Page:The Contrasts in Dante.djvu/18

 Brunetto's companions in guilt, the three great Florentines. In every one of these dramatic scenes Dante stands forth as one, at least, of the protagonists.

In Purgatory too we see Dante's humanity even more strongly exhibited. His sense of shame at being compelled to exchange his slow, dignified walk for a run; his breathlesshess when climbing up the lower slopes of the Mountain; his drowsiness on the approach of each successive night of the three days he spent on the Mountain of Purgatory; his self-consciousness of the sin of Pride; his swoon on being rebuked by Beatrice on the banks of the river Lethe—reveal him to us as the Man, with all a man's emotions, all his impulses, and all his feelings.

There is one quality moreover that he exhibits in himself, which is a singular contrast to the character tradition gives him of having fought as a brave soldier at the battle of Campaldino, and that is his pusillanimity (if the expression is not too strong) whilst journeying through Hell and Purgatory. He is always afraid; he is continually relating his fears. He clutches hold of Virgil in frantic terror, he hides himself behind his shoulders. For the supernatural terrifies even those who are bravest in presence of natural terrors; and we may well infer that these expressions of his terror are intended to heighten the horror of what he decribes.

Before reading the twenty-seventh Canto of the Inferno, we must pause for a moment, and endeavour to picture the scene. Dante and Virgil are standing on the crest of the lofty rock-bridge which overhangs the Eighth Bolgia of Malebolge. In the last Canto Dante had described the weird appearance of this valley, in which he could see flames darting about, which reminded him of the fire-flies (lucciole) with which one is so familiar on a summer night in Italy. He learns that in each flame is concealed the shade of a Fraudulent Chancellor. One of these flames has a double horn or apex, and in it are the shades of Ulysses and Diomede, with the fomer of whom Virgil has been conversing, and we shall now hear, in the opening