Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/346

326 65. The upper valley of the Arno is in the province of. Quoting these three lines. Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, 246, says: "In these untranslatable verses, there is a feeling of humid freshness, which almost makes one shudder. I owe it to truth to say, that the Cassentine was a great deal less fresh and less verdant in reality than in the poetry of Dante, and that in the midst of the aridity which surrounded me, this poetry, by its very perfection, made one feel something of the punishment of Master Adam."

73. Forsyth, Italy, 116, says: "The castle of Romena, mentioned in these verses, now stands in ruins on a precipice about a mile from our inn, and not far off is a spring which the peasants call Fonte Branda. Might I presume to differ from his commentators, Dante, in my opinion, does not mean the great fountain of Siena, but rather this obscure spring; which, though less known to the world, was an object more familiar to the poet himself, who took refuge here from proscription, and an image more natural to the coiner who was burnt on the spot."

Ampère is of the same opinion, Voyage Dantesque, 246: "The Fonte Branda, mentioned by Master Adam, is assuredly the fountain thus named, which still flows not far from the tower of Romena, between the place of the crime and that of its punishment."

On the other hand, Mr. Barlow, Contributions, remarks: "This little fount was known only to so few, that Dante, who wrote for the Italian people generally, can scarcely be thought to have meant this, when the famous Fonte Branda at Siena was, at least by name, familiar to them all, and formed an image more in character with the insatiable thirst of Master Adam."

Poetically the question is of slight importance; for, as says, "There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth,  and there is salmons in both."

86. This line and line 11 of Canto XXIX. are cited by Gabrielle Rossetti in confirmation of his theory of the "Principal Allegory of the Inferno," that the city of Dis is Rome. He says, Spirito Antipapale, I. 62, Miss Ward's Tr.:—

"This well is surrounded by a high wall, and the wall by a vast trench; the circuit of the trench is twenty-two miles, and that of the wall eleven miles. Now the outward trench of the walls of Rome (whether real or imaginary we say not) was reckoned by Dante's contemporaries to be exactly twenty-two miles; and the walls of the city were then, and still are, eleven miles round. Hence it is clear, that the wicked time which looks into Rome, as into a mirror, sees there the corrupt place which is the final goal to its waters or people, that is, the figurative Rome, 'dread seat of Dis.

The trench here spoken of is the last trench of Malebolge. Dante