Once again, for the third and last time, he has a prophetic dream in the early dawn; and if we compare these three parallel passages, we find that each begins with the same words “Nell’ ora.”[484] The first time the ideas connected with the time are wholly sorrowful, for it is said to be the hour when the swallow begins to twitter, perchance in memory of her former woes—alluding to the tragic tale of Procne and Philomel. The second is a depressing time, for it is the cold hour when, the day’s heat being all spent, the chilled earth cannot overcome the influence of the cold planets such as the moon or Saturn, but there is a thought of hope in the stars of the Greater Fortune seen rising in the east, in a sky which is now scarcely dark to them. The third is all joy, for it is the hour when Cytherea (the planet Venus), burning ever in the fire of love, shines first upon the mountain. Dante’s sleep flees from him as the shades of darkness flee on all sides, chased by the brightness before sunrise; and when Virgil tells him that to-day he shall reach the goal of his desires, he speeds up the remaining steps of the stair, almost as if on wings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [484] “At the hour.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The poets arrived on the shores of Purgatory, as we saw, facing east, and now that they have attained the summit of the mountain, coming up the western slope, they again face east, and the just risen sun shines in their faces. Dante walks towards it: a breeze fans his forehead and causes all the trees to bend in the direction of the shadow thrown at sunrise by the Mountain (_i.e._ westwards), and the murmur of this gentle wind in the branches forms a bass to the treble of the singing birds who are greeting the morning hours. For a few steps the stream of Lethe stays his steps in this direction, but he soon reaches a bend, and once more “a levante mi rendei.”[485] The symbolical procession which accompanies Beatrice comes towards him from the east, and after he has crossed the river Lethe and joined the procession beside the Car in which Beatrice is throned, all turn to the sun, which by this time must have travelled some distance towards the north. After the vision of the disasters which befell the holy Car, and after Beatrice has spoken with Dante again, they reach the fountain whence Eunoe flows, and now the sun is on the meridian and it is noon, though (as Dante reminds us) different places have different meridians, so that it is not noon everywhere else. He is bathed in the holy waters, and thus, all having been accomplished for which he has visited these regions, he is “puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”[486] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [485] “I turned to the east.” [486] “Pure and ready to rise to the stars.” _Purg._ last line.