Mine eyes, and says-Who would have blessedness
Let him but look upon that lady's eyes,

Let him not fear the agony of sighs.

III.

This lowly thought, which once would talk with me
Of a bright seraph sitting crowned on high,

Found such a cruel foe it died, and so

My spirit wept, the grief is hot even nowAnd said, Alas for me! how swift could flee

That piteous thought which did my life console ! And the afflicted one questioning

Mine eyes, if such a lady saw they never,

And why they would . . .

I said, beneath those eyes might stand for ever
He whom
regards must kill with...

To have known their power stood me in little stead,
Those eyes have looked on me, and I am dead.

IV.

Thou art not dead, but thou hast wandered,
Thou soul of ours, who thyself dost fret,

A spirit of gentle love beside me said;

For that fair lady, whom thou dost regret,
Hath so transformed the life which thou hast led,
Thou scornest it, so worthless art thou made.

And see how meek, how pitiful, how staid,

Yet courteous, in her majesty she is.

And still call thou her woman in thy thought;
Her whom, if thou thyself deceivest not,

Thou wilt behold decked with such loveliness,
That thou wilt cry [Love] only Lord, lo here
Thy handmaiden, do what thou wilt with her.

1 Soul being feminine in Italian.

25

30

35

40

45

30

V.

My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning

Of such hard matter dost thou entertain.
Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring
Thee to base company, as chance may do,

Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight; tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.1

35

60

MATILDA GATHERING FLOWERS.

FROM THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE, CANTO XXVIII, 1. 1-51.2

AND earnest to explore within-around

The divine wood, whose thick green living woof
Tempered the young day to the sight-I wound

1 This last stanza was subsequently published as an introduction to Epipsychidion.

66

2 This translation is given as it appears in the Relics of Shelley, except in the cases specified. The first the public heard of it was, I believe, through Medwin's strange book, The Angler in Wales (2 vols, 8vo., 1834). In Vol. II, at pp. 218-20, thirty-nine lines are introduced as Dante's lines in the Purgatorio,' admirably translated by Shelley"; and it is stated that the translation "has never been published." There is no trace in this version of the passage which, in Mr. Garnett's version, as given in the text, consists of lines 9 to 21; and the next few lines, quite differently rendered, follow immediately on line 8, thus:

Like the sweet breathing of a child in sleep:
Already had I lost myself so far
Amid that tangled wilderness, that 1
Perceived not where I entered, but no fear

Of wandering from my way disturbed, when
nigh

A little stream appeared; the grass that grew
Thick on its banks impeded suddenly
My going on.

The version of The Angler, with the
exception of some slight variations,
apparently errors of retranscription,
is again given in Vol. II of Med-
win's Life of Shelley, at pp. 15 and
16 of which we read as follows:
"What he meant by an adequate
translation, was, one in terza rima...
I asked him if he had ever attempted
this, and, looking among his papers,
he shewed, and gave me to copy, the
following fragment from the Purga-
torio." Medwin would not, to judge
from what we know of him, have been
anxious to conceal any partnership he
might have had in this production ;
and we must accept the main varia-
tions of his version, as genuine vari-
orum readings.

3 That in The Angler.

Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof,
With slow soft steps leaving the mountain's steep,
And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof

Against the air, that in that stillness deep.
And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare,
The slow soft stroke of a continuous . . .

5

In which the

leaves tremblingly were

10

All bent towards that part where earliest
The sacred hill obscures the morning air.

Yet were they not so shaken from the2 rest,

But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,
Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,

15

With perfect joy received the early day,

Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound
Kept a low burden to their roundelay,

Such as from bough to bough gathers around
The pine forest on bleak Chiassi's shore,
When Eolus Scirocco3 has unbound.

My slow steps had already borne me o'er
Such space within the antique wood, that I
Perceived not where I entered any more,

When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by,
Bending towards the left through grass that grew
Upon its bank, impeded suddenly

1 In The Angler we read

Up a green slope, beneath the starry roof,
With slow slow steps, ...

and in the next line, leafy for inmost.

So in the Relics: Mr. Rossetti substitutes their for the, conjecturally. 3 Sirocco in the Relics.

My going on. Water of purest hue1
On earth, would appear turbid and impure
Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew,

Dark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure
Eternal shades,2 whose interwoven looms
The rays of moon or sunlight ne'er endure.

I moved not with my feet, but 'mid the glooms
Pierced with my charmèd eye contemplating
The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms

That starred that night, when, even as a thing
That suddenly for blank astonishment

Charms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,

A solitary woman! and she went5

Singing and gathering flower after flower,

30

35

40

With which her way was painted and besprent.

Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power
To bear true witness of the heart within,
Dost bask under the beams of love, come lower

7

Towards this bank. I prithee let me win
This much of thee, to come, that I may hear
Thy song: like Proserpine, in Enna's glen,

1 According to Medwin, dew here, and hue for dew in the next line but

one.

2 In The Angler we have of the close boughs, instead of Eternal shades, and the next lines stand thus:

No ray of moon or sunshine will endure. My feet were motionless, but mid the glooms

Darted my charmed eyes...

3 Which in The Angler.

4 This line is from Medwin: Mr.

Garnett gives the incomplete line,
Dissolves all other thought,..

5 Medwin gives this line thusAppeared a solitary maid-she went... 6 Unto in The Angler.

45

Medwin puts a full-stop here, and reads O come. In the next line, I adopt his reading, which seems to me preferable to that of the Relics

Thy song-like Proserpine in Enna's glen. The full-stop at glen strikes me as subversive of the sense.

Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here

And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when
She lost the spring, and Ceres her more dear.

UGOLINO.

FROM THE INFERNO OF DANTE, CANTO XXXIII, 1. 22-75.

TRANSLATED BY MEDWIN AND CORRECTED BY SHELLEY.1

Now had the loophole of that dungeon, still
Which bears the name of Famine's Tower from me,
And where 'tis fit that many another will

Be doomed to linger in captivity,
Shown through its narrow opening in my cell,
Moon after moon slow waning, when a sleep,

That of the future burst the veil, in dream
Visited me-it was a slumber deep
And evil-for I saw, or I did seem