§ 18. Finally, although the Carrara mountains are named as having command of the stars and sea, the Alps are never specially mentioned but in bad weather, or snow. On the sand of the circle of the blasphemers—
"Fell slowly wafting down
Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow
On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed."
So the Paduans have to defend their town and castles against inundation,
"Ere the genial warmth be felt,
On Chiarentana's top."
The clouds of anger, in Purgatory, can only be figured to the reader who has
"On an Alpine height been ta'en by cloud,
Through which thou sawest no better than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane."
And in approaching the second branch of Lethe, the seven ladies pause,—
"Arriving at the verge
Of a dim umbrage hoar, such as is seen
Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches oft
To overbrow a bleak and Alpine cliff."
§ 19. Truly, it is unfair of Dante, that when he is going to use snow for a lovely image, and speak of it as melting away under heavenly sunshine, he must needs put it on the Apennines, not on the Alps:
"As snow that lies
Amidst the living rafters, on the back
Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high
And closely piled by rough Sclavonian blasts,
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,
And straightway melting, it distils away,
Like a fire-washed taper; thus was I,
Without a sigh, or tear, consumed in heart."