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diff --git a/1995-h/1995-h.htm b/1995-h/1995-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d04eaa7 --- /dev/null +++ b/1995-h/1995-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6765 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Divine Comedy, Hell, by Dante Aligheri</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Divine Comedy, by Dante Aligheri</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Divine Comedy<br /> + Hell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Dante Aligheri</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Charles Eliot Norton</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 1999 [eBook #1995]<br /> +[Most recently updated: July 5, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Dianne Bean</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVINE COMEDY, HELL ***</div> + +<h1>The Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">Translated by Charles Eliot Norton</h2> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +To +</p> + +<p class="center"> +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +E come sare’ io sense lui corso? +</p> + +<p> +It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory of my friend +and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the study of the Divine Comedy +when I first had his incomparable aid in the understanding of it. During the +last year of his life he read the proofs of this volume, to what great +advantage to my work may readily be conceived. +</p> + +<p> +When, in the early summer of this year, the printing of the Purgatory began, +though illness made it an exertion to him, he continued this act of friendship, +and did not cease till, at the fifth canto, he laid down the pencil forever +from his dear and honored hand. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +C<small>AMBRIDGE</small>, M<small>ASSACHUSETTS</small>,<br/> +1 <i>October</i>, 1891 +</p> + +<p> +The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of Witte. In a few +cases I have preferred the readings which the more recent researches of the +Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford, seem to have established as correct. +</p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#pref01">INTRODUCTION</a> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#pref02">AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY</a><br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.I">CANTO I.</a><br/> +Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which he begins to ascend; +he is hindered by three beasts; he turns back and is met by Virgil, who +proposes to guide him into the eternal world.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.II">CANTO II.</a><br/> +Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at the outset.—Virgil +cheers him by telling him that he has been sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit +from Heaven.—Dante casts off fear, and the poets proceed.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.III">CANTO III.</a><br/> +The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in.—The punishment of the neither +good nor bad.—Acheron, and the sinners on its +bank.—Charon.—Earthquake.—Dante swoons.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.IV">CANTO IV.</a><br/> +The further side of Acheron.—Virgil leads Dante into Limbo, the First +Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those who lived virtuously but +without Christianity.—Greeting of Virgil by his fellow poets.—They +enter a castle, where are the shades of ancient worthies.—Virgil and +Dante depart.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.V">CANTO V.</a><br/> +The Second Circle: Carnal sinners.—Minos.—Shades renowned of +old.—Francesca da Rimini.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.VI">CANTO VI.</a><br/> +The Third Circle: the Gluttonous.—Cerberus.—Ciacco.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.VII">CANTO VII.</a><br/> +The Fourth Circle: the Avaricious and the Prodigal.— +Pluto.—Fortune.—The Styx.—The Fifth Circle: the Wrathful and +the Sullen.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.VIII">CANTO VIII.</a><br/> +The Fifth Circle.—Phlegyas and his boat.—Passage of the +Styx.—Filippo Argenti.—The City of Dis.—The demons refuse +entrance to the poets.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.IX">CANTO IX.</a><br/> +The City of Dis.—Eriehtho.—The Three Furies.—The Heavenly +Messenger.—The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.X">CANTO X.</a><br/> +The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.—Farinata degli Uberti.—Cavalcante +Cavalcanti.—Frederick II.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XI">CANTO XI.</a><br/> +The Sixth Circle: Heretics.—Tomb of Pope Anastasius.—Discourse of +Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XII">CANTO XII.</a><br/> +First round of the Seventh Circle: those who do violence to +others.—Tyrants and Homicides.—The Minotaur.—The +Centaurs.—Chiron.—Nessus.—The River of Boiling Blood, and the +Sinners in it.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XIII">CANTO XIII.</a><br/> +Second round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done violence to themselves +and to their goods.—The Wood of Self-murderers.—The +Harpies.—Pier della Vigne.—Lano of Siena and others.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XIV">CANTO XIV.</a><br/> +Third round of the Seventh Circle those who have done violence to +God.—The Burning Sand.—Capaneus.—Figure of the Old Man in +Crete.—The Rivers of Hell.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XV">CANTO XV.</a><br/> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done violence to +Nature.—Brunetto Latini.—Prophecies of misfortune to Dante.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XVI">CANTO XVI.</a><br/> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done violence to +Nature.—Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi and Jacopo +Rusticucci.—The roar of Phlegethon as it pours downward.—The cord +thrown into the abyss.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XVII">CANTO XVII.</a><br/> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done violence to +Art.—Geryon.—The Usurers.—Descent to the Eighth Circle.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XVIII">CANTO XVIII.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: the first pit: Panders and Seducers.—Venedico +Caccianimico.—Jason.—Second pit: false flatterers.—Alessio +Interminei.—Thais.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XIX">CANTO XIX.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: third pit: Simonists.—Pope Nicholas III<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XX">CANTO XX.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: fourth pit: Diviners, Soothsayers, and +Magicians.—Amphiaraus.—Tiresias.—Aruns.—Manto.— +Eurypylus.—Michael Scott.—Asolente.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXI">CANTO XXI.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.—A magistrate of Lucca.—The +Malebranche.—Parley with them.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXII">CANTO XXII.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.—Ciampolo of Navarre.—Brother +Gomita.—Michael Zanche.—Fray of the Malebranche.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXIII">CANTO XXIII.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit.—The sixth pit: +Hypocrites.—The Jovial Friars.—Caiaphas.—Annas.—Frate +Catalano.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXIV">CANTO XXIV.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit.— Seventh pit: +Fraudulent Thieves.—Vanni Fucci.—Prophecy of calamity to Dante.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXV">CANTO XXV.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: seventh pit: Fraudulent Thieves.—Cacus.—Agnello +Brunellesehi and others.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXVI">CANTO XXVI.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.—Ulysses and Diomed.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXVII">CANTO XXVII.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.—Guido da Montefeltro.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXVIII">CANTO XXVIII.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: ninth pit: Sowers of discord and schism.—Mahomet and +Ali.—Fra Dolcino.—Pier da Medicina.— +Curio.—Mosca.—Bertran de Born.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXIX">CANTO XXIX.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: ninth pit.—Geri del Bello.—Tenth pit: Falsifiers of +all sorts.—Griffolino of Mezzo.—Capocchio.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXX">CANTO XXX.</a><br/> +Eighth Circle: tenth pit: Falsifiers of all sorts.—Myrrha.—Gianni +Schiechi.—Master Adam.—Sinon of Troy.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXXI">CANTO XXXI.</a><br/> +The Giants around the Eighth +Circle.—Nimrod.—Ephialtes.—Antiens sets the Poets down in the +Ninth Circle.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXXII">CANTO XXXII.</a><br/> +Ninth Circle: Traitors. First ring: Caina.—Counts of +Mangona.—Camicion de’ Pazzi.—Second ring: +Antenora.—Bocca degli Abati.—Buoso da Duera.—Count Ugolino.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXXIII">CANTO XXXIII.</a><br/> +Ninth Circle: Traitors. Second ring: Antenora.— Count +Ugolino.—Third ring: Ptolomaea.—Brother Alberigo.—Branca +d’ Oria.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a href="#cantoI.XXXIV">CANTO XXXIV.</a><br/> +Ninth Circle: Traitors. Fourth ring: Judecca.—Lucifer.—Judas, +Brutus and Cassius.—Centre of the universe.—Passage from +Hell.—Ascent to the surface of the Southern hemisphere. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<p> +So many versions of the Divine Comedy exist in English that a new one might +well seem needless. But most of these translations are in verse, and the +intellectual temper of our time is impatient of a transmutation in which +substance is sacrificed for form’s sake, and the new form is itself +different from the original. The conditions of verse in different languages +vary so widely as to make any versified translation of a poem but an imperfect +reproduction of the archetype. It is like an imperfect mirror that renders but +a partial likeness, in which essential features are blurred or distorted. Dante +himself, the first modern critic, declared that “nothing harmonized by a +musical bond can be transmuted from its own speech without losing all its +sweetness and harmony,” and every fresh attempt at translation affords a +new proof of the truth of his assertion. Each language exhibits its own special +genius in its poetic forms. Even when they are closely similar in rhythmical +method their poetic effect is essentially different, their individuality is +distinct. The hexameter of the Iliad is not the hexameter of the Aeneid. And if +this be the case in respect to related forms, it is even more obvious in +respect to forms peculiar to one language, like the terza rima of the Italian, +for which it is impossible to find a satisfactory equivalent in another tongue. +</p> + +<p> +If, then, the attempt be vain to reproduce the form or to represent its effect +in a translation, yet the substance of a poem may have such worth that it +deserves to be known by readers who must read it in their own tongue or not at +all. In this case the aim of the translator should be to render the substance +fully, exactly, and with as close a correspondence to the tone and style of the +original as is possible between prose and poetry. Of the charm, of the power of +the poem such a translation can give but an inadequate suggestion; the musical +bond was of its essence, and the loss of the musical bond is the loss of the +beauty to which form and substance mutually contributed, and in which they were +both alike harmonized and sublimated. The rhythmic life of the original is its +vital spirit, and the translation losing this vital spirit is at best as the +dull plaster cast to the living marble or the breathing bronze. The +intellectual substance is there; and if the work be good, something of the +emotional quality may be conveyed; the imagination may mould the prose as it +moulded the verse,—but, after all, “translations are but as +turn-coated things at best,” as Howell said in one of his Familiar +Letters. +</p> + +<p> +No poem in any tongue is more informed with rhythmic life than the Divine +Comedy. And yet, such is its extraordinary distinction, no poem has an +intellectual and emotional substance more independent of its metrical form. Its +complex structure, its elaborate measure and rhyme, highly artificial as they +are, are so mastered by the genius of the poet as to become the most natural +expression of the spirit by which the poem is inspired; while at the same time +the thought and sentiment embodied in the verse is of such import, and the +narrative of such interest, that they do not lose their worth when expressed in +the prose of another tongue; they still have power to quicken imagination, and +to evoke sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +In English there is an excellent prose translation of the Inferno, by Dr. John +Carlyle, a man well known to the reader of his brother’s Correspondence. +It was published forty years ago, but it is still contemporaneous enough in +style to answer every need, and had Dr. Carlyle made a version of the whole +poem I should hardly have cared to attempt a new one. In my translation of the +Inferno I am often Dr. Carlyle’s debtor. His conception of what a +translation should be is very much the same as my own. Of the Purgatorio there +is a prose version which has excellent qualities, by Mr. W. S. Dugdale. Another +version of great merit, of both the Purgatorio and Paradiso, is that of Mr. A. +J. Butler. It is accompanied by a scholarly and valuable comment, and I owe +much to Mr. Butler’s work. But through what seems to me occasional excess +of literal fidelity his English is now and then somewhat crabbed. “He +overacts the office of an interpreter,” I cite again from Howell, +“who doth enslave himself too strictly to words or phrases. One may be so +over-punctual in words that he may mar the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +I have tried to be as literal in my translation as was consistent with good +English, and to render Dante’s own words in words as nearly correspondent +to them as the difference in the languages would permit. But it is to be +remembered that the familiar uses and subtle associations which give to words +their full meaning are never absolutely the same in two languages. Love in +English not only SOUNDS but IS different from amor in Latin, or amore in +Italian. Even the most felicitous prose translation must fail therefore at +times to afford the entire and precise meaning of the original. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, there are difficulties in Dante’s poem for Italians, and there +are difficulties in the translation for English readers. These, where it seemed +needful, I have endeavored to explain in brief footnotes. But I have desired to +avoid distracting the attention of the reader from the narrative, and have +mainly left the understanding of it to his good sense and perspicacity. The +clearness of Dante’s imaginative vision is so complete, and the character +of his narration of it so direct and simple, that the difficulties in +understanding his intention are comparatively few. +</p> + +<p> +It is a noticeable fact that in by far the greater number of passages where a +doubt in regard to the interpretation exists, the obscurity lies in the +rhyme-word. For with all the abundant resources of the Italian tongue in rhyme, +and with all Dante’s mastery of them, the truth still is that his triple +rhyme often compelled him to exact from words such service as they did not +naturally render and as no other poet had required of them. The compiler of the +Ottimo Commento records, in an often-cited passage, that “I, the writer, +heard Dante say that never a rhyme had led him to say other than he would, but +that many a time and oft he had made words say for him what they were not wont +to express for other poets.” The sentence has a double truth, for it +indicates not only Dante’s incomparable power to compel words to give out +their full meaning, but also his invention of new uses for them, his employment +of them in unusual significations or in forms hardly elsewhere to be found. +These devices occasionally interfere with the limpid flow of his diction, but +the difficulties of interpretation to which they give rise serve rather to mark +the prevailing clearness and simplicity of his expression than seriously to +impede its easy and unperplexed current. There are few sentences in the Divina +Commedia in which a difficulty is occasioned by lack of definiteness of thought +or distinctness of image. +</p> + +<p> +A far deeper-lying and more pervading source of imperfect comprehension of the +poem than any verbal difficulty exists in the double or triple meaning that +runs through it. The narrative of the poet’s spiritual journey is so +vivid and consistent that it has all the reality of an account of an actual +experience; but within and beneath runs a stream of allegory not less +consistent and hardly less continuous than the narrative itself. To the +illustration and carrying out of this interior meaning even the minutest +details of external incident are made to contribute, with an appropriateness of +significance, and with a freedom from forced interpretation or artificiality of +construction such as no other writer of allegory has succeeded in attaining. +The poem may be read with interest as a record of experience without attention +to its inner meaning, but its full interest is only felt when this inner +meaning is traced, and the moral significance of the incidents of the story +apprehended by the alert intelligence. The allegory is the soul of the poem, +but like the soul within the body it does not show itself in independent +existence. It is, in scholastic phrase, the form of the body, giving to it its +special individuality. Thus in order truly to understand and rightly appreciate +the poem the reader must follow its course with a double intelligence. +“Taken literally,” as Dante declares in his Letter to Can Grande, +“the subject is the state of the soul after death, simply considered. +But, allegorically taken, its subject is man, according as by his good or ill +deserts he renders himself liable to the reward or punishment of +Justice.” It is the allegory of human life; and not of human life as an +abstraction, but of the individual life; and herein, as Mr. Lowell, whose +phrase I borrow, has said, “lie its profound meaning and its permanent +force.”[1] And herein too lie its perennial freshness of interest, and +the actuality which makes it contemporaneous with every successive generation. +The increase of knowledge, the loss of belief in doctrines that were +fundamental in Dante’s creed, the changes in the order of society, the +new thoughts of the world, have not lessened the moral import of the poem, any +more than they have lessened its excellence as a work of art. Its real +substance is as independent as its artistic beauty, of science, of creed, and +of institutions. Human nature has not changed; the motives of action are the +same, though their relative force and the desires and ideals by which they are +inspired vary from generation to generation. And thus it is that the moral +judgments of life framed by a great poet whose imagination penetrates to the +core of things, and who, from his very nature as poet, conceives and sets forth +the issues of life not in a treatise of abstract morality, but by means of +sensible types and images, never lose interest, and have a perpetual +contemporaneousness. They deal with the permanent and unalterable elements of +the soul of man. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Mr. Lowell’s essay on Dante makes other writing about the poet or the +poem seem ineffectual and superfluous. I must assume that it will be familiar +to the readers of my version, at least to those among them who desire truly to +understand the Divine Comedy. +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the poem is the spiritual world, of which we are members even +while still denizens of the world of time. In the spiritual world the results +of sin or perverted love, and of virtue or right love, in this life of +probation, are manifest. The life to come is but the fulfilment of the life +that now is. This is the truth that Dante sought to enforce. The allegory in +which he cloaked it is of a character that separates the Divine Comedy from all +other works of similar intent. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, +the personages introduced are mere simulacra of men and women, the types of +moral qualities or religious dispositions. They are abstractions which the +genius of Bunyan fails to inform with vitality sufficient to kindle the +imagination of the reader with a sense of their actual, living and breathing +existence. But in the Divine Comedy the personages are all from real life, they +are men and women with their natural passions and emotions, and they are +undergoing an actual experience. The allegory consists in making their +characters and their fates, what all human characters and fates really are, the +types and images of spiritual law. Virgil and Beatrice, whose nature as +depicted in the poem makes nearest approach to purely abstract and typical +existence, are always consistently presented as living individuals, exalted +indeed in wisdom and power, but with hardly less definite and concrete humanity +than that of Dante himself. +</p> + +<p> +The scheme of the created Universe held by the Christians of the Middle Ages +was comparatively simple, and so definite that Dante, in accepting it in its +main features without modification, was provided with the limited stage that +was requisite for his design, and of which the general disposition was familiar +to all his readers. The three spiritual realms had their local bounds marked +out as clearly as those of time earth itself. Their cosmography was but an +extension of the largely hypothetical geography of the tune. +</p> + +<p> +The Earth was the centre of the Universe, and its northern hemisphere was the +abode of man. At the middle point of this hemisphere stood Jerusalem, +equidistant from the Pillars of Hercules on the West, and the Ganges on the +East. +</p> + +<p> +Within the body of this hemisphere was hell, shared as a vast cone, of which +the apex was the centre of the globe; and here, according to Dante, was the +seat of Lucifer. The concave of Hell had been formed by his fall, when a +portion of the solid earth, through fear of him, ran back to the southern +uninhabited hemisphere, and formed there, directly antipodal to Jerusalem, the +mountain of Purgatory which rose from the waste of waters that covered this +half of the globe. Purgatory was shaped as a cone, of similar dimensions to +that of Hell, amid at its summit was the Terrestrial Paradise. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately surrounding the atmosphere of the Earth was the sphere of elemental +fire. Around this was the Heaven of the Moon, and encircling this, in order, +were the Heavens of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jove, Saturn, the Fixed +Stars, and the Crystalline or first moving Heaven. These nine concentric +Heavens revolved continually around the Earth, and in proportion to their +distance from it was time greater swiftness of each. Encircling all was the +Empyrean, increate, incorporeal, motionless, unbounded in time or space, the +proper seat of God, the home of the Angels, the abode of the Elect. +</p> + +<p> +The Angelic Hierarchy consisted of nine orders, corresponding to the nine +moving heavens. Their blessedness and the swiftness of time motion with which +in unending delight they circled around God were in proportion to their +nearness to Him, —first the Seraphs, then the Cherubs, Thrones, +Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Princes, Archangels, and Angels. Through them, +under the general name of Intelligences, the Divine influence was transmitted +to the Heavens, giving to them their circular motion, which was the expression +of their longing to be united with the source of their creation. The Heavens in +their turn streamed down upon the Earth the Divine influence thus distributed +among them, in varying proportion and power, producing divers effects in the +generation and corruption of material things, and in the dispositions and the +lives of men. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the general scheme of the Universe. The intention of God in its +creation was to communicate of his own perfection to the creatures endowed with +souls, that is, to men and to angels, and the proper end of every such creature +was to seek its own perfection in likeness to the Divine. This end was attained +through that knowledge of God of which the soul was capable, and through love +which was in proportion to knowledge. Virtue depended on the free will of man; +it was the good use of that will directed to a right object of love. Two lights +were given to the soul for guidance of the will: the light of reason for +natural things and for the direction of the will to moral virtue the light of +grace for things supernatural, and for the direction of the will to spiritual +virtue. Sin was the opposite of virtue, the choice by the will of false objects +of love; it involved the misuse of reason, and the absence of grace. As the end +of virtue was blessedness, so the end of sin was misery. +</p> + +<p> +The cornerstone of Dante’s moral system was the Freedom of the Will; in +other words, the right of private judgment with the condition of +accountability. This is the liberty which Dante, that is man, goes seeking in +his journey through the spiritual world. This liberty is to be attained through +the right use of reason, illuminated by Divine Grace; it consists in the +perfect accord of the will of man with the will of God. +</p> + +<p> +With this view of the nature and end of man Dante’s conception of the +history of the race could not be other than that its course was providentially +ordered. The fall of man had made him a just object of the vengeance of God; +but the elect were to be redeemed, and for their redemption the history of the +world from the beginning was directed. Not only in his dealings with the Jews, +but in his dealings with the heathen was God preparing for the reconciliation +of man, to be finally accomplished in his sacrifice of Himself for them. The +Roman Empire was foreordained and established for this end. It was to prepare +the way for the establishment of the Roman Church. It was the appointed +instrument for the political government of men. Empire and Church were alike +divine institutions for the guidance of man on earth. +</p> + +<p> +The aim of Dante in the Divine Comedy was to set forth these truths in such +wise as to affect the imaginations and touch the hearts of men, so that they +should turn to righteousness. His conviction of these truths was no mere matter +of belief; it had the ardor and certainty of faith. They had appeared to him in +all their fulness as a revelation of the Divine wisdom. It was his work as +poet, as poet with a divine commission, to make this revelation known. His work +was a work of faith; it was sacred; to it both Heaven and Earth had set their +hands. +</p> + +<p> +To this work, as I have said, the definiteness and the limits of the generally +accepted theory of the Universe gave the required frame. The very narrowness of +this scheme made Dante’s design practicable. He had had the experience of +a man on earth. He had been lured by false objects of desire from the pursuit +of the true good. But Divine Grace, in the form of Beatrice, who had of old on +earth led him aright, now intervened and sent to his aid Virgil, who, as the +type of Human Reason, should bring him safe through Hell, showing to him the +eternal consequences of sin, and then should conduct him, penitent, up the +height of Purgatory, till on its summit, in the Earthly Paradise, Beatrice +should appear once more to him. Thence she, as the type of that knowledge +through which comes the love of God, should lead him, through the Heavens up to +the Empyrean, to the consummation of his course in the actual vision of God. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref02"></a>AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.</h2> + +<p> +The Essay by Mr. Lowell, to which I have already referred (Dante, +Lowell’s Prose Works, vol. iv.) is the best introduction to the study of +the poem. It should be read and re-read. +</p> + +<p> +Dante, an essay by the late Dean Church, is the work of a learned and +sympathetic scholar, and is an excellent treatise on the life, times, and work +of the poet. +</p> + +<p> +The Notes and Illustrations that accompany Mr. Longfellow’s translation +of the Divine Comedy form an admirable body of comment on the poem. +</p> + +<p> +The Rev. Dr. Edward Moore’s little volume, on The Time-References in the +Divina Cominedia (London, 1887), is of great value in making the progress of +Dante’s journey clear, and in showing Dante’s scrupulous +consistency of statement. Dr. Moore’s more recent work, Contributions to +the Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia (Cambridge, 1889), is to be warmly +commended to the advanced student. +</p> + +<p> +These sources of information are enough for the mere English reader. But one +who desires to make himself a thorough master of the poem must turn to foreign +sources of instruction: to Carl Witte’s invaluable Dante-Forschungen (2 +vols. Halle, 1869); to the comment, especially that on the Paradiso, which +accompanies the German translation of the Divine Comedy by Philalethes. the +late King John of Saxony; to Bartoli’s life of Dante in his Storia della +Letteratura Italiana (Firenze, 1878 and subsequent years), and to +Scartazzini’s Prolegomeni della Divina Commedia (Leipzig, 1890). The +fourteenth century Comments, especially those of Boccaccio, of Buti, and of +Benvenuto da Imola, are indispensable to one who would understand the poem as +it was understood by Dante’s immediate contemporaries and successors. It +is from them and from the Chronicle of Dante’s contemporary and +fellow-citizen, Giovanni Villani, that our knowledge concerning many of the +personages mentioned in the Poem is derived. +</p> + +<p> +In respect to the theology and general doctrine of the Poem, the Summa +Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is the main source from which Dante himself +drew. +</p> + +<p> +Of editions of the Divina Commedia in Italian, either that of Andreoli, or of +Bianchi, or of Fraticelli, each in one volume, may be recommended to the +beginner. Scartazzini’s edition in three volumes is the best, in spite of +some serious defects, for the deeper student. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>HELL.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.I"></a>CANTO I.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which he begins to ascend; +he is hindered by three beasts; he turns back and is met by Virgil, who +proposes to guide him into the eternal world. +</p> + +<p> +Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark wood, for the +right way had been missed. Ah! how hard a thing it is to tell what this wild +and rough and dense wood was, which in thought renews the fear! So bitter is it +that death is little more. But in order to treat of the good that there I +found, I will tell of the other things that I have seen there. I cannot well +recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that point where I +abandoned the true way. But after I had arrived at the foot of a hill, where +that valley ended which had pierced my heart with fear, I looked on high, and +saw its shoulders clothed already with the rays of the planet[1] that leadeth +men aright along every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which in the +lake of my heart had lasted through the night that I passed so piteously. And +even as one who with spent breath, issued out of the sea upon the shore, turns +to the perilous water and gazes, so did my soul, which still was flying, turn +back to look again upon the pass which never had a living person left. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The sun, a planet according to the Ptolemaic system. +</p> + +<p> +After I had rested a little my weary body I took my way again along the desert +slope, so that the firm foot was always the lower. And lo! almost at the +beginning of the steep a she-leopard, light and very nimble, which was covered +with a spotted coat. And she did not move from before my face, nay, rather +hindered so my road that to return I oftentimes had turned. +</p> + +<p> +The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was mounting upward +with those stars that were with him when Love Divine first set in motion those +beautiful things;[1] so that the hour of the time and the sweet season were +occasion of good hope to me concerning that wild beast with the dappled skin. +But not so that the sight which appeared to me of a lion did not give me fear. +He seemed to be coming against me, with head high and with ravening hunger, so +that it seemed that the air was affrighted at him. And a she-wolf,[2] who with +all cravings seemed laden in her meagreness, and already had made many folk to +live forlorn,—she caused me so much heaviness, with the fear that came +from sight of her, that I lost hope of the height And such as he is who gaineth +willingly, and the time arrives that makes him lose, who in all his thoughts +weeps and is sad,—such made me the beast without repose that, coming on +against me, little by little was pushing me back thither where the Sun is +silent. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] According to old tradition the spring was the season of the creation. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] These three beasts correspond to the triple division of sins into those of +incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto XI. +</p> + +<p> +While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes appeared one who +through long silence seemed hoarse. When I saw him in the great desert, +“Have pity on me!” I cried to him, “whatso thou art, or shade +or real man.” He answered me: “Not man; man once I was, and my +parents were Lombards, and Mantuans by country both. I was born sub Julio, +though late, and I lived at Rome under the good Augustus, in the time of the +false and lying gods. Poet was I, and sang of that just son of Anchises who +came from Troy after proud Ilion had been burned. But thou, why returnest thou +to so great annoy? Why dost thou not ascend the delectable mountain which is +the source and cause of every joy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so large a +stream of speech?” replied I to him with bashful front: “O honor +and light of the other poem I may the long seal avail me, and the great love, +which have made me search thy volume! Thou art my master and my author; thou +alone art he from whom I took the fair style that hath done me honor. Behold +the beast because of which I turned; help me against her, famous sage, for she +makes any veins and pulses tremble.” “Thee it behoves to hold +another course,” he replied, when he saw me weeping, “if thou +wishest to escape from this savage place; for this beast, because of which thou +criest out, lets not any one pass along her way, but so hinders him that she +kills him! and she has a nature so malign and evil that she never sates her +greedy will, and after food is hungrier than before. Many are the animals with +which she wives, and there shall be more yet, till the hound[1] shall come +that will make her die of grief. He shall not feed on land or goods, but wisdom +and love and valor, and his birthplace shall be between Feltro and Feltro. Of +that humble[2] Italy shall he be the salvation, for which the virgin Camilla +died, and Euryalus, Turnus and Nisus of their wounds. He shall hunt her through +every town till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence envy first +sent her forth. Wherefore I think and deem it for thy best that thou follow me, +and I will be thy guide, and will lead thee hence through the eternal place +where thou shalt hear the despairing shrieks, shalt see the ancient spirits +woeful who each proclaim the second death. And then thou shalt see those who +are contented in the fire, because they hope to come, whenever it may be, to +the blessed folk; to whom if thou wilt thereafter ascend, then shall be a soul +more worthy than I for that. With her I will leave thee at my departure; for +that Emperor who reigneth them above, because I was rebellious to His law, +wills not that into His city any one should come through me. In all parts He +governs and them He reigns: there in His city and His lofty seat. O happy he +whom thereto He elects!” And I to him, “Poet, I beseech thee by +that God whom thou didst not know, in order that I may escape this ill and +worse, that thou lead me thither whom thou now hast said, so that I may see the +gate of St. Peter, and those whom thou makest so afflicted.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Of whom the hound is the symbol, and to whom Dante looked for the +deliverance of Italy from the discorda and misrule that made her wretched, is +still matter of doubt, after centuries of controversy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Fallen, humiliated. +</p> + +<p> +Then he moved on, and I behind him kept. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.II"></a>CANTO II.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at the outset.—Virgil +cheers him by telling him that he has been sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit +from Heaven.—Dante casts off fear, and the poets proceed. +</p> + +<p> +The day was going, and the dusky air was taking the living things that are on +earth from their fatigues, and I alone was preparing to sustain the war alike +of the road, and of the woe which the mind that erreth not shall retrace. O +Muses, O lofty genius, now assist me! O mind that didst inscribe that which I +saw, here shall thy nobility appear! I began:—“Poet, that guidest +me, consider my virtue, if it is sufficient, ere to the deep pass thou trustest +me. Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius while still corruptible went to the +immortal world and was there in the body. Wherefore if the Adversary of every +ill was then courteous, thinking on the high effect that should proceed from +him, and on the Who and the What,[1] it seemeth not unmeet to the man of +understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for father of +revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained +for the holy place where the successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. +Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were +the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the Chosen Vessel +went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith which is the beginning of +the way of salvation. But I, why go I thither? or who concedes it? I am not +Aeneas, I am not Paul; me worthy of this, neither I nor others think; wherefore +if I give myself up to go, I fear lest the going may be mad. Thou art wise, +thou understandest better than I speak.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Who he was, and what should result. +</p> + +<p> +And as is he who unwills what he willed, and because of new thoughts changes +his design, so that he quite withdraws from beginning, such I became on that +dark hillside: wherefore in my thought I abandoned the enterprise which had +been so hasty in the beginning. +</p> + +<p> +“If I have rightly understood thy speech,” replied that shade of +the magnanimous one, “thy soul is hurt by cowardice, which oftentimes +encumbereth a man so that it turns him back from honorable enterprise, as false +seeing does a beast when it is startled. In order that thou loose thee from +this fear I will tell thee wherefore I have come, and what I heard at the first +moment that I grieved for thee. I was among those who are suspended,[1] and a +Lady called me, so blessed and beautiful that I besought her to command. Her +eyes were more lucent than the star, and she began to speak to me sweet and +low, with angelic voice, in her own tongue: ‘O courteous Mantuan soul, of +whom the fame yet lasteth in the world, and shall last so long as the world +endureth! a friend of mine and not of fortune upon the desert hillside is so +hindered on his road that he has turned for fear, and I am afraid, through that +which I have heard of him in heaven, lest already he be so astray that I may +have risen late to his succor. Now do thou move, and with thy speech ornate, +and with whatever is needful for his deliverance, assist him so that I may be +consoled for him. I am Beatrice who make thee go. I come from a place whither I +desire to return. Love moved me, and makes me speak. When I shall be before my +Lord, I will commend thee often unto Him.’ Then she was silent, and +thereon I began: ‘O Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom the human +race surpasseth all contained within that heaven which hath the smallest +circles![2] so pleasing unto me is thy command that to obey it, were it +already done, were slow to me. Thou hast no need further to open unto me thy +will; but tell me the cause why thou guardest not thyself from descending down +here into this centre, from the ample place whither thou burnest to +return.’ ‘Since thou wishest to know so inwardly, I will tell thee +briefly,’ she replied to me, ‘wherefore I fear not to come here +within. One ought to fear those things only that have power of doing harm, the +others not, for they are not dreadful. I am made by God, thanks be to Him, such +that your misery toucheth me not, nor doth the flame of this burning assail me. +A gentle Lady[3] is in heaven who hath pity for this hindrance whereto I send +thee, so that stern judgment there above she breaketh. She summoned Lucia in +her request, and said, “Thy faithful one now hath need of thee, and unto +thee I commend him.” Lucia, the foe of every cruel one, rose and came to +the place where I was, seated with the ancient Rachel. She said, +“Beatrice, true praise of God, why dost thou not succor him who so loved +thee that for thee he came forth from the vulgar throng? Dost thou not hear the +pity of his plaint? Dost thou not see the death that combats him beside the +stream whereof the sea hath no vaunt?” In the world never were persons +swift to seek their good, and to fly their harm, as I, after these words were +uttered, came here below, from my blessed seat, putting my trust in thy upright +speech, which honors thee and them who have heard it.’ After she had said +this to me, weeping she turned her lucent eyes, whereby she made me more speedy +in coming. And I came to thee as she willed. Thee have I delivered from that +wild beast that took from thee the short ascent of the beautiful mountain. What +is it then? Why, why dost thou hold back? why dost thou harbor such cowardice +in thy heart? why hast thou not daring and boldness, since three blessed Ladies +care for thee in the court of Heaven, and my speech pledges thee such +good?” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In Limbo, neither in Hell nor Heaven. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The heaven of the moon, nearest to the earth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The Virgin. +</p> + +<p> +As flowerets, bent and closed by the chill of night, after the sun shines on +them straighten themselves all open on their stem, so I became with my weak +virtue, and such good daring hastened to my heart that I began like one +enfranchised: “Oh compassionate she who succored me! and thou courteous +who didst speedily obey the true words that she addressed to thee! Thou by thy +words hast so disposed my heart with desire of going, that I have returned unto +my first intent. Go on now, for one sole will is in us both: Thou Leader, thou +Lord, and thou Master.” Thus I said to him; and when he had moved on, I +entered along the deep and savage road. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.III"></a>CANTO III.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The gate of Hell.—Virgil lends Dante in.—The punishment of the +neither good nor bad.—Acheron, and the sinners on its +bank.—Charon.—Earthquake.—Dante swoons. +</p> + +<p> +“Through me is the way into the woeful city; through me is the way into +eternal woe; through me is the way among the lost people. Justice moved my +lofty maker: the divine Power, the supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me. +Before me were no things created, unless eternal, and I eternal last. Leave +every hope, ye who enter!” +</p> + +<p> +These words of color obscure I saw written at the top of a gate; whereat I, +“Master, their meaning is dire to me.” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, like one who knew, “Here it behoves to leave every fear; it +behoves that all cowardice should here be dead. We have come to the place where +I have told thee that thou shalt see the woeful people, who have lost the good +of the understanding.” +</p> + +<p> +And when he had put his hand on mine, with a glad countenance, wherefrom I took +courage, he brought me within the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep +wailings were resounding though the starless air; wherefore at first I wept +thereat. Strange tongues, horrible cries, words of woe, accents of anger, +voices high and hoarse, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult +which whirls forever in that air dark without change, like the sand when the +whirlwind breathes. +</p> + +<p> +And I, who had my head girt with horror, said, “Master, what is it that I +hear? and what folk are they who seem in woe so vanquished?” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain of +those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with that +caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, but +were for themselves. The heavens chased them out in order to be not less +beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would +have some glory from them.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, “Master, what is so grievous to them, that makes them lament so +bitterly?” +</p> + +<p> +He answered, “I will tell thee very briefly. These have no hope of death; +and their blind life is so debased, that they are envious of every other lot. +Fame of them the world permitteth not to be; mercy and justice disdain them. +Let us not speak of them, but do thou look and pass on.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, who was gazing, saw a banner, that whirling ran so swiftly that it +seemed to me to scorn all repose, and behind it came so long a train of folk, +that I could never have believed death had undone so many. After I had +distinguished some among them, I saw and knew the shade of him who made, +through cowardice, the great refusal.[1] At once I understood and was certain, +that this was the sect of the caitiffs displeasing unto God, and unto his +enemies. These wretches, who never were alive, were naked, and much stung by +gad-flies and by wasps that were there. These streaked their faces with blood, +which, mingled with tears, was harvested at their feet by loathsome worms. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Who is intended by these words is uncertain. +</p> + +<p> +And when I gave myself to looking onward, I saw people on the bank of a great +river; wherefore I said, “Master, now grant to me that I may know who +these are, and what rule makes them appear so ready to pass over, as I discern +through the faint light.” And he to me, “The things will be clear +to thee, when we shall set our steps on the sad marge of Acheron.” Then +with eyes bashful and cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to +him, far as to the river I refrained from speaking. +</p> + +<p> +And lo! coming toward us in a boat, an old man, white with ancient hair, +crying, “Woe to you, wicked souls! hope not ever to see Heaven! I come to +carry you to the other bank, into eternal darkness, to heat and frost. And thou +who art there, living soul, depart from these that are dead.” But when he +saw that I did not depart, he said, “By another way, by other ports thou +shalt come to the shore, not here, for passage; it behoves that a lighter bark +bear thee.”[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The boat that bears the souls to Purgatory. Charon recognizes that Dante is +not among the damned. +</p> + +<p> +And my Leader to him, “Charon, vex not thyself, it is thus willed there +where is power to do that which is willed; and farther ask not.” Then the +fleecy cheeks were quiet of the pilot of the livid marsh, who round about his +eyes had wheels of flame. +</p> + +<p> +But those souls, who were weary and naked, changed color, and gnashed their +teeth soon as they heard his cruel words. They blasphemed God and their +parents, the human race, the place, the time and the seed of their sowing and +of their birth. Then, bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to +the evil bank, that waits for every man who fears not God. Charon the demon, +with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them all; he beats with his +oar whoever lingers. +</p> + +<p> +As in autumn the leaves fall off one after the other, till the bough sees all +its spoils upon the earth, in like wise the evil seed of Adam throw themselves +from that shore one by one at signals, as the bird at his call. Thus they go +over the dusky wave, and before they have landed on the farther side, already +on this a new throng is gathered. +</p> + +<p> +“My son,” said the courteous Master, “those who die in the +wrath of God, all meet together here from every land. And they are eager to +pass over the stream, for the divine justice spurs them, so that fear is turned +to desire. This way a good soul never passes; and therefore if Charon snarleth +at thee, thou now mayest well know what his speech signifies.” This +ended, the dark plain trembled so mightily, that the memory of the terror even +now bathes me with sweat. The tearful land gave forth a wind that flashed a +vermilion light which vanquished every sense of mine, and I fell as a man whom +slumber seizes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.IV"></a>CANTO IV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The further side of Acheron.—Virgil leads Dante into Limbo, the First +Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those who lived virtuously but +without Christianity.—Greeting of Virgil by his fellow poets.—They +enter a castle, where are the shades of ancient worthies.—Virgil and +Dante depart. +</p> + +<p> +A heavy thunder broke the deep sleep in my head, so that I started up like a +person who by force is wakened. And risen erect, I moved my rested eye round +about, and looked fixedly to distinguish the place where I was. True it is, +that I found myself on the verge of the valley of the woeful abyss that gathers +in thunder of infinite wailings. Dark, profound it was, and cloudy, so that +though I fixed my sight on the bottom I did not discern anything there. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we descend down here into the blind world,” began the Poet all +deadly pale, “I will be first, and thou shalt be second.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, who had observed his color, said, “How shall I come, if thou +fearest, who art wont to be a comfort to my doubting?” And he to me, +“The anguish of the folk who are down here depicts upon my face that pity +which thou takest for fear. Let us go on, for the long way urges us.” +</p> + +<p> +So he set forth, and so he made me enter within the first circle that girds the +abyss. Here, so far as could be heard, there was no plaint but that of sighs +which made the eternal air to tremble: this came of the woe without torments +felt by the crowds, which were many and great, of infants and of women and of +men. +</p> + +<p> +The good Master to me, “Thou dost not ask what spirits are these that +thou seest. Now I would have thee know, before thou goest farther, that they +sinned not; and if they have merits it sufficeth not, because they had not +baptism, which is part of the faith that thou believest; and if they were +before Christianity, they did not duly worship God: and of such as these am I +myself. Through such defects, and not through other guilt, are we lost, and +only so far harmed that without hope we live in desire.” +</p> + +<p> +Great woe seized me at my heart when I heard him, because I knew that people of +much worth were suspended in that limbo. “Tell me, my Master, tell me, +Lord,” began I, with wish to be assured of that faith which vanquishes +every error,[1] “did ever any one who afterwards was blessed go out from +here, either by his own or by another’s merit?” And he, who +understood my covert speech, answered, “I was new in this state when I +saw a Mighty One come hither crowned with sign of victory. He drew out hence +the shade of the first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah, of Moses the +law-giver and obedient, Abraham the patriarch, and David the King, Israel with +his father, and with his offspring, and with Rachel, for whom he did so much, +and others many; and He made them blessed: and I would have thee know that +before these, human spirits were not saved.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Wishing especially to be assured in regard to the descent of Christ into +Hell. +</p> + +<p> +We ceased not going on because he spoke, but all the while were passing through +the wood, the wood I mean of crowded spirits. Nor yet had our way been long +from where I slept, when I saw a fire, that conquered a hemisphere of darkness. +We were still a little distant from it, yet not so far that I could not +partially discern that honorable folk possessed that place. “O thou that +honorest both science and art, these, who are they, that have such honor that +from the condition of the others it sets them apart?” And he to me, +“The honorable fame of them which resounds above in thy life wins grace +in heaven that so advances them.” At this a voice was heard by me, +“Honor the loftiest Poet! his shade returns that was departed.” +When the voice had ceased and was quiet, I saw four great shades coming to us: +they had a semblance neither sad nor glad. The good Master began to say, +“Look at him with that sword in hand who cometh before the three, even as +lord. He is Homer, the sovereign poet; the next who comes is Horace, the +satirist; Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan. Since each shares with me +the name that the single voice sounded, they do me honor, and in that do +well.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus I saw assembled the fair school of that Lord of the loftiest song which +above the others as an eagle flies. After they had discoursed somewhat +together, they turned to me with sign of salutation; and my Master smiled +thereat. And far more of honor yet they did me, for they made me of their band, +so that I was the sixth amid so much wit. Thus we went on as far as the light, +speaking things concerning which silence is becoming, even as was speech there +where I was. +</p> + +<p> +We came to the foot of a noble castle, seven times circled by high walls, +defended round about by a fair streamlet. This we passed as if hard ground; +through seven gates I entered with these sages; we came to a meadow of fresh +verdure. People were there with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in +their looks; they spake seldom, and with soft voices. Thus we drew apart, on +one side, into a place open, luminous, and high, so that they all could be +seen. There opposite upon the green enamel were shown to me the great spirits, +whom to have seen I inwardly exalt myself. +</p> + +<p> +I saw Electra with many companions, among whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas, +Caesar in armor, with his gerfalcon eyes; I saw Camilla and Penthesilea on the +other side, and I saw the King Latinus, who was seated with Lavinia his +daughter. I saw that Brutus who drove out Tarquin; Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and +Cornelia; and alone, apart, I saw the Saladin. When I raised my brow a little +more, I saw the Master of those who know, seated amid the philosophic family; +all regard him, all do him honor. Here I saw both Socrates and Plato, who +before the others stand nearest to him; Democritus, who ascribes the world to +chance; Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Zeno; and +I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides, I mean; and I saw +Orpheus, Tully, and Linus, and moral Seneca, Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, +Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen, and Averrhoes, who made the great comment. I +cannot report of all in full, because the long theme so drives me that many +times speech comes short of fact. +</p> + +<p> +The company of six is reduced to two. By another way the wise guide leads me, +out from the quiet, into the air that trembles, and I come into a region where +is nothing that can give light. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.V"></a>CANTO V.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Second Circle, that of Carnal Sinners.—Minos.—Shades renowned +of old.—Francesca da Rimini. +</p> + +<p> +Thus I descended from the first circle down into the second, which girdles less +space, and so much more woe that it goads to wailing. There abides Minos +horribly, and snarls; he examines the sins at the entrance; he judges, and he +sends according as he entwines himself. I mean, that, when the miscreant spirit +comes there before him, it confesses itself wholly, and that discerner of sins +sees what place of Hell is for it; he girdles himself with his tail so many +times as the degrees he wills it should be sent down. Always before him stand +many of them. They go, in turn, each to the judgment; they speak, and hear, and +then are whirled below. +</p> + +<p> +“O thou that comest to the woeful inn,” said Minos to me, when he +saw me, leaving the act of so great an office, “beware how thou enterest, +and to whom thou trustest thyself; let not the amplitude of the entrance +deceive thee.” And my Leader to him, “Why then dost thou cry out? +Hinder not his fated going; thus is it willed there where is power to do that +which is willed; and ask thou no more.” +</p> + +<p> +Now the woeful notes begin to make themselves heard; now am I come where much +lamentation smites me. I had come into a place mute of all light, that bellows +as the sea does in a tempest, if it be combated by opposing winds. The infernal +hurricane that never rests carries along the spirits in its rapine; whirling +and smiting it molests them. When they arrive before its rushing blast, here +are shrieks, and bewailing, and lamenting; here they blaspheme the power +divine. I understood that to such torment are condemned the carnal sinners who +subject reason to appetite. And as their wings bear along the starlings in the +cold season in a troop large and full, so that blast the evil spirits; hither, +thither, down, up it carries them; no hope ever comforts them, not of repose, +but even of less pain. +</p> + +<p> +And as the cranes go singing their lays, making in air a long line of +themselves, so saw I come, uttering wails, shades borne along by the aforesaid +strife. Wherefore I said, “Master, who are those folk whom the black air +so castigates?” “The first of these of whom thou wishest to have +knowledge,” said he to me then, “was empress of many tongues. To +the vice of luxury was she so abandoned that lust she made licit in her law, to +take away the blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that +she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held the land which the Soldan +rules. That other is she who, for love, killed herself, and broke faith to the +ashes of Sichaeus. Next is Cleopatra, the luxurious. See Helen, for whom so +long a time of ill revolved; and see the great Achilles, who at the end fought +with love. See Paris, Tristan,—” and more than a thousand shades he +showed me with his finger, and named them, whom love had parted from our life. +</p> + +<p> +After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the cavaliers, pity +overcame me, and I was well nigh bewildered. I began, “Poet, willingly +would I speak with those two that go together, and seem to be so light upon the +wind.” And he to me, “Thou shalt see when they shall be nearer to +us, and do thou then pray them by that love which leads them, and they will +come.” Soon as the wind sways them toward us I lifted my voice, “O +weary souls, come speak to us, if One forbid it not.” +</p> + +<p> +As doves, called by desire, with wings open and steady, fly through the air to +their sweet nest, borne by their will, these issued from the troop where Dido +is, coming to us through the malign air, so strong was the compassionate cry. +</p> + +<p> +“O living creature, gracious and benign, that goest through the lurid air +visiting us who stained the world blood-red,—if the King of the universe +were a friend we would pray Him for thy peace, since thou hast pity on our +perverse ill. Of what it pleaseth thee to hear, and what to speak, we will hear +and we will speak to you, while the wind, as now, is hushed for us. The city +where I was born sits upon the sea-shore, where the Po, with its followers, +descends to have peace. Love, that on gentle heart quickly lays hold, seized +him for the fair person that was taken from me, and the mode still hurts me. +Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of +him so strongly that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me. Love +brought us to one death. Caina awaits him who quenched our life.” These +words were borne to us from them. +</p> + +<p> +Soon as I had heard those injured souls I bowed my face, and held it down, +until the Poet said to me, “What art thou thinking?” When I +replied, I began, “Alas! how many sweet thoughts, how great desire, led +these unto the woeful pass.” Then I turned me again to them, and I spoke, +and began, “Francesca, thy torments make me sad and piteous to weeping. +But tell me, at the time of the sweet sighs by what and how did love concede to +you to know the dubious desires?” And she to me, “There is no +greater woe than in misery to remember the happy time, and that thy Teacher +knows. But if to know the first root of our love thou hast so great a longing, +I will do like one who weeps and tells. +</p> + +<p> +“We were reading one day, for delight, of Lancelot, how love constrained +him. We were alone and without any suspicion. Many times that reading made us +lift our eyes, and took the color from our faces, but only one point was that +which overcame us. When we read of the longed-for smile being kissed by such a +lover, this one, who never from me shall be divided, kissed my mouth all +trembling. Galahaut was the book, and he who wrote it. That day we read in it +no farther.”[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In the Romance, it was Galahaut that prevailed on Guinevere to give a kiss +to Lancelot. +</p> + +<p> +While one spirit said this the other was weeping so that through pity I +swooned, as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body falls. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.VI"></a>CANTO VI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Third Circle, that of the Gluttonous.—Cerberus.—Ciacco. +</p> + +<p> +When the mind returned, which closed itself before the pity of these two +kinsfolk, that had all confounded me with sadness, new torments and new +tormented souls I see around me wherever I move, and howsoever I turn, and +wherever I gaze. +</p> + +<p> +I am in the third circle, that of the rain eternal, accursed, cold, and heavy. +Its rule and quality are never new. Coarse hail, and foul water and snow pour +down through the tenebrous air; the earth that receives them stinks. Cerberus, +a beast cruel and monstrous, with three throats barks doglike above the people +that are here submerged. He has vermilion eyes, and a greasy and black beard, +and a big belly, and hands armed with claws: he tears the spirits, flays them, +and rends them. The rain makes them howl like dogs; of one of their sides they +make a screen for the other; the profane wretches often turn themselves. +</p> + +<p> +When Cerberus, the great worm, observed us he opened his mouths, and showed his +fangs to us; not a limb had he that he kept quiet. And my Leader opened wide +his hands, took some earth, and with full fists threw it into the ravenous +gullets. As the dog that barking craves, and becomes quiet when he bites his +food, and is intent and fights only to devour it, such became those filthy +faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that they would fain +be deaf. +</p> + +<p> +We were passing over the shades whom the heavy rain subdues, and were setting +our feet upon their vain show that seems a body. They all of them lay upon the +ground, except one who raised himself to sit, quickly as he saw us passing +before him. “O thou who art led through this Hell,” he said to me, +“recognize me, if thou canst; thou wast made before I was unmade.” +And I to him, “The anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee from +my memory, so that it seems not that I ever saw thee. But tell me who thou art, +that in a place so woeful art set, and with such a punishment, that if any +other is greater none is so displeasing.” And he to me, “Thy city +which is so full of envy, that already the sack runs over, held me in it, in +the serene life. You citizens called me Ciacco;[1] for the damnable sin of +gluttony, as thou seest, I am broken by the rain. And I, wretched soul, am not +alone, for all these endure like punishment, for like sin,” and more he +said not. I answered him, “Ciacco, thy trouble so weighs upon me, that it +invites me to weeping; but tell me, if thou canst, to what will come the +citizens of the divided city; if any one in it is just; and tell me the reason +why such great discord has assailed it.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Ciacco, in popular speech, signifies a hog. +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “After long contention they will come to blood, and the +savage party will chase out the other with great injury. Thereafter within +three suns it behoves this to fall, and the other to surmount through the force +of one who even now is tacking. It will hold high its front long time, keeping +the other under heavy burdens, however it may lament and be shamed thereat. Two +men are just, but there they are not heeded; Pride, Envy, Avarice are the three +sparks that have inflamed their hearts.”[1] +</p> + +<p> +Here he set end unto the lamentable sound. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] This prophecy relates to the dissensions and violence of the parties of the +Whites and the Blacks by which Florence was rent. The “savage +party” was that of the Whites, who were mainly Ghibellines. The +“one who even now is tacking” was the Pope, Boniface VIII., who was +playing fast and loose with both. Who the “two just men” were is +unknown. +</p> + +<p> +And I to him, “Still I would that thou teach me, and that of more speech +thou make a gift to me. Farinata and the Tegghiaio who were so worthy, Jacopo +Rusticucci, Arrigo, and the Mosca, and the rest who set their minds on +well-doing, tell me where they are, and cause that I may know them, for great +desire constrains me to learn if Heaven sweeten them, or Hell envenom. +</p> + +<p> +And he, “They are among the blacker souls: a different sin weighs them +down to the bottom; if thou so far descendest, thou canst see them. But when +thou shalt be in the sweet world I pray thee that thou bring me to the memory +of others. More I say not to thee, and more I answer thee not.” His +straight eyes he twisted then awry, looked at me a little, and then bent his +head, and fell with it level with the other blind. +</p> + +<p> +And the Leader said to me, “He wakes no more this side the sound of the +angelic trump. When the hostile Sovereign shall come, each one will find again +his dismal tomb, will take again his flesh and his shape, will hear that which +through eternity reechoes.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus we passed along with slow steps through the foul mixture of the shades and +of the rain, touching a little on the future life. Wherefore I said, +“Master, these torments will they increase after the great sentence, or +will they become less, or will they be just as burning?” And he to me, +“Return to thy science, which declares that the more perfect a thing is +the more it feels the good, and so the pain. Though this accursed people never +can attain to true perfection, it expects thereafter to be more than +now.” +</p> + +<p> +We took a circling course along that road, speaking far more than I repeat; and +came to the point where the descent is. Here we found Pluto,[1] the great +enemy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Pluto appears here not as Hades, the god of the lower world, but in his +character as the giver of wealth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.VII"></a>CANTO VII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Fourth Circle, that of the Avaricious and the +Prodigal.—Pluto.—Fortune.—The Styx.—The Fifth Circle, +that of the Wrathful and the Sullen. +</p> + +<p> +“Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe,”—began Pluto with his +clucking voice. And that gentle Sage, who knew everything, said to comfort me, +“Let not thy fear hurt thee; for whatso power he have shall not take from +thee the descent of this rock.” Then he turned to that swollen lip and +said, “Be silent, accursed wolf! inwardly consume thyself with thine own +rage: not without cause is this going to the abyss; it is willed on high, there +where Michael did vengeance on the proud adultery.”[1] As sails swollen +by the wind fall in a heap when the mast snaps, so fell to earth the cruel +beast. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Adultery, in the sense of infidelity to God. +</p> + +<p> +Thus we descended into the fourth hollow, taking more of the woeful bank that +gathers in the evil of the whole universe. Ah, Justice of God! Who heapeth up +so many new travails and penalties as I saw? And why doth our sin so waste us? +As doth the wave, yonder upon Charybdis, which is broken on that which it +encounters, so it behoves that here the people counterdance. +</p> + +<p> +Here saw I people more than elsewhere many, and from one side and the other +with great howls rolling weights by force of chest. They struck against each +other, and then just there each turned, rolling backward, crying, “Why +keepest thou?” and “Why flingest thou away?” Thus they turned +through the dark circle on either hand to the opposite point, still crying out +their opprobrious verse; then each, when he had come through his half circle, +wheeled round to the other joust. +</p> + +<p> +And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced through, said, “My Master, now +declare to me what folk is this, and if all these tonsured ones on our left +were clerks.” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “All of these were so asquint in mind in the first life +that they made no spending there with measure. Clearly enough their voices bay +it out, when they come to the two points of the circle where the contrary sin +divides them. These were clerks who have no hairy covering on their head, and +Popes and Cardinals, in whom avarice practices its excess.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, “Master, among such as these I ought surely to recognize some who +were polluted with these evils.” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “Vain thought thou harborest; the undiscerning life that +made them foul, to all recognition now makes them dim. Forever will they come +to the two buttings; these will rise from the sepulchre with closed fist, and +these with shorn hair. Ill-giving and ill-keeping have taken from them the fair +world, and set them to this scuffle; such as it is, I adorn not words for it. +Now canst thou, son, see the brief jest of the goods that are committed unto +Fortune, for which the human race so scramble; for all the gold that is beneath +the moon, or that ever was, of these weary souls could not make a single one +repose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Master,” said I to him, “now tell me further; this Fortune, +on which thou touchest for me, what is it, that hath the goods of the world so +in its clutches?” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance that +harms you! I would have thee now take in my judgment of her. He whose wisdom +transcendeth all made the heavens, and gave them their guides, so that every +part on every part doth shine, equally distributing the light. In like wise for +the splendors of the world, He ordained a general ministress and guide, who +should ever and anon transfer the vain goods from race to race, and from one +blood to another, beyond the resistance of human wit. Wherefore one race rules, +and the other languishes, pursuant to her judgment, which is occult as the +snake in the grass. Your wisdom hath no withstanding of her: she provides, +judges and maintains her realm, as theirs the other gods. Her permutations have +no truce; necessity compels her to be swift, so often cometh he who obtains a +turn. This is she who is so set upon the cross, even by those who ought to give +her praise, giving her blame amiss and ill report. But she is blessed and hears +this not. With the other Primal Creatures glad she turns her sphere, and +blessed she rejoices. But now let us descend to greater woe. Already every star +sinks that was rising when I set out, and too long stay is forbidden.” +</p> + +<p> +We crossed the circle to the other bank, above a fount that boils and pours +down through a cleft that proceeds from it. The water was far darker than +perse;[1] and we, in company with the dusky waves, entered down through a +strange way. A marsh it makes, that is named Styx, this dismal little stream, +when it has descended to the foot of the malign gray slopes. And I, who stood +intent to gaze, saw muddy people in that swamp, all naked and with look of +hurt. They were smiting each other, not only with hands, but with head, and +with chest, and with feet, mangling one another piecemeal with their teeth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Purple-black. +</p> + +<p> +The good Master said, “Son, now thou seest the souls of those whom anger +overcame; and likewise I would have thee believe for certain that beneath the +water are folk who sigh, and make this water bubble at the surface, as thine +eye tells thee wherever it turns. Fixed in the slime, they say, ‘Sullen +were we in the sweet air that by the Sun is gladdened, bearing within ourselves +the sluggish fume; now we are sullen in the black mire.’ This hymn they +gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak with entire words.”[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The sin here punished is that known to the Middle Ages as acedia, or +accidie,—slackness in good works, and spiritual gloom and despondency. In +the Parson’s Tale Chaucer says: “Envie and ire maken bitternesse in +heart, which bitternesse is mother of accidie.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus we circled a great arc of the foul fen, between the dry bank and the +slough, with eyes turned on those who guzzle the mire. We came at length to the +foot of a tower. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.VIII"></a>CANTO VIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Fifth Circle.—Phlegyas and his boat.—Passage of the +Styx.—Filippo Argenti.—The City of Dis.—The demons refuse +entrance to the poets. +</p> + +<p> +I say, continuing, that, long before we were at the foot of the high tower, our +eyes went upward to its top because of two flamelets that we saw set there, and +another giving signal back from so far that hardly could the eye reach it. And +I turned me to the Sea of all wisdom; I said, “This one, what says it? +and what answers that other fire? and who are they that make it?” And he +to me, “Upon the foul waves already thou mayest discern that which is +expected, if the fume of the marsh hide it not from thee.” +</p> + +<p> +Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course through the +air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through the water toward us at +that instant, under the direction of a single ferryman, who was crying out, +“Art thou then come, fell soul?” +</p> + +<p> +“Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time thou criest out in vain,” said my +Lord; “longer thou shalt not have us than only while crossing the +slough.” As one who listens to some great deceit that has been practiced +on him, and then chafes at it, such became Phlegyas in his stifled anger. +</p> + +<p> +My Leader descended into the bark and then he made me enter after him, and only +when I was in did it seem laden. Soon as my Leader and I were in the boat, the +antique prow goes its way, cutting more of the water than it is wont with +others. +</p> + +<p> +While we were running through the dead channel, before me showed himself one +full of mud, and said, “Who art thou that comest before the hour?” +And I to him, “If I come I stay not; but thou, who art thou that art +become so foul?” He answered, “Thou seest that I am one who +weeps.” And I to him, “With weeping and with wailing, accursed +spirit, do thou remain, for I know thee although thou art all filthy.” +Then he stretched to the boat both his hands, whereat the wary Master thrust +him back, saying, “Begone there, with the other dogs!” Then with +his arms he clasped my neck, kissed my face, and said, “Disdainful soul, +blessed be she who bore thee! This one was an arrogant person in the world; no +goodness is there that adorns his memory; therefore is his shade so furious +here. How many now up there are held great kings who shall stand here like +swine in mire, leaving of themselves horrible dispraises.” And I, +“Master, I should much like to see him ducked in this broth before we +depart from the lake.” And he to me, “Ere the shore allows thee to +see it thou shalt be satisfied; it will be fitting that thou enjoy such a +desire.” After this a little I saw such rending of him by the muddy folk +that I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for it. All cried, “At +Filippo Argenti!” and the raging florentine spirit turned upon himself +with his teeth. Here we left him; so that I tell no more of him. +</p> + +<p> +But on my ears there smote a wailing, whereat forward intent I open wide my +eye. And the good Master said, “Now, son, the city draws near that is +named Dis, with its heavy citizens, with its great throng.” And I, +“Master, already in the valley therewithin I clearly discern its mosques +vermillion, as if issuing from fire.” And he said to me, “The +eternal fire that blazes within them displays them red as thou seest in this +nether Hell.” +</p> + +<p> +We at last arrived within the deep ditches that encompass that disconsolate +city. The walls seemed to me to be of iron. Not without first making a great +circuit did we come to a place where the ferryman loudly shouted to us, +“Out with you, here is the entrance.” +</p> + +<p> +Upon the gates I saw more than a thousand of those rained down from heaven who +angrily were saying, “Who is this, that without death goes through the +realm of the dead folk?” And my wise Master made a sign of wishing to +speak secretly with them. Then they shut in a little their great scorn, and +said, “Come thou alone, and let him be gone who so boldly entered on this +realm. Alone let him return on the mad path: let him try if he can; for thou, +who hast escorted him through so dark a region, shalt remain here.” +</p> + +<p> +Think, Reader, if I was discomforted at the sound of the accursed words, for I +did not believe ever to return hither.[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] To this world. +</p> + +<p> +“O my dear Leader, who more than seven times hast renewed assurance in +me, and drawn me from deep peril that stood confronting me, leave me +not,” said I, “thus undone; and, if the going farther onward be +denied us, let us together retrace our footprints quickly.” And that Lord +who had led me thither said to me, “Fear not, for no one can take from us +our onward way, by Such an one it is given to us. But here await me, and +comfort thy dejected spirit and feed on good hope, for I will not leave thee in +the nether world.” +</p> + +<p> +So the sweet Father goes away, and here abandons me, and I remain in suspense; +and yes and no contend within my head. I could not hear what he set forth to +them, but he had not staid there long with them, when each ran vying back +within. These our adversaries closed the gates on the breast of my Lord, who +remained without, and returned to me with slow steps. He held his eyes upon the +ground, and his brow was shorn of all hardihood, and he said in sighs, +“Who hath denied to me the houses of woe?” And he said to me, +“Thou, because I am wroth, be not dismayed, for I shall win the strife, +whoever circle round within for the defence. This their insolence is not new, +for of old they used it at a less secret gate, which still is found without a +bolt. Above it thou didst see the dead inscription; and already on this side of +it descends the steep, passing without escort through the circles, One such +that by him the city shall be opened to us.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.IX"></a>CANTO IX.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The City of Dis.—Erichtho.—The Three Furies.—The Heavenly +Messenger.—The Sixth Circle, that of the Heresiarchs. +</p> + +<p> +That color which cowardice painted outwardly on me when I saw my Guide turn +back, repressed more speedily his own new color. He stopped attentive, like a +man that listens, for the eye could not lead him far through the black air, and +through the dense fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet it must be for us to win the fight,” began he, +“unless—Such an one offered herself to us.[1] Oh how slow it seems +till Some one here arrive!”[2] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Beatrice. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The messenger from Heaven, referred to in the last verses of the last +canto. +</p> + +<p> +I saw well how he covered up the beginning with the rest that came after, which +were words different from the first. But nevertheless his speech gave me fear, +because I drew his broken phrase perchance to a worse meaning than it held. +</p> + +<p> +“Into this depth of the dismal shell does any one ever descend from the +first grade who has for penalty only hope cut off?”[1] This question I +put, and he answered me, “Seldom it happens that any one of us maketh the +journey on which I am going. It is true that another time I was conjured down +here by that cruel Erichtho who was wont to call back shades into their bodies. +Short while had my flesh been bare of me, when she made me enter within that +wall in order to drag out for her a spirit from the circle of Judas. That is +the lowest place, and the darkest, and the farthest from the Heaven that +encircles all. Well do I know the road: therefore assure thyself. This marsh +which breathes out the great stench girds round about the woeful city wherein +now we cannot enter without anger.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Dante asks for assurance that Virgil, whose station is in Limbo, “the +first grade,” knows the way. +</p> + +<p> +And more he said, but I hold it not in mind because my eye had wholly attracted +me toward the high tower with the ruddy summit, where in an instant were +uprisen suddenly three infernal furies, stained with blood, who had the limbs +of women and their action, and were girt with greenest hydras. Little serpents +and cerastes they had for hair, wherewith their savage brows were bound. +</p> + +<p> +And he, who well knew the handmaids of the queen of the eternal lamentation, +said to me, “Behold the fell Erinnyes; this is Megaera on the left side, +she who weeps on the right is Alecto, Tisiphone is in the middle,” and +therewith he was silent. +</p> + +<p> +With her nails each was tearing her breast, they beat themselves with their +hands, and cried out so loud that I pressed close to the Poet through dread. +“Let Medusa come, so we will make him of stone,” they all said, +looking down. “Ill was it we avenged not on Theseus his assault.” +</p> + +<p> +“Turn thy back, and keep thy sight closed, for if the Gorgon show +herself, and thou shouldest see her, no return upward would there ever +be.” Thus said the Master, and he himself turned me, and did not so trust +to my hands that with his own he did not also blindfold me. +</p> + +<p> +O ye who have sound understanding, regard the doctrine that is hidden under the +veil of the strange verses. +</p> + +<p> +And already was coming across the turbid waves a tumult of a sound full of +terror at which both the shores trembled. Not otherwise it was than of a wind, +impetuous through the opposing heats, that strikes the forest, and without any +stay shatters the branches, beats down and carries them away; forward, laden +with dust, it goes superb, and makes the wild beasts and the shepherds fly. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes he loosed, and said, “Now direct the nerve of sight across the +ancient scum, there yonder where that fume is most bitter.” +</p> + +<p> +As frogs before the hostile snake all scatter through the water, till each +huddles on the ground, I saw more than a thousand destroyed souls flying thus +before one, who at the ford was passing over the Styx with dry feet. From his +face he removed that thick air, waving his left hand oft before him, and only +with that trouble seemed he weary. Well I perceived that he was sent from +Heaven, and I turned me to the Master, and he made sign that I should stand +quiet and bow down unto him. Ah, how full of disdain he seemed to me! He +reached the gate and with a little rod he opened it, for there was no +withstanding. +</p> + +<p> +“O outcasts from Heaven, folk despised,” began he upon the horrible +threshold, “wherefore is this overweening harbored in you? Why do ye kick +against that will from which its end can never be cut short, and which many a +time hath increased your grief? What avails it to butt against the fates? Your +Cerberus, if ye remember well, still bears his chin and his throat peeled for +that.” Then he turned back upon the filthy road and said no word to us, +but wore the semblance of a man whom other care constrains and stings, than +that of him who is before him. +</p> + +<p> +And we moved our feet toward the city, confident after his holy words. Within +we entered without any strife, and I, who had desire to observe the condition +which such a stronghold locks in, when I was within, sent my eyes round about; +and I see on every hand a great plain full of woe and of cruel torment. +</p> + +<p> +As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates, as at Pola, near the Quarnaro that +shuts in Italy and bathes its borders, sepulchres make all the place uneven; so +did they here on every side, saving that the manner was more bitter here; for +among the tombs flames were scattered, by which they were so intensely kindled +that no art requires iron more so. All their lids were lifted; and such dire +laments were issuing forth from them as truly seemed of wretches and of +sufferers. +</p> + +<p> +And I, “Master, who are these folk that, buried within those coffers, +make themselves heard with their woeful sighs?” And he to me, “Here +are the heresiarchs with their followers of every sect, and the tombs are much +more laden than thou thinkest. Like with like is buried here, and the monuments +are more and less hot.” +</p> + +<p> +And when he to the right hand had turned, we passed between the torments and +the high battlements. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.X"></a>CANTO X.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.—Farinata degli Uberti.—Cavalcante +Cavalcanti.—Frederick II. +</p> + +<p> +Now along a narrow path between the wall of the city and the torments my Master +goeth on, and I behind his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“O Virtue supreme,” I began, “that through the impious +circles turnest me, according to thy pleasure, speak to me and satisfy my +desires. The folk that are lying in the sepulchres, can they be seen? All the +lids are now lifted, and no one keepeth guard.” And he to me, “All +shall be locked in when from Jehoshaphat they shall here return with the bodies +which they have left on earth. Upon this side Epicurus with all his followers, +who make the soul mortal with the body, have their burial place. Therefore as +to the demand that thou makest of me, thou shalt soon be satisfied here within; +and also as to the desire concerning which thou art silent to me.” And I, +“Good Leader, I hold not my heart hidden from thee except in order to +speak little; and not only now to that hast thou disposed me.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Tuscan, who through the city of fire alive art going, speaking thus +modestly, may it please thee to stop in this place. Thy speech makes manifest +that thou art native of that noble fatherland to which perchance I was too +molestful.” Suddenly this sound issued from one of the coffers, wherefore +I drew, in fear, a little nearer to my Leader. And he said to me, “Turn, +what dost thou? Behold Farinata who hath uprisen; thou shalt see him all from +the girdle up.” +</p> + +<p> +I had already fixed my face on his, and he straightened himself up with breast +and front as though he had Hell in great scorn. And the bold and ready hands of +my Leader pushed me among the sepulchres to him, saying, “Let thy words +be choice.” +</p> + +<p> +When I was at the foot of his tomb, he looked at me a little, and then, as +though disdainful, asked me, “Who were thy ancestors?” I, who was +desirous to obey, concealed them not, but disclosed them all to him; whereon he +raised his brows a little up, then said, “Fiercely were they adverse to +me, and to my fathers, and to my party, so that twice I scattered them.” +[1] “If they were driven out, they returned from every side,” +replied I to him, “both one and the other time, but yours have not +learned well that art.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Dante’s ancestors were Guelphs. +</p> + +<p> +Then there arose, to view uncovered down to the chin, a shade at the side of +this one; I think that it had risen on its knees. Round about me it looked, as +if it had desire to see if another were with me, but when its expectancy was +quite extinct, weeping it said, “If through this blind dungeon thou goest +through loftiness of genius, my son, where is he? and why is he not with +thee?” And I to him, “Of myself I come not; he who waits yonder +leads me through here, whom perchance your Guido held in scorn.”[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Guido Cavalcanti was charged with the same sin of unbelief as his father. +Dante regards this as a sin specially contrary to right reason, typified by +Virgil. +</p> + +<p> +His words and the mode of the punishment had already read to me the name of +this one, wherefore my answer was so full. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly straightening up, he cried, “How didst thou say, ‘he +held’? lives he not still? doth not the sweet light strike his +eyes?” When he took note of some delay that I made before answering, he +fell again supine, and forth appeared no more. +</p> + +<p> +But that other magnanimous one, at whose instance I had stayed, changed not +aspect, nor moved his neck, nor bent his side. “And if,” he said, +continuing his first words, “they have ill learned that art, it torments +me more than this bed. But the face of the lady who ruleth here will not be +rekindled fifty times ere thou shalt know how much that art weighs. And, so +mayest thou return unto the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so +pitiless against my race in its every law?” Then I to him, “The +rout and the great carnage that colored the Arbia red cause such orison to be +made in our temple.” After he had, sighing, shaken his head, “In +that I was not alone,” he said, “nor surely without cause would I +have moved with the rest; but I was alone,—there[1] where it was agreed +by every one to lay Florence waste,—he who defended her with open +face.” “Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,” I prayed to +him, “loose for me that knot, which here has entangled my judgment. It +seems, if I rightly hear, that ye foresee that which time is bringing with him, +and as to the present have another way.” “We see,” he said, +“like those who have feeble light, the things that are far from us, so +much still shineth on us the supreme Leader; when they draw near, or are, our +intelligence is all vain, and, if some one report not to us, we know nothing of +your human state. Therefore thou canst comprehend that our knowledge will be +utterly dead from that moment when the gate of the future shall he +closed.” Then, as compunctious for my fault I said, “Now wilt thou +therefore tell that fallen one that his son is still conjoined with the living, +and if just now I was dumb to answer, make him know that I was so because I was +still thinking in that error which you have solved for me.”[2] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] At Empoli, in 1260, after the defeat of the Florentine Guelphs at +Montaperti on the Arbia. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Guido Cavalcanti died in August, 1300; his death, being near at hand at the +time of Dante’s journey, was not known to his father. +</p> + +<p> +And now my Master was calling me back, wherefore I prayed the spirit more +hastily that he would tell me who was with him. He said to me, “Here with +more than a thousand do I lie; here within is the second Frederick and the +Cardinal,[1] and of the others I am silent.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a fierce Ghibelline, who was reported as saying, +“If there be a soul I have lost it for the Ghibellines.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereon he hid himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my steps, +reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He moved on, and then, +thus going, he said to me, “Why art thou so distraught?” And I +satisfied his demand. “Let thy memory preserve that which thou hast heard +against thyself,” commanded me that Sage, “and now attend to +this,” and he raised his finger. “When thou shalt be in presence of +the sweet radiance of her whose beautiful eye sees everything, from her thou +shalt learn the journey of thy life.” Then to the left he turned his +step. +</p> + +<p> +We left the wall, and went toward the middle by a path which strikes into a +valley that even up there its stench made displeasing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XI"></a>CANTO XI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Sixth Circle: Heretics.—Tomb of Pope Anastasins.—Discourse of +Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the edge of a high bank formed by great rocks broken in a circle, we came +above a more cruel pen. And here, because of the horrible excess of the stench +that the deep abyss throws out, we drew aside behind the lid of a great tomb, +whereon I saw an inscription which said, “Pope Anastasius I hold, he whom +Photinus drew from the right way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our descent must needs be slow so that the sense may first accustom +itself a little to the dismal blast, and then will be no heed of it.” +Thus the Master, and I said to him, “Some compensation do thou find that +the time pass not lost.” And be, “Behold, I am thinking of that. My +son, within these rocks,” he began to say, “are three circlets from +grade to grade like those thou leavest. All are full of accursed spirits; but, +in order that hereafter sight only may suffice thee, hear how and wherefore +they are in constraint. +</p> + +<p> +“Of every malice that wins hate in heaven injury is the end, and every +such end afflicts others either by force or by fraud. But because fraud is the +peculiar sin of man, it most displeaseth God; and therefore the fraudulent are +the lower, and more woe assails them. +</p> + +<p> +“The first circle[1] is wholly of the violent; but because violence can +be done to three persons, in three rounds it is divided and constructed. Unto +God, unto one’s self, unto one’s neighbor may violence be done; I +mean unto them and unto their belongings, as thou shalt hear in plain +discourse. By violence death and grievous wounds are inflicted on one’s +neighbor; and on his substance ruins, burnings, and harmful robberies. +Wherefore homicides, and every one who smites wrongfully, devastators and +freebooters, all of them the first round torments, in various troops. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The first circle below, the seventh in the order of Hell. +</p> + +<p> +“Man may lay violent hands upon himself and on his goods; and, therefore, +in the second round must needs repent without avail whoever deprives himself of +your world, gambles away and squanders his property, and laments there where he +ought to be joyous.[2] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Laments on earth because of violence done to what should have made him +happy. +</p> + +<p> +“Violence may be done to the Deity, by denying and blaspheming Him in +heart, and despising nature and His bounty: and therefore the smallest round +seals with its signet both Sodom and Cahors, and him who despising God speaks +from his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Fraud, by which every conscience is bitten, man may practice on one that +confides in him, or on one that owns no confidence. This latter mode seemeth to +destroy only the bond of love that nature makes; wherefore in the second +circle[1] nestle hypocrisy, flatteries, and sorcerers, falsity, robbery, and +simony, panders, barrators, and such like filth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The second circle below, the eighth in the order of Hell. +</p> + +<p> +“By the other mode that love is forgotten which nature makes, and also +that which is thereafter added, whereby special confidence is created. Hence, +in the smallest circle, where is the centre of the universe, on which Dis sits, +whoso betrays is consumed forever.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, “Master, full clearly doth thy discourse proceed, and full well +divides this pit, and the people that possess it; but, tell me, they of the fat +marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they whom the rain beats, and they +who encounter with such sharp tongues, why are they not punished within the +ruddy city if God be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such +plight?” +</p> + +<p> +And he said to me, “Wherefore so wanders thine understanding beyond its +wont? or thy mind, where else is it gazing? Dost thou not remember those words +with which thine Ethics treats in full of the three dispositions that Heaven +abides not; in continence, malice, and mad bestiality, and how incontinence +less offends God, and incurs less blame?[1] If thou considerest well this +doctrine, and bringest to mind who are those that up above, outside,[2] suffer +punishment, thou wilt see clearly why from these felons they are divided, and +why less wroth the divine vengeance hammers them.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Aristotle, Ethics, vii. 1. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Outside the walls of the city of Dis. +</p> + +<p> +“O Sun that healest every troubled vision, thou dost content me so, when +thou explainest, that doubt, not less than knowledge, pleaseth me; yet return a +little back,” said I, “there where thou saidst that usury offends +the Divine Goodness, and loose the knot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philosophy,” he said to me, “points out to him who +understands it, not only in one part alone, how Nature takes her course from +the Divine Intellect and from its art. And if thou note thy Physics[1] well +thou wilt find after not many pages that your art follows her so far as it can, +as the disciple does the master, so that your art is as it were grandchild of +God. By means of these two, if thou bringest to mind Genesis at its beginning, +it behoves mankind to obtain their livelihood and to thrive. But because the +usurer takes another course, he despises Nature in herself, and in her +follower, since upon other thing he sets his hope. But follow me now, for to go +on pleaseth me; for the Fishes are gliding on the horizon, and the Wain lies +quite over Corus,[2] and far yonder is the way down the cliff.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Aristotle, Physics, ii. 2. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The time indicated is about 4, or from 4 to 5 A.M. Corus, the name of the +north-west wind, here stands for that quarter of the heavens. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XII"></a>CANTO XII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +First round of the Seventh Circle; those who do violence to others; Tyrants and +Homicides.—The Minotaur.—The +Centaurs.—Chiron.—Nessus.—The River of Boiling Blood, and the +Sinners in it. +</p> + +<p> +The place where we came to descend the bank was rugged, and, because of what +was there besides, such that every eye would be shy of it. +</p> + +<p> +As is that ruin which, on this side of Trent, struck the Adige on its flank, +either by earthquake or by failure of support,—for from the top of the +mountain whence it moved, to the plain, the cliff has so fallen down that it +might give a path to one who was above,—so was the descent of that +ravine. And on the edge of the broken chasm lay stretched out the infamy of +Crete, that was conceived in the false cow. And when he saw us he bit himself +even as one whom wrath rends inwardly. My Sage cried out toward him, +“Perchance thou believest that here is the Duke of Athens who up in the +world brought death to thee? Get thee gone, beast, for this one comes not +instructed by thy sister, but he goes to behold your punishments.” +</p> + +<p> +As a bull that breaks away at the instant he has now received his mortal +stroke, and cannot go, but plunges hither and thither, the Minotaur I saw do +the like. +</p> + +<p> +And that wary one cried out, “Run to the pass; while he is raging it is +well that thou descend.” So we took our way down over the discharge of +those stones, which often moved under my feet because of the novel burden. +</p> + +<p> +I was going along thinking, and he said, “Thou thinkest perhaps on this +ruin which is guarded by that bestial with which I just now quenched. Now would +I have thee know that the other time when I descended hither into the nether +hell, this cliff had not yet fallen. But in truth, if I discern clearly, a +little ere He came, who levied the great spoil on Dis from the supernal circle, +in all its parts the deep foul valley trembled so that I thought the universe +had felt the love by which, as some believe, oft times the world has been +converted into chaos:[1] and, at that moment, this ancient cliff here and +elsewhere made this downfall. But fix thine eyes below, for the river of blood +is near, in which boils whoso doth harm to others by violence.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Empedocles taught, as Dante may have learned from Aristotle, that Love and +Hate were the forces by which the elements of which the world is composed were +united and dissociated. The effort of Love was to draw all things into a simple +perfect sphere, by which the common order of the world would be brought to +chaos. +</p> + +<p> +Oh blind cupidity, both guilty and mad, that so spurs us in the brief life, and +then, in the eternal, steeps us so ill! +</p> + +<p> +I saw a broad ditch, bent in an arc, like one that embraces all the plain; +according as my Guide had said. And between the foot of the bank and it, in a +file were running Centaurs armed with arrows, as they were wont in the world to +go to the chase. Seeing us descending, all stopped, and from the troop three +detached themselves, with bows and arrows first selected. And one shouted from +afar, “To what torment are ye coming, ye who descend the slope? Tell it +from there; if not, I draw the bow.” My Master said, “We will make +answer unto Chiron near you there: ill was it that thy will was ever thus +hasty.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he touched me, and said, “That is Nessus, who died for the beautiful +Dejanira, and he himself wrought vengeance for himself; and that one in the +middle, who is gazing on his breast, is the great Chiron who nurtured Achilles. +That other is Pholus, who was so full of wrath. Round about the ditch they go +by thousands shooting with their arrows what soul lifts itself from the blood +more than its guilt has allotted it.” +</p> + +<p> +We drew near to those fleet wild beasts. Chiron took a shaft, and with the +notch put his beard backward upon his jaw. When he had uncovered his great +mouth he said to his companions, “Are ye aware that the one behind moves +what he touches? so are not wont to do the feet of the dead.” And my good +Leader, who was now at his breast, where the two natures are conjoined, +replied, “Truly he is alive, and thus all alone it behoves me to show him +the dark valley: necessity brings him hither and not delight. One withdrew from +singing alleluiah who committed unto me this new office; he is no robber, nor I +a thievish spirit. But, by that power through which I move my steps along so +savage a road, give to us one of thine, to whom we may be close, that he may +show us where the ford is, and may carry this one on his back, for he is not a +spirit who can go through the air.” +</p> + +<p> +Chiron turned upon his right breast, and said to Nessus, “Turn, and guide +them thus, and if another troop encounter you, make it give way.” +</p> + +<p> +We moved on with the trusty escort along the edge of the crimson boiling, in +which the boiled were making loud shrieks. I saw folk under it up to the brow, +and the great Centaur said, “These are tyrants who gave themselves to +blood and pillage. Here they weep their pitiless offenses: here is Alexander, +and cruel Dionysius who caused Sicily to have woeful years. And that front +which hath such black hair is Azzolino, and that other who is blond is Opizzo +of Esti, who in truth was slain by his stepson up there in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +Then I turned me to the Poet, and he said, “Let him now be first, and I +second.” A little further on the Centaur stopped above some folk who far +as the throat were seen to issue from that boiling stream. He showed to us at +one side a solitary shade, and said, “He cleft, in the bosom of God, the +heart that still is honored on the Thames.”[6] Then I saw folk, who out +of the stream held their head, and even all their chest; and of these I +recognized many. Thus ever more and more shallow became that blood, until it +cooked only the feet: and here was our passage of the foss. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In 1271, Prince Henry, son of Richard of Cornwall, was stabbed during the +mass, in a church at Viterbo, by Guy of Montfort, to avenge the death of his +father, Simon, Earl of Leicester, in 1261. The heart of the young Prince was +placed in a golden cup, as Villani (vii. 39) reports, on a column, at the head +of a bridge in London. +</p> + +<p> +“Even as on this side, thou seest that the boiling stream ever +diminishes,” said the Centaur, “I would have thee believe that on +this other its bed sinks more and more, until it comes round again where it +behoves that tyranny should groan. The divine justice here pierces that Attila +who was a scourge on earth, and Pyrrhus and Sextus; and forever milks the tears +that with the boiling it unlocks from Rinier of Corneto, and from Rinier Pazzo, +who upon the highways made such warfare.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned back and repassed the ford. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XIII"></a>CANTO XIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Second round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to +themselves and to their goods.—The Wood of Self-murderers.—The +Harpies.—Pier delle Vigne.—Lano of Siena and others. +</p> + +<p> +Nessus had not yet reached the yonder bank when we set forward through a wood +which was marked by no path. Not green leaves but of a dusky color, not smooth +boughs but knotty and gnarled, not fruits were there but thorns with poison. +Those savage beasts that hold in hate the tilled places between Cecina and +Corneto have no thickets so rough or so dense. +</p> + +<p> +Here the foul Harpies make their nests, who chased the Trojans from the +Strophades with dismal announcement of future calamity. They have broad wings, +and human necks and faces, feet with claws, and a great feathered belly. They +make lament upon the strange trees. +</p> + +<p> +And the good Master, “Before thou enter farther know that thou art in the +second round,” he began to say to me, “and wilt be, till thou shalt +come unto the horrible sand. Therefore look well around, and so thou shalt see +things that would take credence from my speech.”[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Things which if told would seem incredible. +</p> + +<p> +I heard wailings uttered on every side, and I saw no one who might make them, +wherefore, I, all bewildered, stopped. I believe that he believed that I +believed that all these voices issued amid those stumps from people who because +of us had hidden themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore said the Master, “If thou break off a twig from one of these +plants, the thoughts thou hast will all be cut short.” Then I stretched +my hand a little forward and plucked a branchlet from a great thorn-bush, and +its trunk cried out, “Why dost thou rend me?” When it had become +dark with blood it began again to cry, “Why dost thou tear me? hast thou +not any spirit of pity? Men we were, and now we are become stocks; truly thy +hand ought to be more pitiful had we been the souls of serpents.” +</p> + +<p> +As from a green log that is burning at one of its ends, and from the other +drips, and hisses with the air that is escaping, so from that broken splinter +came out words and blood together; whereon I let the tip fall, and stood like a +man who is afraid. +</p> + +<p> +“If he had been able to believe before,” replied my Sage, “O +wounded soul, what he has seen only in my verse,[1] he would not upon thee have +stretched his hand. But the incredible thing made me prompt him to an act which +grieves my very self. But tell him who thou wast, so that, by way of some +amends, he may refresh thy fame in the world above, whereto it is allowed him +to return.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In the story of Polydorus, in the third book of the Aeneid. +</p> + +<p> +And the trunk, “So with sweet speech dost thou allure me, that I cannot +be silent, and may it not displease you, that I am enticed to speak a little. I +am he who held both the keys of the heart of Frederick, and who turned them, +locking and unlocking so softly, that from his confidence I kept almost every +one.[1] Fidelity so great I bore to the glorious office, that I lost slumber +and strength thereby. The harlot,[2] that never from the abode of Caear turned +her strumpet eyes,—the common death and vice of courts,—inflamed +all minds against me, and they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus that my glad +honors turned to dismal sorrows. My mind, in scornful temper thinking to escape +scorn by death, made me unjust toward my just self. By the strange roots of +this tree I swear to you, that I never broke faith unto my lord who was so +worthy of honor. And if one of you returneth to the world, let him comfort my +memory that yet lies prostrate from the blow that envy gave it.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The spirit who speaks is Pier delle Vigne, the Chancellor of Frederick II.; +of low birth, he rose to the first place in the state; he was one of the +earliest writers of Italian verse. Dante has placed his master as well as him +in Hell. See Canto X. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Envie ys lavendere of the court alway;<br/> + For she ne parteth neither nyght ne day<br/> + Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Daunte.<br/> + Legende of Goode Women, 358.60. +</p> + +<p> +A while he paused, and then, “Since he is silent,” said the Poet to +me, “lose not the hour, but speak and ask of him, if more pleaseth +thee.” Whereon I to him, “Do thou ask him further of what thou +thinkest may satisfy me, for I cannot, such pity fills my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +Therefore he began again, “So may this man do for thee freely what thy +speech prays, spirit incarcerate, still be pleased to tell us how the soul is +bound within these knots, and tell us, if thou canst, if any from such limbs is +ever loosed.” +</p> + +<p> +Then the trunk puffed strongly, and soon that wind was changed into this voice: +“Briefly shall ye be answered. When the ferocious soul departeth from the +body wherefrom itself hath torn itself, Minos sends it to the seventh gulf. It +falls into the wood, and no part is chosen for it, but where fortune flings it, +there it takes root like a grain of spelt; it springs up in a shoot and to a +wild plant. The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves, give pain, and to the +pain a window.[1] Like the rest we shall go for our spoils,[2] but not, +forsooth, that any one may revest himself with them, for it is not just to have +that of which one deprives himself. Hither shall we drag them, and through the +melancholy wood shall our bodies be suspended, each on the thorn-tree of his +molested shade.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The tearing of the leaves gives an outlet to the woe. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Our bodies, at the Last Judgment. +</p> + +<p> +We were still attentive to the trunk, believing that it might wish to say more +to us, when we were surprised by an uproar, as one who perceives the wild boar +and the chase coming toward his stand and hears the Feasts and the branches +crashing. And behold two on the left hand, naked and scratched, flying so +violently that they broke all the limbs of the wood. The one in front was +shouting, “Now, help, help, Death!” and the other, who seemed to +himself too slow, “Lano, thy legs were not so nimble at the jousts of the +Toppo:”[1] and when perhaps his breath was failing, of himself and of a +bush he made a group. Behind them the wood was full of black bitches, ravenous +and running like greyhounds that have been unleashed. On him that had squatted +they set their teeth and tore him to pieces, bit by bit, then carried off his +woeful limbs. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Lano was slain in flight at the defeat of the Sienese by the Aretines, near +the Pieve del Toppo, in 1280. He and Jacomo were notorious prodigals. +</p> + +<p> +My Guide then took me by the hand, and led me to the bush, which was weeping +through its bleeding breaks in vain. “O Jacomo of Sant’ +Andrea,” it was saying, “what hath it vantaged thee to make of me a +screen? What blame have I for thy wicked life?” When the Master had +stopped beside it, he said, “Who wast thou, who through so many wounds +blowest forth with blood thy woeful speech?” And he to us, “O souls +who art arrived to see the shameful ravage that hath thus disjoined my leaves +from me, collect them at the foot of the wretched bush. I was of the city which +for the Baptist changed her first patron;[1] wherefore will he always make her +sorrowful with his art. And were it not that at the passage of the Arno some +semblance of him yet remains, those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the +ashes that were left by Attila[2] would have labored in vain. I made a gibbet +for myself of my own dwelling.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The first patron of florence was Mars; a fragment of a statue of whom stood +till 1333 on the Ponte Vecchio. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] It was not Attila, but Totila, who in 542 besieged Florence, and, according +to false popular tradition, burned it. The names and personages were frequently +confounded in the Dark Ages. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XIV"></a>CANTO XIV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Third round of the Seventh Circle of those who have done violence to +God.—The Burning Sand.—Capaneus.—Figure of the Old Man in +Crete.—The Rivers of Hell. +</p> + +<p> +Because the charity of my native place constrained me, I gathered up the +scattered leaves and gave them back to him who was already hoarse. +</p> + +<p> +Then we came to the confine, where the second round is divided from the third, +and where is seen a horrible mode of justice. +</p> + +<p> +To make clearly manifest the new things, I say that we had reached a plain +which from its bed removeth every plant. The woeful wood is a garland round +about it, even as the dismal foss to that. Here, on the very edge, we stayed +our steps. The floor was a dry and dense sand, not made in other fashion than +that which of old was trodden by the feet of Cato. +</p> + +<p> +O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest to be feared by every one who +readeth that which was manifest unto mine eyes! +</p> + +<p> +Of naked souls I saw many flocks, that were all weeping very miserably, and +diverse law seemed imposed upon them. Some folk were lying supine on the +ground, some were seated all crouched up, and others were going about +continually. Those who were going around were far the more, and those the fewer +who were lying down under the torment, but they had their tongues more loose +for wailing. +</p> + +<p> +Over all the sand, with a slow falling, were raining down dilated flakes of +fire, as of snow on alps without a wind. As the flames which Alexander in those +hot parts of India saw falling upon his host, solid to the ground, wherefore he +took care to trample the soil by his troops, because the vapor was better +extinguished while it was single; so was descending the eternal glow whereby +the sand was kindled, like tinder beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole. +Without repose was ever the dance of the wretched hands, now there, now here, +brushing from them the fresh burning. +</p> + +<p> +I began, “Master, thou that overcomest everything, except the obdurate +demons, who at the entrance of the gate came out against us, who is that great +one that seemeth not to heed the fire, and lies scornful and contorted, so that +the rain seems not to ripen him?” And that same one who had perceived +that I was asking my Leader about him, cried out, “Such as I was alive, +such am I dead. Though Jove weary his smith, from whom in wrath he took the +sharp thunderbolt wherewith on my last day I was smitten, or though he weary +the others, turn by turn, in Mongibello at the black forge, crying, ‘Good +Vulcan, help, help!’ even as he did at the fight of Phlegra, and should +hurl on me with all his might, thereby he should not have glad +vengeance.” +</p> + +<p> +Then my Leader spoke with force so great that I had not heard him so loud, +“O Capaneus, in that thy pride is not quenched, art thou the more +punished; no torture save thine own rage would be a pain adequate to thy +fury.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned round to me with better look, saying, “He was one of the +Seven Kings that besieged Thebes, and he held, and it appears that he holds God +in disdain, and little it appears that he prizes Him; but as I said to him, his +own despites are very due adornments for his breast. Now come on behind me, and +take heed withal, not to set thy feet upon the burning sand, but keep them +always close unto the wood.” +</p> + +<p> +Silent we came to where spirts forth from the wood a little streamlet, the +redness of which still makes me shudder. As from the Bulicame issues a +brooklet, which then the sinful women share among them, so this down across the +sand went along.[1] Its bed and both its sloping banks were made of stone, and +the margins on the side, whereby I perceived that the crossing[2] was there. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The Bulicame, a hot spring near Viterbo, much frequented as a bath, the use +of a portion of which was assigned to “sinful women.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The crossing of the breadth of the round of burning sand, on the way inward +toward the next circle. +</p> + +<p> +“Among all else that I have shown to thee, since we entered through the +gate whose threshold is barred to no one, nothing has been discerned by thine +eyes so notable as is the present stream which deadens all the flamelets upon +it.” These words were of my Leader, wherefore I prayed him, that he +should give me largess of the food for which he had given me largess of desire. +</p> + +<p> +“In mid sea sits a wasted land,” said he then, “which is +named Crete, under whose king the world of old was chaste. A mountain is there +that of old was glad with waters and with leaves, which is called Ida; now it +is desert, like a thing outworn. Rhea chose it of old for the trusty cradle of +her little son, and to conceal him better when he cried had shoutings made +there. Within the mountain stands erect a great old man, who holds his +shoulders turned towards Damietta, and looks at Rome as if his mirror. His head +is formed of fine gold, and pure silver are his arms and breast; then he is of +brass far as to the fork. From there downward he is all of chosen iron, save +that his right foot is of baked clay, and he stands erect on that more than on +the other.[1] Every part except the gold is cleft with a fissure that trickles +tears, which collected perforate that cavern. Their course falls from rock to +rock into this valley; they form Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon; then it goes +down through this narrow channel far as where there is no more descending. They +form Cocytus, and what that pool is, thou shalt see; therefore here is it not +told.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] This image is taken directly from the dream of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel ii. +31-33). It is the type of the ages of tradition and history, with its back to +the past, its face toward Rome,—the seat of the Empire and of the Church. +The tears of the sin and suffering of the generations of man form the rivers of +Hell. +</p> + +<p> +And I to him, “If the present rill floweth down thus from our world, why +doth it appear to us only at this rim?” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “Thou knowest that the place is round, and though thou art +come far, ever to the left descending toward the bottom, not yet hast thou +turned through the whole circle; wherefore if a new thing appears to us, it +ought not to bring wonder to thy face.” +</p> + +<p> +And I again, “Master, where are Phlegethon and Lethe found, for of the +one thou art silent, and of the other thou sayest that it is formed by this +rain?” +</p> + +<p> +“In all thy questions surely thou pleasest me,” he answered, +“but the boiling of the red water ought truly to solve one that thou +askest. Lethe thou shalt see, but outside of this ditch, there where souls go +to lave themselves when sin repented of is taken away.” Then he said, +“Now it is time to depart from the wood; take heed that thou come behind +me; the margins afford way, for they are not burning, and above them all the +vapor is extinguished.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XV"></a>CANTO XV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to +Nature.—Brunetto Latini.—Prophecies of misfortune to Dante. +</p> + +<p> +Now one of the hard margins bears us on, and the fume of the brook overshadows +so that it saves the water and the banks from the fire. As the Flemings, +between Wissant and Bruges, fearing the flood that is blown in upon them, make +the dyke whereby the sea is routed; and as the Paduans along the Brenta, in +order to defend their towns and castles, ere Chiarentana[1] feel the +heat,—in such like were these made, though neither so high nor so thick +had the master, whoever he was, made them. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The mountain range north of the Brenta, by the floods from which the river +is swollen in the spring. +</p> + +<p> +We were now so remote from the wood that I could not have seen where it was +though I had turned me round to look, when we encountered a troop of souls +which was coming along by the bank, and each of them was looking at us, as at +eve one is wont to look at another under the new moon, and they so sharpened +their brows toward us as the old tailor does on the needle’s eye. +</p> + +<p> +Thus gazed at by that company, I was recognized by one who took me by the hem, +and cried out, “What a marvel!” And when he stretched out his arm +to me, I fixed my eyes on his baked aspect so that his scorched visage +prevented not my mind from recognizing him; and bending down my own to his +face, I answered, “Are you here, Sir Brunetto?”[1] And he, “O +my son, let it not displease thee if Brunetto Latini turn a little back with +thee, and let the train go on.” I said to him, “With all my power I +pray this of you, and if you will that I seat myself with you I will do so, if +it pleaseth this one, for I go with him.” “O son,” said he, +“whoever of this herd stops for an instant lies then a hundred years +without fanning himself when the fire smites him; therefore go onward, I will +come at thy skirts, and then I will rejoin my band which goeth weeping its +eternal sufferings.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Brunetto Latini, one of the most learned and able Florentines of the +thirteenth century. He was banished with the other chiefs of the Guelph party, +after the battle of Montaperti, in 1260, and went to France, where he resided +for many years. After his return to Florence he became Secretary of the +Commune, and he was the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti. His principal +literary work was Li Livres dou Tresor, written in French, an interesting +compend of the omne scibile. He died in 1290. Dante uses the plural +“you” in addressing him, as a sign of respect. +</p> + +<p> +I dared not descend from the road to go level with him, but I held my head +bowed like one who goes reverently. He began, “What fortune, or destiny, +ere the last day, brings thee down here? and who is this that shows the +road?” +</p> + +<p> +“There above, in the clear life,” I answered him, “I lost +myself in a valley, before my time was full. Only yester morn I turned my back +on it; this one[1] appeared to me as I was returning to it, and he is leading +me homeward along this path.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Dante never speaks Virgil’s name in Hell. +</p> + +<p> +And he to me: “If thou follow thy star, thou canst not miss the glorious +port, if, in the beautiful life, I discerned aright. And if I had not so +untimely died, seeing heaven so benignant unto thee I would have given cheer +unto thy work. But that ungrateful populace malign which descended from Fiesole +of old,[1] and smacks yet of the mountain and the rock, will hate thee because +of thy good deeds; and this is right, for among the bitter sorb trees it is not +fitting the sweet fig should bear fruit. Old report in the world calls them +blind; it is a people avaricious, envious, and proud; from their customs take +heed that thou keep thyself clean. Thy fortune reserves such honor for thee +that one party and the other shall hunger for thee; but far from the goat shall +be the grass. Let the Fiesolan beasts make litter of themselves, and touch not +the plant, if any spring still upon their dungheap, in which may live again the +holy seed of those Romans who remained there when it became the nest of so much +malice.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] After his flight from Rome Catiline betook himself to Faesulae (Fiesole), +and here for a time held out against the Roman forces. The popular tradition +ran that, after his defeat, Faesulae was destroyed, and its people, together +with a colony from Rome, made a settlement on the banks of the Arno, below the +mountain on which Faesulae had stood. The new town was named Fiora, siccome +fosse in fiore edificata, “as though built among flowers,” but +afterwards was called Fiorenza, or Florence. See G. Villani, Cronica, I. +xxxi.-xxxviii. +</p> + +<p> +“If all my entreaty were fulfilled,” replied I to him, “you +would not yet be placed in banishment from human nature; for in my mind is +fixed, and now fills my heart, the dear, good, paternal image of you, when in +the world hour by hour you taught me how man makes himself eternal and in what +gratitude I hold it, so long as I live, it behoves that on my tongue should be +discerned. That which you tell me of my course I write, and reserve it to be +glossed with other text,[1] by a Lady, who will know how, if I attain to her. +Thus much would I have manifest to you: if only that my conscience chide me +not, for Fortune, as she will, I am ready. Such earnest is not strange unto my +ears; therefore let Fortune turn her wheel as pleases her, and the churl his +mattock.”[2] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The prophecy by Ciacco of the fall of Dante’s party, Canto vi., and +that by Farinata of Dante’s exile, Canto x., which Virgil had told should +be made clear to him by Beatrice. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The churl of Fiesole. +</p> + +<p> +My Master then upon his right side turned himself back, and looked at me; then +said, “He listens well who notes it.” +</p> + +<p> +Not the less for this do I go on speaking with Sir Brunetto, and I ask, who are +his most known and most eminent companions. And he to me, “To know of +some is good, of the others silence will be laudable for us, for the time would +be short for so much speech. In brief, know that all were clerks, and great men +of letters, and of great fame, defiled in the world with one same sin. Priscian +goes along with that disconsolate crowd, and Francesco of Accorso;[1] and thou +mightest also have seen, hadst thou had desire of such scurf, him who by the +Servant of Servants was translated from Arno to Bacchiglione, where he left his +ill-strained nerves.[2] Of more would I tell, but the going on and the speech +cannot be longer, for I see yonder a new cloud rising from the sand. Folk come +with whom I must not be. Let my Tesoro be commended to thee, in which I still +am living, and more I ask not.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Priscian, the famous grammarian of the sixth century; Francis of Accorso, a +jurist of great repute, who taught at Oxford and at Bologna, and died in 1294. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Andrea de Mozzi, bishop of Florence, translated by Boniface VIII. to +Viceuza, near which the Bacchiglione runs. He died in 1296. +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned back, and seemed of those who run at Verona for the green +cloth[1] across the plain, and of these he seemed the one that wins, and not he +that loses. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The prize in the annual races at Verona. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XVI"></a>CANTO XVI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to +Nature.—Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi and Jacopo +Rusticucci.—The roar of Phlegethon as it pours downward.—The cord +thrown into the abyss. +</p> + +<p> +Now was I in a place where the resounding of the water that was falling into +the next circle was heard, like that hum which the beehives make, when three +shades together separated themselves, running, from a troop that was passing +under the rain of the bitter torment. They came toward us, and each cried out, +“Stop thou, that by thy garb seemest to us to be one from our wicked +city!” +</p> + +<p> +Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs, recent and old, burnt in by the +flames. Still it grieves me for them but to remember it. +</p> + +<p> +To their cries my Teacher gave heed; he turned his face toward me, and +“Now wait,” he said; “to these one should be courteous, and +were it not for the fire that the nature of the place shoots out, I should say +that haste better befitted thee than them.” +</p> + +<p> +They began again, when we stopped, the old verse, and when they had reached us +they made a wheel of themselves all three. As champions naked and oiled are +wont to do, watching their hold and their vantage, before they come to blows +and thrusts, thus, wheeling, each directed his face on me, so that his neck in +contrary direction to his feet was making continuous journey. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! if the misery of this shifting sand bring us and our prayers into +contempt,” began one, “and our darkened and blistered aspect, let +our fame incline thy mind to tell us who thou art, that so securely plantest +thy living feet in Hell. He whose tracks thou seest me trample, though he go +naked and singed, was of greater state than thou thinkest. Grandson he was of +the good Gualdrada; his name was Guidoguerra, and in his life he did much with +counsel, and with the sword. The other who treads the sand behind me is +Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose fame should be welcome in the world above. And I, +who am set with them on the cross, was Jacopo Rusticucci,[1] and surely my +savage wife more than aught else injures. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Concerning Tegghiaio and Rusticucci Dante had enquired of Ciacco, Canto vi. +They and Guido Guerra were illustrious citizens of Florence in the thirteenth +century. Their deeds are recorded by Villani and Ricordano Malespini. The good +Gualdrada, famed for her beauty and her modesty, was the daughter of Messer +Bellincione Berti, referred to in Cantos w. and wi. of Paradise as one of the +early worthies of the city. See O. Villani, Cronica. V. xxxvii. +</p> + +<p> +If I could have been sheltered from the fire I would have cast myself below +among them, and I think that the Teacher would have permitted it; but because I +should have been scorched and baked, fear overcame my good will that made me +greedy to embrace them. Then I began: “Not contempt, but grief, did your +condition fix within me, so that slowly will it be all divested, soon as this +my Lord said words to me by which I understood that such folk as ye are might +be coming. Of your city I am; and always your deeds and honored names have I +retraced and heard with affection. I leave the gall and go for the sweet fruits +promised me by my veracious Leader; but far as the centre needs must I first +descend.” +</p> + +<p> +“So may thy soul long direct thy limbs,” replied he then, +“and so may thy fame shine after thee, say if courtesy and valor abide in +our city as they were wont, or if they have quite gone forth from it? For +Guglielmo Borsiere,[1] who is in torment with us but short while, and goes +yonder with our companions, afflicts us greatly with his words.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Nothing is known from contemporary record of Borsiere, but Boccaccio tells +a story of him in the Decameron, giorn. i. nov. 8. +</p> + +<p> +“The new people and the sudden gains[1] have generated pride and excess, +Florence, in thee, so that already thou weepest thereat.” Thus cried I +with face uplifted. And the three, who understood that for answer, looked one +at the other, as men look at hearing truth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Florence had grown rapidly in population and in wealth during the last +years of the thirteenth century. +</p> + +<p> +“If other times it costeth thee so little,” replied they all, +“to satisfy others, happy thou that thus speakest at thy pleasure. +Therefore, if thou escapest from these dark places, and returnest to see again +the beautiful stars, when it shall rejoice thee to say, ‘I have +been,’ mind thou speak of us unto the people.” Then they broke the +wheel, and in flying their swift legs seemed wings. +</p> + +<p> +Not an amen could have been said so quickly as they had disappeared; wherefore +it seemed good to my Master to depart. I followed him, and we had gone little +way before the sound of the water was so near to us, that had we spoken we +scarce had heard. As that river on the left slope of the Apennine, which, the +first from Monte Veso toward the east, has its proper course,—which is +called Acquacheta up above, before it sinks valleyward into its low bed, and at +Forli no longer has that name,[1] —reverberates from the alp in falling +with a single leap there above San Benedetto, where there ought to be shelter +for a thousand;[2] thus down from a precipitous bank we found that dark-tinted +water resounding, so that in short while it would have hurt the ears. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] At Forli the river is called the Montone; it was the first of the rivers on +the left of the Apennines that had its course to the sea; the others before it +being tributaries of the Po, which rises on Monte Veso. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] These last words are obscure, and none of the commentators explain them +satisfactorily. +</p> + +<p> +I had a cord girt around me, and with it I had once thought to take the leopard +of the dappled skin.[1] After I had loosed it wholly from me, even as my Leader +had commanded me, I reached it to him wound up and coiled. Whereon he turned +toward the right, and somewhat far from the edge threw it down into that deep +abyss. “And surely some strange thing must needs respond,” said I +to myself, “to the strange signal which the Master so follows with his +eye.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The leopard of the dappled skin, which had often turned back Dante from the +Mountain to the Dark Wood (see Canto i.); the type of sensual sin. The cord is +the type of religions asceticism, of which the poet no longer has need. The +meaning of its use as a signal is not apparent. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! how cautious men ought to be near those who see not only the act, but with +their wisdom look within the thoughts. He said to me: “Soon will come up +that which I await, and what thy thought is dreaming must soon discover itself +unto thy sight.” +</p> + +<p> +To that truth which has the aspect of falsehood ought one always to close his +lips so far as he can, because without fault it causes shame;[1] but here I +cannot be silent, and by the notes of this comedy, Reader, I swear to +thee,—so may they not be void of lasting grace,—that I saw through +that thick and dark air a shape come swimming upwards marvelous to every +steadfast heart; like as he returns who goes down sometimes to loose an anchor +that grapples either a rock or other thing that in the sea is hid, who +stretches upward, and draws in his feet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Because the narrator is falsely taxed with falsehood. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XVII"></a>CANTO XVII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to +Art.—Geryon.—The Usurers.—Descent to the Eighth Circle. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold the wild beast with the pointed tail, that passes mountains, and +breaks walls and weapons; behold him that infects all the world.”[1] Thus +began my Leader to speak to me; and he beckoned to him that he should come to +shore near the end of the trodden marbles.[2] And that loathsome image of fraud +came onward, and landed his head and his body, but drew not his tail upon the +bank. His face was the face of a just man (so benignant was its skin +outwardly), and of a serpent all the trunk beside; he had two paws, hairy to +the armpits; his back and breast and both his sides were painted with nooses +and circles. With more colors of woof and warp Tartars or Turks never made +cloth, nor were such webs woven by Arachne. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Dante makes Geryon the type and image of Fraud, thus allegorizing the +triple form (forma tricorperis umbrae: Aeneid vi. 289; tergemini Geryonae; Id. +viii. 292) ascribed to him by the ancient poets. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The stony margin of Phlegethon, on which Virgil and Dante have crossed the +sand. +</p> + +<p> +As sometimes boats lie on the shore, so that they are partly in water and +partly on the ground, and as yonder, among the gluttonous Germans, the beaver +settles himself to make his war,[1] so lay that worst of beasts upon the rim +that closes in the sand with stone. In the void all his tail was quivering, +twisting upwards its venomous fork, which like a scorpion’s armed the +point. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] With his tail in the water to catch his prey, as was popularly believed. +</p> + +<p> +The Leader said: “Now needs must our way bend a little toward that wicked +beast that is couching there.” Therefore we descended on the right hand +and took ten steps upon the verge quite to avoid the sand and flame. And when +we had come to it, I see, a little farther on, people sitting upon the sand +near to the void place.[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] These people are the third class of sinners punished in this round of the +Seventh Circle, those who have done violence to Art, the usurers. (See Canto +xi.) +</p> + +<p> +Here the Master said to me: “In order that thou mayst bear away complete +experience of this round, now go and see their condition. Let thy discourse +there be brief. Till thou returnest I will speak with this one, that he may +concede to us his strong shoulders.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus, still up by the extreme head of that seventh circle, all alone, I went +where the sad people were sitting. Through the eyes their woe was bursting +forth. This way and that they helped with their hands, sometimes against the +vapors,[1] and sometimes against the hot soil. Not otherwise do the dogs in +summer, now with muzzle, now with paw, when they are bitten either by fleas, or +flies, or gadflies. When I set my eyes on the face of some on whom the woeful +fire falls, not one of them I recognized;[2] but I perceived that from the neck +of each was hanging a pouch, that had a certain color and a certain device,[3] +and thereupon it seems their eyes feed. And as I looking come among them, I saw +upon a yellow purse azure that had the face and bearing of a lion.[4] Then as +the current of my look proceeded I saw another, red as blood, display a goose +whiter than butter. And one, who had his little white bag marked with an azure +and pregnant sow,[5] said to me, “What art thou doing in this ditch? Now +get thee gone, and since thou art still alive, know that my neighbor, +Vitaliano, will sit here at my left side. With these Florentines am I, a +Paduan; often they stun my ears shouting, “Let the sovereign cavalier +come who will bring the pouch with the three goats.”[1] Then he twisted +his mouth, and stuck out his tongue, like an ox that licks his nose. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The falling flames. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Dante thus indicates that they were not worthy to be known. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The blazon of their arms, by which Dante learns who they are. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] This was the device of the Gianfigliazzi, a Guelph family of Florence; the +next was that of the Ubriachi, Ghibellines, also of Florence. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] Arms of the Scrovigni of Padua. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[6] One Giovanni Buiamonte of Florence, “who surpassed all others of the +time in usury,” says Benvenuto da Imola. +</p> + +<p> +And I, fearing lest longer stay might vex him who had admonished me to stay but +little, turned back from these weary souls. I found my Leader, who had already +mounted upon the croup of the fierce animal, and he said to me, “Now be +strong and courageous; henceforth the descent is by such stairs;[1] mount thou +in front, for I wish to be between, so that the tail cannot do thee +harm.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Not by foot, nor by boat as heretofore, but carried by living ministers of +Hell. +</p> + +<p> +As is he who hath the shivering fit of the quartan so near that his nails are +already pallid, and he is all of a tremble only looking at the shade, such I +became at these words uttered. But his reproaches wrought shame in me, which in +presence of a good lord makes a servant strong. +</p> + +<p> +I seated myself on those huge shoulders. I wished to speak thus, “Take +heed that thou embrace me,” but the voice came not as I had thought. But +he who other time had succored me, in other peril, soon as I mounted, clasped +and sustained me with his arms: and he said, “Geryon, move on now; let +the circles be wide, and the descending slow; consider the strange burden that +thou hast.” +</p> + +<p> +As a little vessel goeth from its place, backward, backward, so he thence +withdrew; and when he felt himself quite at play, he turned his tail to where +his breast had been, and moved it, stretched out like an eel, and with his paws +gathered the air to himself. Greater fear I do not think there was when +Phaethon abandoned the reins, whereby heaven, as is still apparent, was +scorched; nor when the wretched Icarus felt his flanks unfeathering through the +melting of the wax, his father shouting to him, “Ill way thou +holdest,” than mine was, when I saw that I was in the air on every side, +and saw every sight vanished, except that of the beast. He goes along swimming +very slowly, wheels and descends, but I perceive it not, save by the wind upon +my face, and from below. +</p> + +<p> +I heard now on the right hand the gorge making beneath us a horrible roar; +wherefore I stretch out my head, with my eyes downward. Then I became more +afraid to lean over, because I saw fires and heard laments; whereat I, +trembling, wholly cowered back. And I saw then, what I had not seen before, the +descending and the wheeling, by the great evils that were drawing near on +diverse sides. +</p> + +<p> +As the falcon which has been long on wing, that, without sight of lure or bird, +makes the falconer say, “Ah me, thou stoopest!” descends weary, +there whence he had set forth swiftly, through a hundred circles, and lights +far from his master, disdainful and sullen; so Geryon set us at the bottom, at +the very foot of the scarped rock, and, disburdened of our persons, darted away +as arrow from the bowstring. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XVIII"></a>CANTO XVIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: the first pit: panders and seducers.—Venedico +Caccianimico.—Jason.—Second pit: false flatterers.—Alessio +Interminei.—Thais. +</p> + +<p> +There is a place in Hell called Malebolge, all of stone of the color of iron, +as is the encircling wall that surrounds it. Right in the middle of this field +malign yawns an abyss exceeding wide and deep, the structure of which I will +tell of in its place. That belt, therefore, which remains between the abyss and +the foot of the high bank is circular, and it has its ground divided into ten +valleys. Such an aspect as where, for guard of the walls, many moats encircle +castles, the place where they are presents, such image did these make here. And +as in such strongholds from their thresholds to the outer bank are little +bridges, so from the base of the precipitous wall started crags which traversed +the dykes and the moats far as the abyss that collects and cuts them off. +</p> + +<p> +In this place, shaken off from the back of Geryon, we found ourselves; and the +Poet held to the left, and I moved on behind. On the right hand I saw new +sorrow, new torments, and new scourgers, with which the first pit[1] was +replete. At its bottom were the sinners naked. This side the middle they came +facing us; on the farther side with us, but with swifter pace. As the Romans, +because of the great host in the year of Jubilee,[2] have taken means upon the +bridge for the passage of the people, who on one side all have their front +toward the Castle,[3] and go to Saint Peter’s, and on the other toward +the Mount.[4] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Bolgia, literally, budget, purse, sack, here used for circular valley, or +pit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The year 1299-1300, from Christmas to Easter. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Of Sant’ Angelo. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] The Capitoline. +</p> + +<p> +Along the gloomy rock, on this side and on that, I saw horned demons with great +scourges, who were beating them cruelly from behind. Ah! how they made them +lift their heels at the first blows; truly not one waited for the second, or +the third. +</p> + +<p> +While I was going on, my eyes encountered one, and I said straightway, +“Ere now for sight of him I have not fasted;” wherefore to shape +him out I stayed my feet, and the sweet Leader stopped with ire, and assented +to my going somewhat back. And that scourged one thought to conceal himself by +lowering his face, but little it availed him, for I said: “O thou that +castest thine eye upon the ground, if the features that thou bearest are not +false, thou art Venedico Caccianimico; but what brings thee unto such pungent +sauces?” +</p> + +<p> +And he to me, “Unwillingly I tell it, but thy clear speech compels me, +which makes me recollect the olden world. I was he who brought the beautiful +Ghisola[1] to do the will of the Marquis, how ever the shameful tale may be +reported. And not the only Bolognese do I weep here, nay, this place is so full +of them, that so many tongues are not now taught between Savena and the Reno to +say sipa;[2] and if of this thou wishest pledge or testimony, bring to mind +our avaricious heart.” As he spoke thus a demon struck him with his +scourge and said, “Begone, pandar, here are no women for coining.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] His own sister; the unseemly tale is known only through Dante and his +fourteenth-century commentators, and the latter, while agreeing that the +Marquis was one of the Esti of Ferrara, do not agree as to which of them he +was. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Bologna lies between the Savena and the Reno; sipa is the Bolognese form of +sia, or si. +</p> + +<p> +I rejoined my Escort; then with few steps we came to where a crag jutted from +the bank.[1] Easily enough we ascended it, and turning to the right[2] upon its +ridge, from those eternal circles we departed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Forming a bridge, thrown like an arch across the pit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The course of the Poets, which has mostly been to the left through the +upper Circles, is now generally to proceed straight across the lower Circles +where Fraud is punished. They had been going to the left at the foot of the +precipice, and consequently turn to the right to ascend the bridge. The +allegorical intention in the direction of their course is evident. +</p> + +<p> +When we were there where it opens below to give passage to the scourged, the +Leader said, “Stop, and let the sight strike on thee of these other +miscreants, of whom thou hast not yet seen the face, because they have gone +along in the same direction with us.” +</p> + +<p> +From the ancient bridge we looked at the train that was coining toward us from +the other side, and which the whip in like manner drives on. The good Master, +without my asking, said to me, “Look at that great one who is coming, and +seems not to shed a tear for pain. What royal aspect he still retains! He is +Jason, who by courage and by wit despoiled the Colchians of their ram. He +passed by the isle of Lemnos, after the undaunted women pitiless had given all +their males to death. There with tokens and with ornate words he deceived +Hypsipyle, the maiden, who first had deceived all the rest. There he left her +pregnant, and alone; such sin condemns him to such torment; and also for Medea +is vengeance done. With him goes whoso in such wise deceives. And let this +suffice to know of the first valley, and of those that it holds in its +fangs.” +</p> + +<p> +Now we were where the narrow path sets across the second dyke, and makes of it +shoulders for another arch. Here we heard people moaning in the next pit, and +snorting with their muzzles, and with their palms beating themselves. The banks +were encrusted with a mould because of the breath from below that sticks on +them, and was making quarrel with the eyes and with the nose. The bottom is so +hollowed out that no place sufficeth us for seeing it, without mounting on the +crest of the arch where the crag rises highest. Hither we came, and thence, +down in the ditch, I saw people plunged in an excrement that seemed as if it +proceeded from human privies. +</p> + +<p> +And while I am searching down there with my eye, I saw one with his head so +foul with ordure that it was not apparent whether he were layman or clerk. He +shouted to me, “Why art so greedy to look more at me than at the other +filthy ones?” And I to him, “Because, if I remember rightly, ere +now I have seen thee with dry hair, and thou art Alessio Interminei of +Lucca[1]; therefore I eye thee more than all the rest.” And he then, +beating his pate, “Down here those flatteries wherewith my tongue was +never cloyed have submerged me.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Of him nothing is known but what these words tell. +</p> + +<p> +Hereupon my Leader, “Mind thou push thy sight a little farther forward so +that with thine eyes thou mayest quite reach the face of that dirty and +disheveled creature, who is scratching herself there with her nasty nails, and +now is crouching down and now standing on foot. She is Thais the prostitute, +who answered her paramour when he said, ‘Have I great thanks from +thee?’—‘Nay, marvelous.’”[1] And herewith let +our sight be satisfied. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] These words are derived from Terence, Eunuchus, act iii. sc. 1. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XIX"></a>CANTO XIX.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle third pit: simonists.—Pope Nicholas III. +</p> + +<p> +Oh Simon Magus! Oh ye his wretched followers, who, rapacious, do prostitute for +gold and silver the things of God that ought to be the brides of righteousness, +now it behoves for you the trumpet sound, since ye are in the third pit! +</p> + +<p> +Already were we come to the next tomb,[1] mounted on that part of the crag +which just above the middle of the ditch hangs plumb. Oh Supreme Wisdom, how +great is the art that Thou displayest in Heaven, on Earth, and in the Evil +World! and how justly doth Thy Power distribute! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The next bolgia or pit. +</p> + +<p> +I saw along the sides, and over the bottom, the livid stone full of holes all +of one size, and each was circular. They seemed to me not less wide nor larger +than those that in my beautiful Saint John are made as place for the baptizers +[1] one of which, not many years ago, I broke for sake of one who was stifling +in it; and be this the seal to undeceive all men. Forth from the mouth of each +protruded the feet of a sinner, and his legs up to the calf, and the rest was +within. The soles of all were both on fire, wherefore their joints quivered so +violently that they would have snapped withes and bands. As the flaming of +things oiled is wont to move only on the outer surface, so was it there from +the heels to the toes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] “My beautiful Saint John” is the Baptistery at Florence. In +Dante’s time the infants, born during the year, were all here baptized by +immersion, mostly on the day of St. John Baptist, the 24th of June. There was a +large circular font in the middle of the church, and around it in its marble +wall were four cylindrical standing-places for the priests, closed by doors, to +protect them from the pressure of the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he, Master, that writhes, quivering more than the others his +consorts,” said I, “and whom a ruddier flame is sucking?” And +he to me, “If thou wilt that I carry thee down there by that bank which +slopes the most,[1] from him thou shalt know of himself and of his +wrongs.” And I, “Whatever pleaseth thee even so is good to me. Thou +art Lord, and knowest that I part me not from thy will, and thou knowest that +which is unspoken.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The whole of the Eighth circle slopes toward the centre, so that the inner +wall of each bolgia is lower, and is less sharply inclined than the outer. +</p> + +<p> +Then we went upon the fourth dyke, turned, and descended on the left hand, down +to the bottom pierced with holes, and narrow. And the good Master set me not +down yet from his haunch, till he brought me to the cleft of him who was thus +lamenting with his shanks. +</p> + +<p> +“O whoe’er thou art, that keepest upside down, sad soul, planted +like a stake,” I began to say, “speak, if thou canst.” I was +standing like the friar who confesses the perfidious assassin,[1] who, after he +is fixed, recalls him, in order to delay his death. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Such criminals were not infrequently punished by being set, head downwards, +in a hole in which they were buried alive. +</p> + +<p> +And he[1] cried out, “Art thou already standing there? Art thou already +standing there, Boniface? By several years the record lied to me. Art thou so +quickly sated with that having, for which thou didst not fear to seize by guile +the beautiful Lady,[2] and then to do her outrage?” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] This is Nicholas III., pope from 1277 to 1280; he takes Dante to be +Boniface VIII., but Boniface was not to die till 1303. Compare what Nicholas +says of “the record” with Farinata’s statement, in Canto X, +concerning the foresight of the damned. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The Church, to which Boniface did outrage in many forms; but worst by his +simoniacal practices. +</p> + +<p> +Such I became as those that, not comprehending that which is replied to them, +stand as if mocked, and know not what to answer. +</p> + +<p> +Then Virgil said, “Tell him quickly, I am not he, I am not he thou +thinkest.” And I answered as was enjoined on me; whereat the spirit quite +twisted his feet. Thereafter, sighing and with tearful voice, he said to me, +“Then what dost thou require of me? If to know who I am concerneth thee +so much that thou hast crossed the bank therefor, know that I was vested with +the Great Mantle; and verily I was a son of the She-Bear,[1] so eager to +advance the cubs, that up there I put wealth, and here myself, into the purse. +Beneath my head are stretched the others that preceded me in simony, flattened +through the fissures of the rock. There below shall I likewise sink, when he +shall come whom I believed thou wert, then when I put to thee the sudden +question; but already the time is longer that I have cooked my feet, and that I +have been thus upside down, than he will stay planted with red feet; for after +him will come, of uglier deed, from westward, a shepherd without law,[2] such +as must cover him and me again. A new Jason will he be, of whom it is read in +Maccabees;[3] and as to that one his king was compliant, so unto this he who +rules France shall be.”[4] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Nicholas was of the Orsini family. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Clement V., who will come from Avignon, and in a little more than ten years +after the death of Boniface. Nicholas had already “cooked his feet” +for twenty years. The prophecy of the death of Clement after a shorter time +affords an indication that this canto was not written until after 1314, the +year of his death. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The story of Jason, “that ungodly wretch and no high-priest” +who bought the high-priesthood from King Antiochus, is told in 2 Maccabees iv. +Its application to the Pope was plain. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] “He who rules France” was Philip the Fair. +</p> + +<p> +I know not if here I was too audacious that I only answered him in this strain, +“Pray now tell me how much treasure our Lord desired of Saint Peter +before he placed the keys in his keeping? Surely he required nothing save +‘Follow me.’ Nor did Peter or the others require of Matthias gold +or silver, when he was chosen to the place which the guilty soul had lost. +Therefore stay thou, for thou art rightly punished, and guard well the +ill-gotten money that against Charles[1] made thee to be bold. And were it not +that reverence for the Supreme Keys that thou heldest in the glad life still +forbiddeth me, I would use words still more grave; for your avarice saddens the +world, trampling down the good and exalting the bad. Of you shepherds the +Evangelist was aware, when she that sitteth upon the waters was seen by him to +fornicate with kings: that woman that was born with the seven heads, and from +the ten horns had evidence, so long as virtue pleased her spouse.[2] Ye have +made you a god of gold and silver: and what difference is there between you and +the idolater save that he worships one and ye a hundred? Ah Constantine! of how +much ill was mother, not thy conversion, but that dowry which the first rich +Father received from thee!”[3] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Charles of Anjou, of whom Nicholas III, was the enemy. He was charged with +having been bribed to support the attempt to expel the French from Sicily, +which began with the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Dante deals freely with the figures of the Apocalypse: Revelation vii. The +woman here stands for the Church; her seven heads may be interpreted as the +Seven Sacraments, and her ten horns as the Commandments; her spouse is the +Pope. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The reference is to the so-called Donation of Constantine, the reality of +which was generally accepted till long after Dante’s time. +</p> + +<p> +And, while I was singing these notes to him, whether anger or conscience stung +him, he violently quivered with both feet. I believe, forsooth, that it had +pleased my Leader, with so contented look be listened ever to the sound of the +true words uttered. Thereupon with both his arms he took me, and when he had me +wholly on his breast, remounted on the way by which he had descended. Nor did +he tire of holding me clasped till he had borne me up to the summit of the arch +which is the passage from the fourth to the fifth dyke. Here softly he laid +down his burden, softly because of the ragged and steep crag, that would be a +difficult pass for goats. Thence another great valley was discovered to me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XX"></a>CANTO XX.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: fourth pit: diviners, soothsayers, and +magicians.—Amphiaraus.—Tiresias.—Aruns.—Manto.— +Eurypylus.— Michael Scott.—Asdente. +</p> + +<p> +Of a new punishment needs must I make verses, and give matetial to the +twentieth canto of the first lay, which is of the submerged.[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Plunged into the misery of Hell. +</p> + +<p> +I was now wholly set on looking into the disclosed depth that was bathed with +tears of anguish, and I saw folk coming, silent and weeping, through the +circular valley, at the pace at which lltanies go in this world. As my sight +descended deeper among them, each appeared marvelously distorted from the chin +to the beginning of the chest; for toward their reins their face was turned, +and they must needs go backwards, because they were deprived of looking +forward. Perchance sometimes by force of palsy one has been thus completely +twisted, but I never saw it, nor do I think it can be. +</p> + +<p> +So may God let thee, Reader, gather fruit from thy reading, now think for +thyself how I could keep my face dry, when near by I saw our image so contorted +that the weeping of the eyes bathed the buttocks along the cleft. Truly I wept, +leaning on one of the rocks of the hard crag, so that my Guide said to me, +“Art thou also one of the fools? Here pity liveth when it is quite +dead.[1] +</p> + +<p> +Who is more wicked than he who feels compassion at the Divine Judgment? Lift up +thy head, lift up, and see him[2] for whom the earth opened before the eyes of +the Thebans, whereon they shouted all, ‘Whither art thou rushing, +Amphiaraus? Why dost thou leave the war?’ And he stopped not from falling +headlong down far as Minos, who seizes hold of every one. Look, how he has made +a breast of his shoulders! Because he wished to see too far before him, he +looks behind and makes a backward path. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] It is impossible to give the full significance of Dante’s words in a +literal translation, owing to the double meaning of pieta in the original. Qui +viva la pieta quando e ben morta. That is: “Here liveth piety when pity +is quite dead.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] One of the seven kings who besieged Thebes, augur and prophet. Dante found +his story in Statius, Thebais, viii. 84. +</p> + +<p> +“See Tiresias,[1] who changed his semblance, when from a male he became a +female, his members all of them being transformed; and afterwards was obliged +to strike once more the two entwined serpents with his rod, ere he could regain +his masculine plumage. Aruns[2] is he that to this one’s belly has his +back, who on the mountains of Luni (where grubs the Carrarese who dwells +beneath), amid white marbles, had a cave for his abode, whence for looking at +the stars and the sea his view was not cut off. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The Theban soothsayer. Dante had learned of him from Ovid., Metam., iii. +320 sqq., as well as from Statius. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] An Etruscan haruspex of whom Lucan tells,—Arens incoluit desertae +moenia Lanae. Phars. i. 556. +</p> + +<p> +“And she who with her loose tresses covers her breasts, which thou dost +not see, and has on that side all her hairy skin, was Manto,[1] who sought +through many lands, then settled there where I was born; whereof it pleases me +that thou listen a little to me. After her father had departed from life, and +the city of Bacchus had become enslaved, long while she wandered through the +world. Up in fair Italy lies a lake, at foot of the alp that shuts in Germany +above Tyrol, and it is called Benaco.[2] Through a thousand founts, I think, +and more, between Garda and Val Camonica, the Apennine is bathed by the water +which settles in that lake. Midway is a place where the Trentine Pastor and he +of Brescia and the Veronese might each give his blessing if he took that +road.[3] Peschiera, fortress fair and strong, sits to confront the Brescians +and Bergamasques, where the shore round about is lowest. Thither needs must +fall all that which in the lap of Benaco cannot stay, and it becomes a river +down through the verdant pastures. Soon as the water gathers head to run, no +longer is it called Benaco, but Mincio, far as Governo, where it falls into the +Po. No long course it hath before it finds a plain, on which it spreads, and +makes a marsh, and is wont in summer sometimes to be noisome. Passing that way, +the cruel virgin saw a land in the middle of the fen without culture and bare +of inhabitants. There, to avoid all human fellowship, she stayed with her +servants to practice her arts, and lived, and left there her empty body. +Afterward the men who were scattered round about gathered to that place, which +was strong because of the fen which surrounded it. They built the city over +those dead hones, and for her, who first had chosen the place, they called it +Mantua, without other augury. Of old its people were more thick within it, +before the stupidity of Casalodi had been tricked by Pinamonte.[4] Therefore I +warn thee, that if thou ever hearest otherwise the origin of my town, no +falsehood may defraud the truth.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The daughter of Tiresias, of whom Statius, Ovid, and Virgil all tell. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Now Lago di Garda. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Where the three dioceses meet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] The Count of Casalodi, being lord of Mantua about 1276, gave ear to the +treacherous counsels of Messer Pinamonte de Buonacorsi, and was driven, with +his friends, from the city. +</p> + +<p> +And I, “Master, thy discourses are so certain to me, and so lay hold on +my faith, that the others would be to me as dead embers. But tell me of the +people who are passing, if thou seest any one of them worthy of note; for only +unto that my mind reverts.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he said to me, “That one, who from his cheek stretches his beard +upon his dusky shoulders, was an augur when Greece was so emptied of males that +they scarce remained for the cradles, and with Calchas at Aulis he gave the +moment for cutting the first cable. Eurypylus was his name, and thus my lofty +Tragedy sings him in some place;[1] well knowest thou this, who knowest the +whole of it. That other who is so small in the flanks was Michael Scott,[2] who +verily knew the game of magical deceptions. See Guido Bonatti,[3] see +Asdente,[4] who now would wish he had attended to his leather and his thread, +but late repents. See the forlorn women who left the needle, the spool, and the +spindle, and became fortune-tellers; they wrought spells with herb and with +image. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Suspensi Eurypylum scitantem oracula Phoebi Mittimus. Aeneid, ii. 112. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] A wizard of such dreaded fame<br/> + That, when in Salamanca’s cave<br/> + Him listed his magic wand to wave,<br/> + The bells would ring in Notre Dame.<br/> + Lay of the Lost Minstrel, Canto ii. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] A famous astrologer of Forli, in the thirteenth century. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Dante, in the Canvito, trattato iv. c. 16, says that if NOBLE meant being +widely known, then “Asdente, the shoemaker of Parma, would be more noble +than any of his fellow-citizens.” +</p> + +<p> +“But come on now, for already Cain with his thorns[1] holds the confines +of both the hemispheres, and touches the wave below Seville. And already +yesternight was the moon round; well shouldst thou remember it, for it did thee +no harm sometimes in the deep wood.” Thus he spoke to me, and we went on +the while. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The Man in the Moon, according to an old popular legend. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXI"></a>CANTO XXI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators.—A magistrate of Lucca.—The +Malebranche.—Parley with them. +</p> + +<p> +So from bridge to bridge we went, speaking other things, which my Comedy careth +not to sing, and held the summit, when we stopped to see the next cleft of +Malebolge and the next vain lamentations; and I saw it wonderfully dark. +</p> + +<p> +As in the Arsenal of the Venetians, in winter, the sticky pitch for smearing +their unsound vessels is boiling, because they cannot go to sea, and, instead +thereof, one builds him a new bark, and one caulks the sides of that which hath +made many a voyage; one hammers at the prow, and one at the stern; another +makes oars, and another twists the cordage; and one the foresail and the +mainsail patches,—so, not by fire, but by divine art, a thick pitch was +boiling there below, which belimed the bank on every side. I saw it, but saw +not in it aught but the bubbles which the boiling raised, and all of it +swelling up and again sinking compressed. +</p> + +<p> +While I was gazing down there fixedly, my Leader, saying, “Take heed! +take heed!” drew me to himself from the place where I was standing. Then +I turned as one who is slow to see what it behoves him to fly, and whom a +sudden fear unnerves, and delays not to depart in order to see. And I saw +behind us a black devil come running up along the crag. Ah! how fell he was in +aspect, and how rough he seemed to me in action, with wings open, and light +upon his feet! His shoulder, which was sharp and high, was laden by a sinner +with both haunches, the sinew of whose feet he held clutched. “O +Malebranche[1] of our bridge,” he said, “lo, one of the Ancients of +Saint Zita[2] put him under, for I return again to that city, which I have +furnished well with them; every man there is a barrator,[3] except Bonturo:[4] +there, for money, of No they make Ay.” He hurled him down, and along the +hard crag he turned, and never mastiff loosed was in such haste to follow a +thief. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Malebranche means Evil-claws. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] One of the chief magistrates of Lucca, whose special protectress was Santa +Zita. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] A corrupt official, selling justice or office for bribes; in general, a +peculator or cheat. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Ironical. +</p> + +<p> +That one sank under, and came up back uppermost, but the demons that had +shelter of the bridge cried out, “Here the Holy Face[1] avails not; here +one swims otherwise than in the Serchio;[2] therefore, if thou dost not want +our grapples, make no show above the pitch.” Then they struck him with +more than a hundred prongs, and said, “Covered must thou dance here, so +that, if thou canst, thou mayst swindle secretly.” Not otherwise cooks +make their scullions plunge the meat with their hooks into the middle of the +cauldron, so that it may not float. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] An image of Christ upon the cross, ascribed to Nicodemus, still venerated +at Lucca. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The river that runs not far from Lucca. +</p> + +<p> +The good Master said to me, “In order that it be not apparent that thou +art here, crouch down behind a splinter, that may afford some screen to thee, +and at any offense that may be done to me be not afraid, for I have knowledge +of these things, because another time I was at such a fray.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he passed on beyond the head of the bridge, and when he arrived upon the +sixth bank, he had need of a steadfast front. With such fury and with such +storm, as dogs run out upon the poor wretch, who of a sudden begs where he +stops, they came forth from under the little bridge, and turned against him all +their forks. But he cried out, “Be no one of you savage; ere your hook +take hold of me, let one of you come forward that he may hear me, and then take +counsel as to grappling me.” All cried out, “Let Malacoda[1] +go!” Whereon one moved, and the rest stood still; and he came toward him, +saying, “What doth this avail him?” “Thinkest thou, Malacoda, +to see me come here,” said my Master, “safe hitherto from all your +hindrances, except by Will Divine and fate propitious? Let us go on, for in +Heaven it is willed that I show another this savage road.” Then was his +arrogance so fallen that he let the hook drop at his feet, and said to the +rest, “Now let him not be struck.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Wicked tail. +</p> + +<p> +And my Leader to me, “O thou that sittest cowering among the splinters of +the bridge, securely now return to me.” Whereat I moved and came swiftly +to him. And the devils all pressed forward, so that I feared they would not +keep their compact. And thus I once saw the foot-soldiers afraid, who came out +under pledge from Caprona,[1] seeing themselves among so many enemies. I drew +with my whole body alongside my Leader, and turned not mine eyes from their +look, which was not good. They lowered their forks, and, “Wilt thou that +I touch him on the rump?” said one to the other, and they answered, +“Yes, see thou nick it for him.” But that demon who was holding +speech with my Leader turned very quickly and said, “Stay, stay, +Scarmiglione!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In August, 1290, the town of Caprona, on the Arno, surrendered to the +Florentine troops, with whom Dante was serving. +</p> + +<p> +Then he said to us, “Further advance along this crag there cannot be, +because the sixth arch lies all shattered at the bottom. And if to go forward +still is your pleasure, go on along this rocky bank; near by is another crag +that affords a way. Yesterday, five hours later than this hour, one thousand +two hundred and sixty-six years were complete since the way was broken here.[1] +I am sending thitherward some of these of mine, to see if any one is airing +himself; go ye with them, for they will not be wicked. Come forward, Alichino +and Calcabrina,” began he to say, “and thou, Cagnazzo; and do thou, +Barbariccia, guide the ten. Let Libicocco come also, and Draghignazzo, tusked +Ciriatto, and Graffiacane, and Farfarello, and mad Rubicante. Search round +about the boiling pitch; let these be safe far as the next crag, that all +unbroken goes over these dens.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] By the earthquake at the death of the Saviour. +</p> + +<p> +“O me! Master, what is it that I see?” said I; “pray let us +go alone without escort, if thou knowest the way, for I desire it not for +myself. If thou art as wary as thou art wont to be, dost thou not see that they +show their teeth, and threaten harm to us with their brows?” And he to +me, “I would not have thee afraid. Let them grin on at their will, for +they are doing it at the boiled wretches.” +</p> + +<p> +Upon the left bank they wheeled round, but first each had pressed his tongue +with his teeth toward their leader for a signal, and he had made a trumpet of +his rump. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXII"></a>CANTO XXII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators.—Ciampolo of Navarre.—Fra +Gomita.—Michaci Zanche.—Fray of the Malebranche. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen of old horsemen moving camp, and beginning an assault, and making +their muster, and sometimes setting forth on their escape; I have seen runners +through your land, O Aretines, and I have seen freebooters starting, +tournaments struck and jousts run, at times with trumpets, and at times with +bells, with drums, and with signals from strongholds, and with native things +and foreign,—but never with so strange a pipe did I see horsemen or +footmen set forth, or ship by sign of land or star. +</p> + +<p> +We went along with the ten demons. Ah, the fell company! but in the church with +saints, and in the tavern with gluttons. Ever on the pitch was I intent, to see +every aspect of the pit, and of the people that were burning in it. +</p> + +<p> +As dolphins, when, by the arching of their back, they give a sign to sailors +that they take heed for the safety of their vessel, so, now and then, to +alleviate his pain, one of the sinners showed his back and hid in less time +than it lightens. And as at the edge of the water of a ditch the frogs stand +with only their muzzle out, so that they conceal their feet and the rest of +their bulk, thus stood on every side the sinners; but as Barbariccia approached +so did they draw back beneath the boiling. I saw, and still my heart shudders +at it, one waiting, just as it happens that one frog stays and another jumps. +And Graffiacane, who was nearest over against him, hooked him by his pitchy +locks, and drew him up so that he seemed to me an otter. I knew now the name of +every one of them, so had I noted them when they were chosen, and when they had +called each other I had listened how. “O Rubicante, see thou set thy +claws upon him so thou flay him,” shouted all the accursed ones together. +</p> + +<p> +And I, “My Master, see, if thou canst, that thou find out who is the +luckless one come into the hands of his adversaries.” My Leader drew up +to his side, asked him whence he was, and he replied, “I was born in the +kingdom of Navarre; my mother placed me in service of a lord, for she had borne +me to a ribald, destroyer of himself and of his substance. Afterward I was of +the household of the good King Thibault;[1] there I set myself to practice +barratry, for which I pay reckoning in this heat.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Probably Thibault II., the brother-in-law of St Louis, who accompanied him +on his last disastrous crusade, and died on his way home in 1270. +</p> + +<p> +And Ciriatto, from whose mouth protruded on either side a tusk, as in a boar, +made him feel how one of them rips. Among evil cats the mouse had come; but +Barbariccia clasped him in his arms, and said, “Stand off, while I enfork +him,” and to my Master turned his face. “Ask,” said he, +“if thou desirest to know more from him, before some other undo +him.” The Leader, “Now, then, tell of the other sinners; knowst +thou any one under the pitch who is Italian?” And he, “I parted +short while since from one who was a neighbor to it; would that with him I +still were covered so that I might not fear claw or hook.” And Libicocco +said, “We have borne too much,” and seized his arm with his grapple +so that, tearing, he carried off a sinew of it. Draghignazzo, also, he wished +to give him a clutch down at his legs, whereat their decurion turned round +about with evil look. +</p> + +<p> +When they were a little appeased, my Leader, without delay, asked him who still +was gazing at his wound, “Who was he from whom thou sayest thou madest in +parting to come to shore?” And he replied, “It was Brother Gomita, +he of Gallura,[1] vessel of all fraud, who held the enemies of his lord in +hand, and dealt so with them that they all praise him for it. Money he took, +and let them smoothly off, so he says; and in other offices besides he was no +little barrator, but sovereign. With him frequents Don Michael Zanche of +Logodoro,[2] and in talking of Sardinia their tongues feel not weary. O me! see +ye that other who is grinning: I would say more, but I fear lest he is making +ready to scratch my itch.” And the grand provost, turning to Farfarello, +who was rolling his eyes as if to strike, said, “Get thee away, wicked +bird!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Gallura, one of the four divisions of Sardinia, called judicatures, made by +the Pisans, after their conquest of the island. The lord of Gomita was the +gentle Judge Nino, whom Dante meets in Purgatory. Gomita was hung for his +frauds. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Logodoro was another of the judicatures of Sardinia. Don Michael Zanche was +a noted man, but of his special sins little or nothing has been recorded by the +chroniclers. +</p> + +<p> +“If you wish to see or to hear Tuscans or Lombards,” thereon began +again the frightened one, “I will make them come; but let the Malebranche +stand a little withdrawn, so that they may not be afraid of their vengeance, +and I, sitting in this very place, for one that I am, will make seven of them +come, when I shall whistle as is our wont to do whenever one of us comes +out.” Cagnazzo at this speech raised his muzzle, shaking his head, and +said, “Hear the knavery he has devised for throwing himself under!” +Whereon he who had snares in great plenty answered, “Too knavish am I, +when I procure for mine own companions greater sorrow.” Alichino held not +in, and, in opposition to the others, said to him, “If thou dive, I will +not come behind thee at a gallop, but I will beat my wings above the pitch; let +the ridge be left, and be the bank a shield, to see if thou alone availest more +than we.” +</p> + +<p> +O thou that readest! thou shalt hear new sport. Each turned his eyes to the +other side, he first who had been most averse to doing it. The Navarrese chose +well his time, planted his feet firmly on the ground, and in an instant leaped, +and from their purpose freed himself. At this, each of them was pricked with +shame, but he most who was the cause of the loss; wherefore he started and +cried out, “Thou art caught.” But little it availed, for wings +could not outstrip fear. The one went under, and the other, flying, turned his +breast upward. Not otherwise the wild duck on a sudden dives when the falcon +comes close, and he returns up vexed and baffled. Calcabrina, enraged at the +flout, kept flying behind him, desirous that the sinner should escape, that he +might have a scuffle; and when the barrator had disappeared he turned his +talons upon his companion, and grappled with him above the ditch. But the other +was indeed a sparrowhawk full grown to gripe him well, and both fell into the +midst of the boiling pool. The heat was a sudden ungrappler, but nevertheless +there was no rising from it, they had their wings so glued. Barbariccia, +grieving with the rest of his troop, made four of them fly to the other side +with all their forks, and very quickly, this side and that, they descended to +their post. They stretched out their hooks toward the belimed ones, who were +already baked within the crust: and we left them thus embroiled. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXIII"></a>CANTO XXIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit.—The sixth pit: hypocrites, in +cloaks of gilded lead.—Jovial Friars. +—Caiaphas.—Annas.—Frate Catalano. +</p> + +<p> +Silent, alone, and without company, we went on, one before, the other behind, +as the Minor friars go along the way. My thought was turned by the present +brawl upon the fable of Aesop, in which he tells of the frog and the mole; for +NOW and THIS INSTANT are not more alike than the one is to the other, if +beginning and end are rightly coupled by the attentive mind.[1] And as one +thought bursts out from another, so from that then sprang another which made my +first fear double. I reflected in this wise: These through us have been +flouted, and with such harm and mock as I believe must vex them greatly; if +anger to ill-will be added, they will come after us more merciless than the dog +upon the leveret which he snaps. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] “Sed dices forsan, lector,” says Benvenuto da Imola, +“nescio per me videre quomodo istae duae fictiones habeant inter se +tantam convenientam. Ad quod respondeo, quod passus vere est fortis.” The +point seems to be that, the frog having deceitfully brought the mole to trouble +and death, the mole declares, “me vindicabit major,” and the eagle +swoops down and devours the frog as well as the dead mole. The comparison is +not very close except in the matter of anticipated vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +Already I was feeling my hair all bristling with fear, and was backwards +intent, when I said, “Master, if thou concealest not thyself and me +speedily, I am afraid of the Malebranche; we have them already behind us, and I +so imagine them that I already feel them.” And he, “If I were of +leaded glass,[1] I should not draw thine outward image more quickly to me than +thine inward I receive. Even now came thy thoughts among mine, with similar +action and with similar look, so that of both one sole design I made. If it be +that the right bank lieth so that we can descend into the next pit, we shall +escape the imagined chase.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A mirror. +</p> + +<p> +Not yet had he finished reporting this design, when I saw them coming with +spread wings, not very far off, with will to take us. My Leader on a sudden +took me, as a mother who is wakened by the noise, and near her sees the kindled +flames, who takes her son and flies, and, having more care of him than of +herself, stays not so long as only to put on a shift. And down from the ridge +of the hard bank, supine he gave himself to the sloping rock that closes one of +the sides of the next pit. Never ran water so swiftly through a duct, to turn +the wheel of a land-mill, when it approaches near est to the paddles, as my +Master over that border, bearing me along upon his breast, as his own son, and +not as his companion. Hardly had his feet reached the bed of the depth below, +when they were on the ridge right over us; but here there was no fear, for the +high Providence that willed to set them as ministers of the fifth ditch +deprived them all of power of departing thence. +</p> + +<p> +There below we found a painted people who were going around with very slow +steps, weeping, and in their semblance weary and vanquished. They had cloaks, +with hoods lowered before their eyes, made of the same cut as those of the +monks in Cluny. Outwardly they are gilded, so that it dazzles, but within all +lead, and so heavy that Frederick put them on of straw.[1] Oh mantle wearisome +for eternity! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The leaden cloaks which the Emperor Frederick II. caused to be put on +criminals, who were then burned to death, were light as straw in comparison +with these. +</p> + +<p> +We turned, still ever to the left hand, along with them, intent on their sad +plaint. But because of the weight that tired folk came so slowly that we had +fresh company at every movement of the haunch. Wherefore I to my Leader, +“See that thou find some one who may be known by deed or name, and so in +going move thy eyes around.” And one who understood the Tuscan speech +cried out behind us, “Stay your feet, ye who run thus through the dusky +air; perchance thou shalt have from me that which thou askest.” Whereon +the Leader turned and said, “Await, and then according to his pace +proceed.” I stopped, and saw two show, by their look, great haste of mind +to be with me, but their load delayed them, and the narrow way. +</p> + +<p> +When they had come up, somewhile, with eye askance,[1] they gazed at me without +a word; then they turned to each other, and said one to the other, “This +one seems alive by the action of his throat; and if they are dead, by what +privilege do they go uncovered by the heavy stole?” Then they said to me, +“O Tuscan, who to the college of the wretched hypocrites art come, +disdain not to tell who thou art.” And I to them, “I was born and +grew up on the fair river of Arno, at the great town, and I am in the body that +I have always had. But ye, who are ye, in whom such woe distills, as I see, +down your cheeks? and what punishment is on you that so sparkles?” And +one of them replied to me, “The orange hoods are of lead so thick that +the weights thus make their scales to creak. Jovial Friars[2] were we, and +Bolognese; I Catalano, and he Loderingo named, and together taken by thy city, +as one man alone is wont to be taken, in order to preserve its peace; and we +were such as still is apparent round about the Gardingo.” I began, +“O Friars, your evil”—but more I said not, for there struck +mine eyes one crucified with three stakes on the ground. When me he saw he +writhed all over, blowing into his beard with sighs: and the Friar Catalano, +who observed it, said to me, “That transfixed one, whom thou lookest at, +counseled the Pharisees that it was expedient to put one man to torture for the +people. Crosswise and naked is he on the path, as thou seest, and he first must +feel how much whoever passes weighs. And in such fashion his father-in-law is +stretched in this ditch, and the others of that Council which for the Jews was +seed of ill.”[3] Then I saw Virgil marvelling over him that was extended +on a cross so vilely in eternal exile. Thereafter he addressed this speech to +the Friar, “May it not displease thee, so it be allowed thee, to tell us +if on the right hand lies any opening whereby we two can go out without +constraining any of the Black Angels to come to deliver us from this +deep.” He answered then, “Nearer than thou hopest is a rock that +from the great encircling wall proceeds and crosses all the savage valleys, +save that at this one it is broken, and does not cover it. Ye can mount up over +the ruin that slopes on the side, and heaps up at the bottom.” The Leader +stood a little while with bowed head, then said, “Ill he reported the +matter, he who hooks the sinners yonder.”[4] And the Friar, “I +once heard tell at Bologna vices enough of the devil, among which I heard that +he is false, and the father of lies.” Then the Leader with great steps +went on, disturbed a little with anger in his look; whereon I departed from the +heavily burdened ones, following the prints of the beloved feet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] They could not raise their heads for a straight look. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Brothers of the order of Santa Maria, established in 1261, with knightly +vows and high intent. From their free life the name of “Jovial +Friars” was given to the members of the order. After the battle of +Montaperti (1260) the Ghibellines held the upper hand in Florence for more than +five years. The defeat and death of Manfred early in 1266, at the battle of +Benevento, shook their power and revived the hopes of the Guelphs. As a measure +of compromise, the Florentine Commune elected two podestas, one from each +party; the Guelph was Catalano de’ Malavolti, the Ghibelline, Loderingo +degli Andalo, both from Bologna. They were believed to have joined hands for +their own gain, and to have favored the reviving power of the Guelphs. In the +troubles of the year the houses of the Uberti, a powerful Ghibelline family, +were burned. They lay in the region of the city called the Gardingo, close to +the Palazzo Vecchio. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Annas “was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that +same year. Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was +expedient that one man should die for the people.” John xviii. 13-14; id. +xi. 47-50. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Malacoda had told him that he would find a bridge not far off by which to +cross this sixth bolgia. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXIV"></a>CANTO XXIV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit.— Seventh pit, filled +with serpents, by which thieves are tormented.—Vanni +Fucci.—Prophecy of calamity to Dante. +</p> + +<p> +In that part of the young year when the sun tempers his locks beneath +Aquarius,[1] and now the nights decrease toward half the day,[2] when the hoar +frost copies on the ground the image of her white sister,[3] but the point of +her pen lasts little while, the rustic, whose provision fails “gets up +and sees the plain all whitened o’er, whereat he strikes his thigh, +returns indoors, and grumbles here and there, like the poor wretch who knows +not what to do; again goes out and picks up hope again, seeing the world to +have changed face in short while, and takes his crook and drives forth his +flock to pasture”: in like manner the Master made me dismayed, when I saw +his front so disturbed, and in like manner speedily arrived the plaster for the +hurt. For when we came to the ruined bridge, the Leader turned to me with that +sweet look which I first saw at the foot of the mount.[4] He opened his arms, +after some counsel taken with himself, looking first well at the ruin, and laid +hold of me. And as one who acts and considers, who seems always to be ready +beforehand, so lifting me up toward the top of a great rock, he took note of +another splinter, saying, “Seize hold next on that, but try first if it +is such that it may support thee.” It was no way for one clothed in a +cloak, for we with difficulty, he light and I pushed up, could mount from jag +to jag. And had it not been that on that precinct the bank was shorter than on +the other side, I do not know about him, but I should have been completely +overcome. But because all Malebolge slopes toward the opening of the lowest +abyss, the site of each valley is such that one side rises and the other +sinks.[5] We came, however, at length, up to the point where the last stone is +broken off. The breath was so milked from my lungs when I was up that I could +no farther, but sat me down on first arrival. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Toward the end of winter. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Half of the twenty-four hours. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The frost copies the look of the snow, but her pen soon loses its cut, that +is, the white frost soon vanishes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] The hill of the first Canto, at the foot of which Virgil had appeared to +Dante. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] The level of the whole circle slopes toward the central deep, so that the +inner side of each pit is of less height than the outer. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,” said the Master, +“for, sitting upon down or under quilt, one attains not fame, without +which he who consumes his life leaves of himself such trace on earth as smoke +in air, or in water the foam. And therefore rise up, conquer the exhaustion +with the spirit that conquers every battle, if by its heavy body it be not +dragged down. A longer stairway needs must be ascended; it is not enough from +these to have departed; if thou understandest me, now act so that it avail +thee.” Then I rose up, showing myself furnished better with breath than I +felt, and said, “Go on, for I am strong and resolute.” +</p> + +<p> +Up along the crag we took the way, which was rugged, narrow, and difficult, and +far steeper than the one before. I was going along speaking in order not to +seem breathless, and a voice, unsuitable for forming words, came out from the +next ditch. I know not what it said, though I was already upon the back of the +arch that crosses here; but he who was speaking seemed moved to anger. I had +turned downwards, but living eyes could not go to the bottom, because of the +obscurity. Wherefore I said, “Master, see that thou go on to the next +girth, and let us descend the wall, for as from hence I hear and do not +understand, so I look down and shape out nothing.” “Other +reply,” he said, “I give thee not than doing, for an honest request +ought to be followed by the deed in silence.” +</p> + +<p> +We descended the bridge at its head, where it joins on with the eighth bank, +and then the pit was apparent to me. And I saw therewithin a terrible heap of +serpents, and of such hideous look that the memory still curdles my blood. Let +Libya with her sand vaunt herself no more; for though she brings forth +chelydri, jaculi, and phareae, and cenchri with amphisboena, she never, with +all Ethiopia, nor with the land that lies on the Red Sea, showed either so many +plagues or so evil. +</p> + +<p> +Amid this cruel and most dismal store were running people naked and in terror, +without hope of hole or heliotrope.[1] They had their hands tied behind with +serpents, which fixed through the reins their tail and their head, and were +knotted up in front. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A precious stone, of green color, spotted with red, supposed to make its +wearer invisible. +</p> + +<p> +And lo! at one, who was on our side, darted a serpent that transfixed him there +where the neck is knotted to the shoulders. Nor <i>O</i> nor <i>I</i> was ever +so quickly written as he took fire and burned, and all ashes it behoved him to +become in falling. And when upon the ground he lay thus destroyed, the dust +drew together of itself, and into that same one instantly returned. Thus by the +great sages it is affirmed that the Phoenix dies, and then is reborn when to +her five hundredth year she draws nigh. Nor herb nor grain she feeds on in her +life, but only on tears of incense and on balsam, and nard and myrrh are her +last winding-sheet. +</p> + +<p> +And as he who falls and knows not how, by force of demon that drags him to +ground, or of other attack that seizeth the man; when he arises and around him +gazes, all bewildered by the great anguish that he has suffered, and in looking +sighs, such was that sinner after he had risen. Oh power of God! how just thou +art that showerest down such blows for vengeance! +</p> + +<p> +The Leader asked him then who he was; whereon he answered, “I rained from +Tuscany short time ago into this fell gullet. Bestial life, and not human, +pleased me, like a mule that I was. I am Vanni Fucci, beast, and Pistoia was my +fitting den.” And I to my Leader, “Tell him not to budge, and ask +what sin thrust him down here, for I have seen him a man of blood and +rages.” And the sinner who heard dissembled not, but directed toward me +his mind and his face, and was painted with dismal shame. Then he said, +“More it grieves me, that thou hast caught me in the misery where thou +seest me, than when I was taken from the other life. I cannot refuse that which +thou demandest. I am put so far down because I was robber of the sacristy with +the fair furnishings, and falsely hitherto has it been ascribed to another.[1] +But that thou enjoy not this sight, if ever thou shalt be forth of these dark +places, open thine ears to my announcement and hear.[2] Pistoia first strips +itself of the Black, then Florence renovates her people and her customs. Mars +draws a flame from Val di Magra wrapped in turbid clouds, and with impetuous +and bitter storm shall it be opposed upon Campo Piceno, where it shall suddenly +rend the mist, so that every White shall thereby be smitten. And this have I +said because it must grieve thee.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Vanni Fucci robbed the rich sacristy of the Church of St. James, the +cathedral of Pistoia. Suspicion of the crime fell upon others, who, though +innocent, were put to torture and hung for it. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The following verses refer under their dark imagery to the two parties, the +Black and the White, introduced from Pistoia, by which Florence was divided in +the early years of the fourteenth century, and to their fightings. The prophecy +is dismal to Dante, because it was with the Whites, whose overthrow Vanni Fucci +foretells, that his own fortunes were linked. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXV"></a>CANTO XXV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: seventh pit: fraudulent thieves.—Cacus.—Agnel +Brunelleschi and others. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of his words the thief raised his hands with both the figs,[1] +crying, “Take that, God! for at thee I square them.” Thenceforth +the serpents were my friends, for then one coiled around his neck, as if it +said, “I will not that thou say more,” and another round his arms +and bound them up anew, clinching itself so in front that he could not give a +shake with them. Ah Pistoia! Pistoia! why dost thou not decree to make ashes of +thyself, so that thou mayest last no longer, since in evil-doing thou +surpassest thine own seed?[2] Through all the dark circles of Hell I saw no +spirit against God so proud, not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls.[3] +He fled away and spake no word more. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A vulgar mode of contemptuous defiance, thrusting out the fist with the +thumb between the first and middle finger. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] According to tradition, Pistoia was settled by the followers of Catiline +who escaped after his defeat. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Capaneus; see Canto xiv. +</p> + +<p> +And I saw a Centaur full of rage come crying out, “Where is, where is +that obdurate one?” I do not think Maremma has so many snakes as he had +upon his croup up to where our semblance begins. On his shoulders behind the +nape a dragon with open wings was lying upon him, and it sets on fire +whomsoever it encounters. My Master said, “This is Cacus, who beneath the +rock of Mount Aventine made oftentimes a lake of blood. He goes not on one road +with his brothers because of the fraudulent theft he committed of the great +herd that was in his neighborhood; wherefor his crooked deeds ceased under the +club of Hercules, who perhaps dealt him a hundred blows with it, and he felt +not ten.” +</p> + +<p> +While he was so speaking, and that one had run by, lo! three spirits came below +us, of whom neither I nor my Leader was aware till when they cried out, +“Who are ye?” whereon our story stopped, and we then attended only +unto them. I did not recognize them, but it happened, as it is wont to happen +by chance, that one must needs name the other, saying, “Cianfa, where can +he have stayed?” Whereupon I, in order that the Leader should attend, put +my finger upward from my chin to my nose. +</p> + +<p> +If thou art now, Reader, slow to credit that which I shall tell, it will not be +a marvel, for I who saw it hardly admit it to myself. As I was holding my brow +raised upon them, lo! a serpent with six feet darts in front of one, and +grapples close to him. With his middle feet he clasped his paunch, and with his +forward took his arms, then struck his fangs in one and the other cheek. His +hinder feet he stretched upon the thighs, and put his tail between the two, and +behind bent it up along the reins. Ivy was never so bearded to a tree, as the +horrible beast through the other’s limbs entwined his own. Then they +stuck together as if they had been of hot wax, and mingled their color; nor one +nor the other seemed now that which it was; even as before the flame, up along +the paper a dark color proceeds which is not yet black, and the white dies +away. The other two were looking on, and each cried, “O me! Agnello, how +thou changest! Lo, now thou art neither two nor one! Now were the two heads +become one, when there appeared to us two countenances mixed in one face +wherein the two were lost. Of four[1] strips the two arms were made; the +thighs with the legs, the belly and the chest became members that were never +seen before. Each original aspect there was cancelled; both and neither the +perverse image appeared, and such it went away with slow step. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The two fore feet of the dragon and the two arms of the man were melted +into two strange arms. +</p> + +<p> +As the lizard under the great scourge of the dog days, changing from hedge to +hedge, seems a flash, if it crosses the way, so seemed, coming toward the belly +of the two others, a little fiery serpent, livid, and black as a grain of +pepper. And that part whereby our nourishment is first taken it transfixed in +one of them, then fell down stretched out before him. The transfixed one gazed +at it, but said nothing; nay rather, with feet fixed, he yawned even as if +sleep or fever had assailed him. He looked at the serpent, and that at him; one +through his wound, the other through his mouth, smoked violently, and their +smoke met. Let Lucan henceforth be silent, where he tells of the wretched +Sabellus, and of Nasidius, and wait to hear that which now is uttered. Let Ovid +be silent concerning Cadmus and Arethusa, for if, poetizing, he converts him +into a serpent and her into a fountain, I envy him not; for two natures front +to front never did he transmute, so that both the forms were prompt to exchange +their matter. To one another they responded by such rules, that the serpent +made his tail into a fork, and the wounded one drew together his feet. The legs +and the very thighs with them so stuck together, that in short while the +juncture made no sign that was apparent. The cleft tail took on the shape that +was lost there, and its skin became soft, and that of the other hard. I saw the +arms draw in through the armpits, and the two feet of the beast which were +short lengthen out in proportion as those shortened. Then the hinder feet, +twisted together, became the member that man conceals, and the wretched one +from his had two[1] stretched forth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Hinder feet. +</p> + +<p> +While the smoke is veiling both with a new color, and generates hair on the +one, and from the other strips it, one rose up, and the other fell down, not +however turning aside their pitiless lights,[1] beneath which each was changing +his visage. He who was erect drew his in toward the temples, and, from the +excess of material that came in there, issued the ears on the smooth cheeks; +that which did not run backwards but was retained, of its superfluity made a +nose for the face, and thickened the lips so far as was needful. He who was +lying down drives his muzzle forward, and draws in his ears through his skull, +as the snail doth his horns. And his tongue, which erst was united and fit for +speech, cleaves itself, and the forked one of the other closes up; and the +smoke stops. The soul that had become a brute fled hissing along the valley, +and behind him the other speaking spits. Then he turned upon him his new +shoulders, and said to the other,[2] “I will that Buoso[3] run, as I have +done, groveling along this path.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Glaring steadily at each other. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The third of the three spirits, the only one unchanged. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Buoso is he who has become a snake. +</p> + +<p> +Thus I saw the seventh ballast[1] change and rechange, and here let the novelty +be my excuse, if my pen straggle[2] a little. And although my eyes were +somewhat confused, and my mind bewildered, those could not flee away so +covertly but that I clearly distinguished Puccio Sciancato, and he it was who +alone, of the three companions that had first come, was not changed; the +other[3] was he whom thou, Gaville, weepest. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The ballast,—the sinners in the seventh bolgia. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Run into unusual detail. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] One Francesco Guerelo de’ Cavalcanti, who was slain by men of the +little Florentine town of Gaville, and for whose death cruel vengeance was +taken. The three who had first come were the three Florentine thieves, Agnello, +Buoso, and Puccio. Cianfa Donati had then appeared as the serpent with six +feet, and had been incorporated with Agnello. Lastly came Guercio Cavalcanti as +a little snake, and changed form with Buoso. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXVI"></a>CANTO XXVI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: eighth pit fraudulent counselors.—Ulysses and Diomed. +</p> + +<p> +Rejoice, Florence, since thou art so great that over sea and land thou beatest +thy wings, and thy name is spread through Hell. Among the thieves I found five +such, thy citizens, whereat shame comes to me, and thou unto great honor risest +not thereby. But, if near the morning one dreams the truth, thou shalt feel +within little time what Prato, as well as others, craves for thee.[1] And if +now it were, it would not be too soon. Would that it were so! since surely it +must be; for the more it will weigh on me the more I age. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] If that which I foresee is not a vain dream, the calamities which thine +enemies crave for thee will soon be felt. +</p> + +<p> +We departed thence, and up along the stairs that the bourns[1] had made for our +descent before, my Leader remounted and dragged me. And pursuing the solitary +way mid the splinters and rocks of the crag, the foot without the hand sped +not. Then I grieved, and now I grieve again when I direct my mind to what I +saw; and I curb my genius more than I am wont, that it may not run unless +virtue guide it; so that if a good star, or better thing, has given me of good, +I may not grudge it to myself. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The projections of the rocky wall. +</p> + +<p> +As the rustic who rests him on the bill in the season when he that brightens +the world keepeth his face least hidden from us, what time the fly yieldeth to +the gnat,[1] sees many fireflies down in the valley, perhaps there where he +makes his vintage and ploughs,—with as many flames all the eighth pit was +resplendent, as I perceived soon as I was there where the bottom became +apparent. And as he[2] who was avenged by the bears saw the chariot of Elijah +at its departure, when the horses rose erect to heaven, and could not so follow +it with his eyes as to see aught save the flame alone, even as a little cloud, +mounting upward: thus each[3] was moving through the gulley of the ditch, for +not one shows its theft, and every flame steals away a sinner.[4] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] That is, in the summer twilight. Elisha. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Kings ii. 9-24. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Of those flames. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Within each flame a sinner was concealed. +</p> + +<p> +I was standing on the bridge, risen up to look, so that if I had not taken hold +of a rock I should have fallen below without being pushed. And the Leader, who +saw me thus attent, said, “Within these fires are the spirits; each is +swathed by that wherewith he is enkindled.” “My Master,” I +replied, “by hearing thee am I more certain, but already I deemed that it +was so, and already I wished to say to thee, Who is in that fire that cometh so +divided at its top that it seems to rise from the pyre on which Eteocles was +put with his brother?”[1] He answered me, “There within are +tormented Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together they go in punishment, as of +old in wrath.[2] And within their flame they groan for the ambush of the horse +that made the gate, whence the gentle seed of the Romans issued forth. Within +it they lament for the artifice whereby the dead Deidamia still mourns for +Achilles, and there for the Palladium they bear the penalty.” “If +they can speak within those sparkles,” said I, “Master, much I pray +thee, and repray that the prayer avail a thousand, that thou make not to me +denial of waiting till the horned flame come hither; thou seest that with +desire I bend me toward it.” And he to me, “Thy prayer is worthy of +much praise, and therefore I accept it, but take heed that thy tongue restrain +itself. Leave speech to me, for I have conceived what thou wishest, for, +because they are Greeks, they would be shy, perchance, of thy words.”[3] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Eteocles and Polynices, sons of Oedipus and Jocaste, who, contending at the +siege of Thebes, slew each other. Such was their mutual hate that, when their +bodies were burned on the same funeral pile, the flames divided in two. +</p> + +<p> + —ezundant diviso vertice flammae<br/> + Alternosque apices abrupta luce coruscant.<br/> + Statius, Thebaid, xii, 431-2. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Against the Trojans. It was through the stratagem of the wooden horse that +Troy was destroyed, and Aeneas thus compelled to lead forth his followers who +became the seed of the Romans. Deidamia was the wife of Achilles, who slew +herself for grief at his desertion and departure for Troy, which had been +brought about by the deceit of Ulysses and Diomed. The Palladium was the statue +of Athena, on which the safety of Troy depended, stolen by the two heroes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The ancient heroes might be averse to talking with a man of the strange +modern world. +</p> + +<p> +When the flame had come there where it seemed to my Leader time and place, in +this form I heard him speak to it: “O ye who are two within one fire, if +I deserved of you while I lived, if I deserved of you much or little, when in +the world I wrote the lofty verses, move not, but let one of you tell us, +where, having lost himself, he went away to die.” The greater horn of the +ancient flame began to waver, murmuring, even as a flame that the wind wearies. +Then moving its tip hither and thither, as it had been the tongue that would +speak, it cast forth a voice, and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“When I departed from Circe, who had retained me more than a year there +near to Gaeta, before Aeneas had so named it, neither fondness for my son, nor +piety for my old father, nor the due love that should have made Penelope glad, +could overcome within me the ardor that I had to gain experience of the world, +and of the vices of men, and of their valor. But I put forth on the deep, open +sea, with one vessel only, and with that little company by which I had not been +deserted. One shore and the other[1] I saw as far as Spain, far as Morocco and +the island of Sardinia, and the rest which that sea bathes round about. I and +my companions were old and slow when we came to that narrow strait where +Hercules set up his bounds, to the end that man may not put out beyond.[2] On +the right hand I left Seville, on the other already I had left Ceuta. ‘O +brothers,’ said I, ‘who through a hundred thousand perils have +reached the West, to this so little vigil of your senses that remains be ye +unwilling to deny, the experience, following the sun, of the world that hath no +people. Consider ye your origin; ye were not made to live as brutes, but for +pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’ With this little speech I made my +companions so eager for the road that hardly afterwards could I have held them +back. And turning our stern to the morning, with our oars we made wings for the +mad flight, always gaining on the left hand side. The night saw now all the +stars of the other pole, and ours so low that it rose not forth from the ocean +floor. Five times rekindled and as many quenched was the light beneath the +moon, since we had entered on the deep pass, when there appeared to us a +mountain dim through the distance, and it appeared to me so high as I had not +seen any. We rejoiced thereat, and soon it turned to lamentation, for from the +strange land a whirlwind rose, and struck the fore part of the vessel. Three +times it made her whirl with all the waters, the fourth it made her stern lift +up, and the prow go down, as pleased Another, till the sea had closed over +us.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Of the Mediterranean. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Piu oltre non; the famous Ne plus ultra, adopted as his motto by Charles V. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXVII"></a>CANTO XXVII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: eighth pit fraudulent counselors.—Guido da Montefeltro. +</p> + +<p> +Now was the flame erect and quiet, through not speaking more, and now was going +from us, with the permission of the sweet poet, when another that was coming +behind it made us turn our eyes to its tip, by a confused sound that issued +forth therefrom. As the Sicilian bull[1]—that bellowed first with the +plaint of him (and that was right) who had shaped it with his file—was +wont to bellow with the voice of the sufferer, so that, although it was of +brass, yet it appeared transfixed with pain, thus, through not at first having +way or outlet from the fire, the disconsolate words were converted into its +language. But when they had taken their course up through the point, giving it +that vibration which the tongue had given in their passage, we heard say, +“O thou, to whom I direct my voice, thou that wast just speaking +Lombard,[2] saying, ‘Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,’ although +I may have arrived perchance somewhat late, let it not irk thee to stop to +speak with me, behold, it irks not me, and I am burning. If thou but now into +this blind world art fallen from that sweet Italian land whence I bring all my +sin, tell me if the Romagnuoli have peace or war; for I was from the mountains +there between Urbino and the chain from which Tiber is unlocked.”[3] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The brazen bull of Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, made to hold criminals +to be burned within it. Perillus, its inventor, was the first to suffer. So +these sinners are wrapped in the flames which their fraudulent counsels had +prepared for them. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Lombard, because the words were those of Virgil, whose “parents were +Lombards,” and in speaking he had used a form peculiar to the Lombard +dialect. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] It is the spirit of the Ghibelline count, Guido da Montefeltro, a famous +freebooting captain, who speaks. +</p> + +<p> +I was still downward attent and leaning over when my Leader touched me on the +side, saying, “Speak thou, this is an Italian.” And I, who even now +had my answer ready, without delay began to speak, “O soul, that art +hidden there below, thy Romagna is not, and never was, without war in the +hearts of her tyrants, but open war none have I left there now. Ravenna is as +it hath been for many years; the eagle of Polenta[1] is brooding there, so that +he covers Cervia with his wings. The city[2] that made erewhile the long +struggle, and of the French a bloody heap, finds itself again beneath the green +paws. And the old mastiff and the new of Verrucchio,[3] who made the ill +disposal of Montagna, make an anger of their teeth there where they are wont. +The little lion of the white lair[4] governs the city of Lamone and of +Santerno, and changes side from summer to winter. And she[5] whose flank the +Savio bathes, even as she sits between the plain and the mountain, lives +between tyranny and a free state. Now who thou art, I pray thee that thou tell +us; be not harder than another hath been,[6] so may thy name in the world hold +front.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Guido Novello da Polenta had been lord of Ravenna since 1275. He was father +of Francesca da Rimini, and a friend of Dante. His shield bore an eagle, gules, +on a field, or. Cervia is a small town on the coast, not far from Ravenna. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Forli, where in 1282 Guido da Montefeltro had defeated, with great +slaughter, a troop, largely of French soldiers, sent against him by Pope Martin +III. It was now ruled by the Ordelaffi, whose shield, party per fess, bore on +its upper half, or, a demilion, vert. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Malatesta, father and son, rulers of Rimini; father and brother of the +husband and of the lover of Francesca da Rimim. They had cruelly put to death +Montagna di Parcitade, the head of the Ghibellines of Rimini; and they ruled as +tyrants, sucking the blood of their subjects. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] This is Maghinardo da Susinana, who bore a lion azure on a field argent. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] The city of Cesena. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[6] Refuse not to answer me as I have answered thee. +</p> + +<p> +After the fire had somewhat roared according to its fashion, the sharp point +moved this way and that, and then gave forth this breath: “If I could +believe that my answer might be to a person who should ever return unto the +world, this flame would stand without more quiverings; but inasmuch as, if I +hear truth, never from this depth did any living man return, without fear of +infamy I answer thee. +</p> + +<p> +“I was a man of arms, and then became a cordelier, trusting, thus girt, +to make amends; and surely my trust had been fulfilled but for the Great +Priest,[1] whom may ill betide! who set me back into my first sins; and how and +wherefore, I will that thou hear from me. While I was that form of bone and +flesh that my mother gave me, my works were not leonine, but of the fox. The +wily practices, and the covert ways, I knew them all, and I so plied their art +that to the earth’s end the sound went forth. When I saw me arrived at +that part of my age where every one ought to strike the sails and to coil up +the ropes, what erst was pleasing to me then gave me pain, and I yielded me +repentant and confessed. Alas me wretched! and it would have availed. The +Prince of the new Pharisees having war near the Lateran,[2]—and not with +Saracens nor with Jews, for every enemy of his was Christian, and none of them +had been to conquer Acre,[3] nor a trafficker in the land of the +Soldan,—regarded in himself neither his supreme office, nor the holy +orders, nor in me that cord which is wont to make those girt with it more lean; +but as Constantine besought Sylvester within Soracte to cure his leprosy,[4] so +this one besought me as master to cure his proud fever. He asked counsel of me, +and I kept silence, because his words seemed drunken. And then he said to me, +‘Let not thy heart mistrust; from now I absolve thee, and do thou teach +me to act so that I may throw Palestrina to the ground. Heaven can I lock and +unlock, as thou knowest; for two are the keys that my predecessor held not +dear.’ Then his grave arguments pushed me to where silence seemed to me +the worst, and I said, ‘Father, since thou washest me of that sin wherein +I now must fall, long promise with short keeping will make thee triumph on the +High Seat.’ Francis[5] came for me afterwards, when I was dead, but one +of the Black Cherubim said to him, ‘Bear him not away; do me not wrong; +he must come down among my drudges because he gave the fraudulent counsel, +since which till now I have been at his hair; for he who repents not cannot be +absolved, nor can repentance and will exist together, because of the +contradiction that allows it not.’ O woeful me! how I shuddered when he +took me, saying to me, ‘Perhaps thou didst not think that I was a +logician.’ To Minos he bore me; and he twined his tail eight times round +his hard back, and, after he had bitten it in great rage, he said, ‘This +is one of the sinners of the thievish fire.’ Therefore I, where thou +seest, am lost, and going thus robed I rankle.” When he had thus +completed his speech the flame, sorrowing, departed, twisting and flapping its +sharp horn. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Boniface VIII. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] With the Colonna family, whose stronghold was Palestrina. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Not one had been a renegade, to help the Saracens at the siege of Acre in +1291. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] It was for this service that Constantine was supposed to have made +Sylvester “the first rich Father.” See Canto xiv. His predecessor, +Celestine V., had renounced the papacy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] St. Francis came for his soul, as that of one of the brethren of his Order. +</p> + +<p> +We passed onward, I and my Leader, along the crag, far as upon the next arch +that covers the ditch in which the fee is paid by those who, sowing discord, +win their burden. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXVIII"></a>CANTO XXVIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: ninth pit: sowers of discord and schism.—Mahomet and +Ali.—Fra Dolcino.—Pier da +Medicina.—Curio.—Mosca.—Bertrau de Born. +</p> + +<p> +Who, even with words unfettered,[1] could ever tell in full of the blood and of +the wounds that I now saw, though many times narrating? Every tongue assuredly +would come short, by reason of our speech and our memory that have small +capacity to comprise so much. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In prose. +</p> + +<p> +If all the people were again assembled, that of old upon the fateful land of +Apulia lamented for their blood shed by the Trojans,[1] and in the long war +that made such high spoil of the rings,[2] as Livy writes, who erreth not; with +those that, by resisting Robert Guiscard,[3] felt the pain of blows, and the +rest whose bones are still heaped up at Ceperano,[4] where every Apullian was +false, and there by Tagliacozzo,[5] where without arms the old Alardo +conquered,—and one should show his limb pierced through, and one his +lopped off, it would be nothing to equal the grisly mode of the ninth pit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The Romans, descendants of the Trojans. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The spoils of the battle of Canon, in the second Punic War. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The Norman conqueror and Duke of Apulia. He died in 1085. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Where, in 1266, the leaders of the army of Manfred, King of Apulia and +Sicily, treacherously went over to Charles of Anjou. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] Here, in 1265, Conradin, the nephew of Manfred, was defeated and taken +prisoner. The victory was won by a stratagem devised by Count Erard de Valery. +</p> + +<p> +Truly cask, by losing mid-board or cross-piece, is not so split open as one I +saw cleft from the chin to where the wind is broken: between his legs were +hanging his entrails, his inner parts were visible, and the dismal sack that +makes ordure of what is swallowed. Whilst all on seeing him I fix myself, he +looked at me, and with his hands opened his breast, saying, “Now see how +I rend myself, see how mangled is Mahomet. Ali[1] goeth before me weeping, +cleft in the face from chin to forelock; and all the others whom thou seest +here were, when living, sowers of scandal and of schism, and therefore are they +so cleft. A devil is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to +the edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the doleful road, +because the wounds are closed up ere one passes again before him. But thou, who +art thou, that musest on the crag, perchance to delay going to the punishment +that is adjudged on thine own accusations?”[2] “Nor death hath +reached him yet,” replied my Master, “nor doth sin lead him to +torment him; but, in order to give him full experience, it behoves me, who am +dead, to lead him through Hell down here, from circle to circle; and this is +true as that I speak to thee.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet, and himself the head of a schism. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] When the soul appears before Minos, every sin is confessed. See Canto V. +</p> + +<p> +More than a hundred there were that, when they heard him, stopped in the ditch +to look at me, forgetting the torment in their wonder. “Now, say to Fra +Dolcino,[1] then, thou who perchance shalt shortly see the sun, if he wish not +soon to follow me here, so to arm himself with supplies that stress of snow +bring not the victory to the Novarese, which otherwise to gain would not be +easy”:—after he had lifted one foot to go on Mahomet said to me +these words, then on the ground he stretched it to depart. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A noted heretic and reformer, who for two years maintained himself in +Lombardy against the forces of the Pope, but finally, being reduced by famine +in time of snow, in 1307, was taken captive and burnt at Novara. +</p> + +<p> +Another who had his throat pierced and his nose cut off up under his brows, and +had but one ear only, having stopped to look in wonder with the rest, before +the rest opened his gullet, which outwardly was all crimson, and said, “O +thou whom sin condemns not, and whom of old I saw above in the Latian land, if +too great resemblance deceive me not, remember Pier da Medicina[1] if ever +thou return to see the sweet plain that from Vercelli slopes to Marcabb, and +make known to the two best of Fano, to Messer Guido and likewise to +Angiolello,[2] that, if foresight here be not vain, they will be cast forth +from their vessel and drowned near to the Cattolica, by treachery of a fell +tyrant. Between the islands of Cyprus and Majorca Neptune never saw so great a +crime, not of the pirates, nor of the Argolic people. That traitor who sees +only with one eye, and holds the city from sight of which one who is here with +me would fain have fasted,[3] will make them come to parley with him; then will +act so that against the wind of Focara[4] they will not need or vow or +prayer.” And I to him, “Show to me and declare, if thou wishest +that I carry up news of thee, who is he of the bitter sight?”[5] Then he +put his hand on the jaw of one of his companions, and opened the mouth of him, +crying, “This is he, and he speaks not; this outcast stifled the doubt in +Caesar, by affirming that the man prepared always suffered harm from +delay.” Oh, how dismayed, with his tongue slit in his gorge, seemed to me +Curio,[6] who in speech had been so hardy! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Medicina is a town in the Bolognese district. Piero was a fosterer of +discord. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano, treacherously drowned by order +of the one-eyed Malatestino, lord of Rimini. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The city of Rimini, which Curio would wish never to have seen. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] A high foreland near the Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano, whence often +fell dangerous squalls. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] He to whom the sight of Rimini had been bitter. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[6] Curio the Tribune, banished from Rome, fled to Caesar delaying to cross the +Rubicon, and urged him on, with the argument, according to Lucan, “Tolle +moras, semper nocuit differre paratis.” Phars. i. 281. +</p> + +<p> +And one who had both hands lopped off, lifting the stumps through the murky air +so that the blood made his face foul, cried out, “Thou shalt remember +Mosca,[1] too, who said, alas! ‘Thing done has an end,’ which was +the seed of ill for the Tuscan people.” And I added thereto, “And +death to thine own race.” Whereat he, accumulating woe on woe, went away +like a person sad and distracted. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In 1215 one of the Buondelmonti, plighted to a maiden of the Amidei, broke +faith, and engaged himself to a damsel of the Donati. The family of the girl +who had been thus slighted took counsel how to avenge the affront, and Mosca +de’ Lamberti gave the ill advice to murder the young Buondelmonte. The +murder was the beginning of long woe to Florence, and of the division of her +people into Guelphs and Ghibellines. +</p> + +<p> +But I remained to look at the crowd, and I saw a thing that I should be afraid, +without more proof, only to tell, were it not that conscience reassures me, the +good companion that emboldens man under the hauberk of feeling himself pure. I +saw in truth, and still I seem to see it, a trunk without a head going along +even as the others of the dismal flock were going. And it was holding the +cut-off head by its hair, dangling in hand like a lantern. And it gazed on us, +and said, “O me!” Of itself it was making for itself a lamp; and +they were two in one, and one in two. How it can be He knows who so ordains. +When it was right at the foot of the bridge, it lifted its arm high with the +whole head, in order to approach its words to us, which were, “Now see +the dire punishment, thou that, breathing, goest seeing the dead: see thou if +any other is great as this! And that thou mayest carry news of me, know that I +am Bertran de Born,[1] he that gave to the young king the ill encouragements. I +made father and son rebellious to each other. Ahithophel did not more with +Absalom and with David by his wicked goadings. Because I divided persons so +united, I bear my brain, alas! divided from its source which is in this trunk. +Thus retaliation is observed in me.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The famous troubadour who incited the young Prince Henry to rebellion +against his father, Henry II. of England. The prince died in 1183. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXIX"></a>CANTO XXIX.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle ninth pit.—Geri del Bello.—Tenth pit: falsifiers of +all sorts.—Griffolino of Arezzo.—Capocchio. +</p> + +<p> +The many people and the diverse wounds had so inebriated mine eyes that they +were fain to stay for weeping. But Virgil said to me, “What art thou +still watching? why is thy sight still fixed down there among the dismal +mutilated shades? Thou hast not done so at the other pits; consider if thou +thinkest to count them, that the valley circles two and twenty miles; and +already the moon is beneath our feet; the time is little now that is conceded +to us, and other things are to be seen than thou seest.” “If thou +hadst,” replied I thereupon, “attended to the reason why I was +looking perhaps thou wouldst have permitted me yet to stay.” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile my Leader went on, and I behind him went, already waking reply, and +adding, “Within that cavern where I just now was holding my eyes so +fixedly, I think that a spirit of my own blood weeps the sin that down there +costs so dear.” Then said the Master, “Let not thy thought +henceforth reflect on him; attend to other thing, and let him there remain, for +I saw him at the foot of the little bridge pointing at thee, and threatening +fiercely with his finger, and I heard him called Geri del Bello.[1] Thou wert +then so completely engaged on him who of old held Hautefort[2] that thou didst +not look that way till he had departed.” “O my Leader,” said +I, “the violent death which is not yet avenged for him by any who is +sharer in the shame made him indignant, wherefore, as I deem, he went on +without speaking to me, and thereby has he made me pity him the more.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A cousin or uncle of Dante’s father, of whom little is known but what +may be inferred from Dante’s words and from the place he assigns him in +Hell. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Bertran de Born, lord of Hautefort. +</p> + +<p> +Thus we spake far as the place on the crag which first shows the next valley, +if more light were there, quite to the bottom. When we were above the last +cloister of Malebolge so that its lay brothers could appear to our sight, +divers lamentations pierced me, that had their arrows barbed with pity; +wherefore I covered my ears with my hands. +</p> + +<p> +Such pain as there would be if, between July and September, from the hospitals +of Valdichiana and of Maremma and of Sardinia[1] the sick should all be in one +ditch together, such was there here; and such stench came forth therefrom, as +is wont to come from putrescent limbs. We descended upon the last bank of the +long crag, ever to the left hand, and then my sight became more vivid down +toward the bottom, where the ministress of the High Lord—infallible +Justice—punishes the falsifiers whom on earth she registers. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Unhealthy regions, noted for the prevalence of malarial fevers in summer. +</p> + +<p> +I do not think it was a greater sorrow to see the whole people in Egina sick, +when the air was so full of pestilence that the animals, even to the little +worm, all fell dead (and afterwards the ancient people, according as the poets +hold for sure, were restored by seed of ants), than it was to see the spirits +languishing in different heaps through that dark valley. This one over the +belly, and that over the shoulders of another was lying, and this one, +crawling, was shifting himself along the dismal path. Step by step we went +without speech, looking at and listening to the sick, who could not lift their +persons. +</p> + +<p> +I saw two seated leaning on each other, as pan is leaned against pan to warm, +spotted from head to foot with scabs; and never did I see currycomb plied by a +boy for whom his lord is waiting nor by one who keeps awake unwillingly, as +each often plied the bite of his nails upon himself, because of the great rage +of his itching which has no other relief. And the nails dragged down the scab, +even as a knife the scales of bream or of other fish that may have them larger. +</p> + +<p> +“O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thyself,” began my +Leader unto one of them, “and who sometimes makest pincers of them, tell +me if any Latian[1] is among those who are here within: so may thy nails +suffice thee eternally for this work.” “Latians are we whom here +thou seest so defaced, both of us,” replied one weeping, “but thou, +who art thou that hast asked of us?” And the Leader said, “I am one +that descends with this living man down from ledge to ledge, and I intend to +show Hell to him.” Then their mutual support was broken; and trembling +each turned to me, together with others that heard him by rebound. The good +Master inclined himself wholly toward me, saying, “Say to them what thou +wilt;” and I began, since he was willing, “So may memory of you not +steal away in the first world from human minds, but may it live under many +suns, tell me who ye are, and of what race; let not your disfiguring and +loathsome punishment fright you from disclosing yourselves unto me.” +“I was from Arezzo,” replied one of them,[2] “and Albero of +Siena had me put in the fire; but that for which I died brings me not here. +True it is that I said to him, speaking in jest, I knew how to raise myself +through the air in flight, and he, who had vain desire and little wit, wished +that I should show him the art, and only because I did not make him Daedalus, +made me be burned by one[3] that held him as a son; but to the last pit of the +ten, for the alchemy that I practiced in the world, Minos, to whom it is not +allowed to err, condemned me.” And I said to the Poet, “Now was +ever people so vain as the Sienese? surely not so the French by much.” +Whereon the other leprous one, who heard me, replied to my words, +“Except[4] Stricca who knew how to make moderate expenditure, and +Niccolo, who first invented the costly custom of the clove[5] in the garden +where such seed takes root; and except the brigade in which Caccia of Asciano +wasted his vineyard and his great wood, and the Abbagliato showed his wit. But +that thou mayest know who thus seconds thee against the Sienese, so sharpen +thine eye toward me that my face may answer well to thee, so shalt thou see +that I am the shade of Capocchio, who falsified the metals by alchemy; and thou +shouldst recollect, if I descry thee aright, how I was a good ape of +nature.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Italian. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] This is supposed to be one Griffolino, of whom nothing is known but what +Dante tells. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The Bishop of Siena. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Ironical; these youths all being members of the company known as the +brigata godereccia or spendereccia, the joyous or spendthrift brigade. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] The use of rich and expensive spices in cookery. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXX"></a>CANTO XXX.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Eighth Circle: tenth pit: falsifiers of all sorts.—Myrrha.—Gianni +Schicchi.—Master Adam.—Sinon of Troy. +</p> + +<p> +At the time when Juno was wroth because of Semele against the Theban blood, as +she showed more than once, Athamas became so insane, that seeing his wife come +laden on either hand with her two sons, cried out, “Spread we the nets, +so that I may take the lioness and the young lions at the pass,” and then +he stretched out his pitiless talons, taking the one who was named Learchus, +and whirled him and struck him on a rock; and she drowned herself with her +other burden. And when Fortune turned downward the all-daring loftiness of the +Trojans, so that together with the kingdom the king was undone, Hecuba, sad, +wretched, and captive, when she saw Polyxena dead, and woeful descried her +Polydorus on the sea-bank, frantic, barked like a dog,—to such degree had +grief distraught her mind. +</p> + +<p> +But neither the furies of Thebes, nor the Trojan, were ever seen toward any one +so cruel, whether in goading beasts or human limbs,[1] as I saw two shades +pallid and naked who, biting, were running in the way that a boar does when +from the sty he breaks loose. One came at Capocchio, and on the nape of his +neck struck his teeth, so that dragging him he made his belly scratch along the +solid bottom. And the Aretine,[2] who remained trembling, said to me, +“That goblin is Gianni Schicchi, and rabid he goes thus maltreating +others.” “Oh,” said I to him, “so may time other not +fix his teeth on thee, let it not weary thee to tell who it is ere it start +hence.” And he to me, “That is the ancient soul of profligate +Myrrha, who became her father’s lover beyond rightful love. She came to +sinning with him by falsifying herself in another’s form, even as the +other, who goes off there, undertook, in order to gain the lady of the herd,[3] +to counterfeit Buoso Donati, making a will and giving to the will due +form.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] No mad rages were ever so merciless as those of these furious spirits. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Griffolino. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Buoso Donati had died without making a will, whereupon his nephew suborned +Gianni Schicchi to personate the dead man in bed, and to dictate a will in his +favor. This Gianni did, but with a clause leaving to himself a favorite mare of +Buoso’s, the best in all Tuscany. +</p> + +<p> +And after the two rabid ones upon whom I had kept my eye had disappeared, I +turned it to look at the other miscreants. I saw one made in fashion of a lute, +had he but only had his groin cut off at the part where man is forked. The +heavy hydropsy which, with the humor that it ill digests, so unmates the +members that the face corresponds not with the belly, was making him hold his +lips open as the hectic does, who for thirst turns one toward his chin, the +other upward. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh ye, who are without any punishment, and I know not why, in the dismal +world,” said he to us, “look and attend to the misery of Master +Adam. Living, I had enough of what I wished, and now, alas! I long for a drop +of water. The rivulets that from the green hills of the Casentino descend into +the Arno, making their channels cool and soft, stand ever before me, and not in +vain; for their image dries me up far more than the disease which strips my +face of flesh. The rigid justice that scourges me draws occasion from the place +where I sinned to put my sighs the more in flight. There is Romena, where I +falsified the alloy stamped with the Baptist,[1] for which on earth I left my +body burned. But if here I could see the wretched soul of Guido or of +Alessandro, or of their brother,[2] for Fount Branda[3] I would not give the +sight. One of them is here within already, if the rating shades who go around +speak true. But what does it avail me who have my limbs bound? If I were only +yet so light that in a hundred years I could go an inch, I should already have +set out along the path, seeking for him among this disfigured folk, although it +circles round eleven miles, and is not less than half a mile across. Because of +them I am among such a family; they induced me to strike the forms that had +full three carats of base metal.” And I to him, “Who are the two +poor wretches that are smoking like a wet hand in winter, lying close to your +confines on the right?” “Here I found them,” he answered, +“when I rained down into this trough, and they have not since given a +turn, and I do not believe they will give one to all eternity. One is the false +woman that accused Joseph, the other is the false Sinon the Greek, from Troy; +because of their sharp fever they throw out such great reek.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The florin which bore on the obverse the figure of John the Baptist, the +protecting saint of Florence. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Counts of Romena. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The noted fountain in Siena, or perhaps one in Romena. +</p> + +<p> +And one of them who took it ill perchance at being named so darkly, with his +fist struck him on his stiff paunch; it sounded as if it were a drum; and +Master Adam struck him on the face with his arm that did not seem less hard, +saying to him, “Though, because of my heavy limbs, moving hence be taken +from me, I have an arm free for such need.” Whereon he replied, +“When thou wast going to the fire thou hadst it not thus ready, but so +and more thou hadst it when thou wast coining.” And the hydropic, +“Thou sayst true in this, but thou wast not so true a witness there where +thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy.” “If I spake false, thou +didst falsify the coin,” said Sinon, “and I am here for a single +sin, and thou for more than any other demon.” “Remember, perjured +one, the horse,” answered he who had the puffed up paunch, “and be +it ill for thee that the whole world knows it.” “And be ill for +thee the thirst which cracks thy tongue,” said the Greek, “and the +putrid water that makes thy belly thus a hedge before thine eyes.” Then +the coiner, “So yawns thy mouth for its own harm as it is wont, for if I +am thirsty, and humor stuffs me out, thou hast the burning, and the head that +pains thee, and to lick the mirror of Narcissus thou wouldst not want many +words of invitation.” +</p> + +<p> +To listen to them was I wholly fixed, when the Master said to me, “Now +then look, for it wants but little that I quarrel with thee.” When I +heard him speak to me with anger, I turned me toward him with such shame that +still it circles through my memory. And as is he that dreams of his harm, and, +dreaming, desires to dream, so that that which is he craves as if it were not, +such I became, not being able to speak, for I desired to excuse myself, and I +was indeed excusing myself, and did not think that I was doing it. “Less +shame doth wash away a greater fault than thine hath been,” said the +Master; therefore disburden thyself of all regret, and make reckoning that I am +always at thy side, if again it happen that fortune find thee where people are +in similar brawl; for the wish to hear it is a base wish.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXXI"></a>CANTO XXXI.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +The Giants around the Eighth +Circle.—Nimrod.—Ephialtes.—Antaeus sets the Poets down in the +Ninth Circle. +</p> + +<p> +One and the same tongue first stung me, so that it tinged both my cheeks, and +then supplied the medicine to me. Thus do I hear[1] that the lance of Achilles +and of his father was wont to be cause first of a sad and then of a good gift. +We turned our back to the wretched valley,[2] up along the bank that girds it +round, crossing without any speech. Here it was less than night and less than +day, so that my sight went little forward; but I heard a horn sounding so loud +that it would have made every thunder faint, which directed my eyes, following +its course counter to it,[3] wholly to one place. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Probably from Ovid, who more than once refers to the magic power of the +spear which had been given to Peleus by Chiron. Shakespeare too had heard of +it, and applies it, precisely as Dante does, to one +</p> + +<p> + Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles’ spear,<br/> + Is able with the charge to kill and cure.<br/> + 2 Henry VI. v. i. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The tenth and last pit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] My eyes went in the direction whence the sound came. +</p> + +<p> +After the dolorous rout when Charlemagne lost the holy gest, Roland sounded not +so terribly.[1] Shortwhile did I carry my head turned thitherward, when it +seemed to me I saw many high towers; whereon I, “Master, say, what city +is this?” And he to me, “Because too far away thou peerest through +the darkness, it happens that thou dost err in thy imagining. Thou shalt see +well, if thou arrivest there, how much the sense at distance is deceived; +therefore somewhat more spur thyself on.” Then tenderly he took me by the +hand, and said, “Before we go further forward, in order that the fact may +seem less strange to thee, know that they are not towers, but giants, and they +are in the abyss[2] round about the bank, from the navel downward, one and all +of them.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] At Roncesvalles. +</p> + +<p> + Rollanz ad mis l’olifan a sa buche,<br/> + Empeint le bien, par grant vertut le sunet.<br/> + Halt sunt li pui e la voiz est mult lunge,<br/> + Granz xxx. liwes l’oirent-il respundre,<br/> + Carles l’oit e ses cumpaignes tutes. +</p> + +<p> + Chanson de Roland, 1753-57. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The central deep of Hell, dividing the eighth circle from the +ninth,—the lowest. +</p> + +<p> +As when the mist is dissipating, the look little by little shapes out what the +vapor that thickens the air conceals, so, as I pierced the gross and dark air +as we drew nearer and nearer to the verge, error fled from me and fear grew +upon me. For as above its circular enclosure Montereggione[1] crowns itself +with towers, so with half their body the horrible giants, whom Jove still +threatens from heaven when he thunders, betowered the bank that surrounds the +abyss. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The towers of Montereggione in ruin still crown its broken wall, and may be +seen from the railroad not far from Siena, on the way to Florence. +</p> + +<p> +And I discerned now the face of one, his shoulders, and his breast, and great +part of his belly, and down along his sides both his arms. Nature, surely, when +she left the art of such like creatures, did exceeding well in taking such +executers from Mars; and if she repent not of elephants and of whales, he who +looks subtly holds her more just and more discreet therefor;[1] for where the +faculty of the mind is added to evil will and to power, the human race can make +no defense against it. His face seemed to me long and huge as the pine-cone[2] +of St. Peter at Rome, and in its proportion were his other bones; so that the +bank, which was an apron from his middle downward, showed of him fully so much +above, that to reach to his hair three Frieslanders[3] would have made ill +vaunt. For I saw of him thirty great palms down from the place where one +buckles his cloak. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] For no longer creating giants. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Of bronze, that came from the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and in Dante’s +time stood in the fore-court of St. Peter’s, and is now in the Vatican +gardens. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Supposed to be tall men. +</p> + +<p> +“Raphel mai amech zabi almi,” the fierce mouth, to which sweeter +psalms were not befitting, began to cry. And my Leader toward him, +“Foolish soul! Keep to thy horn, and with that vent thyself when anger or +other passion touches thee; seek at thy neck, and thou wilt find the cord that +holds it tied, O soul confused! and see it lying athwart thy great +breast.” Then he said to me, “He himself accuses himself; this is +Nimrod, because of whose evil thought the world uses not one language only. Let +us leave him, and let us not speak in vain, for so is every language to him, as +his to others, which to no one is known.” +</p> + +<p> +Then turning to the left, we pursued our way, and at a crossbow’s shot we +found the next, far more fierce and larger. Who the master was for binding him +I cannot tell; but he had his right arm fastened behind, and the other in +front, by a chain that held him entwined from the neck downward, so that upon +his uncovered part it was wound as far as the fifth coil. “This proud one +wished to make trial of his power against the supreme Jove,” said my +Leader, “wherefore he has such reward; Ephialtes[1] is his name, and he +made his great endeavors when the giants made the Gods afraid; the arms which +he plied he moves nevermore.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Iphimedeia bore to Poseidon two sons, “but they were short- lived, +godlike Otus and far-famed Ephialtes whom the fruitful Earth nourished to be +the tallest and much the most beautiful of mortals except renowned Orion, for +at nine years old they were nine cubits in breadth, and nine fathoms tall. They +even threatened the immortals, raising the din of tumultuous war on Olympus, +and strove to set Ossa upon Olympus and wood-clad Pelion upon Ossa, in order to +scale heaven. But Jove destroyed them both.” Odyssey, xi. 306-317. +</p> + +<p> +And I to him, “If it may be, I should like my eyes to have experience of +the huge Briareus.”[1] Whereon he answered, “Thou shalt see +Antaeus close at hand here, who speaks, and is unbound,[2] and will set us at +the bottom of all sin. Him whom thou wishest to see is much farther on, and is +bound and fashioned like this one, save that he seems more ferocious in his +look.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] “Him of the hundred hands whom the Gods call Briareus.” Iliad, +i. 402. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Because he took no part in the war of his brethren against the Gods. What +Dante tells of him is derived from Lucan, Pharsalia, iv. 597 sqq. +</p> + +<p> +Never was earthquake so mighty that it shook a tower as violently as Ephialtes +was quick to shake himself. Then more than ever did I fear death; and there had +been no need of more than the fright, if I had not seen his bonds. We then +proceeded further forward, and came to Antaeus, who full five ells, besides his +head, issued forth from the cavern. “O thou that, in the fateful valley +which made Scipio the heir of glory when Hannibal and his followers turned +their backs, didst bring of old a thousand lions for booty,—and it still +seems credible that hadst thou been at the high war of thy brothers, the sons +of the Earth would have conquered,—set us below, and disdain thou not to +do so, where the cold locks up Cocytus. Make us not go to Tityus, nor to +Typhon;[1] this one can give of that which here is longed for;[2] therefore +stoop, and curl not thy snout. He yet can restore fame to thee in the world; +for he is living, and still expects long life, if Grace doth not untimely call +him to itself.” Thus said the Master; and he in haste stretched out those +hands, whose strong grip Hercules once felt, and took my Leader. Virgil, when +he felt himself taken up, said to me, “Come hither so that I take +thee.” Then he made one bundle of himself and me. As beneath its leaning +side, the Carisenda[3] seems to look when a cloud is going over so that the +tower hangs counter to it, thus seemed Antaeus to me that stood attent to see +him bend; and it was a moment when I could have wished to go by another road. +But lightly on the bottom that swallows Lucifer with Judas he set us down; nor, +thus bent, did he there make stay, and like a mast in a ship he raised himself. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Lucan (Phars. iv. 600), naming these giants, says they were less strong +than Antaeus; wherefore there is subtle flattery in these words of Virgil. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] To be remembered on earth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The more inclined of the two famous leaning towers at Bologna. As the cloud +goes over it, the tower seems to bend to meet it. So Coleridge in his Ode to +Dejection: +</p> + +<p> + And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,<br/> + That give sway their motion to the stars. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXXII"></a>CANTO XXXII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Ninth Circle: traitors. First ring: Caina.—Counts of +Mangona.—Camicion de’ Pazzi.—Second ring: +Antenora.—Bocca degli Abati.—Buoso da Duera.—Count Ugolino. +</p> + +<p> +If I had rhymes both harsh and raucous, such as would befit the dismal hole on +which thrust[1] all the other rocks, I would press out the juice of my +conception more fully; but since I have them not, not without fear I bring +myself to speak; for to describe the bottom of the whole universe is no +enterprise to take up in jest, nor a tongue that cries mamma or babbo. But may +those Dames aid my verse who aided Amphion to close in Thebes; so that from the +fact the speech be not diverse. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Rest their weight. +</p> + +<p> +O populace miscreant above all, that art in the place whereof to speak is hard, +better had ye been here[1] or sheep or goats! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] On earth. +</p> + +<p> +When we were down in the dark abyss beneath the feet of the giant, but far +lower, and I was gazing still at the high wall, I heard say to me, +“Beware how thou steppest; take heed thou trample not with thy soles the +heads of the wretched weary brethren.” Whereat I turned, and saw before +me, and under my feet, a lake which through frost had semblance of glass and +not of water. +</p> + +<p> +The Danube in Austria makes not for its current so thick a veil in winter, nor +the Don yonder under the cold sky, as there was here; for if Tambernich[1] had +fallen thereupon, or Pietrapana,[2] it would not even at the edge have given a +creak. And as to croak the frog lies with muzzle out of the water, what time[3] +oft dreams the peasant girl of gleaning, so, livid up to where shame +appears,[4] were the woeful shades within the ice, setting their teeth to the +note of the stork.[5] Every one held his face turned downward; from the mouth +the cold, and from the eyes the sad heart compels witness of itself among them. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] A mountain, the locality of which is unknown. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] One of the Toscan Apennines. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] In summer. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] Up to the face. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] Chattering with cold. +</p> + +<p> +When I had looked round awhile, I turned to my feet, and saw two so close that +they had the hair of their heads mixed together. “Tell me, ye who so +press tight your breasts,” said I, “who are ye?” And they +bent their necks, and after they had raised their faces to rue, their eyes, +which before were moist only within, gushed up through the lids, and the frost +bound the tears between them, and locked them up again. Clamp never girt board +to board so strongly; wherefore they like two he goats butted together, such +anger overcame them. +</p> + +<p> +And one who had lost both his ears through the cold, still with his face +downward, said to me, “Why dost thou so mirror thyself on us? If thou +wouldst know who are these two, the valley whence the Bisenzio descends +belonged to their father Albert, and to them.[1] From one body they issued, and +all Caina[2] thou mayst search, and thou wilt not find shade more worthy to be +fixed in ice; not he whose breast and shadow were broken by one and the same +blow by the hand of Arthur;[3] not Focaccia;[4] not he who encumbers me with +his head, so that I cannot see beyond, and was named Sassol Mascheroni:[5] if +thou art Tuscan, well knowest thou now who he was. And that thou mayst not put +me to more speech, know that I was Camicion de’ Pazzi,[6] and I await +Carlino that he may exonerate me.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] They were of the Alberti, counts of Mangona, in Tuscany, and had killed +each other. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The first division of this ninth and lowest circle of Hell. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Mordred, the traitorous son of Arthur. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] From the crimes of Focaccia, a member of the great Cancellieri family of +Pistoia, began the feud of the Black and the White factions, which long raged +in Pistoia and in Florence. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] A Florentine who murdered his nephew for an inheritance. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[6] A murderer of one of his kinsmen, whose crime was surpassed by that of +Carlino de’ Pazzi, who, in 1302, betrayed a band of the Florentine exiles +who had taken refuge in a stronghold of his in Valdarno. +</p> + +<p> +Then I saw a thousand faces made currish by the cold, whence shuddering comes +to me, and will always come, at frozen pools. +</p> + +<p> +And while we were going toward the centre[1] to which tends every weight, and I +was trembling in the eternal shade, whether it was will or destiny, or fortune +I know not, but, walking among the heads, I struck my foot hard in the face of +one. Wailing he cried out to me, “Why dost thou trample me? If thou +comest not to increase the vengeance of Mont’ Aperti, why dost thou +molest me?” And I, “My Master, now wait here for me, so that I may +free me from a doubt by means of this one, then thou shalt make me hasten as +much as thou wilt.” The Leader stopped, and I said to that shade who was +bitterly blaspheming still, “Who art thou that thus railest at +another?” “Now thou, who art thou, that goest through the +Antenora,”[2] he answered, “smiting the cheeks of others, so that +if thou wert alive, it would be too much?” “Alive I am, and it may +be dear to thee,” was my reply, “if thou demandest fame, that I +should set thy name amid the other notes.” And he to me, “For the +contrary do I long; take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble, for ill +thou knowest to flatter on this plain.” Then I took him by the hair of +the crown, and said, “It shall needs be that thou name thyself, or that +not a hair remain upon thee here.” Whereon he to me, “Though thou +strip me of hair, I will not tell thee who I am, nor will I show it to thee if +a thousand times thou fallest on my head.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The centre of the earth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] The second division of the ninth circle; so named after the Trojan who, +though of good repute in Homer, was charged by a later tradition with having +betrayed Troy. +</p> + +<p> +I already had his hair twisted in my hand, and had pulled out more than one +shock, he barking, with his eyes kept close down, when another cried out, +“What ails thee, Bocca?[1] Is it not enough for thee to make music with +thy jaws, but thou must bark? What devil has hold of thee?” +“Now,” said I, “I would not have thee speak, accursed +traitor, for to thy shame will I carry true news of thee.” +“Begone,” he answered, “and relate what thou wilt, but be not +silent, if from here within thou goest forth, of him who now had his tongue so +ready. He weeps here the money of the French; I saw, thou canst say, him of +Duera,[2] there where the sinners stand cooling. Shouldst thou be asked who +else was there, thou hast at thy side that Beccheria[3] whose gorget Florence +cut. Gianni del Soldanier[4] I think is farther on with Ganellon[5] and +Tribaldello,[6] who opened Faenza when it was sleeping.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Bocca degli Abati, the most noted of Florentine traitors, who in the heat +of the battle of Mont’ Aperti, in 1260, cut off the hand of the +standard-bearer of the cavalry, so that the standard fell, and the Guelphs of +Florence, disheartened thereby, were put to rout with frightful slaughter. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Buoso da Duera of Cremona, who, for a bribe, let pass near Parma, without +resistance, the cavalry of Charles of Anjou, led by Gui de Montfort to the +conquest of Naples in 1265. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] Tesauro de’ Beccheria, Abbot of Vallombrosa, and Papal Legato, +beheaded by the Florentines in 1258, because of his treacherous dealings with +the exiled Ghibellines. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] A Ghibelline leader, who, after the defeat of Manfred in 1266, plotted +against his own party. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] Ganellon, the traitor who brought about the defeat at Roncesvalles. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[6] He betrayed Faenza to the French, in 1282. +</p> + +<p> +We had now parted from him when I saw two frozen in one hole, so that the head +of one was a hood for the other. And as bread is devoured in hunger, so the +uppermost one set his teeth upon the other where the brain joins with the nape. +Not otherwise Tydeus gnawed for spite the temples of Menalippus than this one +did the skull and the other parts. “O thou! that by so bestial a sign +showest hatred against him whom thou dost eat, tell me the wherefore,” +said I, “with this compact, that if thou rightfully of him complainest, +I, knowing who ye are, and his sin, may yet recompense thee for it in the world +above, if that with which I speak be not dried up.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXXIII"></a>CANTO XXXIII.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Ninth circle: traitors. Second ring: Antenora.—Count Ugolino.—Third +ring Ptolomaea.—Brother Alberigo. Branca d’ Oria. +</p> + +<p> +From his savage repast that sinner raised his mouth, wiping it with the hair of +the head that he had spoiled behind: then he began, “Thou willest that I +renew a desperate grief that oppresses my heart already only in thinking ere I +speak of it. But, if my words are to be seed that may bear fruit of infamy for +the traitor whom I gnaw, thou shalt see me speak and weep at once. I know not +who thou art, nor by what mode thou art come down hither, but Florentine thou +seemest to me truly when I hear thee. Thou hast to know that I was the Count +Ugolino and he the Archbishop Ruggieri.[1] Now will I tell thee why I am such a +neighbor. That by the effect of his evil thoughts, I, trusting to him, was +taken and then put to death, there is no need to tell. But that which thou +canst not have heard, namely, how cruel was my death, thou shalt hear, and +shalt know if he hath wronged me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In July, 1288, Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico, head of a +faction of the Guelphs in Pisa, in order to deprive Nino of Gallura, head of +the opposing faction, of the lordship of the city, treacherously joined forces +with the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, head of the Ghibellines, and drove +Nino and his followers from the city. The archbishop thereupon took advantage +of the weakening of the Guelphs and excited the populace against Ugolino, +charging him with having for a bribe restored to Florence and Lucca some of +their towns of which the Pisans had made themselves masters. He, with his +followers, attacked Count Ugolino in his house, took him prisoner, with two of +his sons and two of his grandsons, and shut them up in the Tower of the +Gualandi, where in the following March, on the arrival of Count Guido da +Montefeltro (see Canto xvii), as Captain of Pisa, they were starved to death. +</p> + +<p> +“A narrow slit in the mew, which from me has the name of Famine, and in +which others yet must be shut up, had already shown me through its opening many +moons, when I had the bad dream that rent for me the veil of the future. +“This one appeared to me master and lord, chasing the wolf and his whelps +upon the mountain[1] for which the Pisans cannot see Lucca. With lean, eager, +and trained hounds, Gualandi with Sismondi and with Lanfranchi[2] he had put +before him at the front. After short course, the father and his sons seemed to +me weary, and it seemed to me I saw their flanks torn by the sharp fangs. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Monte San Giuliano. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Three powerful Ghibelline families of Pisa. +</p> + +<p> +“When I awoke before the morrow, I heard my sons, who were with me, +wailing in their sleep, and asking for bread. Truly thou art cruel if already +thou grievest not, thinking on what my heart foretold; and if thou weepest not, +at what art thou wont to weep? Now they were awake, and the hour drew near when +food was wont to be brought to us, and because of his dream each one was +apprehensive. And I heard the door below of the horrible tower locking up; +whereat I looked on the faces of my sons without saying a word. I wept not, I +was so turned to stone within. They wept; and my poor little Anselm said, +‘Thou lookest so, father, what aileth thee?’ Yet I did not weep; +nor did I answer all that day, nor the night after, until the next sun came out +upon the world. When a little ray entered the woeful prison, and I discerned by +their four faces my own very aspect, both my hands I bit for woe; and they, +thinking I did it through desire of eating, of a sudden rose, and said, +‘Father, it will be far less pain to us if thou eat of us; thou didst +clothe us with this wretched flesh, and do thou strip it off.’ I quieted +me then, not to make them more sad: that day and the next we all stayed dumb. +Ah, thou hard earth! why didst thou not open? After we had come to the fourth +day, Gaddo threw himself stretched out at my feet, saying, ‘My father, +why dost thou not help me?’ Here he died: and, even as thou seest me, I +saw the three fall one by one between the fifth day and the sixth; then I +betook me, already blind, to groping over each, and two days I called them +after they were dead: then fasting had more power than grief.” +</p> + +<p> +When he had said this, with his eyes distorted, he seized again the wretched +skull with his teeth, that were strong as a dog’s upon the bone. +</p> + +<p> +Ah Pisa! reproach of the people of the fair country where the si doth sound,[1] +since thy neighbors are slow to punish thee, let Caprara and Gorgona[2] move +and make a hedge for Arno at its mouth, so that it drown every person in thee; +for if Count Ugolino had repute of having betrayed thee in thy towns, thou +oughtest not to have set his sons on such a cross. Their young age, thou modern +Thebes! made Uguccione and the Brigata innocent, and the other two that the +song names above. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Italy, whose language Dante calls il volgare di ci. (Convito, i. 10.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Two little islands not far from the mouth of the Arno, on whose banks Pisa +lies. +</p> + +<p> +We passed onward to where the ice roughly enswathes another folk, not turned +downward, but all upon their backs. Their very weeping lets them not weep, and +the pain that finds a barrier on the eyes turns inward to increase the anguish; +for the first tears form a block, and like a visor of crystal fill all the cup +beneath the eyebrow. +</p> + +<p> +And although, because of the cold, as from a callus, all feeling had left its +abode in my face, it now seemed to me I felt some wind, wherefore I, “My +Master, who moves this? Is not every vapor[1] quenched here below?” +Whereon he to me, “Speedily shalt thou be where thine eye shall make +answer to thee of this, beholding the cause that rains down the blast.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Wind being supposed to be cansed by the action of the sun on the vapors of +the atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +And one of the wretches of the cold crust cried out to us, “O souls so +cruel that the last station is given to you, lift from my eyes the hard veils, +so that I may vent the grief that swells my heart, a little ere the weeping +re-congeal!” Wherefore I to him, “If thou wilt that I relieve thee, +tell me who thou art, and if I rid thee not, may it be mine to go to the bottom +of the ice.” He replied then, “I am friar Alberigo;[1] I am he of +the fruits of the bad garden, and here I receive a date for a fig.”[2] +“Oh!” said I to him; “art thou now already dead?” And +he to me, “How it may go with my body in the world above I bear no +knowledge. Such vantage hath this Ptolomaea[3] that oftentime the soul falls +hither ere Atropos hath given motion to it.[4] And that thou may the more +willingly scrape the glassy tears from my face, know that soon as the soul +betrays, as I did, its body is taken from it by a demon, who thereafter governs +it until its time be all revolved. The soul falls headlong into this cistern, +and perchance the body of the shade that here behind me winters still appears +above; thou oughtest to know him if thou comest down but now. He is Ser Branca +d’ Oria,[5] and many years have passed since he was thus shut up.” +“I think,” said I to him, “that thou deceivest me, for Branca +d’ Oria is not yet dead, and he eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on +clothes.” “In the ditch of the Malebranche above,” he said, +“there where the tenacious pitch is boiling, Michel Zanche had not yet +arrived when this one left in his own stead a devil in his body, and in that of +one of his near kin, who committed the treachery together with him. But now +stretch out hither thy hand; open my eyes for me.” And I opened them not +for him, and to be rude to him was courtesy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Alberigo de’ Manfredi, of Faenza; one of the Jovial Friars (see Canto +xxiii). Having received a blow from one of his kinsmen, he pretended to forgive +it, and invited him and his son to a feast. Toward the end of the meal he gave +a preconcerted signal by calling out, “Bring the fruit,” upon which +his emissaries rushed in and killed the two guests. The “fruit of Brother +Alberigo” became a proverb. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] A fig is the cheapest of Tuscan fruits; the imported date is more costly. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[3] The third ring of ice, named for that Ptolemy of Jericho who slew his +father-in-law, the high-priest Simon, and his sons (1 Maccabees wi. 11-16). +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4] That is, before its life on earth is ended. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[5] Murderer, in 1275, of his father-in-law, Michel Zanche. Already heard of in +the fifth pit (Canto xxii. 88). +</p> + +<p> +Ah Genoese! men strange to all morality and full of all corruption, why are ye +not scattered from the world? For with the worst spirit of Romagna I found one +of you such that for his deeds in soul he is bathed in Cocytus, and in body he +seems still alive on earth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="cantoI.XXXIV"></a>CANTO XXXIV.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Ninth Circle: traitors. Fourth ring: Judecca.—Lucifer.—Judas, +Brutus and Cassius.—Centre of the universe.—Passage from +Hell.—Ascent to the surface of the Southern Hemisphere. +</p> + +<p> +“Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni,[1] toward us; therefore look in +front,” said my Master; “if thou discernest him.” As a mill +that the wind turns seems from afar when a thick fog breathes, or when our +hemisphere grows dark with night, such a structure then it seemed to me I saw. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] “The banners of the King of Hell advance.” Vexilla Regis +prodeunt are the first words of a hymn in honor of the Cross, sung at vespers +on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and on Monday of Holy Week. +</p> + +<p> +Then, because of the wind, I drew me behind my Leader; for there was no other +shelter. I was now, and with fear I put it in verse, there[1] where the shades +were wholly covered, and showed through like a straw in glass. Some are lying; +some stand erect, this on his head, and that on his soles; another like a bow +inverts his face to his feet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] In the fourth, innermost ring of ice of the ninth circle, the Judecca. +</p> + +<p> +When we had gone so far forward that it pleased my Master to show me the +creature that had the fair semblance, from before me he took himself and made +me stop, saying, “Behold Dis, and behold the place where it is needful +that with fortitude thou arm thee.” How I became then chilled and hoarse, +ask it not, Reader, for I write it not, because all speech would be little. I +did not die, and I did not remain alive. Think now for thyself, if thou hast +grain of wit, what I became, deprived of one and the other. +</p> + +<p> +The emperor of the woeful realm from his midbreast issued forth from the ice; +and I match better with a giant, than the giants do with his arms. See now how +great must be that whole which corresponds to such parts. If he was as fair as +he now is foul, and against his Maker lifted up his brow, surely may all +tribulation proceed from him. Oh how great a marvel it seemed to me, when I saw +three faces on his head! one in front, and that was red; the others were two +that were joined to this above the very middle of each shoulder, and they were +joined together at the place of the crest; and the right seemed between white +and yellow, the left was such to sight as those who come from where the Nile +flows valleyward. Beneath each came forth two great wings, of size befitting so +huge a bird. Sails of the sea never saw I such. They had no feathers, but their +fashion was of a bat; and he was flapping them so that three winds went forth +from him, whereby Cocytus was all congealed. With six eyes he was weeping, and +over three chins trickled the tears and bloody drivel. With each mouth he was +crushing a sinner with his teeth, in manner of a brake, so that he thus was +making three of them woeful. To the one in front the biting was nothing to the +clawing, so that sometimes his spine remained all stripped of skin. +</p> + +<p> +“That soul up there which has the greatest punishment,” said the +Master, “is Judas Iscariot, who has his head within, and plies his legs +outside. Of the other two who have their heads down, he who hangs from the +black muzzle is Brutus; see how he writhes and says no word; and the other is +Cassius, who seems so large-limbed. But the night is rising again, and now we +must depart, for we have seen the whole.” +</p> + +<p> +As was his pleasure, I clasped his neck, and he took opportunity of time and +place, and when the wings were opened wide he caught hold on the shaggy flanks; +from shag to shag he then descended between the bushy hair and the frozen +crusts. When we were just where the thigh turns on the thick of the haunch, my +Leader, with effort and stress of breath, turned his head where he had his +shanks, and clambered by the hair as a man that ascends, so that I thought to +return again to hell. +</p> + +<p> +“Cling fast hold,” said the Master, panting like one weary, +“for by such stairs it behoves to depart from so much evil.” Then +he came forth through the opening of a rock, and placed me upon its edge to +sit; then stretched toward me his cautious step. +</p> + +<p> +I raised my eyes, and thought to see Lucifer as I had left him, and I saw him +holding his legs upward. And if I then became perplexed, let the dull folk +think it that see not what that point is that I had passed.[1] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] This point is the centre of the universe; when Virgil had turned upon the +haunch of Lucifer, the passage had been made from one hemisphere of the +earth—the inhabited and known hemisphere— to the other where no +living men dwell, and where the only land is the mountain of Purgatory. In +changing one hemisphere for the other there is a change of time of twelve +hours. A second Saturday morning begins for the poets, and they pass nearly as +long a time as they have been in Hell, that is, twenty-four hours, in +traversing the long and hard way that leads through the new hemisphere on which +they have just entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Rise up,” said the Master, “on thy feet; the way is long and +the road is difficult, and already the sun unto mid-tierce[1] returns.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[2] Tierce is the church office sung at the third hour of the day, and the name +is given to the first three hours after sunrise. Midtierce consequently here +means about half-past seven o’clock. In Hell Dante never mentions the sun +to mark division of time, but now, having issued from Hell, Virgil marks the +hour by a reference to the sun. +</p> + +<p> +It was no hallway of a palace where we were, but a natural dungeon that had a +bad floor, and lack of light. “Before I tear me from the abyss,” +said I when I had risen up, “my Master, speak a little to me to draw me +out of error. Where is the ice? and this one, how is he fixed thus upside down? +and how in such short while has the sun from eve to morn made transit?” +And he to me, “Thou imaginest that thou still art on the other side of +the centre where I laid hold on the hair of the guilty Worm that pierces the +world. On that side wast thou so long as I descended; when I turned thou didst +pass the point to which from all parts whatever has weight is drawn; and thou +art now arrived beneath the hemisphere opposite to that which the great dry +land covers, and beneath whose zenith the Man was slain who was born and lived +without sin. Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere which forms the other +face of the Judecca. Here it is morning when there it is evening; and he who +made for us a stairway with his hair is still fixed even as he was before. Upon +this side he fell down from heaven, and the earth, which before was spread out +here, through fear of him made of the sea a veil, and came to your hemisphere; +and perchance to flee from him that land[1] which on this side appears left +here this empty space and upward ran back.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] The Mount of Purgatory. +</p> + +<p> +A place is there below, stretching as far from Beelzebub as his tomb +extends,[1] which not by sight is known, but by the sound of a rivulet that +here descends along the hollow of a rock that it has gnawed with its course +that winds and little falls. My Leader and I entered through that hidden way, +to return to the bright world. And without care, to have any repose, we mounted +up, he first and I second, till through a round opening I saw of those +beauteous things which heaven bears, and thence we came forth to see again the +stars. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[1] Hell is his tomb; this vacant dark passage through the opposite hemisphere +is, of course, of the same depth as Hell from surface to centre. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVINE COMEDY, HELL ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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