DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36582#0558
THE DO RE GALLERY.
129
PLATE CCX,
THE BREAK OF MORNING.
Just before he is carried to the top of the Mount of Purgatory, by Lucia, as mentioned
in our description of Plate CXCII., Dante falls into a sleep. This was about the time
of dawn.
“ Now the fair consort of Tithonus old,
Arisen from her mate’s beloved arms,
Look’d palely o’er the eastern cliff; her brow,
Lucent with jewels, glitter’d. ....
In that hour
When, near the dawn, the swallow her sad lay
(Remembering haply ancient grief) renews ;
And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh,
And less by thought restrain’d, are, as ’twere, full
Of holy divination in their dreams ;
Then, in a vision, did I seem to view
A golden-feather’d eagle,” &c. Purgatorio, Canto IX., lines 1—18.
Under the tender and mysterious lights of the intermediate season between night and
morning, we see Dante and Virgil seated on the sea-shore beneath a high cliff. We
have alluded in our Introductory Essay to the extreme loveliness of this design ; but, in
some respects which need not be particularised, it does not exactly follow Dante’s text.
PLATE CCXI.
THE EGYPTIANS URGE MOSES TO DEPART.
Dismayed by the several plagues that had been sent among them, the Egyptians, with
Pharaoh himself at their head, besought Moses and Aaron and the other Israelites to
depart out of the land. (Exodus xii.) The illustration is a magnificent study of Egyptian
architecture, with passionate Oriental figures, very powerfully conceived and dramatically
represented.
PLATE CCXII.
THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE SERPENT (LA FONTAINE).
This fable is levelled against the indiscriminate bestowal of charity, and relates the story
of a countryman who, finding a snake frozen and half-dead, took it home and warmed it
by his fire, when it tried to sting its benefactor, and was straightway cut to pieces with
a hatchet.
F F
129
PLATE CCX,
THE BREAK OF MORNING.
Just before he is carried to the top of the Mount of Purgatory, by Lucia, as mentioned
in our description of Plate CXCII., Dante falls into a sleep. This was about the time
of dawn.
“ Now the fair consort of Tithonus old,
Arisen from her mate’s beloved arms,
Look’d palely o’er the eastern cliff; her brow,
Lucent with jewels, glitter’d. ....
In that hour
When, near the dawn, the swallow her sad lay
(Remembering haply ancient grief) renews ;
And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh,
And less by thought restrain’d, are, as ’twere, full
Of holy divination in their dreams ;
Then, in a vision, did I seem to view
A golden-feather’d eagle,” &c. Purgatorio, Canto IX., lines 1—18.
Under the tender and mysterious lights of the intermediate season between night and
morning, we see Dante and Virgil seated on the sea-shore beneath a high cliff. We
have alluded in our Introductory Essay to the extreme loveliness of this design ; but, in
some respects which need not be particularised, it does not exactly follow Dante’s text.
PLATE CCXI.
THE EGYPTIANS URGE MOSES TO DEPART.
Dismayed by the several plagues that had been sent among them, the Egyptians, with
Pharaoh himself at their head, besought Moses and Aaron and the other Israelites to
depart out of the land. (Exodus xii.) The illustration is a magnificent study of Egyptian
architecture, with passionate Oriental figures, very powerfully conceived and dramatically
represented.
PLATE CCXII.
THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE SERPENT (LA FONTAINE).
This fable is levelled against the indiscriminate bestowal of charity, and relates the story
of a countryman who, finding a snake frozen and half-dead, took it home and warmed it
by his fire, when it tried to sting its benefactor, and was straightway cut to pieces with
a hatchet.
F F