Con altra voce omai, con altro vello
Ritornerò poeta, ed in sul fonte
Del mio battesmo prenderò 'l capello:
Perocchè ne la fede che fa conte
L' anime a Dio, quiv' entra' io, e poi
Pietro per lei sì mi girò la fronte." ]
[Footnote 46: "Sperent in te." Psalm ix. 10. The English version says,
"And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee.">[
[Footnote 47:
"Tal volta un animal coverto broglia
Sì che l' affetto convien che si paia
Per lo seguir che face a lui la 'nvoglia."
A natural, but strange, and surely not sufficiently dignified image for the occasion. It is difficult to be quite content with a former one, in which the greetings of St. Peter and St. James are compared to those of doves murmuring and sidling round about one another; though Christian sentiment may warrant it, if we do not too strongly present the Apostles to one's imagination.]
[Footnote 48:
"Tal ne la sembianza sua divenne,
Qual diverebbe Giove, s' egli e Marte
Fossero augelli e cambiassersi penne."
Nobody who opened the Commedia for the first time at this fantastical image would suppose the author was a great poet, or expect the tremendous passage that ensues!]
[Footnote 49: In spite of the unheavenly nature of invective, of something of a lurking conceit in the making an eclipse out of a blush, and in the positive bathos, and I fear almost indecent irrelevancy of the introduction of Beatrice at all on such an occasion, much more under the feeble aspect of one young lady blushing for another,—this scene altogether is a very grand one; and the violence itself of the holy invective awful.