E qui fu la mia mente sì ristretta *

Dentro da sè, che di fuor non venia
Cosa che fosse allor da lei recetta.

Of the cruelty of her (Philomela), who changed her
form into (that of) the bird that most delights in
singing (the nightingale), there appeared the outline
in my imagination. And hereupon was my mind so
shut up within itself, that whatever thing was received
by it, did not come from without.

Commentators have differed considerably as to which of the two sisters, after the cruel vengeance of one or the other of them upon Tereus, is here meant; Procne, whom Jupiter changed into a swallow, or Philomela who became a nightingale.

Dante now turns his thoughts to a second instance of Anger that is worse than that just alluded to; because it is one which shows how there are times when a man can be so inflamed with anger, on account of a slight injury done him by one, that he will set his mind to work the destruction of a large number of innocent persons.

Haman, because Mordecai omitted to do homage to him, compassed the death of the whole of the Jews that were in Persia.

Poi piovve* dentro all' alta fantasia +

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di Dante e Filomela (Progne) in atto tale, che l' empietà si conosca nella sua fisionomia." (Gioberti.)

* mente sì ristretta: Compare Purg. iii, 12, 13: "La mente mia, che prima era ristretta,

Lo intento rallargò."

+ piovve: As rain descends from heaven, so did these visions come down from on high, and enter into Dante's conceptions. Piovere is frequently used by Dante in the sense of something coming down from heaven, whether some attribute of God, or, as in Inf. viii, 83, the rebellious Angels, turned into Demons, after having been expelled from Heaven.

I alta fantasia: Compare Par. xxxiii, 142:

*

Un crocifisso dispettoso e fiero

Nella sua vista, e cotal si moria.
Intorno ad esso era il grande Assuero,

Ester sua sposa e il giusto Mardocheo,
Che fu al dire ed al far così intero.+

Then there descended into my elevated phantasy one
crucified (Haman), contemptuous and haughty in his
look, and with that demeanour (cotal) was he dying.
Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his
consort, and the righteous Mordecai, who was of such
integrity both in word and deed.

30

We now come to the third example, that of a selfdestroyer from Wrath. Benvenuto considers this is an example of a sin of the worst kind. The story is that of Amata, wife of King Latinus; she hanged herself in anger and despair because she thought Turnus had been slain, to whom her daughter Lavinia was betrothed.

E come questa imagine rompeo

Sè per sè stessa, a guisa d' una bulla

"All' alta fantasia qui mancò possa."

Scartazzini observes that Dante calls his phantasy elevated, because it was detached from the senses, and from everything earthly, and soared up to Heaven.

* crocifisso: According to the English version Haman was hanged; the Vulgate has: suspensus . . . in patibulo. It is probable that he was empaled.

+ il giusto Mardocheo, Che fu... cosi intero: Notwithstanding Dante's panegyric of Mordecai, I prefer Bishop Wordsworth's view, (Holy Bible; by Wordsworth, 1872), which is that there is no single person in the Book of Esther of any very lofty elevated character, or of a devout mind. The Bishop says that the Book of Esther must be read in connection with those of Ezra and Nehemiah. The devout Jews had all departed to undergo privations and persecutions while rebuilding Jerusalem. Those who sought their own ease and comfort stayed in Persia, and among these were Mordecai and Esther. bulla: for bolla. Compare Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act i, sc. 3: "The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them."

Cui manca l'acqua sotto qual si feo ;
Surse in mia visione una fanciulla,*

Piangendo forte, e diceva :-" O regina,
Perchè per ira hai voluto esser nulla?

Ancisa t' hai per non perder Laviną ;

Or m' hai perduta; io son essa che lutto,
Madre, alla tua pria ch' all' altrui ruina.”—

And as this image broke up of itself, after the manner
of a bubble, when the water under which it was
formed fails it; there uprose in my vision a young
maiden weeping bitterly, and saying: "O Queen,
why through wrath hast thou chosen to be naught?
Thou hast slain thyself so as not to lose (me) Lavinia;
now thou hast lost me. I am the one, Mother, that
mourns thy destruction, before that of another."

35

By altrui, Lavinia means Turnus, who had not yet been slain by Æneas, as Amata thought was the case. It was not until after Amata's death that Æneas slew Turnus.+

Benvenuto says Virgil adapted this story from one

*fanciulla: The death of Queen Amata is related in Virgil's Æneid, xii, 595-607, but space forbids my quoting it in full.

+ Scartazzini points out that, after having beheld three visions of sweet gentleness (Purg. xv, 85-114), Dante sees by way of contrast as many visions of dire wrath. Perez (I Sette Cerchi, p. 164) has the following: "Filomela uccide: Amano è ucciso: Amata si uccide. Filomela uccide per gustare ne' suoi pensieri, la dolcezza della vendetta, e perde la facoltà de' pensieri, la ragione; Amano, volendo perdere altrui, perde sè stesso; Amata si uccide per non perder Lavinia, e la perde per sempre: sforzi sempre infelici dell' ira. Di Filomela fan vendetta i Celesti: di Amano fan vendetta gli uomini : di Amata fa vendetta ella stessa tre vendette che sovente s' uniscono insieme. Così il volto di due regie donne, orribilmente dall' ira trasformato, mette in orrore al sesso gentile una passione che cancella dalle sembianze umane ogni traccia di bellezza; e l'ira di un regio ministro che cade nei lacci tesi ad altrui, ira politica e religiosa insieme, ammonisce tutti coloro che della patria e della religione fanno instrumento d' ire e vendette superbe."

in Homer's Odyssey, where Anticlea appears to her son Ulysses in Hades, and tells him that she had hung herself, thinking that she had lost him. In his Epistle to the Emperor Henry. VII, Dante refers to this episode as a warning against yielding to selfish passions, instead of accepting apparent evil for the sake of a greater good.

Division II. Dante now describes the appearance of an Angel, whom we shall find to be the Angel of Peace, who purifies him from the sin of Anger, and directs him to the stairway leading up to the next Cornice.

Before proceeding to speak of other matters, Dante relates how he was suddenly roused from his ecstatic trance, and he compares his own case to that of a man fast asleep in his room, on whose face the full rays of the Sun strike through the window, and cause him to awake with a great start of fear; so now did the brilliancy of the Angel awake Dante from his vision, and strike him with awe.

Come si frange il sonno, ove di butto*

Nuova luce percote il viso chiuso,

Che fratto guizza pria che moia tutto ; †

*di butto: Compare Inf. xxiv, 104, 105: "La polver si raccolse per sè stessa,

E in quel medesmo ritornò di butto."

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+ guizza pria che moia tutto: On this Lombardi says: “siccome il pesce, tratto fuor d' acqua, guizza prima di morire, così per catacresi appella guizzare quello sforzo che l' interrotto sonno fa di rimettersi, prima che del tutto svanisca." Biagioli remarks that in Par. xxvi, 70-75, one can extract the reason of what is said in the passage we are discussing:

"E come a lume acuto si dissonna

Per lo spirto visivo che ricorre

Allo splendor che va di gonna in gonna,

Così l'immaginar mio cadde giuso,

Tosto ch' un lume il volto mi percosse,*

Maggiore assai che quel ch' è in nostr' uso.

As sleep is broken, when on a sudden a new light strikes upon the closed eyes, and broken, struggles ere it wholly fades away; so did my illusion vanish (lit. fall down), so soon as there smote upon my face a light far exceeding the one to which we are accustomed (ie., the Sun).

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The radiance of the Angel is so dazzling, that although Dante eagerly longs to know whose is the voice he hears inviting him to approach, his mortal eye is powerless before it, as on earth it would be to gaze on the Sun.

Io mi volgea per vedere ov' io fosse,

Quand' una voce + disse :-" Qui si monta

Che da ogni altro intento mi rimosse ;

E lo svegliato ciò che vede abborre,
Sì nescia è la sua subita vigilia,

Fin che l' estimativa nol soccore ; " etc.
Pestimativa there means the faculty of judgment.

*

un lume il volto mi percosse, et seq. We learn from Canto xvi, 144, that the sudden light which blazed into Dante's eyes was from the radiant form of the Angel. Compare Purg. viii, 36:

"Come virtù che al troppo si confonda." And Milton (Par. Lost, iii, 380):

"Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear."

And (Par. Lost, i, 593):

"The excess of glory obscured.”

And Moore in the National Air beginning, "Say, what shall be our sport to-day?"

That, like the lark which sunward springs,

'Twas giddy with too much light."

+ una voce: "A Dante, che colla rapita immaginazione sta ancor fiso ne' miserabili fatti dell' ira, ferisce negli occhi una luce improvvisa; e mentre vinto e smarrito vien chiedendo a sè stesso dov' egli sia, alla luce s' aggiunge una voce, che invitandolo dolcemente a salire, gli fuga dall' anima ogni truce visione. E la luce e la voce dell' Angelo della Pace. Luce, che con sua