_Ex pede Herculem._
11. 5, 6. _Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek._ This
phrase is addressed by the poet to anybody, and more especially to
himself. As in stanza 38--'The pure spirit shall flow Back to the
burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.'
11. 7-9. _Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are
weak The glory thy transfuse with fitting truth to speak._ I follow here
the punctuation of the Pisan edition--with a comma after 'words,' as
well as after 'sky, flowers,' &c. According to this punctuation, the
words of Rome, as well as her sky and other beautiful endowments, are
too weak to declare at full the glory which they impart; and the
inference from this rather abruptly introduced recurrence to Rome is (I
suppose), that the spiritual glory faintly adumbrated by Rome can only
be realised in that realm of eternity to which death gives access. Taken
in this sense, the 'words' of Rome appear to mean 'the beautiful
language spoken in Rome'--the Roman or Latin language, as modified into
modern Italian. The pronunciation of Italian in Rome is counted
peculiarly pure and rich: hence the Italian axiom, 'lingua toscana in
bocca romana'--Tuscan tongue in Roman mouth.
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