Of my high Tragedy[570] is sung the same, As thou know'st well, who mad'st it wholly thine. That other, thin of flank, was known to fame As Michael Scott;[571] and of a verity He knew right well the black art's inmost game. Guido Bonatti,[572] and Asdente see Who mourns he ever should have parted from His thread and leather; but too late mourns he. 120 Lo the unhappy women who left loom, Spindle, and needle that they might divine; With herb and image[573] hastening men's doom. But come; for where the hemispheres confine Cain and the Thorns[574] is falling, to alight Underneath Seville on the ocean line. The moon was full already yesternight; Which to recall thou shouldst be well content, For in the wood she somewhat helped thy plight.' Thus spake he to me while we forward went. 130 FOOTNOTES: [551] _Lay the First_: The _Inferno_. [552] _The visible profound_: The Fourth Bolgia, where soothsayers of every kind are punished. Their sin is that of seeking to find out what God has made secret. That such discoveries of the future could be made by men, Dante seems to have had no doubt; but he regards the exercise of the power as a fraud on Providence, and also credits the adepts in the black art with ruining others by their spells (line 123). [553] _Nor uttering, etc._: They who on earth told too much are now condemned to be for ever dumb. It will be noticed that with none of them does Dante converse. [554] _More downcast gaze_: Standing as he does on the crown of the arch, the nearer they come to him the more he has to decline his eyes. [555] _Stepping backward_: Once they peered far into the future; now they cannot see a step before them. [556]_ As, Reader, etc._: Some light may be thrown on this unusual, and, at first sight, inexplicable display of pity, by the comment of Benvenuto da Imola:--'It is the wisest and most virtuous of men that are most subject to this mania of divination; and of this Dante is himself an instance, as is well proved by this book of his.' Dante reminds the reader how often since the journey began he has sought to have the veil of the future lifted; and would have it understood that he was seized by a sudden misgiving as to whether he too had not overstepped the bounds of what, in that respect, is allowed and right. [557] _Of the other fools_: Dante, weeping like the sinners in the Bolgia, is asked by Virgil: 'What, art thou then one of them?' He had been suffered, without reproof, to show pity for Francesca and Ciacco. The terrors of the Lord grow more cogent as they descend, and even pity is now forbidden. [558] _Amphiaraüs_: One of the Seven Kings who besieged Thebes. He foresaw his own death, and sought by hiding to evade it; but his wife revealed his hiding-place, and he was forced to join in the siege. As he fought, a thunderbolt opened a chasm in the earth, into which he fell.