The beauteous star, which lets no love despair,
Made all the orient laugh with loveliness,
Veiling the Fish that glimmered in its hair.
I turned me to the right to gaze and bless,
And saw four more, never of living wight
Beheld, since Adam brought us our distress;
Heaven seemed rejoicing in their happy light.
O widowed northern pole, bereaved indeed,
Since thou hast had no power to see that sight!
Readers who may have gone thus far with the "Italian Pilgrim's Progress," will allow me to congratulate them on arriving at this lovely scene, one of the most admired in the poem.
This is one of the passages which make the religious admirers of Dante inclined to pronounce him divinely inspired; for how could he otherwise have seen stars, they ask us, which were not discovered till after his time, and which compose the constellation of the Cross? But other commentators are of opinion, that the Cross, though not so named till subsequently (and Dante, we see, gives no prophetic hint about the name), had been seen, probably by stray navigators. An Arabian globe is even mentioned by M. Artaud (see Cary), in which the Southern Cross is set down. Mr. Cary, in his note on the passage, refers to Seneca's prediction of the discovery of America; most likely suggested by similar information. "But whatever," he adds, "may be thought of this, it is certain that the four stars are here symbolical of the four cardinal virtues;" and he refers to canto xxxi, where those virtues are retrospectively associated with these stars. The symbol, however, is not, necessary. Dante was a very curious inquirer on all subjects, and evidently acquainted with ships and seamen as well as geography; and his imagination would eagerly have seized a magnificent novelty like this, and used it the first opportunity. Columbus's discovery, as the reader will see, was anticipated by Pulci.]
[Footnote 2: Generous and disinterested!—Cato, the republican enemy of Cæsar, and committer of suicide, is not luckily chosen for his present office by the poet who has put Brutus into the devil's mouth in spite of his agreeing with Cato, and the suicide Piero delle Vigne into hell in spite of his virtues. But Dante thought Cato's austere manners like his own.]
[Footnote 3: The girding with the rush (giunco schietto) is_ supposed by the commentators to be an injunction of simplicity and patience. Perhaps it is to enjoin sincerity; especially as the region of expiation has now been entered, and sincerity is the first step to repentance. It will be recollected that Dante's former girdle, the cord of the Franciscan friars, has been left in the hands of Fraud.]
[Footnote 4:
"L'alba vinceva l'ora mattutina
Che fuggia 'nnanzi, sì che di lontano
Conobbi il tremolar de la marina."
The lingering shadows now began to flee
Before the whitening dawn, so that mine eyes
Discerned far off the trembling of the sea.