DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61894#0450
420
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. XII,
now Strada di Campagna, which enclose the
Solfatara between them, and are at no great dis-
tance from its southern and western extremities.
Milton seems to have taken some features of his
infernal regions from this repository of fire and
sulphur. The dreary plain—the seat of desola-
tion—the land that burned with solid, as the lake
with liquid, fire—the singed bottom all involved
with stench and smoke—the uneasy steps over the
burning marie—the fiery deluge fed with ever
burning sulphur, compose when united a picture
podtical and sublime indeed, but not inaccurate,
of the Solfatara. The truth is that all the great
poets, from the days of Virgil down to the present
period, have borrowed some of their imagery
from the scenery which now surrounds us, and
have graced their poems with its beauties, or
raised them with its sublimity. Every reader
knows that Silius Italicus has described most of
them, and particularly the latter, with studied
and blameable minuteness; that Martial alludes
to them with rapture, and that Statius devotes the
most pleasing of his poems to their charms.
JDante has borrowed some of the horrors of his
Inferno from their fires and agitations; and
Tasso has spread their freshness, their verdure,
and their serenity over the enchanted gardens of
his Armida,
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. XII,
now Strada di Campagna, which enclose the
Solfatara between them, and are at no great dis-
tance from its southern and western extremities.
Milton seems to have taken some features of his
infernal regions from this repository of fire and
sulphur. The dreary plain—the seat of desola-
tion—the land that burned with solid, as the lake
with liquid, fire—the singed bottom all involved
with stench and smoke—the uneasy steps over the
burning marie—the fiery deluge fed with ever
burning sulphur, compose when united a picture
podtical and sublime indeed, but not inaccurate,
of the Solfatara. The truth is that all the great
poets, from the days of Virgil down to the present
period, have borrowed some of their imagery
from the scenery which now surrounds us, and
have graced their poems with its beauties, or
raised them with its sublimity. Every reader
knows that Silius Italicus has described most of
them, and particularly the latter, with studied
and blameable minuteness; that Martial alludes
to them with rapture, and that Statius devotes the
most pleasing of his poems to their charms.
JDante has borrowed some of the horrors of his
Inferno from their fires and agitations; and
Tasso has spread their freshness, their verdure,
and their serenity over the enchanted gardens of
his Armida,