, Rawlinson's Tr. : "Tomyris, when she found that Cyrus paid no heed to her
advice, collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave him battle Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest ....
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.059
After Judith had slain Holofernes. Judith xv. I : "And when they that were in the tents heard, they were astonished at the thing that was done. And fear and trembling fell upon them, so that there was no man that durst abide in the sight of his neighbour, but, rushing out altogether, they fled into every way of the plain and of the hill country .....
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.061
This tercet unites the "I saw, "0," and " Displayed," of the preceding passage, and binds the whole as with a selvage.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.067
Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 19 "There was probably never a period in which the influence of art over the minds of men seemed to depend less on its merely imitative power, than the close of the thirteenth century. No painting or sculpture at that time reached more than a rude resemblance of reality. Its despised perspective, imperfect chiaroscuro, and unrestrained flights of fantastic imagination, separated the artist's work from nature by an interval which there was no attempt to disguise, and little to diminish. And yet, at this very period, the greatest poet of that, or perhaps of any other age, and the attached friend of its greatest painter, who must over and over again have held full and free conversation with him respecting the objects of his art, speaks in the following terms of painting, supposed to be carried to its highest perfection :--
Che ritraesse l'ombre, e i tratti, ch' ivi
Mirar farieno uno ingegno sottile.
Mon li morti , e i vivi parean vivi :
Non vide me' di me, chi vide il vero, Quant' io calcai, fin che chinato givi.'
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.081
The sixth hour of the day, or noon of the second day."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.102
Florence is here called ironically "the well guided" or well governed. Rubaconte is the name of the most easterly of the bridges over the Arno, and takes its name from Messer Rubaconte, who was Podestà of Florence in 1236, when this bridge was built. Above it on the hill stands the church of
San Miniato. This is the hill which Michael Angelo fortified in the siege of Florence. In early times it was climbed by stairways.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.102
Florence is here called ironically "the well guided" or well governed. Rubaconte is the name of the most easterly of the bridges over the Arno, and takes its name from Messer Rubaconte, who was Podesta of Florence in 1236, when the bridge was built. Above it on the hill stands the church of San Miniato. This is the hill which Michael Angelo fortified in the seige of Florence. In early times it was climbed by stairways.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 12.110
Matthew v. 3 : "Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."