Already had my steps,
Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
Transported me, I could not ken the place
Where I had entered; when, behold, my path
Was bounded by a rill which to the left
With little rippling waters bent the grass
That issued from its brink. On earth no wave
How clear so'er that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compared with this
Transpicuous clear; yet darkly on it rolled,
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'er
Admits or sun or moon-light there to shine."
Well, is not it the very place? And did not Dante, who knew Italy as
few have known it, do well to remember it when he would describe for
us the Earthly Paradise? In the forest the morning is sacred to him
and there one should turn, with less misunderstanding than anywhere
else, the precious pages of that poem which is in itself a universe.
But if the clear morning there is Dante's, when we may still hear the
voice he heard pass by there, in the stillness, singing, _Beati quorum
tecta sunt peccata_, the long noon belongs to Boccaccio, for it is
full of the most tragic and pitiful of his tales.
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