The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri

Author:Dante Aligheri [Aligheri, Dante]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Italian Literature, Epic Poem, World Literature
Publisher: Anncona Media AB
Published: 1472-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

In my imagination appeared the impress of the impiety of her[1] who changed her form into the bird that most delights in singing. And here was my mind so shut up within itself that from without came nothing which then might he received by it. Then rained down within my high fantasy, one crucified,[2] scornful and fierce in his look, and thus was dying. Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, who was in speech and action so blameless. And when this imagination burst of itself, like a bubble for which the water fails, beneath which it was made, there rose in my vision a maiden,[3] weeping bitterly, and she was saying, "O queen, wherefore through anger hast thou willed to be naught? Thou hast killed thyself in order not to lose Lavinia: now thou hast lost me: I am she who mourns, mother, at thine, before another's ruin.

[1] Progne or Philomela, according to one or the other version of the tragic myth, was changed into the nightingale, after her anger had led her to take cruel vengeance on Tereus.

[2] Haman, who, according to the English version, was hanged, but according to the Vulgate, was crucified—Esther, vii.

[3] Lavinia, whose mother, Amata, killed herself in a rage at hearing premature report of the death of Turnus, to whom she desired that Lavinia should be married.—Aeneid, xii. 595-607.

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