Deh peregrini, che pensosi andate
Forse di cosa, che non v'è presente,
Venite voi di sì lontana gente,
Com'alla vista voi ne dimostrate.

[47] Vita Nuova, last paragraph. See Purg. 30; Parad. 30, 6, 28-33.

[48] See Convito, 1, 2.

[49] Vide Ozanam, Dante, pp. 535, sqq. Ed.

[50]

O ye who fain would listen to my song,
Following in little bark full eagerly
My venturous ship, that chanting hies along,
Turn back unto your native shores again;
Tempt not the deep, lest haply losing me,
In unknown paths bewildered ye remain.
I am the first this voyage to essay;
Minerva breathes—Apollo is my guide;
And new-born muses do the Bears display.
Ye other few, who have look'd up on high
For angels' food betimes, e'en here supplied
Largely, but not enough to satisfy,—
Mid the deep ocean ye your course may take,
My track pursuing the pure waters through,
Ere reunites the quickly-closing wake.
Those glorious ones, who drove of yore their prow
To Colchos, wonder'd not as ye will do,
When they saw Jason working at the plough.
Wright's Dante.

[51] Convito, 1, 10.

[52]

For now so rarely Poet gathers these,
Or Cæsar, winning an immortal praise
(Shame unto man's degraded energies),
That joy should to the Delphic God arise
When haply any one aspires to gain
The high reward of the Peneian prize.—Wright.

[53] Brunetto Latini's Prophecy, Inf. 15.