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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

[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.

“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.”

Then he turned back and repassed the ford.

CANTO XIII.

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.

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.

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.

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]

[1] Things which if told would seem incredible.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

[1] In the story of Polydorus, in the third book of the Aeneid.

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.”

[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.

[3] Envie ys lavendere of the court alway;

For she ne parteth neither nyght ne day

Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Daunte.

Legende of Goode Women, 358.60.

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.”

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.”

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.”

[1] The tearing of the leaves gives an outlet to the woe.

[2] Our bodies, at the Last Judgment.

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.

[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.

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.”

[1] The first patron of florence was Mars; a fragment of a statue of

whom stood till 1333 on the Ponte Vecchio.

[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.

CANTO XIV.

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.

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.

Then we came to the confine, where the second round is divided from the

third, and where is seen a horrible mode of justice.

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.

O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest to be feared by every one

who readeth that which was manifest unto mine eyes!

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

[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.”

[2] The crossing of the breadth of the round of burning sand, on the

way inward toward the next circle.

“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.

“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.”

[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.

And I to him, “If the present rill floweth down thus from our world,

why doth it appear to us only at this rim?”

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.”

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?”

“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.”

CANTO XV.

Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to

Nature.—Brunetto Latini.—Prophecies of misfortune to Dante.

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.

[1] The mountain range north of the Brenta, by the floods from which

the river is swollen in the spring.

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.

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.”

[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.

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?”

“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.”

[1] Dante never speaks Virgil’s name in Hell.

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.”

[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.

“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]

[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.

[2] The churl of Fiesole.

My Master then upon his right side turned himself back, and looked at

me; then said, “He listens well who notes it.”

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.”

[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.

[2] Andrea de Mozzi, bishop of Florence, translated by Boniface VIII.

to Viceuza, near which the Bacchiglione runs. He died in 1296.

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.

[1] The prize in the annual races at Verona.

CANTO XVI.

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.

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!”

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.

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.”

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.

“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.

[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.

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.”

“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.”

[1] Nothing is known from contemporary record of Borsiere, but

Boccaccio tells a story of him in the Decameron, giorn. i. nov. 8.

“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.

[1] Florence had grown rapidly in population and in wealth during the

last years of the thirteenth century.

“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.

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.

[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.

[2] These last words are obscure, and none of the commentators explain

them satisfactorily.

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.”

[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.

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.”

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.

[1] Because the narrator is falsely taxed with falsehood.

CANTO XVII.

Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to

Art.—Geryon.—The Usurers.—Descent to the Eighth Circle.

“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.

[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.

[2] The stony margin of Phlegethon, on which Virgil and Dante have

crossed the sand.

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.

[1] With his tail in the water to catch his prey, as was popularly

believed.

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]

[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.)

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.”

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.

[1] The falling flames.

[2] Dante thus indicates that they were not worthy to be known.

[3] The blazon of their arms, by which Dante learns who they are.

[4] This was the device of the Gianfigliazzi, a Guelph family of

Florence; the next was that of the Ubriachi, Ghibellines, also of

Florence.

[5] Arms of the Scrovigni of Padua.

[6] One Giovanni Buiamonte of Florence, “who surpassed all others of

the time in usury,” says Benvenuto da Imola.

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.”

[1] Not by foot, nor by boat as heretofore, but carried by living

ministers of Hell.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

CANTO XVIII.

Eighth Circle: the first pit: panders and seducers.—Venedico

Caccianimico.—Jason.—Second pit: false flatterers.—Alessio

Interminei.—Thais.

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.

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]

[1] Bolgia, literally, budget, purse, sack, here used for circular

valley, or pit.

[2] The year 1299-1300, from Christmas to Easter.

[3] Of Sant’ Angelo.

[4] The Capitoline.

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.

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?”

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.”

[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.

[2] Bologna lies between the Savena and the Reno; sipa is the Bolognese

form of sia, or si.

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.

[1] Forming a bridge, thrown like an arch across the pit.

[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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

[1] Of him nothing is known but what these words tell.

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.

[1] These words are derived from Terence, Eunuchus, act iii. sc. 1.

CANTO XIX.

Eighth Circle third pit: simonists.—Pope Nicholas III.

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!

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!

[1] The next bolgia or pit.

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.

[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.

“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.”

[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.

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.

“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.

[1] Such criminals were not infrequently punished by being set, head

downwards, in a hole in which they were buried alive.

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?”

[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.

[2] The Church, to which Boniface did outrage in many forms; but worst

by his simoniacal practices.

Such I became as those that, not comprehending that which is replied to

them, stand as if mocked, and know not what to answer.

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]

[1] Nicholas was of the Orsini family.

[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.

[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.

[4] “He who rules France” was Philip the Fair.

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]

[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.

[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.

[3] The reference is to the so-called Donation of Constantine, the

reality of which was generally accepted till long after Dante’s time.

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.

CANTO XX.

Eighth Circle: fourth pit: diviners, soothsayers, and

magicians.—Amphiaraus.—Tiresias.—Aruns.—Manto.— Eurypylus.— Michael

Scott.—Asdente.

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]

[1] Plunged into the misery of Hell.

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.

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]

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.

[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.”

[2] One of the seven kings who besieged Thebes, augur and prophet.

Dante found his story in Statius, Thebais, viii. 84.

“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.

[1] The Theban soothsayer. Dante had learned of him from Ovid., Metam.,

iii. 320 sqq., as well as from Statius.

[2] An Etruscan haruspex of whom Lucan tells,—Arens incoluit desertae

moenia Lanae. Phars. i. 556.

“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.”

[1] The daughter of Tiresias, of whom Statius, Ovid, and Virgil all

tell.

[2] Now Lago di Garda.

[3] Where the three dioceses meet.

[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.

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.”

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.

[1] Suspensi Eurypylum scitantem oracula Phoebi Mittimus. Aeneid, ii.

112.

[2] A wizard of such dreaded fame

That, when in Salamanca’s cave

Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame.

Lay of the Lost Minstrel, Canto ii.

[3] A famous astrologer of Forli, in the thirteenth century.

[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.”

“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.

[1] The Man in the Moon, according to an old popular legend.

CANTO XXI.

Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators.—A magistrate of Lucca.—The

Malebranche.—Parley with them.

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.

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.

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.

[1] Malebranche means Evil-claws.

[2] One of the chief magistrates of Lucca, whose special protectress

was Santa Zita.

[3] A corrupt official, selling justice or office for bribes; in

general, a peculator or cheat.

[4] Ironical.

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.

[1] An image of Christ upon the cross, ascribed to Nicodemus, still

venerated at Lucca.

[2] The river that runs not far from Lucca.

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.”

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.”

[1] Wicked tail.

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!”

[1] In August, 1290, the town of Caprona, on the Arno, surrendered to

the Florentine troops, with whom Dante was serving.

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.”

[1] By the earthquake at the death of the Saviour.

“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.”

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.

CANTO XXII.

Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators.—Ciampolo of Navarre.—Fra

Gomita.—Michaci Zanche.—Fray of the Malebranche.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

[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.

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.

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!”

[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.

[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.

“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.”

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.

CANTO XXIII.

Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit.—The sixth pit: hypocrites, in

cloaks of gilded lead.—Jovial Friars. —Caiaphas.—Annas.—Frate Catalano.

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.

[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.

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.”

[1] A mirror.

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.

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!

[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.

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.

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.

[1] They could not raise their heads for a straight look.

[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.

[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.

[4] Malacoda had told him that he would find a bridge not far off by

which to cross this sixth bolgia.

CANTO XXIV.

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.