The first is from the second canto of the _Inferno_:--
"E quale e quei che disvuol cio che volle,
E per nuovi pensier sangia proposta,
Si che del cominciar tutto si tolle;
Tal mi fec' io in quella oscura costa;
Perche pensando consumai la impresa
Che fu nel cominciar cotanto tosta."
"And like the man who unwills what he willed,
And for new thoughts doth change his first intent,
So that he cannot anywhere begin,
Such became I upon that slope obscure,
Because with thinking I consumed resolve,
That was so ready at the setting out."
Again, in the fifth of the _Purgatorio_:--
"Che sempre l' uomo in cui pensier rampoglia
Sovra pensier, da se dilunga il segno,
Perche la foga l' un dell' altro insolla."
"For always he in whom one thought buds forth
Out of another farther puts the goal.
For each has only force to mar the other."
Dante was a profound metaphysician, and as in the first passage he
describes and defines a certain quality of mind, so in the other he tells
us its result in the character and life, namely, indecision and
failure,--the goal _farther_ off at the end than at the beginning. It is
remarkable how close a resemblance of thought, and even of expression,
there is between the former of these quotations and a part of Hamlet's
famous soliloquy:--
"Thus conscience [i.
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