406 THE STONES OF VENICE

on which he rides, with that of corruption on his lips, and of discolouration or distortion in the whole mind:

“Malicious Envy rode

Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw

Between his cankred teeth a venomous tode

That all the poison ran about his jaw....

All in a kirtle of discoloured say

He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies,

And in his bosome secretly there lay

An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes

In many folds, and mortall sting implyes.”¹

He has developed the idea in more detail, and still more loathsomely, in the twelfth canto of the fifth book.

§ 94. ELEVENTH CAPITAL. Its decoration is composed of eight birds, arranged as shown in Plate V. of the Seven Lamps,² which, however, was sketched from the Renaissance copy. These birds are all varied in form and action, but not so as to require special description.

§ 95. TWELFTH CAPITAL. This has been very interesting, but is grievously defaced,³ four of its figures being entirely broken away, and the character of two others quite undecipherable. It is fortunate that it has been copied in the thirty-third capital of the Renaissance series, from which we are able to identify the lost figures.

First side. Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his own breast in the shape of a cloven heart. Inscribed “MISERIA.”

The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it is by no means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real, and like that of a parent in poverty mourning over his child. Yet it seems placed here as in direct opposition to the virtue of Cheerfulness, which follows next in order; rather, however, I believe, with the intention of illustrating human life, than

¹ [Book i. canto iv. 30, 31. After the fourth line of the quotation, the five last lines of stanza 30 are omitted. The second description of Envy is in stanzas 29-31 of book v. canto xii.]

² [See Vol. VIII. p. 122, where the luxuriant play of leafage is noticed, and p. 231, where the birds are referred to.]

³ [Now restored. The inscription is “Misericordia Dñi mecum e(st).”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]