278 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



the aperture in which Lucifer is placed, the poet 



says, 



"Io levai gli occhi e credetti vedere 

 Lucifero com' io 1' avea lasciato, 

 E vidile le gambe in su tenere." 



" Quest! come e fitto 



Si sottasopra?" .... 



" Quando mi volsi, tu passast' il punto 

 Al qual si traggon d' ogni parte i pesi." 



Inferno, xxxiv. 



"I raised mine eyes, 



Believing that I Lucifer should see 



Where he was lately left, but saw him now 



With legs held upward." .... 



"How standeth he in posture thus reversed?" 



"Thou wast on the other side so long as I 

 Descended; when I turned, thou didst o'erpass 

 That point to which from every part is dragged 

 All heavy substance." 



CARY. 



This is more philosophical than Milton's repre- 

 sentation, in a more scientific age, of Uriel sliding 

 to the earth on a sun-beam, and sliding back again, 

 when the sun had sunk below the horizon. 



" Uriel to his charge 



Returned on that bright beam whose point now raised, 

 Bore him slope downward to the sun, now fallen 

 Beneath the Azores." 



Par. Lost, B. iv. 



The philosophical notions of up and down are 

 too much at variance with the obvious suggestions 

 of our senses, to be held steadily and justly by 



