hero is destined to do. "Wait for him and his kindnesses. By him many people shall be shifted, rich and beggars exchanging conditions. And thou shalt bear away written of him in thy memory, but thou shalt not tell' And he told me things unbelievable even to those who shall see them."

Skilful restraint often suggests more than any explicit discourse could impart. Suggestion, conveying the impression of something far beyond the power of words, is one of the finest tools of our poetic craftsman; and with an example of its use I shall conclude this account. He employs it especially in the Paradiso, where he has to do with things outside the world of the senses. "Henceforth," he declares, "my language, even in that which I remember, shall be briefer than that of a babe that still wets its tongue at the breast. "Oh! how short and weak is speech," he cries,

compared to my idea! And even that, compared to what I saw, is such that 'little' is all too insignificant a word." Gazing on the beauty of Beatrice, enhanced as it is by her approach to her heavenly home, he exclaims:

If what hath e'er been said of her could all
Combine into a single praise and blend,
For this occasion it would be too small.
The beauty now before me doth transcend
Not only human thirst: the Infinite
Alone can drink it to the very end.
This test hath found me wanting, I admit,
Far worse than any one of poet kind
Was ever vanquished by his hardest bit.

E'en as the sun the feeblest eye doth blind,
E'en so the sweetness of her smile doth chase
Itself from memory, leaving naught behind.
Since first in mortal life I saw her face

Until I saw it thus supremely blest,

My song hath constantly pursued her trace; But now my fond pursuit must come to rest Pursuit of loveliness in poesy

Like every artist who hath done his best.

LECTURE VIII

DICTION

Apollo, pray, for my remaining task,
O! make me such a vessel of thy might
As they must be, for laurels dear who ask.
Till now, enough has been a single height
Of old Parnassus; now I need the two
To succor me in this, my final flight.
Enter my bosom now, and breathe anew,

As when from out the scabbard of the skin
Thy conquest Marsyas' bleeding body drew.
O power divine, let me thy favor win

Until to tell the blessedness I see

Fading from memory's chambers, I begin.
Then shalt thou see me seek thy favorite tree
And crown myself with thy beloved bay,
Made worthy by my subject and by thee.
So seldom, Father, is it pluckt to-day

(O shame upon the base desires of men!)
To decorate or victory or lay,

That joy should swell in joyous Delphi when
The leaf that keeps immortal Daphne's name
Awakes the hankering of poet's pen.

A tiny spark may light a glowing flame;
And after me a louder prayer may rise,

And Cyrrha's echo may repeat the same.

With this impassioned supplication to Apollo, or heavenly inspiration, Dante launches upon his tale of Paradise. At the beginning of his Pur

gatory, too, he prays for help, this time from Calliope, genius of poetic art:

The second realm of spirits I shall sing,
Where penitent the soul itself doth shrive
And thus prepares its heavenward way to wing.
But now be Poetry, sunk in death, alive,

O holy Muses! I am in your care.
And let Calliope a bit revive,

And play, in harmony with me, that air

Which Pieros' wretched daughters once did hear
So grandly swell, it drove them to despair.

As we read the divine poem, we seem, from time to time, to hear the strumming of the Muse,

As skilfully guitar accompanies

A skilful singer, with its quivering string,

And thus the song hath double power to please.

E come a buon cantor buon citarista

Fa seguitar lo guizzo della corda

In che più di piacer lo canto acquista.

With the tinkle of the harp and the guitar, we hear the tinkle of the morning bell which the clock rings:

And as the clock, which early summons all

And wakes the Church, the Bride of God above,
To woo the Bridegroom with her matin call
The clock, where push and pull the wheels that move,
And ting-a-ling so musically sing,

The quick responsive spirit swells with love:
Thus I beheld revolve the glorious ring,
Voice answering unto voice, in perfect peace
And sweetest concord, past imagining,
Save yonder, where delight can never cease.

Indi come orologio che ne chiami

Nell' ora che la sposa di Dio surge
A mattinar lo sposo perchè l'ami,
Che l'una parte l'altra tira ed urge,
Tin tin sonando con sì dolce nota
Che il ben disposto spirto d'amor turge:
Così vid'io la glorïosa rota

Muoversi, e render voce a voce in tempra
Ed in dolcezza ch'esser non può nota,

Se non colà, dove gioir s' insempra.

The clock was still a thing new and strange enough to be a source of pleasurable wonder. Rings of souls, dancing around at greater and less speed, are compared to wheels in clockwork:

Just as the wheels that regulate a clock

Revolve so different, to the watchful eye,
One flying seems, one still as any stock.

I have quoted all these passages, not so much because they speak of harmony as because by their sound and suggestion they create it. Artistic balance, harmony of sound, of phrasing, of sentiment: that is the secret of the pervasive, soothing charm of Dante in his gentler moments.

What then I heard imprest me like the thing,
The very thing that always strikes the ear
When organs play and people stand and sing,
And now we lose the words and now we hear.

Tale imagine appunto mi rendea

Ciò ch' io udiva qual prender si suole
Quando a cantar con organi si stea,
Ch' or sì or no s'intendon le parole.