"Sotto l'osbergo del sentirsi pura."
The expression is deservedly admired; but it is not allowable in English, and it is the only one admitting no equivalent which I have met with in the whole poem. It might be argued, perhaps, against the perfection of the passage, that a good "conscience," and a man's "knowing himself to be pure," are a tautology; for Dante himself has already used that word;
"Conscienzia m'assicura;
La buona compagnia che l'uom francheggia
Sotto l'osbergo," &c.
But still we feel the impulsive beauty of the phrase; and I wish I could have kept it.]
[Foonote 37: This ghastly fiction is a rare instance of the meeting of physical horror with the truest pathos.]
[Footnote 38: The reader will not fail to notice this characteristic instance of the ferocity of the time.]
[Footnote 39: This is admirable sentiment; and it must have been no ordinary consciousness of dignity in general which could have made Dante allow himself to be the person rebuked for having forgotten it. Perhaps it was a sort of penance for his having, on some occasion, fallen into the unworthiness.]
[Footnote 40: By the Saracens in Roncesvalles; afterwards so favourite a topic with the poets. The circumstance of the horn is taken from the Chronicle of the pretended Archbishop Turpin, chapter xxiv.]
[Footnote 41: The gaping monotony of this jargon, full of the vowel a, is admirably suited to the mouth of the vast, half-stupid speaker. It is like a babble of the gigantic infancy of the world.]
[Footnote 42: