[2] Dante passes three nights in Purgatory, and each night his sleep is terminated by a dream towards the hour of dawn, the time when, according to the belief of classical antiquity, the visions of dreams are symbolic and prophetic. (Moore.) [3] Mt. Ida. [4] The sphere of fire by which, according to the mediaeval cosmography, the sphere of the air was surrounded. Not otherwise Achilles shook himself,—turning around his awakened eyes, and not knowing where he was, when his mother from Chiron to Scyros stole him away, sleeping in her arms, thither whence afterwards the Greeks withdrew him,[1]—than I started, as from my face sleep fled away; and I became pale, even as a man frightened turns to ice. At my side was my Comforter only, and the sun was now more than two hours high,[2] and my face was turned toward the sea. “Have no fear,” said my Lord; “be reassured, for we are at a good point; restrain not, but increase all thy force. Thou art now arrived at Purgatory; see there the cliff that closes it around; see the entrance, there where it appears divided. A while ago in the dawn that precedes the day, when thy soul was sleeping within thee, upon the flowers wherewith the place down yonder is adorned, came a lady, and said, “I am Lucia; let me take this one who is sleeping; thus will I assist him along his way.’ Sordello remained, and the other gentle forms: she took thee, and when the day was bright, she came upward, and I along her footprints. Here she laid thee down: and first her beautiful eyes showed me that open entrance; then she and slumber went away together.” Like a man that in perplexity is reassured, and that alters his fear to confidence after the truth is disclosed to him, did I change; and when my Leader saw me without solicitude, up along the cliff he moved on, and I behind, toward the height. [1] Statius, in the first book of the Achilleid, tells how Thetis, to prevent Achilles from going to the siege of Troy, bore him sleeping away from his instructor, the centaur Chiron, and carried him to the court of King Lycomedes, on the Island of Scyros, where, though concealed in women’s garments, Ulysses and Diomed discovered him. Statius relates how wonderstruck Achilles was when on awaking he found himself at Scyros: Quae loca? qui fluctus? ubi Pelion? onmia versa Atque ignota videt, dubitatque agnoscere matrem—249-50. [2] The morning of Easter Monday. [3] Lucia seems to be here the symbol of assisting grace, the gratia operans of the school-men. It was she who was called upon by the Virgin (Hell, Canto II.) to aid Dante when he was astray in the wood, and who had moved Beatrice to go to his succor. Reader, thou seest well how I exalt my theme, and therefore marvel not if with more art I reenforce it.[1] [1] These words may be intended to call attention to the doctrine which underlies the imagery of the verse.