DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE 'IN EARLY ITALIAN POETS. 63 



close of the first canto of his Purgatorio* Dante depicts with 

 inimitable grace the morning fragrance, and the trembling 

 light on the mirror of the gently-moved and distant sea (II 

 tremolar della marina) ; and in the fifth canto, the bursting 

 of the clouds, and the swelling of the rivers, when, after the 

 battle of Campaldino, the body of Buonconte da Montefeltro 

 was lost in the Arno.f The entrance into tne thick grove of 

 the terrestrial paradise is drawn from the poet's remembrance 

 of the pine forest near Ravenna, " la pineta in sul lito di 

 chiassij"\ where the matin song of the birds resounds through 

 the leafy boughs. The local fidelity of this picture of nature 

 contrasts in the celestial paradise with the " stream of light 

 flashing innumerable sparks, which fall into the flowers on 

 the shore, and then, as if inebriated with their sweet fra- 

 grance, plunge back into the stream, while others rise around 

 them." It would almost seem as if this fiction had its origin 

 in the poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphores- 

 cent .condition of the ocean, when luminous points appear to 

 rise from the breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over 

 the surface of the waters, convert the liquid plain into a mov- 

 ing sea of sparkling stars. The remarkable conciseness of the 

 style of the Divina Commedia adds to the depth and earnest- 

 ness of the impression which it produces. 



In lingering on Italian ground, although avoiding the frigid 

 pastoral romances, I would here refer, after Dante, to the 

 plaintive sonnet in which Petrarch describes the impression 



* Dante, Purgatorio, canto i., v. 115 : 



" L 1 alba vinceva 1* pra mattutina 

 Che fuggia 'nnanzi, ei che di lontano 

 Conobbi il tremolitr della marina" .... 



t Purg., canto v., v. 109-127 : 



"Ben sai come nelF aer si raccoglie 

 Quell' umido vapor, che in acqua riede, 

 Tosto che sale, dove *1 freddo il coglie" .... 



\ Purg., canto xxviii., v. 1-24. 

 Parad., canto xxx., v. 61-69: 



" E vidi lume in forma di riviera 

 Fulvido di fulgori intra due rive 

 Dipinte di mirabil primavera. 

 JDi tal fiumana uscian faville vive 

 E d" ogni parte si mettean ne' fiori, 

 Quasi rubin, che oro circonscrive. 

 Poi come inebriate dagli odori, 

 Riprofondavan se nel miro gurge 

 E s" una entrava, un altra n' uacia fuori." 



I do not make any extracts from the Canzones of the Vita Nuova, be- 

 cause the similitudes and images which they contain do not belong to 

 the purely natural range of terrestrial phenomena. 



