Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 20.djvu/21

CANTO II HELL 9

CANTO II

ARGUMENT. After the invocation, which poets are used to prefix to their works, he shows that, on a consideration of his own strength, he doubted whether it sufficed for the journey proposed to him, but that, being comforted by Virgil, he at last took courage, and followed him as his guide and master.

NOW was the day departing, and the air, Imbrown'd with shadows, from their toils released All animals on earth; and I alone Prepared myself the conflict to sustain, Both of sad pity, and that perilous road, Which my unerring memory shall retrace.

Muses! O high genius! now vouchsafe Your aid. O mind! that all I saw hast kept Safe in a written record, here thy worth And eminent endowments come to proof.

1 thus began: "Bard! thou who art my guide, Consider well, if virtue be in me Sufficient, ere to this high enterprise

Thou trust me. Thou hast told that Silvius' sire, 1 Yet clothed in corruptible flesh, among The immortal tribes had entrance, and was there Sensibly present. Yet if Heaven's great Lord, Almighty foe to ill, such favor show'd In contemplation of the high effect, Both what and who from him should issue forth, It seems in reason's judgment well deserved; Sith he of Rome and of Rome's empire wide, In Heaven's empyreal height was chosen sire: Both which, if truth be spoken, were ordain'd And stablish'd for the holy place, where sits Who to great Peter's sacred chair succeeds. He from this journey, in thy song renovvn'd, Learn'd things, that to his victory gave rise And to the papal robe. In after-times The Chosen Vessel 2 also travel'd there, To bring us back assurance in that faith Which is the entrance to salvation's way. But I, why should I there presume? or who Permits it? not ^Eneas I, nor Paul.

1 "Silvius' sire." JEneas. 2 "The Chosen Vessel." St. Paul.