To prevent Achilles from going to the siege of Troy, his mother Thetis took him from Chiron, the Centaur, and concealed him in female attire in the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros. ↩
As Richter says:—
“The hour when sleep is nigh unto the soul.”
Lucia, the Enlightening Grace of heaven. Inferno II 97. ↩
Nino and Conrad. ↩
Ovid uses a like expression:—
“Sleep and the god together went away.”
The first stair is Confession; the second, Contrition; and the third, Penance. ↩
The gate of Paradise is thus described by Milton, Paradise Lost, III 501:—
“Far distant he descries,
Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of heaven, a structure high;
At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared
The work as of a kingly palace gate,
With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Imbellished; thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model or by shading pencil drawn.
The stairs where such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians briglit, when he from Esau fled
To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz,
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, ‘This is the gate of heaven.’
Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood
There always, but drawn up to heaven sometimes
Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flowed
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth sailing arrived,
Wafted by angels; or flew o’er the lake,
Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.”
The Seven Sins, which are punished in the seven circles of Purgatory; Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust. ↩
The golden key is the authority of the confessor; the silver, his knowledge. ↩
Luke 9:62:—
“No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
And 17:32:—
“Remember Lot’s wife.”
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Lib. III Met. 12:—
“Heu! noctis prope terminos
Orpheus Eurydicen suam
Vidit, perdidit, occidit.
Vos haec fabula respicit,
Quicumque in superum diem
Mentem ducere quaeritis,
Nam qui Tartareum in specus
Victus lumina flexerit,
Quicquid prascipuum trahit,
Perdit, dum videt inferos.”
Milton, Paradise Lost, II 879:—
“On a sudden open fly
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.”
When Caesar robbed the Roman treasury on the Tarpeian hill, the tribune Metellus strove to defend it; but Caesar, drawing his sword, said to him, “It is easier to do this than to say it.”
Lucan, Pharsalia, III:—
“The tribune with unwilling steps withdrew,
While impious hands the rude assault renew:
The brazen gates with thundering strokes resound,
And the Tarpeian mountain rings around.
At length the sacred storehouse, open laid,
The hoarded wealth of ages past displayed;
There might be seen the sums proud Carthage sent,
Her long impending ruin to prevent.
There heaped the Macedonian treasures shone,
What great Flaminius and Aemilius won
From vanquished Philip and his hapless son.
There lay, what flying Pyrrhus lost, the gold
Scorned by the patriot’s honesty of old:
Whate’er our parsimonious sires could save,
What tributary gifts rich Syria gave;
The hundred Cretan cities’ ample spoil;
What Cato gathered from the Cyprian isle.
Riches of captive kings by Pompey borne,
In happier days, his triumph to adorn,
From utmost India and the rising morn;
Wealth infinite, in one rapacious day,
Became the needy soldiers’ lawless prey:
And wretched Rome, by robbery laid low,
Was poorer than the bankrupt Caesar now.”
The hymn of St. Ambrose, universally known in the churches as the Te Deum. ↩
Thomson, “Hymn”:—
“In swarming cities vast
Assembled men to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear
At solemn pauses through the swelling bass,
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.”
In this canto is described the First Circle of Purgatory, where the sin of Pride is punished. ↩
It being now Easter Monday, and the fourth day after the full moon, the hour here indicated would be four hours after sunrise. And as the sun was more than two hours high when Dante found himself at the gate of Purgatory (Canto IX 44), he was an hour and a half in this needle’s eye. ↩
Which was so steep as to allow of no ascent; dritto di salita being used in the sense of right of way. ↩
Polycletus, the celebrated Grecian sculptor, among whose works one, representing the bodyguard of the king of Persia, acquired such fame for excellence as to be called “the Rule.” ↩
With this description of the sculptures on the wall of Purgatory compare that of the shield which Vulcan made for Achilles, Iliad, XVIII 484, Buckley’s Tr.:—
“On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea, the unwearied sun, and the full moon. On it also he represented all the constellations with which the heaven is crowned, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear, which they also call by the appellation of the Wain, which there revolves, and watches Orion; but it alone is free from the baths of the ocean.
“In it likewise he wrought two fair cities of articulate speaking men. In the one, indeed, there were marriages and feasts; and they were conducting the brides from their chambers through the city with brilliant torches, and many a bridal song was raised. The youthful dancers were wheeling round, and among them pipes and lyres uttered a sound; and the women standing, each at her portals, admired. And
