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the divine doings, there will be at times a flashing fitness in his
similitudes, which are then the sudden offspring of finest intuition.
In citing some of the most prominent in the "Divina Commedia," we at
once give brief samples of Dante and of the craft of his three latest
translators, using the version of Dr. Parsons for extracts from the
"Inferno," that of Mr. Dayman for those from the "Purgatorio," and
that of Mr. Longfellow for those from the "Paradiso."

"As well-filled sails, which in the tempest swell,
Drop, with folds flapping, if the mast be rent;
So to the earth that cruel monster fell,
And straightway down to Hell's Fourth Pit he went."
_Inferno_: Canto VII.

"Swept now amain those turbid waters o'er
A tumult of a dread portentous kind,
Which rocked with sudden spasms each trembling shore,
Like the mad rushing of a rapid wind;
As when, made furious by opposing heats,
Wild through the wood the unbridled tempest scours,
Dusty and proud, the cringing forest beats,
And scatters far the broken limbs and flowers;
Then fly the herds,--the swains to shelter scud.
Freeing mine eyes, 'Thy sight,' he said, 'direct
O'er the long-standing scum of yonder flood,
Where, most condense, its acrid streams collect.'"
_Inferno_: Canto IX.

"When, lo! there met us, close beside our track,
A troop of spirits. Each amid the band
Eyed us, as men at eve a passer-by
'Neath a new moon; as closely us they scanned,
As an old tailor doth a needle's eye."
_Inferno_: Canto XV.

"And just as frogs that stand, with noses out
On a pool's margin, but beneath it hide
Their feet and all their bodies but the snout,
So stood the sinners there on every side."
_Inferno_: Canto XXII.

"A cooper's vessel, that by chance hath been
Either of middle-piece or cant-piece reft,
Gapes not so wide as one that from his chin
I noticed lengthwise through his carcass cleft."
_Inferno_: Canto XXVIII.

"We tarried yet the ocean's brink upon,
Like unto people musing of their way,
Whose body lingers when the heart hath gone;
And lo! as near the dawning of the day,
Down in the west, upon the watery floor,
The vapor-fogs do Mars in red array,
Even such appeared to me a light that o'er
The sea so quickly came, no wing could