MONTHLY PACKET OF EVENING READINGS FOR Members of the English Church. NEW SERIES. VOLUME XII. PARTS LXVII. TO LXXII. JULY-DECEMBER, 1871. LONDON: JOHN AND CHARLES MOZLEY, 6, PATERNOSTER ROW; 1871. AFTER the greetings exchanged between Sordello and Virgil, the former asks the name of his fellow-countryman, and on hearing the answer, declares his love and reverence for so great a soul, and inquires whence and by what course he had arrived. Virgil explains the reason of his eternal exile in Limbo; and without allusion to Dante, of whose bodily existence Sordello is still ignorant, begs to be directed to the gate of Purgatory to which the latter rejoins that it is now nearly night-time, when the spirits have no power to ascend further; he therefore offers to lead them to a pleasant valley, where they will find other spirits assembled for their night's sojourn. This may allegorically be interpreted to mean that the sun represents the source of grace, the lantern to direct the feet into the right path, without whose aid we cannot hope to achieve our release from the stains of sin; just as the poets at the first were bidden by Cato to follow his guidance up the mountain. They then accompany Sordello to a recess hollowed out betwixt the plain and the mountain side, where the flowers that cover the grass exceed in the brightness of their colours gold and silver, emerald and cochineal; and a thousand sweet smells are blended into one undistinguishable fragrance. Here sit a company of kings and nobles, among whom Sordello points out to the poets Rudolf Emperor of Germany, Ottocar King of Bohemia, Philip III. of France, Henry III. of Navarre, and others; ending with Henry III. of England, 'the king of simple life,' and William Marquis of Monferrat, who was treacherously seized by his own subjects and cast into prison, where shortly afterwards he died of grief. Dante comes upon these just as they are singing the Salve Regina as a Vesper hymn, followed in the eighth Canto by the Te lucis. Then two angels descend, to keep watch over the company through the night; their wings and vesture pale green, the colour of hope; their swords blunted at the point, to signify that though they can put to flight they cannot VOL. 12. PART 67. 1 |