DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.847#0218
TAEQUINIA. 199
brutish, only of a dark brown colour instead of a
deep black. The art of the painter had invested
these figures with the marks of individuality; they
must have been portraits; but whom did they
represent, and why were they thus represented?
What had they done, and why were they thus
singled out, to be handed down for two-and-twenty
ages as the prey of demons, and branded with the
mark of reprobation ? I stood gazing on this group
with the most intense interest, and could have
worked out a romance upon the lives of these un-
fortunate Etruscans. A story, and a romantic
and a melancholy one, they must have had. They
must have been selected to point a moral to the
succeeding generations of some great Etruscan
house. I could almost have fancied that Dante
must have stolen into this tomb, and studied its
group, before he so touchingly described his meeting"
with Paolo and Francesca da Eimini in the Inferno.
While I gazed on those interesting figures, and
wished to inquire into the story of their woe, I
almost expected to have heard these plaintive
accents:—
" Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
Ma se conoscer la prima radice
Del nostra amor, tu hai cotanto affetto,
Faro come colui che piange e dice."
Canto
brutish, only of a dark brown colour instead of a
deep black. The art of the painter had invested
these figures with the marks of individuality; they
must have been portraits; but whom did they
represent, and why were they thus represented?
What had they done, and why were they thus
singled out, to be handed down for two-and-twenty
ages as the prey of demons, and branded with the
mark of reprobation ? I stood gazing on this group
with the most intense interest, and could have
worked out a romance upon the lives of these un-
fortunate Etruscans. A story, and a romantic
and a melancholy one, they must have had. They
must have been selected to point a moral to the
succeeding generations of some great Etruscan
house. I could almost have fancied that Dante
must have stolen into this tomb, and studied its
group, before he so touchingly described his meeting"
with Paolo and Francesca da Eimini in the Inferno.
While I gazed on those interesting figures, and
wished to inquire into the story of their woe, I
almost expected to have heard these plaintive
accents:—
" Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
Ma se conoscer la prima radice
Del nostra amor, tu hai cotanto affetto,
Faro come colui che piange e dice."
Canto