alone it goes right and scorns the evil road."[4] And he, "Now
go, for the sun shall not lie seven times in the bed that the Ram
covers and bestrides with all four feet,[5] before this courteous
opinion will be nailed in the middle of thy head with greater
nails than the speech of another, if course of judgment be not
arrested."

[1] So may illuminating grace find the disposition in thee
requisite for the support of its light, until thou shalt arrive
at the summit of the Mountain, the earthly Paradise enamelled
with perpetual flowers.

[2] A part of the Lunigiana.

[3] The old Corrado Malaspina was the husband of Constance, the
sister of King Manfred. He died about the middle of the
thirteenth century. The second Corrado was his grandson.

[4] This magnificent eulogy of the land and the family of
Malaspina is Dante's return for the hospitality which, in 1306,
he received from the Marquis Moroello and other members of the
house.

[5] Seven years shall not pass, the sun being at this time in the
sign of the Ram.



CANTO IX. Slumber and Dream of Dante.--The Eagle.--Lucia.--The
Gate of Purgatory.--The Angelic Gatekeeper.--Seven P's inscribed
on Dante's Forehead.--Entrance to the First Ledge.


The concubine of old Tithonus was now gleaming white on the
balcony of the orient, forth from the arms of her sweet friend;
her forehead was lucent with gems set in the shape of the cold
animal that strikes people with its tail.[1] And in the place
where we were the night had taken two of the steps with which she
ascends, and the third was already bending down its wings, when
I, who had somewhat of Adam with me, overcome by sleep, reclined
upon the grass, there where all five of us were seated.

[1] By the concubine of old Tithonus, Dante seems to have
intended the lunar Aurora, in distinction from the proper wife of
Tithonus, Aurora, who precedes the rising Sun, and the meaning of
these verses is that " the Aurora before moonrise was lighting up
the eastern sky, the brilliant stars of the sign Scorpio were on
the horizon, and, finally, it was shortly after 8.30 P.M."
(Moore.) "The steps with which the night ascends" are the six
hours of the first half of the night, from 6 P.M. to midnight.


At the hour near the morning when the little swallow begins her
sad lays,[1] perchance in memory of her former woes, and when our
mind, more a wanderer from the flesh and less captive to the
thought, is in its visions almost divine,[2] in dream it seemed
to me that I saw poised in the sky an eagle with feathers of
gold, with wings widespread, and intent to stoop. And it seemed
to me that I was there[3] where his own people were abandoned by
Ganymede, when he was rapt to the supreme consistory. In myself I
thought, "Perhaps this bird strikes only here through wont, and
perhaps from other place disdains to carry anyone upward in his
feet." Then it seemed to me that, having wheeled a little, it
descended terrible as a thunderbolt, and snatched me upwards far
as the fire.[4] There it seemed that it and I burned, and the
imagined fire so scorched that of necessity the sleep was broken.

[1] The allusion is to the tragic story of Progne and Philomela,
turned the one into a swallow, the other into a nightingale.
Dante found the tale in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book vi.

[2] Dante passes three nights in Purgatory, and each night his
sleep is terminated by a dream towards the hour of dawn, the time
when, according to the belief of classical antiquity, the visions
of dreams are symbolic and prophetic. (Moore.)

[3] Mt. Ida.

[4] The sphere of fire by which, according to the mediaeval
cosmography, the sphere of the air was surrounded.


Not otherwise Achilles shook himself,--turning around his
awakened eyes, and not knowing where he was, when his mother from
Chiron to Scyros stole him away, sleeping in her arms, thither
whence afterwards the Greeks withdrew him,[1]--than I started,
as from my face sleep fled away; and I became pale, even as a man
frightened turns to ice. At my side was my Comforter only, and
the sun was now more than two hours high,[2] and my face was
turned toward the sea. "Have no fear," said my Lord; "be
reassured, for we are at a good point; restrain not, but increase
all thy force. Thou art now arrived at Purgatory; see there the
cliff that closes it around; see the entrance, there where it
appears divided. A while ago in the dawn that precedes the day,
when thy soul was sleeping within thee, upon the flowers
wherewith the place down yonder is adorned, came a lady, and
said, "I am Lucia; let me take this one who is sleeping; thus
will I assist him along his way.' Sordello remained, and the
other gentle forms: she took thee, and when the day was bright,
she came upward, and I along her footprints. Here she laid thee


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