The Zoologist/4th series, vol 5 (1901)/Issue 724/Dante as a Naturalist, Bevir

by Joseph Louis Bevir

 

THE ZOOLOGIST

 

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No. 724.—October, 1901.

 

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DANTE AS A NATURALIST.

By J.L. Bevir, M.A.

 

There is one peculiarity of Dante that has struck all readers of the 'Divina Commedia,' and that is his desire throughout to be exact in his descriptions. It may not be uninteresting, therefore, to consider what he has to say on the subject of natural history. He uses animals allegorically as part of the dramatis personæ of the 'Commedia,' and he often refers to them in simile. In so doing, we find that he may be merely taking some generally recognized characteristic of a beast, or describing it accurately from personal knowledge, and the value of his remarks will vary according as he is speaking from his own experience, or from what he has accepted from others.

The best division under which to consider them will be foreign animals, and those which he has met with in Italy. Of the first class—foreign animals, as one might expect—his descriptions are for the most part general. For instance, in the first canto of the "Inferno," the Lion—the emblem of pride—has nothing very special about it as it advances "with head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger." He may have seen one in some ducal Lion-pit, but the description of it might as well be a reminiscence of some heraldic imaging of the beast, to which all the other references are to be attributed, with the exception of (Inf. xxxi. 118) the passage where he is speaking of Antæus gathering a thousand Lions as sport; and there he is merely quoting Lucan.

Of other foreign beasts, he makes allusion to the Elephant and Whale, both in speaking of the giants that rise around the ninth circle in the "Inferno" (Inf. xxxi. 52), where he makes the quaint remark that Nature did well to give up forming such creatures as the giants; and if she does not repent of Elephants and Whales, it is because they have not the intelligence to do harm; wherein Dante shows that he does not appreciate the intelligence of the Elephant, and perhaps, Mr. Bullen would add, of the "Cachalot."

Of other foreigners, he mentions the Bear, but only in reference to Elisha; the Ape and the Pelican, both in a conventional way.

Perhaps under this heading we should include his allusion to the Bivero or Bevero (Inf. xvii. 22).

Dante and Virgil have come to the margin of the eighth circle, whence they are to descend on the back of Geryon to the ninth. The monster, with a human head, paws, and a serpent's body, came up, and thrust on shore its head and bust; "but on to the border did not drag its back." The poet compared its position to that of a Beaver, "who among the guzzling Germans plants himself to wage his war" (upon the fish). Obviously Dante did not know the animal intimately, and, like many an Englishman of the present day, who fails to distinguish between the Sewer-Rat and the Beaver's humble representative the Water-Rat, accepted the common view which confused the fish-eating Otter with the rodent Castor. This is clearly brought out in Boccaccio's note:—"Bevero, the male Otter: this animal is very fond of fish; therefore it takes its stand on the banks of the Danube, puts its tail, which is very thick, into the water, and, because there is much fat on it, an unctuous matter exudes from it, by which the water is covered, as it were, with oil. To this the fish come, and the Beaver turns round and takes his pick of them"—a neatly concocted theory, from the way in which they have seen the Beaver sitting, and the shining greasy look of its tail. Had he seen a Norwegian landing fish with an oar, he doubtless would have let the Biber bring the fish to land in more sporting way, without turning round. Dante, however, knows what an Otter looks like, for (Inf. xxii. 36) he compares a baron of Thibault, King of Navarre, when he is being dragged out of the boiling pitch, to one—which is a very good simile.

This completes the list of extraneous animals, unless the Lynx be included; for some would have it that it is the Leopard, or the Caracal, that Dante intends by the Lonza, which he selects as representing worldly pleasure, on the one hand, and Florence, torn by the factions of the Bianchi and Neri, on the other. Set us look at what he says of it (Inf. 1. 32): —

" Une lonza leggiera et presto molto,
Che cli pel maculato era coperta;"

and again (Inf. xvi. 108), "la lonza alia pelle dipinta."

There is no doubt as to what he would set before us—some quick-stealing feline animal with a mottled coat; and probably he is following his master Virgil, who speaks twice of "variæ lynces," which take us back to the Βαλιαὶ λὐγκες of the 'Alcestis.' It is hence that several commentators, going back to the fact that Lynces were the satellites of Bacchus, and that in the classics the idea is associated with India, while at times the word Tiger is used, determine that the word Lynx here must mean either the Leopard or the Felis caracal, which are not European specimens. I cannot see why it should not be the Felis lynx (the Common Lynx), which was to be found in most parts of Southern Europe; an animal with long fur of dull reddish grey, marked upon the sides with oblong spots of reddish brown, which become round and smaller on the limbs; the lower part mottled with black and white. This seems to suit the "pelle maculata" and "dipinta"; while Boccaccio's tale that, when one was being led through the streets of Florence, the boys followed it, and called it a "pard," shows how commonly the two were mistaken. It is not at all impossible that Dante may have come across the beast on some hunting expedition, and that it should have been included in the second division—that of animals with which Dante met in Italy.

Under this head I will first consider those which he met in the chase. The most important of these are the Dogs, of which one knows a good deal from pictures by early masters, and perhaps the simplest way of approaching the subject would be to glance at the Dogs which one finds there.

The reader will be able to supply from his own knowledge many mediæval pictures containing Dogs. I will only take one by Vittore Pisano, who was born in 1380—a picture which all will know, as it is in our National Gallery. It is the Conversion of St. Eustace. He, like St. Hubert, meets a Stag with a crucifix between its horns. Eustace is on horseback. Near him are two Dogs of mastiff breed, and one that is a kind of staghound. In front are two setters; to the right two magnificent greyhounds pursuing a Hare, which is bolting for a wood which contains a Brown Bear; on the left the heads of two big hounds with drooping ears, obviously of the nature of bloodhounds. In this picture are to be found most of the recognized breeds of mediæval Italy. The commonest of them is Veltro, the greyhound—the Vertagus of Martial—that was trained to bring to his master the Hare unhurt. It is of them that Dante speaks where he tells of the pursuit of Lano and his friends through the wood of human trees (Inf. xiii. 126). He says the Hell-hounds come on like greyhounds let out of a leash; and again (Inf. xxiii. 18), more cruel than a Dog to a Hare, which it seizes in its teeth. The greyhound was used for pursuing, but did not find game. For this purpose a kind of setter was used. He marked the Hare for the greyhound, and put up the birds for the Hawk. The Dog was called Bracco, whence the French Brague, and does not occur in the 'Comedy'; but Dante, in the "Convito," says every excellence in everything is to be desired, "Siccome nel bracco il bene oderare, nel veltro il bene correre."

He is speaking of a bigger breed of Dogs in Ugolino's dream (Inf. xxxiii.), where the latter saw the Archbishop hunting the Wolves and whelps upon the mountain ("con cagne magre studiose et conte"), which Longfellow translates, "With sleuth-hounds gaunt, eager, and well-trained." They were probably a breed of mastiffs ("mastini," the Roman Molossus), which were used also for catching thieves (Inf. xxi. 44). It was with these that Nastigio degli Onesti saw his phantom ancestor Cavalcante hunting the fair Lady Disdain in the woods of Chiasso, near Ravenna. This breed originally came from Epirus, but there was a bigger one still coming from Sarmatia, known as Alano; so much stronger, that Ariosto, in the last scene in the 'Orlando Furioso,' where he is describing the Saracen pinned down by Ruggiero, says:—

"Come mastin sotto il feroce alano,
Che fissi i denti ne la gola abbia."

This is all Dante has to say of hounds, and I will therefore turn to their quarry.

Of Wolves he often speaks; they are to him the symbol of avarice, either of the Florentines (Purg. xiv. 50), or of the Popes (Par. ix. 132); nor could any animal better describe insatiate desire that derives no benefit from getting. Two passages in particular give one a perfect picture of the beast (Inf. 1. 49): She-Wolf ("Chi ditute brame Sembiava carca nella sua sembianza"); and again he speaks (Purg. xx. 10) of the limitless hunger of the "old she-Wolf, who more than all the beasts has prey" ("Per la sua fame senza fine cupa"). We have a sketch, too, of the Wild Boar (porco), which modern Italian keeps for the domestic Pig, using cinghiale for the nobler animal. He tells us of its tusks, and describes the noise a Boar-hunt makes (Inf. xiii. 113) as beast and dogs come crashing through the branches. Apparently they did not hunt the Fox, for the only allusions to the Volpe refer in a general way to his cunning (as when he speaks of the Pisans (Purg. xiv. 53), but they hunted the Deer (dama) (Par. iv. 6)). In an amusing passage he alludes to it. He says his mind was so evenly divided that he is like a man free to choose between two kinds of food equally removed and equally tempting, who would die of hunger; and so would stand a hound between two does. Few now quote this simile, for to our generation Heine's Donkey between two bundles of hay is better known.

Whatever Dante's enjoyment of the chase may have been, there can be little doubt that he preferred hawking. According to Plumptre this pursuit, which had been lately introduced into Italy by Federigo II., formed part of Dante's education, and he had probably read a copy of Frederic's work on hawking, which existed in manuscript with hand-painted pictures, and must have been in a way to that age what Gould's 'Birds' has been to ours.

This we gather from the way in which he used terms in falconry, and from the fact that by piecing together his different similes we have a very fair picture of the sport. He says, for instance (Inf. iii. 117), that the damned souls rush to Charon, when he signs to them ("come augel per suo richiamo"), like a Falcon to his call. That is the exact meaning of "richiamo," the sound made by the falconer, which from its earliest training the bird associates with the idea of food; it is sometimes used as the equivalent of "logoro," lure (Purg. xix. 62); the German Federspiel, made of leather with feathers attached, from which the Hawk is fed, that it may learn to connect with it the sight of its food, and may come back to its master if it found no bird. From what Buti says, occasionally actual birds were used for the lure, differing according to the kind of Hawk employed.

Falconers recognized two kinds of birds. First, the long-winged or proper Falcons, of which class the Gyrfalcon and the Peregrine (Falco peregrinus) were the ordinary representatives. Of these the Gyrfalcon, a big bird, inhabits Northern Europe only, and does not seem to have been imported till later into Italy for sporting purposes; while the Peregrine is the Falcon of Dante that figures in many similes. The second class consisted of the short-winged, and were generally represented by the Goshawk (Falco gentilis)^[1] and the Sparrow-Hawk (Sparvius).^[2] Dante knew both. He speaks of the two guardian angels of the quiet valley in the "Purgatorio" as "astore" (Purg. viii. 104), which is the Goshawk, and he has much to say of the "sparviere" (épervier). He notices it with regard to the common custom of the shortwinged grappling their quarry instead of striking it dead, for, in speaking of the two demons fighting (Inf. xxii. 139), he says that one

"Fu bene sparviere grifagno
Ad artigliar ben lui."

He also alludes to a method of taming the wild Sparrow-Hawk, for the envious in Purgatory expiate their sins by having their eyelids fastened together with iron wire (Purg. xiii. 71), "as is done to a wild Sparrow-Hawk, because it will not keep still"—a mode of treatment recommended by Frederic.

To turn to the sport itself. We have a picture of the process (Par. xix. 34). The start: the Hawk, on having his hood removed, shakes his head and flaps his wings (coll' ali si applauda), showing his eagerness, and making himself fine. Next (Purg. xix. 64) he surveys his feet, then turns him to the call (of the falconer), and "darts forward through strong desire for food that draws him thither." He wheels up into the air (Par. xviii. 45), carefully watched by the eye of the falconer. He spies his quarry, and makes for it. The only actual instance we have is in Inf. xxii, 131: this time a Duck, that at the Falcon's approach dives under, and comes up cross and weary. A very good description. I watched a big Hawk once in Norway that was dividing its attentions between a Heron and a Duck, neither of which left the sea-pool where they were. The Hawk settled on a tree in a small island, and kept sweeping down on first one and then the other. There was a great deal of shrieking, and the Heron baffled it by its flight, and the Duck by diving, coming up each time, one might judge from the sounds it emitted, distinctly cross and weary (Inf. xvii. 127). In Dante's simile of the approach of Geryon, we have a picture of the disappointed Hawk:

"E'en as a Falcon long upheld in air,
Not seeing lure, or bird upon the wing.
So that the falconer utters, in despair,
'Alas, thou stoop'st!' fatigued descends from high,
And, whirling quickly round in many a ring,
Far from his master sits—disdainfully."

With this ends Dante's allusion to sporting; but, as the modern Italian, who goes alla caccia with his gun and his game-bag, shoots for the pot, and spares neither Yellowhammer nor Wagtail, perhaps this would be the place to mention the professional "che dietro all' uccello sua vita perde" (Purg. xxiii. 3). He apparently crept up, and looked cautiously through the leaves, and then took a sitting shot; for we are told (Purg. xxxi. 61) that the young inexperienced bird will wait till he has had two or three shots, but at the full-fledged (pennuto) it is no good shooting, and in vain is the net spread in its sight. The latter part is a quotation from the Book of Proverbs, "frustra jacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum" (an equivalent of "Old birds are not to be caught with chaff"), which in our version has been reduced to nonsense by translating (pennati) as "any bird."

Domestic animals and cattle next claim attention. Of the former, we have the Cat pursuing the Mouse (Inf. xxii. 58), and four allusions to Dogs. In the first, as in Calverley, "the Dog said nothing, but searched for fleas." He is describing the usurers, who are worried by the fiery flakes that fall upon them, and are trying to remove them (Inf. xvii. 49):—

"Non altrimenti fan di state i cani
⁠O col ceffo, o coi pie, quando son,
⁠O da pulei, o da mosche, o da tafani morsi."

We are next introduced to him gnawing a bone (Inf. xsxiii. 78), and then we see the faithful House-Dog flying at a tramp (Inf. xxi. 68), and, lastly, the impotent cur (botolo) snarling at the passer-by (Purg. xiv. 46). I can find no allusion to the Sheep-Dog, which is surprising, especially when Giotto has left us the picture of such a fascinating little puppy in his carving of pastoral life on the tower of the Cathedral at Florence. But, though he is not mentioned, the Sheep ("pecore pecorelle agnelli") are alluded to on several occasions. I always imagine them to be Giotto's Sheep, not the great big specimens with which one meets in England. He describes the sportive lamb (Par. v. 82), that leaves its mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple, combats at its own pleasure with itself. He speaks of them, as did our early poets, as the "silly Sheep" (Par. v. 80), but they supply him with two of his most fascinating similes. The first is a long one, describing a frosty morning in early spring, and the shepherd driving out his flock. There is such an atmosphere about it; it reminds one of Turner's 'Winter's Morning' (Inf. xxiv. 1). It is getting near the equinox; the hoar-frost on the ground looks like snow, but soon evaporates.

"The rustic now exhausted his supply,
⁠Rises betimes, and looks out, and sees the land
All white around, whereat he strikes his thigh,
Turns back, and, grieving, wanders here and there.
⁠Like one disconsolate, and at a stand;
Then issues forth, forgetting his despair.
⁠For, lo! the face of nature he beholds
Changed on a sudden—takes his crook again,
⁠And drives his flock to pasture in the folds."

Again, he gives us an accurate picture of them (Purg. iii. 79), where they come out of the fold by ones and twos and threes; and others stand timid, turning their eyes and noses down to the earth; and whatever the foremost one does, so the others do, huddling close up to it if it stops, simple and quiet, and do not know any reason for what they do. An excellent simile to describe a crowd blindly following their leader, and one which he repeats in slightly altered form in the "Convito," 1. 11.

We have been speaking as yet of Sheep; they are to be distinguished (Par. ix. 131) from the Goats, for which we have three names—"capra," "becco" (German, Bock), and (Inf. xxxii. 15) "zeba," from "zibbe," a corrupted form of the German "Ziege"; these he has watched climbing over almost impossible ways (Inf. xix. 132), as one sees them in Corsica, often to one's imminent peril, if one is walking on the road below, or butting each other with their heads down (Inf. xxxii. 50) ("come due becchi, cozzaro in sieme"); or quietly chewing the cud watched by their shepherd (Purg.xxvii. 76), "just as the Goats become quiet while ruminating, which had been agile and venturesome upon the mountain tops before they took their meal, resting hushed in the shade while the sun is hot, watched by their shepherd, who leans upon his staff." I have quoted Vernon's translation. He agrees with Longfellow in translating "proterve" venturesome. I should be inclined to think it was more likely a reminiscence of "hædique petulci" of Virgil. Of other cattle, we have "bue" and "toro"; the former obviously the meek-eyed, long-horned Oxen (Purg. xxxii. 145), which it is so hard to pass in a narrow street of some old Tuscan town as they sway their heads from side to side beneath the yoke (Purg. xii. 1) while they drag the rough carts full of wine-casks and other agricultural produce. The poet gives one quaint touch with regard to them (Inf. xvii. 75) when he makes the great usurer Scrovigni distort his mouth, put out his tongue (" come hue chi il muso lecchi"). He has nothing interesting to tell us about bulls. One passage (Inf. xii. 22) is an adaptation of a simile of Virgil, with regard to the sacrificial bull that reels from the stroke it has received; the other (Par. xvi. 70) tells us that a blind bull falls more headlong than a blind lamb—which, though true, does not add much to our knowledge.

It is worth while to turn for a moment to Dante's reptiles before considering his birds. The Frog is mentioned several times. He alludes to Æsop's fable of the fight between "Il Rana e Il Tope," the latter of which obviously comes from "talpa," and originally meant "mole," but is here used for Mouse. The Frog appears also in the description of Caina (Inf. xxxii. 31), and of the fifth Bolgia in the "Inferno," in which the judges who take bribes for giving judgment squirm in a marsh of boiling pitch, over which Graffiacane and other such demons wheel on ponderous wings. The wretched souls would fain get respite by emerging from the pitch, and so (Inf. xxii. 25) —

"As on the brink of water in a ditch,
The Frogs stand only with their muzzle out,
So that they hide their feet and other bulk;
So upon every side the sinners stood."

But not for long. The warder demons, when they see them, swoop down upon them, at whose approach they mostly plunge again into the pitch, though Dante saw one wait, "as one Frog remains, and another dives down." We have, too, the description of the accursed souls that fly before the approach of the celestial messenger, who strides dry-shod across the Styx (Inf. ix. 76), "even as Frogs disappear in all directions across the water before the (biscia) snake, till they are huddled all together on the land."

This brings us to the consideration of snakes, for which he used as generic names "serpe" or "serpenti," crawling animals. Since the thieves in Hell (Inf. xxiv. 82) are punished by snakes, he gives us a grand selection. He says there were more there than could be found in the deserts of Libya or in Ethiopia, or above the Red Sea.

"Chelidri, iaculi e faree cencri con amphisbena."

Not unlike Milton's list (Par. Lost, x. 525)—"Asp and amphisbœna dire"—

"Cerastes horned, hydrus and ellops drear."

In other passage, speaking of the Furies (Inf. ix. 41), who

"Con idre verdissime eran cinte,
Serpentelli e ceraste avean per crine."

As a whole they are more interesting as mentioning the snakes known to the ancients than for any other reason, for they come from Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' and are to be found in Pliny's Natural History; but some of them are probably Italian, for Virgil speaks (Geo. xi. 214) of "nigris exesa chelydris creta," which may have been Tropodonatus tessellatus and viperinus, both Italian snakes, that live almost exclusively in the water, and feed on fish.

The Jaculus is found in Greece, and may in old times have been found in Italy, though there is no record of it; it is an unpleasing little reptile that hurls itself at one from a tree. He is speaking more from observation (Inf. xxv. 53) when he speaks of

"Serpentello acceso,
Livido e nero come grar di pepe";

a fiery little serpent (fiery in the Biblical sense, that is to say, venomous), partly dark green, partly black. A very good description of the Adder, by one of which I was nearly bitten in the nose one hot day in June when I stooped to bathe my face in a stream near San Gemignano. The little beast was sitting coiled up in the water, with only its head protruding. Both it and the ordinary Grass-Snake very often take to the water, even in England. In White's 'Selborne,' he says they will stay under water in search of food. There is no doubt that both species frequent damp places where Frogs and the like abound, and will swim after them, if their quarry take to the water. This brings us back to the Biscia, which perhaps should have been included in the generic name for snakes, for the word is onomatopœic to represent the hissing animal, an idea which Milton conveys by the frequent repetition of sibilants when describing snakes. Here it is probably the Common Grass-Snake. Dante had seen such chasing Frogs in the swamps around Ravenna, to which the passage above quoted refers; and he says that Cacus had around his chest more snakes than he would have believed could have been found in the Maremma (Inf. xxv. 19), that other marshy district on the west coast of Italy, part of which was drained by Napoleon, part planted more recently with eucalyptus. There are several other references to snakes, but they are not worth anything from the naturalist's point of view, except the one that invaded the happy vale in Purgatory (Purg. viii. 98); for, though he gives a fabulous touch to it by saying, "possibly it was the one that gave the bitter fruit to Eve," yet it is drawn from life; for he says that it pursued its way through the green grass and bright flowers, turning every now and then its head towards its back, and licking like a beast does when it smooths its coat. A description from which Milton has borrowed (Par. Lost, ix. 525).

He mentions other reptiles, but they are fabulous, with the exception of the Lizard—the bright southern creature, not the dull brown reptile of our heath-lands. He speaks of it as darting from hedge to hedge in the blaze of the summer sun like a flash of lightning (Inf. xxv, 79)—

"Come il ramarro sotto la gran ferse,
Ne' di canicular cangiando sepe,
Folgore par, se la via attraversa."

And now I come to birds; and it is here that the poet is at his best. One almost hesitates to deal with them, for Dean Church has already touched upon sundry of the poet's similes with regard to them; but I will venture to go on, for there is still something to be said, even though I must go over part of the ground which he has covered. The words he uses for birds are derived from "avica," or its diminutive "augello," "uccello," and "oca." The latter is interesting. It properly means a bird, but in modern Italian is only used for goose. I have come across an analogous case in Norway, where in a certain district they employ the word "om"—which merely means fowl—to the Shoveler. "Oca" only occurs once in the poem, and there merely as a crest on the pouch of one of the usurers (Inf. xvii. 63); on a red ground was blazoned "un oca bianca piu che burro," which would seem to refer to the goose.

As throughout the poem Dante has to allude to masses of souls floating in the air, it is only natural that he should frequently compare them to birds—for instance (Inf. v. 40), the pack of Starlings. The migratory birds that he had watched going south in autumn and north in spring furnished him with many suitable comparisons. Of these he mostly chose the Stork (Ciconia alba) and Crane (Grus communis), to either which he sometimes alludes distinctly, sometimes leaves the reader to guess to which he is referring. He tells us that of the spirits frozen into the ice (Inf. xxxii. 36), that their teeth chatter, and make a noise like Storks; that quaint incessant noise which is so well represented by Hauff 's "Herr Klapperschnabel." He sketches for us the Stork standing up in its nest after feeding its young (Par. xix. 92), or draws a picture of the little Stork trying to leave its nest (Purg. xxv. 10). Then we have allusions to their flight, sometimes in a compact mass, sometimes in a long line (Par. xviii. 73)—

"Come augelli surti di riviera,
Quasi congratulando a lor pastura,
Fanno di si or tonda or lunga schiera";

or (Purg. xxiv. 64), like the birds that winter on the Nile, sometimes make of themselves a compact array, sometimes fly in a long line. Milton speaks of both in the same passage. He says:—

"Part loosely wing the region, part more wise,
In common ranged in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons; and set forth
Their aery caravan, high over seas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent Crane
Her annual voyage."

So has Dante seen them—seen the great flocks part, and wheel, some north, some south (Purg. xxvi. 43)—seen them, and heard their melancholy note, which is so well adapted to describe the cry of the lost souls (Inf. v. 48) —

"Come i gru van cantando lor lai."

After the Cranes, Dante has most to say of the Pigeons. He has a wonderfully accurate picture of a flock of them coming down, and setting to work in a business-like way (Purg. ii. 125: "senza mostrar l'usato orgoglio"), pecking at blades of grass, first on one side and then on another, until a sudden scare comes, and they rise en masse and fly away. Or, again, what a perfect picture one has of the Rock-Pigeon sweeping down to its nest with firm expanded wings (Inf. v. 82)—

"Quali colombe dal disio chiamate,
Con l'ali aperte e ferine al dolce nido,
Volan per l'aer dal voler portate."

So, too (Par. xxv. 19), where a Dove settles by its mate, and walks round it cooing; the rhythm of the line helps one to imagine the whole scene—

"L'uno e l'altro pande,
Girando e mormorando l'affezione,"

as "les tourterelles roucoulaient" of La Fontaine's fables lets one hear the Turtles in the tree. Beyond these he notices the Swan (Purg. xix. 46); the Nightingale (Purg. xvii. 20), that delights in its own song; the Blackbird, that sings its song of joy for fair weather (Purg. xiii. 123) ("come fa il merlo per poca bonaccia"); but, above all the common birds, the Lark (Purg. XX. 71)—

"Qual lodoletta, die 'n aere si spazia,
Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta,
Dell' ultimo dolcezza clie la sazia."

Of which Landor says: "All the verses that ever were written on the Nightingale are scarcely worth the beautiful triad of this divine poet on the Lark. In the first of them do you not see the twinkling of her wings against the sky? As often as I repeat them my ear is satisfied; my heart, like hers, contented."

In conclusion, I would notice the birds at break of day. As one would imagine, Dante was an early riser, and must have often gone out to wander ere the day had fully dawned. We have already had a picture of early morning with the shepherd. In the "Paradise" (Par. xxiii. 1) he describes the bird sitting on its callow young through the night; then, eager to behold its nestlings, and to get them food,

"Previene il tempo in sul aperta frasca,
E con ardente affetto il sole aspetta,
Fiso guardando, pur che l'alba nasca."

So again (Purg. xviii.), he speaks of the tuneful quire of little birds, who cease not to employ all their skill —

"Ma con piena letizia l'ore prime,
Cantando, riceveano intra le fogli,
Che tenevan bordon alle sue rime."

And of the Swallow (Purg. ix. 14), that near the dawn "comincia i tristi lai." But of all his similes of birds in the early morning, the most perfect is that of the Rooks (Par. xxi. 35):—"And, as following their natural custom, the Rooks gather together at the break of day, move to warm their cold feathers; then some go away without return, others return whence they set out, and others, wheeling round, stay where they are." A perfect picture of a rookery waking up, and one which must have inspired Shelley in his lines on the Euganean Hills:—

"I stood and listened to the Pæan
With which the legioned Rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical.
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mists they soar,
Like grey shades, till the Eastern heaven
Bursts; and then as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain.
Starred with drops of golden rain.
Gleam above the sunlit woods."

 

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1. Astur palumbarius.
2. Accipiter nisus.