Full Text

THE DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI

[Illustration]

THE

DIVINE

COMEDY

OF

DANTE

ALIGHIERI

A TRANSLATION

BY

JAMES ROMANES SIBBALD

EDINBURGH

PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS

MDCCCLXXXIV

_All Rights Reserved._

Edinburgh University Press:

T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.

THE

INFERNO

A TRANSLATION

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY

JAMES ROMANES SIBBALD

EDINBURGH

PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS

MDCCCLXXXIV

PREFACE.

A Translator who has never felt his self-imposed task to be a light one

may be excused from entering into explanations that would but too

naturally take the form of apologies. I will only say that while I have

striven to be as faithful as I could to the words as well as to the

sense of my author, the following translation is not offered as being

always closely literal. The kind of verse employed I believe to be that

best fitted to give some idea, however faint, of the rigidly measured

and yet easy strength of Dante's _terza rima_; but whoever chooses to

adopt it with its constantly recurring demand for rhymes necessarily

becomes in some degree its servant. Such students as wish to follow the

poet word by word will always find what they need in Dr. J. A. Carlyle's

excellent prose version of the _Inferno_, a work to which I have to

acknowledge my own indebtedness at many points.

The matter of the notes, it is needless to say, has been in very great

part found ready to my hand in existing Commentaries. My edition of John

Villani is that of Florence, 1823.

The Note at page cx was printed before it had been resolved to provide

the volume with a copy of Giotto's portrait of Dante. I have to thank

the Council of the Arundel Society for their kind permission to Messrs.

Dawson to make use of their lithograph of Mr. Seymour Kirkup's

invaluable sketch in the production of the Frontispiece--a privilege

that would have been taken more advantage of had it not been deemed

advisable to work chiefly from the photograph of the same sketch, given

in the third volume of the late Lord Vernon's sumptuous and rare edition

of the _Inferno_ (Florence, 1865). In this Vernon photograph, as well as

in the Arundel Society's chromolithograph, the disfiguring mark on the

face caused by the damage to the plaster of the fresco is faithfully

reproduced. A less degree of fidelity has been observed in the

Frontispiece; although the restoration has not been carried the length

of replacing the lost eye.

EDINBURGH, _February_, 1884.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

FLORENCE AND DANTE, xvii

GIOTTO'S PORTRAIT OF DANTE, cx

The Inferno.

CANTO I.

The Slumber--the Wood--the Hill--the three Beasts--Virgil--the

Veltro or Greyhound, 1

CANTO II.

Dante's misgivings--Virgil's account of how he was induced to

come to his help--the three Heavenly Ladies--the beginning of

the Journey, 9

CANTO III.

The Gate of Inferno--the Vestibule of the Caitiffs--the Great

Refusal--Acheron--Charon--the Earthquake--the Slumber of Dante, 17

CANTO IV.

The First Circle, which is the Limbo of the Unbaptized and of

the Virtuous Heathen--the Great Poets--the Noble Castle--the

Sages and Worthies of the ancient world, 24

CANTO V.

The Second Circle, which is that of Carnal Sinners--Minos--the

Tempest--The Troop of those who died because of their Love--

Francesca da Rimini--Dante's Swoon, 32

CANTO VI.

The Third Circle, which is that of the Gluttonous--the Hail and

Rain and Snow--Cerberus--Ciacco and his Prophecy, 40

CANTO VII.

The Fourth Circle, which is that of the Avaricious and the

Thriftless--Plutus--the Great Weights rolled by the sinners in

opposite directions--Fortune--the Fifth Circle, which is that

of the Wrathful--Styx--the Lofty Tower, 47

CANTO VIII.

The Fifth Circle continued--the Signals--Phlegyas--the Skiff--

Philip Argenti--the City of Dis--the Fallen Angels--the Rebuff

of Virgil, 55

CANTO IX.

The City of Dis, which is the Sixth Circle and that of the

Heretics--the Furies and the Medusa head--the Messenger of Heaven

who opens the gates for Virgil and Dante--the entrance to the

City--the red-hot Tombs, 62

CANTO X.

The Sixth Circle continued--Farinata degli Uberti--Cavalcante dei

Cavalcanti--Farinata's prophecy--Frederick II., 69

CANTO XI.

The Sixth Circle continued--Pope Anastasius--Virgil explains on

what principle sinners are classified in Inferno--Usury, 77

CANTO XII.

The Seventh Circle, First Division--the Minotaur--the River

of Blood, which forms the Outer Ring of the Seventh Circle--

in it are those guilty of Violence against others--the

Centaurs--Tyrants--Robbers and Murderers--Ezzelino Romano--

Guy of Montfort--the Passage of the River of Blood, 84

CANTO XIII.

The Seventh Circle continued--the Second Division consisting

of a Tangled Wood in which are those guilty of Violence against

themselves--the Harpies--Pier delle Vigne--Lano--Jacopo da Sant'

Andrea--Florence and its Patrons, 91

CANTO XIV.

The Seventh Circle continued--the Third Division of it, consisting

of a Waste of Sand on which descends an unceasing Shower of Fire--

in it are those guilty of Violence against God, against Nature,

and against Art--Capaneus--the Crimson Brook--the Statue of Time--

the Infernal Rivers, 98

CANTO XV.

The Seventh Circle continued--the Violent against Nature--

Brunetto Latini--Francesco d'Accorso--Andrea de' Mozzi, Bishop

of Florence, 106

CANTO XVI.

The Seventh Circle continued--the Violent against Nature--

Guidoguerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, and Jacopo Rusticucci--

the Cataract--the Cord--Geryon, 115

CANTO XVII.

The Seventh Circle continued--the Violent against Art--Usurers--

the descent on Geryon's back into the Eighth Circle, 123

CANTO XVIII.

The Eighth Circle, otherwise named Malebolge, which consists of

ten concentric Pits or Moats connected by bridges of rock--in

these are punished those guilty of Fraud of different kinds--

First Bolgia or Moat, where are Panders and Seducers, scourged

by Demons--Venedico Caccianimico--Jason--Second Bolgia, where

are Flatterers plunged in filth--Alessio Interminei, 130

CANTO XIX.

The Eighth Circle--Third Bolgia, where are the Simoniacs, stuck

head downwards in holes in the rock--Pope Nicholas III.--the

Donation of Constantine, 137

CANTO XX.

The Eighth Circle--Fourth Bolgia, where are Diviners and Sorcerers

in endless procession, with their heads twisted on their necks--

Amphiaräus--Tiresias--Aruns--Manto and the foundation of Mantua--

Eurypylus--Michael Scott--Guido Bonatti--Asdente, 145

CANTO XXI.

The Eighth Circle--Fifth Bolgia, where the Barrators, or corrupt

officials, are plunged in the boiling pitch which fills the

Bolgia--a Senator of Lucca is thrown in--the Malebranche, or

Demons who guard the Moat--the Devilish Escort, 153

CANTO XXII.

The Eighth Circle--Fifth Bolgia continued--the Navarese--trick

played by him on the Demons--Fra Gomita--Michael Zanche--the

Demons fall foul of one another, 161

CANTO XXIII.

The Eighth Circle--escape from the Fifth to the Sixth Bolgia,

where the Hypocrites walk at a snail's pace, weighed down

by Gilded Cloaks of lead--the Merry Friars Catalano and

Loderingo--Caiaphas, 168

CANTO XXIV.

The Eighth Circle--arduous passage over the cliff into the Seventh

Bolgia, where the Thieves are tormented by Serpents, and are

constantly undergoing a hideous metamorphosis--Vanni Fucci, 176

CANTO XXV.

The Eighth Circle--Seventh Bolgia continued--Cacus--Agnello

Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, Cianfa Donati,

and Guercio Cavalcanti, 184

CANTO XXVI.

The Eighth Circle--Eighth Bolgia, where are the Evil Counsellors,

wrapped each in his own Flame--Ulysses tells how he met with

death, 192

CANTO XXVII.

The Eighth Circle--Eighth Bolgia continued--Guido of Montefeltro--

the Cities of Romagna--Guido and Boniface VIII., 200

CANTO XXVIII.

The Eighth Circle--Ninth Bolgia, where the Schismatics in Church

and State are for ever being dismembered--Mahomet--Fra Dolcino--

Pier da Medicina--Curio--Mosca--Bertrand de Born, 209

CANTO XXIX.

The Eighth Circle--Ninth Bolgia continued--Geri del Bello--Tenth

Bolgia, where Counterfeiters of various kinds, as Alchemists and

Forgers, are tormented with loathsome diseases--Griffolino of

Arezzo--Capocchio on the Sienese, 217

CANTO XXX.

The Eighth Circle--Tenth Bolgia continued--Myrrha--Gianni

Schicchi--Master Adam and his confession--Sinon, 225

CANTO XXXI.

The Ninth Circle, outside of which they remain till the end of

this Canto--this, the Central Pit of Inferno, is encircled and

guarded by Giants--Nimrod, Ephialtes, and Antæus--entrance to

the Pit, 233

CANTO XXXII.

The Ninth Circle--that of the Traitors, is divided into four

concentric rings, in which the sinners are plunged more or less

deep in the ice of the frozen Cocytus--the Outer Ring is Caïna,

where are those who contrived the murder of their Kindred--

Camicion de' Pazzi--Antenora, the Second Ring, where are such

as betrayed their Country--Bocca degli Abati--Buoso da Duera--

Ugolino, 241

CANTO XXXIII.

The Ninth Circle--Antenora continued--Ugolino and his tale--the

Third Ring, or Ptolomæa, where are those treacherous to their

Friends--Friar Alberigo--Branca d'Oria, 249

CANTO XXXIV.

The Ninth Circle--the Fourth Ring or Judecca, the deepest point

of the Inferno and the Centre of the Universe--it is the place

of those treacherous to their Lords or Benefactors--Lucifer with

Judas, Brutus, and Cassius hanging from his mouths--passage

through the Centre of the Earth--ascent from the depths to the

light of the stars in the Southern Hemisphere, 260

INDEX, 269

FLORENCE AND DANTE.

Dante is himself the hero of the _Divine Comedy_, and ere many stages of

the _Inferno_ have been passed the reader feels that all his steps are

being taken in a familiar companionship. When every allowance has been

made for what the exigencies of art required him to heighten or

suppress, it is still impossible not to be convinced that the author is

revealing himself much as he really was--in some of his weakness as well

as in all his strength. The poem itself, by many an unconscious touch,

does for his moral portraiture what the pencil of Giotto has done for

the features of his face. The one likeness answers marvellously to the

other; and, together, they have helped the world to recognise in him the

great example of a man of genius who, though at first sight he may seem

to be austere, is soon found to attract our love by the depth of his

feelings as much as he wins our admiration by the wealth of his fancy,

and by the clearness of his judgment on everything concerned with the

lives and destiny of men. His other writings in greater or less degree

confirm the impression of Dante's character to be obtained from the

_Comedy_. Some of them are partly autobiographical; and, studying as a

whole all that is left to us of him, we can gain a general notion of

the nature of his career--when he was born and what was his condition in

life; his early loves and friendships; his studies, military service,

and political aims; his hopes and illusions, and the weary purgatory of

his exile.

To the knowledge of Dante's life and character which is thus to be

acquired, the formal biographies of him have but little to add that is

both trustworthy and of value. Something of course there is in the

traditional story of his life that has come down from his time with the

seal of genuineness; and something that has been ascertained by careful

research among Florentine and other documents. But when all that old and

modern _Lives_ have to tell us has been sifted, the additional facts

regarding him are found to be but few; such at least as are beyond

dispute. Boccaccio, his earliest biographer, swells out his _Life_, as

the earlier commentators on the _Comedy_ do their notes, with what are

plainly but legendary amplifications of hints supplied by Dante's own

words; while more recent and critical writers succeed with infinite

pains in little beyond establishing, each to his own satisfaction, what

was the order of publication of the poet's works, where he may have

travelled to, and when and for how long a time he may have had this or

that great lord for a patron.

A very few pages would therefore be enough to tell the events of Dante's

life as far as they are certainly known. But, to be of use as an

introduction to the study of his great poem, any biographical sketch

must contain some account--more or less full--of Florentine affairs

before and during his lifetime; for among the actors in these are to be

found many of the persons of the _Comedy_. In reading the poem we are

never suffered for long to forget his exile. From one point of view it

is an appeal to future ages from Florentine injustice and ingratitude;

from another, it is a long and passionate plea with his native town to

shake her in her stubborn cruelty. In spite of the worst she can do

against him he remains no less her son. In the early copies of it, the

_Comedy_ is well described as the work of Dante Alighieri, the

Florentine; since not only does he people the other world by preference

with Florentines, but it is to Florence that, even when his words are

bitter against her, his heart is always feeling back. Among the glories

of Paradise he loves to let his memory rest on the church in which he

was baptized and the streets he used to tread. He takes pleasure in her

stones; and with her towers and palaces Florence stands for the

unchanging background to the changing scenes of his mystical pilgrimage.

The history of Florence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

agrees in general outline with that of most of its neighbours. At the

beginning of the period it was a place of but little importance, ranking

far below Pisa both in wealth and political influence. Though retaining

the names and forms of municipal government, inherited from early times,

it was in reality possessed of no effective control over its own

affairs, and was subject to its feudal superior almost as completely as

was ever any German village planted in the shadow of a castle. To

Florence, as to many a city of Northern and Central Italy, the first

opportunity of winning freedom came with the contest between Emperor

and Pope in the time of Hildebrand. In this quarrel the Church found its

best ally in Matilda, Countess of Tuscany. She, to secure the goodwill

of her subjects as against the Emperor, yielded first one and then

another of her rights in Florence, generally by way of a pious gift--an

endowment for a religious house or an increase of jurisdiction to the

bishop--these concessions, however veiled, being in effect so many

additions to the resources and liberties of the townsmen. She made Rome

her heir, and then Florence was able to play off the Papal against the

Imperial claims, yielding a kind of barren homage to both Emperor and

Pope, and only studious to complete a virtual independence of both.

Florence had been Matilda's favourite place of residence; and,

benefiting largely as it did by her easy rule, it is no wonder that her

name should have been cherished by the Florentines for ages after as a

household word.[1] Nor is the greatest Florentine unmindful of her. Foe

of the Empire though she was, he only remembers her piety; and it is by

Matilda, as representing the active religious life, that Dante is

ushered into the presence of Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise.[2]

It was a true instinct which led Florence and other cities to side

rather with the Pope than with the Emperor in the long-continued

struggle between them for predominance in Italy. With the Pope for

overlord they would at least have a master who was an Italian, and one

who, his title being imperfect, would in his own interest be led to

treat them with indulgence; while, in the permanent triumph of the

Emperor, Italy must have become subject and tributary to Germany, and

would have seen new estates carved out of her fertile soil for members

of the German garrison. The danger was brought home to many of the

youthful commonwealths during the eventful reign of Frederick Barbarossa

(1152-1190). Strong in Germany beyond most of his predecessors, that

monarch ascended the throne with high prerogative views, in which he was

confirmed by the slavish doctrine of some of the new civilians.

According to these there could be only one master in the world; as far

as regarded the things of time, but one source of authority in

Christendom. They maintained everything to be the Emperor's that he

chose to take. When he descended into Italy to enforce his claims, the

cities of the Lombard League met him in open battle. Those of Tuscany,

and especially Florence, bent before the blast, temporising as long as

they were able, and making the best terms they could when the choice lay

between submission and open revolt. Even Florence, it is true, strong in

her allies, did once take arms against an Imperial lieutenant; but as a

rule she never refused obedience in words, and never yielded it in fact

beyond what could not be helped. In her pursuit of advantages,

skilfully using every opportunity, and steadfast of aim even when most

she appeared to waver, she displayed something of the same address that

was long to be noted as a trait in the character of the individual

Florentine.

The storm was weathered, although not wholly without loss. When, towards

the close of his life, and after he had broken his strength against the

obstinate patriotism of Lombardy, Frederick visited Florence in 1185, it

was as a master justly displeased with servants who, while they had not

openly rebelled against him, had yet proved eminently unprofitable, and

whom he was concerned to punish if not to destroy. On the complaint of

the neighbouring nobles, that they were oppressed and had been plundered

by the city, he gave orders for the restoration to them of their lands

and castles. This accomplished, all the territory left to Florence was a

narrow belt around the walls. Villani even says that for the four years

during which Frederick still lived the Commonwealth was wholly landless.

And here, rather than lose ourselves among the endless treaties,

leagues, and campaigns which fill so many pages of the chronicles, it

may be worth while shortly to glance at the constitution of Florentine

society, and especially at the place held in it by the class which found

its protector in Barbarossa.

Much about the time at which the Commonwealth was relieved of its feudal

trammels, as a result of the favour or the necessities of Matilda, it

was beginning to extend its commerce and increase its industry. Starting

somewhat late on the career on which Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were

already far advanced, Florence was as if strenuous to make up for lost

time, and soon displayed a rare comprehension of the nature of the

enterprise. It may be questioned if ever, until quite modern times,

there has been anywhere so clear an understanding of the truth that

public wellbeing is the sum of private prosperity, or such an

enlightened perception of what tends to economical progress. Florence

had no special command of raw material for her manufactures, no sea-port

of her own, and no monopoly unless in the natural genius of her people.

She could therefore thrive only by dint of holding open her

communications with the world at large, and grudged no pains either of

war or diplomacy to keep at Pisa a free way out and in for her

merchandise. Already in the twelfth century she received through that

port the rough woollens of Flanders, which, after being skilfully

dressed and dyed, were sent out at great profit to every market of

Europe. At a somewhat later period the Florentines were to give as

strong a proof of their financial capacity as this was of their

industrial. It was they who first conducted a large business in bills of

exchange, and who first struck a gold coin which, being kept of

invariable purity, passed current in every land where men bought and

sold--even in countries where the very name of Florence was unknown.[3]

In a community thus devoted to industry and commerce, it was natural

that a great place should be filled by merchants. These were divided

into six guilds, the members of which, with the notaries and lawyers,

who composed a seventh, formed the true body of the citizens.

Originally the consuls of these guilds were the only elected officials

in the city, and in the early days of its liberty they were even charged

with political duties, and are found, for example, signing a treaty of

peace with a neighbouring state. In the fully developed commune it was

only the wealthier citizens--the members, we may assume, of these

guilds--who, along with the nobles,[4] were eligible for and had the

right of electing to the public offices. Below them was the great body

of the people; all, that is, of servile condition or engaged in the

meaner kinds of business. From one point of view, the liberties of the

citizens were only their privileges. But although the labourers and

humbler tradesmen were without franchises, their interests were not

therefore neglected, being bound up with those of the one or two

thousand citizens who shared with the patricians the control of public

affairs.

There were two classes of nobles with whom Florence had to reckon as she

awoke to life--those within the walls, and those settled in the

neighbouring country. In later times it was a favourite boast among the

noble citizens--a boast indulged in by Dante--that they were descended

from ancient Roman settlers on the banks of the Arno. A safer boast

would in many cases have been that their ancestors had come to Italy in

the train of Otho and other conquering Emperors. Though settled in the

city, in some cases for generations, the patrician families were not

altogether of it, being distinguished from the other citizens, if not

always by the possession of ancestral landward estates, at least by

their delight in war and contempt for honest industry. But with the

faults of a noble class they had many of its good qualities. Of these

the Republic suffered them to make full proof, allowing them to lead in

war and hold civil offices out of all proportion to their numbers.

Like the city itself, the nobles in the country around had been feudally

subject to the Marquis of Tuscany. After Matilda's death they claimed to

hold direct from the Empire; which meant in practice to be above all

law. They exercised absolute jurisdiction over their serfs and

dependants, and, when favoured by the situation of their castles, took

toll, like the robber barons of Germany, of the goods which passed

beneath their walls. Already they had proved to be thorns in the side of

the industrious burghers; but at the beginning of the twelfth century

their neighbourhood became intolerable, and for a couple of generations

the chief political work of Florence was to bring them to reason. Those

whose lands came up almost to the city gates were first dealt with, and

then in a widening circle the country was cleared of the pest. Year

after year, when the days were lengthening out in spring, the roughly

organised city militia was mustered, war was declared against some

specially obnoxious noble and his fortress was taken by surprise, or,

failing that, was subjected to a siege. In the absence of a more

definite grievance, it was enough to declare his castle dangerously near

the city. These expeditions were led by the nobles who were already

citizens, while the country neighbours of the victim looked on with

indifference, or even helped to waste the lands or force the stronghold

of a rival. The castle once taken, it was either levelled with the

ground, or was restored to the owner on condition of his yielding

service to the Republic. And, both by way of securing a hold upon an

unwilling vassal and of adding a wealthy house and some strong arms to

the Commonwealth, he was compelled, along with his family, to reside in

Florence for a great part of every year.

With a wider territory and an increasing commerce, it was natural for

Florence to assume more and more the attitude of a sovereign state,

ready, when need was, to impose its will upon its neighbours, or to join

with them for the common defence of Tuscany. In the noble class and its

retainers, recruited as has been described, it was possessed of a

standing army which, whether from love of adventure or greed of plunder,

was never so well pleased as when in active employment. Not that the

commons left the fighting wholly to the men of family, for they too, at

the summons of the war-bell, had to arm for the field; but at the best

they did it from a sense of duty, and, without the aid of professional

men-at-arms, they must have failed more frequently in their enterprises,

or at any rate have had to endure a greatly prolonged absence from their

counters and workshops. And yet, esteem this advantage as highly as we

will, Florence surely lost more than it gained by compelling the crowd

of idle gentlemen to come within its walls. In the course of time some

of them indeed condescended to engage in trade--sank, as the phrase

went, into the ranks of the _Popolani_, or mere wealthy citizens; but

the great body of them, while their landed property was being largely

increased in value in consequence of the general prosperity, held

themselves haughtily aloof from honest industry in every form. Each

family, or rather each clan of them, lived apart in its own group of

houses, from among which towers shot aloft for scores of yards into the

air, dominating the humbler dwellings of the common burghers. These,

whenever they came to the front for a time in the government, were used

to decree that all private towers were to be lopped down to within a

certain distance from the ground.

It is a favourite exercise of Villani and other historians to trace the

troubles and revolutions in the state of Florence to chance quarrels

between noble families, arising from an angry word or a broken troth.

Here, they tell, was sown the seed of the Guelf and Ghibeline wars in

Florence; and here that of the feuds of Black and White. Such quarrels

and party names were symptoms and nothing more. The enduring source of

trouble was the presence within the city of a powerful idle class,

constantly eager to recover the privilege it had lost, and to secure

itself by every available means, including that of outside help, in the

possession of what it still retained; which chafed against the curbs put

upon its lawlessness, and whose ambitions were all opposed to the

general interest. The citizens, for their part, had nothing better to

hope for than that Italy should be left to the Italians, Florence to the

Florentines. On the occasion of the celebrated Buondelmonti feud (1215),

some of the nobles definitely went over to the side of the people,

either because they judged it likely to win in the long-run, or

impelled unconsciously by the forces that in every society divide

ambitious men into two camps, and in one form or another develop party

strife. They who made a profession of popular sympathy did it with a

view of using rather than of helping the people at large. Both of the

noble parties held the same end in sight--control of the Commonwealth;

and this would be worth the more the fewer there were to share it. The

faction irreconcilable with the Republic on any terms included many of

the oldest and proudest houses. Their hope lay in the advent of a strong

Emperor, who should depute to them his rights over the money-getting,

low-born crowd.

II.

The opportunity of this class might seem to have come when the

Hohenstaufen Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, ascended the throne,

and still more when, on attaining full age, he claimed the whole of the

Peninsula as his family inheritance. Other Emperors had withstood the

Papal claims, but none had ever proved an antagonist like Frederick. His

quarrel seemed indeed to be with the Church itself, with its doctrines

and morals as well as with the ambition of churchmen; and he offered the

strange spectacle of a Roman Emperor--one of the twin lights in the

Christian firmament--whose favour was less easily won by Christian

piety, however eminent, than by the learning of the Arab or the Jew.

When compelled at last to fulfil a promise extorted from him of

conducting a crusade to the Holy Land, he scandalised Christendom by

making friends of the Sultan, and by using his presence in the East, not

for the deliverance of the Sepulchre, but for the furtherance of

learning and commerce. Thrice excommunicated, he had his revenge by

proving with how little concern the heaviest anathemas of the Church

could be met by one who was armed in unbelief. Literature, art, and

manners were sedulously cultivated in his Sicilian court, and among the

able ministers whom he selected or formed, the modern idea of the State

may be said to have had its birth. Free thinker and free liver, poet,

warrior, and statesman, he stood forward against the sombre background

of the Middle Ages a figure in every respect so brilliant and original

as well to earn from his contemporaries the title of the Wonder of the

World.

On the goodwill of Italians Frederick had the claim of being the most

Italian of all the Emperors since the revival of the Western Empire, and

the only one of them whose throne was permanently set on Italian soil.

Yet he never won the popular heart. To the common mind he always

appeared as something outlandish and terrible--as the man who had driven

a profitable but impious trade in the Sultan's land. Dante, in his

childhood, must have heard many a tale of him; and we find him keenly

interested in the character of the Emperor who came nearest to uniting

Italy into a great nation, in whose court there had been a welcome for

every man of intellect, and in whom a great original poet would have

found a willing and munificent patron. In the _Inferno_, by the mouth of

Pier delle Vigne, the Imperial Chancellor, he pronounces Frederick to

have been worthy of all honour;[5] yet justice requires him to lodge

this flower of kings in the burning tomb of the Epicureans, as having

been guilty of the arch-heresy of denying the moral government of the

world, and holding that with the death of the body all is ended.[6] It

was a heresy fostered by the lives of many churchmen, high and low; but

the example of Frederick encouraged the profession of it by nobles and

learned laymen. On Frederick's character there was a still darker stain

than this of religious indifference--that of cold-blooded cruelty. Even

in an age which had produced Ezzelino Romano, the Emperor's cloaks of

lead were renowned as the highest refinement in torture.[7] But, with

all his genius, and his want of scruple in the choice of means, he built

nothing politically that was not ere his death crumbling to dust. His

enduring work was that of an intellectual reformer under whose

protection and with whose personal help his native language was refined,

Europe was enriched with a learning new to it or long forgotten, and the

minds of men, as they lost their blind reverence for Rome, were prepared

for a freer treatment of all the questions with which religion deals. He

was thus in some respects a precursor of Dante.

More than once in the course of Frederick's career it seemed as if he

might become master of Tuscany in fact as well as in name, had Florence

only been as well affected to him as were Siena and Pisa. But already,

as has been said, the popular interest had been strengthened by

accessions from among the nobles. Others of them, without descending

into the ranks of the citizens, had set their hopes on being the first

in a commonwealth rather than privates in the Imperial garrison. These

men, with their restless and narrow ambitions, were as dangerous to have

for allies as for foes, but by throwing their weight into the popular

scale they at least served to hold the Imperialist magnates in check,

and established something like a balance in the fighting power of

Florence; and so, as in the days of Barbarossa, the city was preserved

from taking a side too strongly. The hearts of the Florentine traders

were in their own affairs--in extending their commerce and increasing

their territory and influence in landward Tuscany. As regarded the

general politics of Italy, their sympathy was still with the Roman See;

but it was a sympathy without devotion or gratitude. For refusing to

join in the crusade of 1238 the town was placed under interdict by

Gregory IX. The Emperor meanwhile was acknowledged as its lawful

overlord, and his vicar received something more than nominal obedience,

the choice of the chief magistrates being made subject to his approval.

Yet with all this, and although his party was powerful in the city, it

was but a grudging service that was yielded to Frederick. More than once

fines were levied on the Florentines; and worse punishments were

threatened for their persevering and active enmity to Siena, now

dominated by its nobles and held in the Imperial interest. Volunteers

from Florence might join the Emperor in his Lombard campaigns; but they

were left equally free by the Commonwealth to join the other side. At

last, when he was growing old, and when like his grandfather he had been

foiled by the stubborn Lombards, he turned on the Florentines as an

easier prey, and sent word to the nobles of his party to seize the city.

For months the streets were filled with battle. In January 1248,

Frederick of Antioch, the natural son of the Emperor, entered Florence

with some squadrons of men-at-arms, and a few days later the nobles that

had fought on the popular side were driven into banishment. This is

known in the Florentine annals as the first dispersion of the Guelfs.

Long before they were adopted in Italy, the names of Guelf and Ghibeline

had been employed in Germany to mark the partisans of the Bavarian Welf

and of the Hohenstaufen lords of Waiblingen. On Italian soil they

received an extended meaning: Ghibeline stood for Imperialist; Guelf for

anti-Imperialist, Papalist, or simply Nationalist. When the names began

to be freely used in Florence, which was towards the close of

Frederick's reign and about a century after their first invention, they

denoted no new start in politics, but only supplied a nomenclature for

parties already in existence. As far as Florence was concerned, the

designations were the more convenient that they were not too closely

descriptive. The Ghibeline was the Emperor's man, when it served his

purpose to be so; while the Guelf, constant only in his enmity to the

Ghibelines, was free to think of the Pope as he chose, and to serve him

no more than he wished or needed to. Ultimately, indeed, all Florence

may be said to have become Guelf. To begin with, the name distinguished

the nobles who sought alliance with the citizens, from the nobles who

looked on these as they might have done on serfs newly thriven into

wealth. Each party was to come up in turn. Within a period of twenty

years each was twice driven into banishment, a measure always

accompanied with decrees of confiscation and the levelling of private

strongholds in Florence. The exiles kept well together, retreating, as

it were in the order of war, to camps of observation they found ready

prepared for them in the nearest cities and fortresses held by those of

their own way of thinking. All their wits were then bent on how, by dint

of some fighting and much diplomacy, they might shake the strength and

undermine the credit of their successful rivals in the city, and secure

their own return in triumph. It was an art they were proud to be adepts

in.[8]

In a rapid sketch like this it would be impossible to tell half the

changes made on the constitution of Florence during the second part of

the thirteenth century. Dante in a well-known passage reproaches

Florence with the political restlessness which afflicted her like a

disease. Laws, he says, made in October were fallen into desuetude ere

mid-November.[9] And yet it may be that in this constant readiness to

change, lies the best proof of the political capacity of the

Florentines. It was to meet new necessities that they made provision of

new laws. Especial watchfulness was called for against the encroachments

of the grandees, whose constant tendency--whatever their party

name--was to weaken legal authority, and play the part of lords and

masters of the citizens. But these were no mere weavers and

quill-drivers to be plundered at will. Even before the return of the

Guelfs, banished in 1248, the citizens, taking advantage of a check

suffered in the field by the dominant Ghibelines, had begun to recast

the constitution in a popular sense, and to organise the townsmen as a

militia on a permanent footing. When, on the death of Frederick in 1250,

the Imperialist nobles were left without foreign aid, there began a

period of ten years, favourably known in Florentine history as the

Government of the _Primo Popolo_ or _Popolo Vecchio_; that is, of the

true body of the citizens, commoners possessed of franchises, as

distinguished from the nobles above them and the multitude below. For it

is never to be forgotten that Florence, like Athens, and like the other

Italian Republics, was far from being a true democracy. The time was yet

to come, and it was not far distant, when the ranks of citizenship were

to be more widely opened than now to those below, and more closely shut

to those above. In the meantime the comparatively small number of

wealthy citizens who legally composed the 'People' made good use of

their ten years of breathing-time, entering on commercial treaties and

widening the possessions of the Commonwealth, now by war, and now by

shrewd bargains with great barons. To balance the influence of the

Podesta, who had hitherto been the one great officer of State--criminal

judge, civil governor, and commander-in-chief all in one--they created

the office of Captain of the People. The office of Podesta was not

peculiar to Florence. There, as in other cities, in order to secure his

impartiality, it was provided that he should be a foreigner, and hold

office only for six months. But he was also required to be of gentle

birth; and his councils were so composed that, like his own, their

sympathies were usually with the nobles. The Captain of the People was

therefore created partly as a tribune for the protection of the popular

rights, and partly to act as permanent head of the popular forces. Like

the Podesta, he had two councils assigned to him; but these were

strictly representative of the citizens, and sat to control his conduct

as well as to lend to his action the weight of public opinion.

Such of the Ghibelines as had not been banished from Florence on the

death of Frederick, lived there on sufferance, as it were, and under a

rigid supervision. Once more they were to find a patron and ally in a

member of the great house of Hohenstaufen; and with his aid they were

again for a few years to become supreme in Florence, and to prove by

their abuse of power how well justified was the mistrust the people had

of them. In many ways Manfred, one of Frederick's bastards, was a worthy

son of his father. Like him he was endowed with great personal charm,

and was enamoured of all that opened new regions to intellectual

curiosity or gave refinement to sensual pleasure. In his public as well

as in his private behaviour, he was reckless of what the Church and its

doctrines might promise or threaten; and equally so, his enemies

declared, of the dictates of common humanity. Hostile eyes detected in

the green clothes which were his favourite dress a secret attachment to

Islam; and hostile tongues charged him with the murder of a father and

of a brother, and the attempted murder of a nephew. His ambition did not

aim at the Empire, but only at being King of Sicily and Naples, lands

which the Hohenstaufens claimed as their own through the Norman mother

of Frederick. Of these kingdoms he was actual ruler, even while his

legitimate brother Conrad lived. On the death of that prince he brushed

aside the claims of Conradin, his nephew, and bid boldly for recognition

by the Pope, who claimed to be overlord of the southern kingdoms--a

recognition refused, or given only to be immediately withdrawn. In the

eyes of Rome he was no more than Prince of Tarentum, but by arms and

policy he won what seemed a firm footing in the South; and eight years

after the rule of the _Popolo Vecchio_ began in Florence he was the

acknowledged patron of all in Italy who had been Imperialist--for the

Imperial throne was now practically vacant. And Manfred was trusted all

the more that he cared nothing for Germany, and stood out even more

purely an Italian monarch than his father had ever been. The Ghibelines

of Florence looked to him to free them of the yoke under which they

groaned.

When it was discovered that they were treating with Manfred, there was

an outburst of popular wrath against the disaffected nobles. Some of

them were seized and put to death, a fate shared by the Abbot of

Vallombrosa, whom neither his priestly office nor his rank as Papal

Legate availed to save from torture and a shameful end.[10] Well

accustomed as was the age to violence and cruelty, it was shocked at

this free disposal of a great ecclesiastic by a mercantile community;

and even to the Guelf chronicler Villani the terrible defeat of

Montaperti seemed no more than a just vengeance taken by Heaven upon a

crime so heinous.[11] In the meantime the city was laid under interdict,

and those concerned in the Abbot's death were excommunicated; while the

Ghibelines, taking refuge in Siena, began to plot and scheme with the

greater spirit against foes who, in the very face of a grave peril, had

offended in the Pope their strongest natural ally.

The leader of the exiles was Farinata, one of the Uberti, a family

which, so long ago as 1180, had raised a civil war to force their way

into the consulship. Ever since, they had been the most powerful,

perhaps, and certainly the most restless, clan in Florence, rich in men

of strong character, fiercely tenacious of their purpose. Such was

Farinata. To the Florentines of a later age he was to stand for the type

of the great Ghibeline gentleman, haughty as Lucifer, a Christian in

name though scarcely by profession, and yet almost beloved for his frank

excess of pride. It detracted nothing from the grandeur of his

character, in the judgment of his countrymen, that he could be cunning

as well as brave. Manfred was coy to afford help to the Tuscan

Ghibelines, standing out for an exorbitant price for the loan of his

men-at-arms; and to Farinata was attributed the device by which his

point of honour was effectually touched.[12] When at last a

reinforcement of eight hundred cavalry entered Siena, the exiles and

their allies felt themselves more than a match for the militia of

Florence, and set themselves to decoy it into the field. Earlier in the

same year the Florentines had encamped before Siena, and sought in vain

to bring on a general engagement. They were now misled by false

messengers, primed by Farinata, into a belief that the Sienese, weary of

the arrogance of Provenzano Salvani,[13] then all-powerful in Siena,

were ready to betray a gate to them. In vain did Tegghiaio

Aldobrandi,[14] one of the Guelf nobles, counsel delay till the German

men-at-arms, wearied with waiting on and perhaps dissatisfied with their

wages, should be recalled by Manfred. A march in full strength upon the

hostile city was resolved on by the eager townsmen.

The battle of Montaperti was fought in September 1260, among the earthy

hills washed by the Arbia and its tributary rivulets, a few miles to the

east of Siena. It marked the close of the rule of the _Popolo Vecchio_.

Till then no such disastrous day had come to Florence; and the defeat

was all the more intolerable that it was counted for a victory to Siena.

Yet the battle was far from being a test of the strength of the two

rival cities. Out of the thirty thousand foot in the Guelf army, there

were only about five thousand Florentines. In the host which poured out

on them from Siena, beside the militia of that city and the Florentine

exiles, were included the Ghibelines of Arezzo, the retainers of great

lords still unsubdued by any city, and, above all, the German

men-at-arms of Manfred.[15] But the worst enemies of Florence were the

traitors in her own ranks. She bore it long in mind that it was her

merchants and handicraftsmen who stood stubbornly at bay, and tinged the

Arbia red with their life-blood; while it was among the men of high

degree that the traitors were found. On one of them, Bocca degli Abati,

who struck off the right hand of the standard-bearer of the cavalry, and

so helped on the confusion and the rout, Dante takes vengeance in his

pitiless verse.[16]

The fortifications of Florence had been recently completed and

strengthened, and it was capable of a long defence. But the spirit of

the people was broken for the time, and the conquerors found the gates

open. Then it was that Farinata almost atoned for any wrong he ever did

his native town, by withstanding a proposal made by the Ghibelines of

the rival Tuscan cities, that Florence should be destroyed, and Empoli

advanced to fill her room. 'Alone, with open face I defended her,' Dante

makes him say.[17] But the wonder would rather be if he had voted to

destroy a city of which he was about to be one of the tyrants. Florence

had now a fuller experience than ever of the oppression which it was in

the character of the Ghibelines to exercise. A rich booty lay ready to

their hands; for in the panic after Montaperti crowds of the best in

Florence had fled, leaving all behind them except their wives and

children, whom they would not trust to the cruel mercy of the victors.

It was in this exile that for the first time the industrious citizen was

associated with the Guelf noble. From Lucca, not powerful enough to

grant them protection for long, they were driven to Bologna, suffering

terribly on the passage of the Apennines from cold and want of food, but

safe when the mountains lay between them and the Val d'Arno. While the

nobles and young men with a taste for fighting found their livelihood in

service against the Lombard Ghibelines, the more sober-minded scattered

themselves to seek out their commercial correspondents and increase

their acquaintance with the markets of Europe. When at length the way

was open for them to return home, they came back educated by travel, as

men must always be who travel for a purpose; and from this second exile

of the Guelfs dates a vast extension of the commerce of Florence.

Their return was a fruit of the policy followed by the Papal Court The

interests of both were the same. The Roman See could have as little

independence of action while a hostile monarch was possessed of the

southern kingdoms, as the people of Florence could have freedom while

the Ghibeline nobility had for patron a military prince, to whom their

gates lay open by way of Siena and Pisa. To Sicily and Naples the Pope

laid claim by an alternative title--they were either dependent on the

See of Rome, or, if they were Imperial fiefs, then, in the vacancy of

the Empire, the Pope, as the only head of Christendom, had a right to

dispose of them as he would. A champion was needed to maintain the

claim, and at length the man was found in Charles of Anjou, brother of

St. Louis. This was a prince of intellectual powers far beyond the

common, of untiring industry in affairs, pious, 'chaste as a monk,' and

cold-hearted as a usurer; gifted with all the qualities, in short, that

make a man feared and well served, and with none that make him beloved.

He was not one to risk failure for want of deliberation and foresight,

and his measures were taken with such prudence that by the time he

landed in Italy his victory was almost assured. He found his enemy at

Benevento, in the Neapolitan territory (February 1266). In order to get

time for reinforcements to come up, Manfred sought to enter into

negotiations; but Charles was ready, and knew his advantage. He answered

with the splendid confidence of a man sure of a heavenly if he missed

an earthly triumph. 'Go tell the Sultan of Lucera,'[18] was his reply,

'that to-day I shall send him to Hell, or he will send me to Paradise.'

Manfred was slain, and his body, discovered only after long search, was

denied Christian burial. Yet, excommunicated though he was, and

suspected of being at heart as much Mohammedan as Christian, he, as well

as his great rival, is found by Dante in Purgatory.[19] And, while the

Christian poet pours his invective on the pious Charles,[20] he is at no

pains to hide how pitiful appeared to him the fate of the frank and

handsome Manfred, all whose followers adored him. He, as more than once

it happens in the _Comedy_ to those whose memory is dear to the poet, is

saved from Inferno by the fiction that in the hour of death he sent one

thought heavenward--'so wide is the embrace of infinite mercy.'[21]

To Florence Charles proved a useful if a greedy and exacting protector.

Under his influence as Pacificator of Tuscany--an office created for him

by the Pope--the Guelfs were enabled slowly to return from exile, and

the Ghibelines were gradually depressed into a condition of dependence

on the goodwill of the citizens over whom they had so lately domineered.

Henceforth failure attended every effort they made to lift their heads.

The stubbornly irreconcilable were banished or put to death. Elaborate

provisions were enacted in obedience to the Pope's commands, by which

the rest were to be at peace with their old foes. Now they were to live

in the city, but under disabilities as regarded eligibility to offices;

now they were to be represented in the public councils, but so as to be

always in a minority. The result of the measures taken, and of the

natural drift of things, was that ere many more years had passed there

were no avowed Ghibelines in Florence.

One influence constantly at work in this direction was that of the

_Parte Guelfa_, a Florentine society formed to guard the interests of

the Guelfs, and which was possessed of the greater part of the Ghibeline

property confiscated after the triumph of Charles had turned the balance

of power in Italy. This organisation has been well described as a state

within a state, and it seems as if the part it played in the Florentine

politics of this period were not yet fully known. This much seems sure,

that the members of the Society were mostly Guelf nobles; that its

power, derived from the administration of vast wealth to a political

end, was so great that the Captain of the _Parte Guelfa_ held a place

almost on a level with that of the chief officials of the Commonwealth;

and that it made loans of ready money to Florence and the Pope, on

condition of their being used to the damage of the Ghibelines.[22]

The Commonwealth, busy in resettling its government, was but slightly

interested in much that went on around it. The boy Conradin, grandson of

Frederick, nephew of Manfred, and in a sense the last of the

Hohenstaufens, came to Italy to measure himself with Charles, and paid

for his audacity upon the scaffold.[23] Charles deputed Guy of Montfort,

son of the great Earl Simon, to be his vicar in Florence. The Pope

smiled and frowned in turn on the Florentines, as their devotion to him

waxed and waned; and so he did on his champion Charles, whose ambition

was apt to outrun his piety. All this was of less importance to the

Commonwealth than the promotion of its domestic interests. It saw with

equanimity a check given to Charles by the election of a new Emperor in

Rudolf of Hapsburg (1273), and a further check by the Sicilian Vespers,

which lost him half his kingdom (1283). But Siena and Pisa, Arezzo, and

even Pistoia, were the objects of a sleepless anxiety. Pisa was the

chief source of danger, being both from sentiment and interest

stubbornly Ghibeline. When at length its power was broken by Genoa, its

great maritime rival, in the naval battle of Meloria (1284), there was

no longer any city in Tuscany to be compared for wealth and strength

with Florence.

III.

It was at this period that Dante, reaching the age of manhood, began to

perform the duties that fell to him as a youthful citizen--duties which,

till the age of thirty was reached, were chiefly those of military

service. The family to which he belonged was a branch of the Elisei,

who are included by Villani in the earliest catalogue given by him of

the great Florentine houses. Cacciaguida, one of the Elisei, born in

1106, married a daughter of the Aldighieri, a family of Ferrara. Their

son was christened Aldighiero, and this was adopted by the family as a

surname, afterwards changed to Alighieri. The son of Aldighiero was

Bellincione, father of Aldighiero II., the father of Dante.

It serves no purpose to fill a page of biography with genealogical

details when the hero's course in life was in no way affected by the

accident of who was his grandfather. In the case of Dante, his position

in the State, his political creed, and his whole fashion of regarding

life, were vitally influenced by the circumstances of his birth. He knew

that his genius, and his genius alone, was to procure him fame; he

declares a virtuous and gentle life to be the true proof of nobility:

and yet his family pride is always breaking through. In real life, from

his family's being decayed in wealth and fallen in consideration

compared with its neighbours, he may have been led to put emphasis on

his assertion of gentility; and amid the poverty and humiliations of his

exile he may have found a tonic in the thought that by birth, not to

speak of other things, he was the equal of those who spurned him or

coldly lent him aid. However this may be, there is a tacit claim of

equality with them in the easy grace with which he encounters great

nobles in the world of shades. The bent of his mind in relation to this

subject is shown by such a touch as that when he esteems it among the

glories of Francis of Assisi not to have been ashamed of his base

extraction.[24] In Paradise he meets his great crusading ancestor

Cacciaguida, and feigns contrition for the pleasure with which he

listens to a declaration of the unmixed purity of their common

blood.[25] In Inferno he catches a glimpse, sudden and terrible, of a

kinsman whose violent death had remained unavenged; and, for the nonce,

the philosopher-poet is nothing but the member of an injured Florentine

clan, and winces at the thought of a neglected blood feud.[26] And when

Farinata, the great Ghibeline, and haughtiest of all the Florentines of

the past generation, asks him, 'Who were thine ancestors?' Dante says

with a proud pretence of humility, 'Anxious to obey, I hid nothing, but

told him all he demanded.'[27]

Dante was born in Florence in the May of 1265.[28] A brother of his

father had been one of the guards of the Florentine Caroccio, or

standard-bearing car, at the battle of Montaperti (1260). Whether

Dante's father necessarily shared in the exile of his party may be

doubted. He is said--on slight authority--to have been a jurisconsult:

there is no reason to suppose he was at Montaperti. It is difficult to

believe that Florence was quite emptied of its lawyers and merchants as

a consequence of the Ghibeline victory. In any case, it is certain that

while the fugitive Guelfs were mostly accompanied by their wives, and

did not return till 1267, we have Dante's own word for it that he was

born in the great city by the Arno,[29] and was baptized in the

Baptistery, his beautiful St. John's.[30] At the font he received the

name of Durante, shortened, as he bore it, into Dante. It is in this

form that it finds a place in the _Comedy_,[31] once, and only once,

written down of necessity, the poet says--the necessity of being

faithful in the report of Beatrice's words: from the wider necessity, we

may assume, of imbedding in the work itself the name by which the author

was commonly known, and by which he desired to be called for all time.

When Dante was about ten years old he lost his father. Of his mother

nothing but her Christian name of Bella is known. Neither of them is

mentioned in the _Comedy_,[32] nor indeed are his wife and children.

Boccaccio describes the Alighieri as having been in easy though not in

wealthy circumstances; and Leonardo Bruni, who in the fifteenth century

sought out what he could learn of Dante, says of him that he was

possessed of a patrimony sufficient for an honourable livelihood. That

he was so might be inferred from the character of the education he

received. His studies, says Boccaccio, were not directed to any object

of worldly profit. That there is no sign of their having been directed

by churchmen tends to prove the existence in his native town of a class

of cultivated laymen; and that there was such appears from the ease

with which, when, passing from boyhood to manhood, he felt a craving for

intellectual and congenial society, he found in nobles of the stamp of

Guido Cavalcanti men like-minded with himself. It was indeed impossible

but that the revival of the study of the civil law, the importation of

new learning from the East, and the sceptical spirit fostered in Italy

by the influence of Frederick II. and his court, should all have told on

the keen-witted Florentines, of whom a great proportion--even of the

common people--could read; while the class with leisure had every

opportunity of knowing what was going on in the world.[33] Heresy, the

rough word for intellectual life as well as for religious aspiration,

had found in Florence a congenial soil.[34] In the thirteenth century,

which modern ignorance loves to reckon as having been in a special sense

an age of faith, there were many Florentines who, in spite of their

outward conformity, had drifted as far from spiritual allegiance to the

Church as the furthest point reached by any of their descendants who

some two ages later belonged to the school of Florentine Platonists.

Chief among these free-thinkers, and, sooth to say, free-livers--though

in this respect they were less distinguished from the orthodox--was

Brunetto Latini, for some time Secretary to the Republic, and the

foremost Italian man of letters of his day. Meagre though his greatest

work, the _Tesoro_, or _Treasure_, must seem to any one who now glances

over its pages, to his contemporaries it answered the promise of its

title and stood for a magazine of almost complete information in the

domains of natural history, ethics, and politics. It was written in

French, as being a more agreeable language than Italian; and was

composed, there is reason to believe, while Latini lived in Paris as an

exiled Guelf after Montaperti. His _Tesoretto_, or _Little Treasure_, a

poem in jingling eight-syllabled Italian verse, has been thought by some

to have supplied hints to Dante for the _Comedy_.[35] By neither of

these works is he evinced a man of strong intellect, or even of good

taste. Yet there is the testimony of Villani that he did much to refine

the language of his contemporaries, and to apply fixed principles to the

conduct of State affairs.[36] Dante meets him in Inferno, and hails him

as his intellectual father--as the master who taught him from day to day

how fame is to be won.[37] But it is too much to infer from these words

that Latini served as his teacher, in the common sense of the word. It

is true they imply an intimacy between the veteran scholar and his

young townsman; but the closeness of their intercourse is perhaps best

accounted for by supposing that Latini had been acquainted with Dante's

father, and by the great promise of Dante's boyhood was led to take a

warm interest in his intellectual development. Their intimacy, to judge

from the tone of their conversation down in Inferno, had lasted till

Latini's death. But no tender reminiscence of the days they spent

together avails to save him from condemnation at the hands of his severe

disciple. By the manners of Brunetto, and the Epicurean heresies of

others of his friends, Dante, we may be sure, was never infected or

defiled.

Dante describes himself as having begun the serious study of philosophy

and theology only at the mature age of twenty-seven. But ere that time

he had studied to good effect, and not books alone, but the world around

him too, and the world within. The poet was formed before the theologian

and philosopher. From his earliest years he was used to write in verse;

and he seems to have esteemed as one of his best endowments the easy

command of his mother tongue acquired by him while still in boyhood.

Of the poems written in his youth he made a selection, and with a

commentary gave them to the world as his first work.[38] All the sonnets

and canzoni contained in it bear more or less directly on his love for

Beatrice Portinari. This lady, whose name is so indissolubly associated

with that of Dante, was the daughter of a rich citizen of good family.

When Dante saw her first he was a child of nine, and she a few months

younger. It would seem fabulous, he says, if he related what things he

did, and of what a passion he was the victim during his boyhood. He

seized opportunities of beholding her, but for long never passed beyond

a silent worship; and he was eighteen before she spoke to him, and then

only in the way of a passing salutation. On this he had a vision, and

that inspired him with a sonnet, certainly not the first he had written,

but the first he put into circulation. The mode of publication he

adopted was the common one of sending copies of it to such other poets

as were within reach. The sonnet in itself contains a challenge to

interpret his dream. Several poets attempted the riddle--among them the

philosopher and poet Guido Cavalcanti. They all failed in the solution;

but with some of them he was thus brought into terms of intimacy, and

with Cavalcanti of the closest friendship. Some new grace of style in

Dante's verse, some art in the presentation of his mystical meaning that

escapes the modern reader, may have revealed to the middle-aged man of

letters that a new genius had arisen. It was by Guido's advice that the

poems of which this sonnet stands the first were some years later

collected and published with the explanatory narrative. To him, in a

sense, the whole work is addressed; and it agreed with his taste, as

well as Dante's own, that it should contain nothing but what was written

in the vulgar tongue. Others besides Guido must have recognised in the

little book, as it passed from hand to hand, the masterpiece of Italian

prose, as well as of Italian verse. In the simple title of _Vita Nuova_,

or _The New Life_,[39] we can fancy that a claim is laid to originality

of both subject and treatment. Through the body of the work, though not

so clearly as in the _Comedy_, there rings the note of assurance of

safety from present neglect and future oblivion.

It may be owing to the free use of personification and symbol in the

_Vita Nuova_ that some critics, while not denying the existence of a

real Beatrice, have held that she is introduced only to help out an

allegory, and that, under the veil of love for her, the poet would

express his youthful passion for truth. Others, going to the opposite

extreme, are found wondering why he never sought, or, seeking, failed to

win, the hand of Beatrice. To those who would refine the Beatrice of the

early work into a being as purely allegorical as she of the _Comedy_, it

may be conceded that the _Vita Nuova_ is not so much the history of a

first love as of the new emotional and intellectual life to which a

first love, as Dante experienced it, opens the door. Out of the

incidents of their intercourse he chooses only such as serve for motives

to the joys and sorrows of the passionate aspiring soul. On the other

hand, they who seek reasons why Dante did not marry Beatrice have this

to justify their curiosity, that she did marry another man. But her

husband was one of the rich and powerful Bardi; and her father was so

wealthy that after providing for his children he could endow a hospital

in Florence. The marriage was doubtless arranged as a matter of family

convenience, due regard being had to her dower and her husband's

fortune; and we may assume that when Dante, too, was married later on,

his wife was found for him by the good offices of his friends.[40] Our

manners as regards these things are not those of the Italy of the

thirteenth century. It may safely be said that Dante never dreamed of

Beatrice for his wife; that the expectation of wedding her would have

sealed his lips from uttering to the world any word of his love; and

that she would have lost something in his esteem if, out of love for

him, she had refused the man her father chose for her.

We must not seek in the _Vita Nuova_ what it does not profess to give.

There was a real Beatrice Portinari, to a careless glance perhaps not

differing much from other Florentine ladies of her age and condition;

but her we do not find in Dante's pages. These are devoted to a record

of the dreams and visions, the new thoughts and feelings of which she

was the occasion or the object. He worshipped at a distance, and in a

single glance found reward enough for months of adoration; he read all

heaven into a smile. So high strung is the narrative, that did we come

on any hint of loving dalliance it would jar with all the rest She is

always at a distance from him, less a woman than an angel.

In all this there is certainly as much of reticence as of exaggeration.

When he comes to speak of her death he uses a phrase on which it would

seem as if too little value had been set. He cannot dwell on the

circumstances of her departure, he says, without being his own

panegyrist. Taken along with some other expressions in the _Vita Nuova_,

and the tone of her words to him when they meet in the Earthly Paradise,

we may gather from this that not only was she aware of his long

devotion, but that, ere she died, he had been given to understand how

highly she rated it. And on the occasion of her death, one described as

being her nearest relative by blood and, after Cavalcanti, Dante's chief

friend--her brother, no doubt--came to him and begged him to write

something concerning her. It would be strange indeed if they had never

looked frankly into one another's faces; and yet, for anything that is

directly told in the _Vita Nuova_, they never did.

The chief value of the _Vita Nuova_ is therefore psychological. It is a

mine of materials illustrative of the author's mental and emotional

development, but as regards historical details it is wanting in fulness

and precision. Yet, even in such a sketch of Dante's life as this tries

to be, it is necessary to dwell on the turning-points of the narrative

contained in the _Vita Nuova_; the reader always remembering that on one

side Dante says more than the fact that so he may glorify his love, and

less on another that he may not fail in consideration for Beatrice. She

is first a maiden whom no public breath is to disturb in her virgin

calm; and afterwards a chaste wife, whose lover is as jealous of her

reputation as any husband could be. The youthful lover had begun by

propounding the riddle of his love so obscurely that even by his

fellow-poets it had been found insoluble, adepts though they themselves

were in the art of smothering a thought. Then, though all his longing is

for Beatrice, lest she become the subject of common talk he feigns that

he is in love first with one lady and then with another.[41] He even

pushes his deceit so far that she rebukes him for his fickleness to one

of his sham loves by denying him the customary salutation when they

meet--this salutation being the only sign of friendship she has ever

shown. It is already some few years since the first sonnet was written.

Now, in a ballad containing a more direct avowal of his love than he has

yet ventured on,[42] he protests that it was always Beatrice his heart

was busy with, and that to her, though his eyes may have seemed to

wander, his affection was always true. In the very next poem we find him

as if debating with himself whether he shall persevere. He weighs the

ennobling influence of a pure love and the sweetness it gives to life,

against the pains and self-denial to which it condemns its servant.

Here, he tells us in his commentary, he was like a traveller who has

come to where the ways divide. His only means of escape--and he feels it

is a poor one--is to throw himself into the arms of Pity.

From internal evidence it seems reasonably certain that the marriage of

Beatrice fell at the time when he describes himself as standing at the

parting of the ways. Before that he has been careful to write of his

love in terms so general as to be understood only by those in possession

of the key. Now he makes direct mention of her, and seeks to be in her

company; and he even leads us to infer that it was owing to his poems

that she became a well-known personage in the streets of Florence.

Immediately after the sonnet in which he has recourse to Pity, he tells

how he was led by a friend into the house of a lady, married only that

day, whom they find surrounded by her lady friends, met to celebrate her

home-coming after marriage. It was the fashion for young gentlemen to

offer their services at such a feast. On this occasion Dante for one can

give no help. A sudden trembling seizes him; he leans for support

against the painted wall of the chamber; then, lifting his eyes to see

if the ladies have remarked his plight, he is troubled at beholding

Beatrice among them, with a smile on her lips, as, leaning towards her,

they mock at her lover's weakness. To his friend, who, as he leads him

from the chamber, asks what ails him, he replies: 'My feet have reached

that point beyond which if they pass they can never return.' It was only

matrons that gathered round a bride at her home-coming; Beatrice was

therefore by this time a married woman. That she was but newly married

we may infer from Dante's confusion on finding her there.[43] His secret

has now been discovered, and he must either renounce his love, or, as he

is at length free to do, Beatrice being married, declare it openly, and

spend his life in loyal devotion to her as the mistress of his

imagination and of his heart.[44]

But how is he to pursue his devotion to her, and make use of his new

privilege of freer intercourse, when the very sight of her so unmans

him? He writes three sonnets explaining what may seem pusillanimity in

him, and resolves to write no more. Now comes the most fruitful episode

in the history. Questioned by a bevy of fair ladies what is the end of a

love like his, that cannot even face the object of its desire, he

answers that his happiness lies in the words by which he shows forth the

praises of his mistress. He has now discovered that his passion is its

own reward. In other words, he has succeeded in spiritualising his love;

although to a careless reader it might seem in little need of passing

through the process. Then, soon after, as he walks by a crystal brook,

he is inspired with the words which begin the noblest poem he had yet

produced,[45] and that as the author of which he is hailed by a

fellow-poet in Purgatory. It is the first to glorify Beatrice as one in

whom Heaven is more concerned than Earth; and in it, too, he anticipates

his journey through the other world. She dies,[46] and we are surprised

to find that within a year of her death he wavers in his allegiance to

her memory. A fair face, expressing a tender compassion, looks down on

him from a window as he goes nursing his great sorrow; and he loves the

owner of the face because she pities him. But seeing Beatrice in a

vision he is restored, and the closing sonnet tells how his whole desire

goes forth to her, and how his spirit is borne above the highest sphere

to behold her receiving honour, and shedding radiance on all around her.

The narrative closes with a reference to a vision which he does not

recount, but which incites him to severe study in order that he may

learn to write of her as she deserves. And the last sentence of the

_Vita Nuova_ expresses a hope--a hope which would be arrogant coming

after anything less perfect than the _Vita Nuova_--that, concerning her,

he shall yet say things never said before of any woman. Thus the poet's

earliest work contains an earnest of the latest, and his morning makes

one day with his evening.

The narrative of the _Vita Nuova_ is fluent and graceful, in this

contrasting strongly with the analytical arguments attached to the

various poems. Dante treats his readers as if they were able to catch

the meaning of the most recondite allegory, and yet were ignorant of the

alphabet of literary form. And, as is the case with other poets of the

time, the free movement of his fancy is often hampered by the necessity

he felt of expressing himself in the language of the popular scholastic

philosophy. All this is but to say that he was a man of his period, as

well as a great genius. And even in this his first work he bettered the

example of Guido Cavalcanti, Guido of Bologna, and the others whom he

found, but did not long suffer to remain, the masters of Italian

verse.[47] These inherited from the Provençal and Sicilian poets much

of the cant of which European poetry has been so slow to clear itself;

and chiefly that of presenting all human emotion and volition under the

figure of love for a mistress, who was often merely a creature of fancy,

set up to act as Queen of Beauty while the poet ran his intellectual

jousts. But Dante dealt in no feigned inspiration, and distinguishes

himself from the whole school of philosophical and artificial poets as

'one who can only speak as love inspires.'[48] He may deal in allegory

and utter sayings dark enough, but the first suggestions of his thoughts

are obtained from facts of emotion or of real life. His lady was no

creature of fancy, but his neighbour Beatrice Portinari: and she who

ends in the _Paradiso_ as the embodied beauty of holiness was, to begin

with, a fair Florentine girl.

The instance of Beatrice is the strongest, although others might be

adduced, to illustrate Dante's economy of actual experience; the skilful

use, that is, of real emotions and incidents to serve for suggestion and

material of poetical thought. As has been told, towards the close of the

_Vita Nuova_ he describes how he found a temporary consolation for the

loss of Beatrice in the pity of a fair and noble lady. In his next work,

the _Convito_, or _Banquet_, she appears as the personification of

philosophy. The plan of the _Convito_ is that of a commentary on odes

which are interpreted as having various meanings--among others the

literal as distinguished from the allegorical or essentially true. As

far as this lady is concerned, Dante shows some eagerness to pass from

the literal meaning; desirous, it may be, to correct the belief that he

had ever wavered in his exclusive devotion to Beatrice. That for a time

he did transfer his thoughts from Beatrice in Heaven to the fair lady of

the window is almost certain, and by the time he wrote the _Purgatorio_

he was able to make confession of such a fault. But at the earlier

period at which the _Convito_[49] was written, he may have come to

regard the avowal in the _Vita Nuova_ as an oversight dishonouring to

himself as well as to his first love, and so have slurred it over,

leaving the fact to stand enveloped in an allegory. At any rate, to his

gloss upon this passage in his life we are indebted for an interesting

account of how, at the age of twenty-seven, he put himself to school:--

'After losing the earliest joy of my life, I was so smitten with

sorrow that in nothing could I find any comfort. Yet after some

time my mind, eager to recover its tone, since nought that I or

others could do availed to restore me, directed itself to find how

people, being disconsolate, had been comforted. And so I took to

reading that little-known book by Boethius, by writing which he,

captive and in exile, had obtained relief. Next, hearing that Tully

as well had written a book in which, treating of friendship, he had

consoled the worthy Laelius on the occasion of the loss of his

friend Scipio, I read that too. And though at the first I found

their meaning hard, at last I comprehended it as far as my

knowledge of the language and some little command of mother-wit

enabled me to do: which same mother-wit had already helped me to

much, as may be seen by the _Vita Nuova_. And as it often happens

that a man goes seeking silver, and lights on gold he is not

looking for--the result of chance, or of some divine provision; so

I, besides finding the consolation I was in search of to dry my

tears, became possessed of wisdom from authors and sciences and

books. Weighing this well, I deemed that philosophy, the mistress

of these authors, sciences, and books, must be the best of all

things. And imagining her to myself fashioned like a great lady,

rich in compassion, my admiration of her was so unbounded that I

was always delighting myself in her image. And from thus beholding

her in fancy I went on to frequent the places where she is to be

found in very deed--in the schools of theology, to wit, and the

debates of philosophers. So that in a little time, thirty months or

so, I began to taste so much of her sweetness that the love I bore

to her effaced or banished every other thought.'[50]

No one would guess from this description of how he grew enamoured of

philosophy, that at the beginning of his arduous studies Dante took a

wife. She was Gemma, the daughter of Manetto Donati, but related only

distantly, if at all, to the great Corso Donati. They were married in

1292, he being twenty-seven; and in the course of the nine years that

elapsed till his exile she bore him five sons and two daughters.[51]

From his silence regarding her in his works, and from some words of

Boccaccio's which apply only to the period of his exile, it has been

inferred that the union was unhappy. But Dante makes no mention in his

writings of his parents or children any more than of Gemma.[52] And why

should not his wife be included among the things dearest to him which,

he tells us, he had to leave behind him on his banishment? For anything

we know to the contrary, their wedded life up to the time of his exile

may have been happy enough; although most probably the marriage was one

of convenience, and almost certainly Dante found little in Gemma's mind

that answered to his own.[53] In any case it is not safe to lay stress

upon his silence. During the period covered by the _Vita Nuova_ he

served more than once in the field, and to this none of his earlier

works make any reference. In 1289, Arezzo having warmly espoused the

Ghibeline cause, the Florentines, led by Corso Donati and the great

merchant Vieri dei Cerchi, took up arms and met the foe in the field of

Campaldino, on the edge of the upland region of the Casentino. Dante, as

a young man of means and family, fought in the vanguard;[54] and in a

letter partly preserved by one of his early biographers[55] he describes

himself as being then no tiro in arms, and as having with varying

emotions watched the fortunes of the day. From this it is clear that he

had served before, probably in an expedition into the Aretine territory

made in the previous year, and referred to in the _Inferno_.[56] In the

same year as Campaldino was won he was present at the surrender of

Caprona, a fortress belonging to Pisa.[57] But of all this he is silent

in his works, or only makes casual mention of it by way of illustration.

It is, therefore, a waste of time trying to prove his domestic misery

from his silence about his marriage.

IV.

So hard a student was Dante that he now for a time nearly lost the use

of his eyes.[58] But he was cured by regimen, and came to see as well as

ever, he tells us; which we can easily believe was very well indeed. For

his work, as he planned it out, he needed all his powers. The _Convito_,

for example, was designed to admit of a full treatment of all that

concerns philosophy. It marks an earlier stage of his intellectual and

spiritual life than does the opening of the _Inferno_. In it we have the

fruit of the years during which he was wandering astray from his early

ideal, misled by what he afterwards came to count as a vain and

profitless curiosity. Most of its contents, as we have it,[59] are only

indirectly interesting. It is impossible for most people to care for

discussions, conducted with all the nicety of scholastic definition, on

such subjects as the system of the universe as it was evolved out of the

brains of philosophers; the subject-matter of knowledge; and how we

know. But there is one section of it possessed of a very special

interest, the Fourth, in which he treats of the nature of nobility.

This he affirms to be independent of wealth or ancestry, and he finds

every one to be noble who practises the virtues proper to his time of

life. 'None of the Uberti of Florence or the Visconti of Milan can say

he is noble because belonging to such or such a race; for the Divine

seed is sown not in a family but in the individual man.' This amounts,

it must be admitted, to no more than saying that high birth is one

thing, and nobility of character another; but it is significant of what

were the current opinions, that Dante should be at such pains to

distinguish between the two qualities. The canzone which supplies the

text for the treatise closes with a picture of the noble soul at every

stage of life, to which Chaucer may well have been indebted for his

description of the true gentleman:[60]--'The soul that is adorned by

this grace does not keep it hid, but from the day when soul is wed to

body shows it forth even until death. In early life she is modest,

obedient, and gentle, investing the outward form and all its members

with a gracious beauty: in youth she is temperate and strong, full of

love and courteous ways, delighting in loyal deeds: in mature age she is

prudent, and just, and apt to liberality, rejoicing to hear of others'

good. Then in the fourth stage of life she is married again to God,[61]

and contemplates her approaching end with thankfulness for all the

past.'[62]

In this passage it is less the poet that is heard than the sober

moralist, one with a ripe experience of life, and contemptuous of the

vulgar objects of ambition. The calm is on the surface. As has been said

above, he was proud of his own birth, the more proud perhaps that his

station was but a middling one; and to the close of his life he hated

upstarts with their sudden riches, while the Philip Argenti on whom in

the _Inferno_ he takes what has much the air of a private revenge may

have been only a specimen of the violent and haughty nobles with whom he

stood on an uneasy footing.

Yet the impression we get of Dante's surroundings in Florence from the

_Vita Nuova_ and other poems, from references in the _Comedy_, and from

some anecdotes more or less true which survive in the pages of Boccaccio

and elsewhere, is on the whole a pleasant one. We should mistake did we

think of him as always in the guise of absorbed student or tearful

lover. Friends he had, and society of various kinds. He tells how in a

severe illness he was nursed by a young and noble lady, nearly related

to him by blood--his sister most probably; and other ladies are

mentioned as watching in his sick-chamber.[63] With Forese and Piccarda

Donati, brother and sister of the great Corso Donati, he was on terms of

the warmest friendship.[64] From the _Vita Nuova_ we can gather that,

even when his whole heart fainted and failed at the mere sight of

Beatrice, he was a favourite with other ladies and conversed familiarly

with them. The brother of Beatrice was his dear friend; while among

those of the elder generation he could reckon on the friendship of such

men as Guido Cavalcanti and Brunetto Latini. Through Latini he would,

even as a young man, get the entry of the most lettered and

intellectually active society of Florence. The tradition of his intimacy

with Giotto is supported by the mention he makes of the painter,[65] and

by the fact, referred to in the _Vita Nuova_, that he was himself a

draughtsman. It is to be regretted there are not more anecdotes of him

on record like that which tells how one day as he drew an angel on his

tablets he was broken in upon by 'certain people of importance.' The

musician Casella, whom he 'woes to sing in Purgatory'[66] and Belacqua,

the indolent good-humoured lutemaker,[67] are greeted by him in a tone

of friendly warmth in the one case and of easy familiarity in the other,

which help us to know the terms on which he stood with the quick-witted

artist class in Florence.[68] Already he was in the enjoyment of a high

reputation as a poet and scholar, and there seemed no limit to the

greatness he might attain to in his native town as a man of action as

well as a man of thought.

In most respects the Florence of that day was as fitting a home for a

man of genius as could well be imagined. It was full of a life which

seemed restless only because the possibilities of improvement for the

individual and the community seemed infinite. A true measure of its

political progress and of the activity of men's minds is supplied by the

changes then being made in the outward aspect of the city. The duties of

the Government were as much municipal as political, and it would have

surprised a Florentine to be told that the one kind of service was of

less dignity than the other. The population grew apace, and, to provide

the means for extending the city walls, every citizen, on pain of his

testament being found invalid, was required to bequeath a part of his

estate to the public. Already the banks of the Arno were joined by three

bridges of stone, and the main streets were paved with the

irregularly-shaped blocks of lava still familiar to the sojourner in

Florence. But between the time of Dante's boyhood and the close of the

century the other outstanding features of the city were greatly altered,

or were in the course of change. The most important churches of

Florence, as he first knew it, were the Baptistery and the neighbouring

small cathedral church of Santa Reparata; after these ranked the church

of the Trinity, Santo Stefano, and some other churches which are now

replaced by larger ones, or of which the site alone can be discovered.

On the other side of the river, Samminiato with its elegant façade rose

as now upon its hill.[69] The only great civic building was the Palace

of the Podesta. The Old Market was and had long been the true centre of

the city's life.

At the time Dante went into exile Arnolfo was already working on the

great new cathedral of St. Mary of the Flowers, the spacious Santa

Croce, and the graceful Badia; and Santa Maria Novella was slowly

assuming the perfection of form that was later to make it the favourite

of Michel Angelo. The Palace of the Signory was already planned, though

half a century was to elapse before its tower soared aloft to daunt the

private strongholds which bristled, fierce and threatening, all over the

city. The bell-tower of Giotto, too, was of later erection--the only

pile we can almost regret that Dante never saw. The architect of it was

however already adorning the walls of palace and cloister with paintings

whose inspiration was no longer, like that of the works they

overshadowed, drawn from the outworn motives of Byzantine art, but from

the faithful observation of nature.[70] He in painting and the Pisan

school in sculpture were furnishing the world with novel types of beauty

in the plastic arts, answering to the 'sweet new style' in verse of

which it was Dante that discovered the secret.[71]

Florence was now by far the leading city in Tuscany. Its merchants and

money-dealers were in correspondence with every Mediterranean port and

with every country of the West. Along with bales of goods and letters of

exchange new ideas and fresh intelligence were always on the road to

Florence. The knowledge of what was going on in the world, and of what

men were thinking, was part of the stock-in-trade of the quick-witted

citizens, and they were beginning to be employed throughout Europe in

diplomatic work, till then almost a monopoly of churchmen. 'These

Florentines seem to me to form a fifth element,' said Boniface, who had

ample experience of how accomplished they were.

At home they had full employment for their political genius; and still

upon the old problem, of how to curb the arrogance of the class that, in

place of being satisfied to share in the general prosperity, sought its

profit in the maintenance of privilege. It is necessary, at the cost of

what may look like repetition, to revert to the presence and activity of

this class in Florence, if we are to form a true idea of the

circumstances of Dante's life, and enter into the spirit with which much

of the _Comedy_ is informed. Though many of the nobles were now engaged

in commerce and figured among the popular leaders, most of the greater

houses stood proudly aloof from everything that might corrupt their

gentility. These were styled the magnates: they found, as it were, a

vocation for themselves in being nobles. Among them the true distinctive

spirit of Ghibelinism survived, although none of them would now have

dared to describe himself as a Ghibeline. Their strength lay partly in

the unlimited control they retained over the serfs on their landward

estates; in the loyalty with which the members of a family held by one

another; in their great command of resources as the administrators of

the _Parte Guelfa_; and in the popularity they enjoyed with the smaller

people in consequence of their lavish expenditure, and frank if insolent

manners. By law scarcely the equals of the full citizens, in point of

fact they tyrannised over them. Their houses, set like fortresses in the

crowded streets, frequently served as prisons and torture-chambers for

the low-born traders or artisans who might offend them.

Measures enough had been passed towards the close of the century with a

view to curb the insolence of the magnates; but the difficulty was to

get them put in force. At length, in 1294, they, with many additional

reforms, were embodied in the celebrated Ordinances of Justice. These

for long were counted back to as the Great Charter of Florence--a Great

Charter defining the popular rights and the disabilities of the

baronage. Punishments of special severity were enacted for nobles who

should wrong a plebeian, and the whole of a family or clan was made

responsible for the crimes and liabilities of its several members. The

smaller tradesmen were conciliated by being admitted to a share in

political influence. If serfage was already abolished in the State of

Florence, it was the Ordinances which made it possible for the serf to

use his liberty.[72] But the greatest blow dealt to the nobles by the

new laws was their exclusion, as nobles, from all civil and political

offices. These they could hold only by becoming members of one of the

trade guilds.[73] And to deprive a citizen of his rights it was enough

to inscribe his name in the list of magnates.

It is not known in what year Dante became a member of the Guild of

Apothecaries. Without much reason it has been assumed that he was one of

the nobles who took advantage of the law of 1294. But there is no

evidence that in his time the Alighieri ranked as magnates, and much

ground for believing that for some considerable time past they had

belonged to the order of full citizens.

It was not necessary for every guildsman to practise the art or engage

in the business to which his guild was devoted, and we are not required

to imagine Dante as having anything to do with medicine or with the

spices and precious stones in which the apothecaries traded. The guilds

were political as much as industrial associations, and of the public

duties of his membership he took his full share. The constitution of the

Republic, jealously careful to limit the power of the individual

citizen, provided that the two chief executive officers, the Podesta and

the Captain of the People, should always be foreigners. They held office

only for six months. To each of them was assigned a numerous Council,

and before a law could be abrogated or a new one passed it needed the

approval of both these Councils, as well as that of the Priors, and of

the heads of the principal guilds. The Priors were six in number, one

for each district of the city. With them lay the administration in

general of the laws, and the conduct of foreign affairs. Their office

was elective, and held for two months.[74] Of one or other of the

Councils Dante is known to have been a member in 1295, 1296, 1300, and

1301.[75] In 1299 he is found engaged on a political mission to the

little hill-city of San Gemigniano, where in the town-house they still

show the pulpit from which he addressed the local senate.[76] From the

middle of June till the middle of August 1300 he served as one of the

Priors.[77]

At the time when Dante entered on this office, Florence was distracted

by the feud of Blacks and Whites, names borrowed from the factions of

Pistoia, but fated to become best known from their use in the city which

adopted them. The strength of the Blacks lay in the nobles whom the

Ordinances of Justice had been designed to depress; both such of them as

had retained their standing as magnates, and such as, under the new law,

had unwillingly entered the ranks of the citizens. Already they had

succeeded in driving into exile Giano della Bella,[78] the chief author

of the Ordinances; and their efforts--and those of the citizens who,

fearing the growing power of the lesser guilds, were in sympathy with

them--were steadily directed to upset the reforms. An obvious means to

this end was to lower in popular esteem the public men whose policy it

was to govern firmly on the new lines. The leader of the discontented

party was Corso Donati, a man of small fortune, but of high birth; of

splendid personal appearance, open-handed, and of popular manners. He

and they who went with him affected a violent Guelfism, their chance of

recovering the control of domestic affairs being the better the more

they could frighten the Florentines with threats of evils like those

incurred by the Aretines and Pisans from Ghibeline oppression. It may be

imagined what meaning the cry of Ghibeline possessed in days when there

was still a class of beggars in Florence--men of good names--whose eyes

had been torn out by Farinata and his kind.

One strong claim which Corso Donati had on the goodwill of his

fellow-townsmen was that by his ready courage in pushing on the

reserves, against superior orders, at the battle of Campaldino,[79] the

day had been won to Florence and her allies. As he rode gallantly

through the streets he was hailed as the Baron (_il Barone_), much as in

the last generation the victor of Waterloo was sufficiently

distinguished as the Duke. At the same battle, Vieri dei Cerchi, the

leader of the opposite party of the Whites, had shown no less bravery,

but he was ignorant of the art, or despised it, of making political

capital out of the performance of his duty. In almost every respect he

offered a contrast to Donati. He was of a new family, and his influence

depended not on landed possessions, though he had these too, but on

wealth derived from commerce.[80] According to John Villani, a competent

authority on such a point,[81] he was at the head of one of the greatest

trading houses in the world. The same crowds that cheered Corso as the

great Baron sneered at the reticent and cold-tempered merchant as the

Ghibeline. It was a strange perversion of ideas, and yet had this of

justification, that all the nobles of Ghibeline tendency and all the

citizens who, on account of their birth, were suspected of leaning that

way were driven into the party of the Whites by the mere fact of the

Blacks hoisting so defiantly the Guelf flag, and commanding the

resources of the _Parte Guelfa_. But if Ghibelinism meant, as fifty

years previously it did mean, a tendency to exalt privilege as against

the general liberties and to court foreign interference in the affairs

of Florence, it was the Blacks and not the Whites who had served

themselves heirs to Ghibelinism. That the appeal was now taken to the

Pope instead of to the Emperor did not matter; or that French soldiers

in place of German were called in to settle domestic differences.

The Roman See was at this time filled by Boniface VIII., who six years

previously, by violence and fraud, had procured the resignation of

Celestine V.--him who made the great refusal.[82] Boniface was at once

arrogant and subtle, wholly faithless, and hampered by no scruple

either of religion or humanity. But these qualities were too common

among those who before and after him filled the Papal throne, to secure

him in a special infamy. That he has won from the ruthless hatred which

blazes out against him in many a verse of Dante's,[83] and for this

hatred he is indebted to his interference in the affairs of Florence,

and what came as one of the fruits of it--the poet's exile.

And yet, from the point of view not only of the interest of Rome but

also of Italy, there is much to be said for the policy of Boniface.

German domination was a just subject of fear, and the Imperialist

element was still so strong in Northern and Central Italy, that if the

Emperor Albert[84] had been a man of a more resolute ambition, he

might--so contemporaries deemed--have conquered Italy at the cost of a

march through it. The cities of Romagna were already in Ghibeline

revolt, and it was natural that the Pope should seek to secure Florence

on the Papal side. It was for the Florentines rather than for him to

judge what they would lose or gain by being dragged into the current of

general politics. He made a fair beginning with an attempt to reconcile

the two parties. The Whites were then the dominant faction, and to them

reconciliation meant that their foes would at once divide the

government with them, and at the long-run sap the popular liberties,

while the Pope's hand would soon be allowed to dip freely into the

communal purse. The policy of the Whites was therefore one of steady

opposition to all foreign meddling with Florence. But it failed to

secure general support, for without being Ghibeline in fact it had the

air of being so; and the name of Ghibeline was one that no reasoning

could rob of its terrors.[85]

As was usual in Florence when political feeling ran high, the hotter

partisans came to blows, and the streets were more than once disturbed

by violence and bloodshed. To an onlooker it must have seemed as if the

interposition of some external authority was desirable; and almost on

the same day as the new Priors, of whom Dante was one and who were all

Whites, took office in the June of 1300, the Cardinal Acquasparta

entered the city, deputed by the Pope to establish peace. His proposals

were declined by the party in power, and having failed in his mission he

left the city, and took the priestly revenge upon it of placing it under

interdict.[86] Ere many months were passed, the Blacks, at a meeting of

the heads of the party, resolved to open negotiations anew with

Boniface. For this illegal step some of them, including Corso Donati,

were ordered into exile by the authorities, who, to give an appearance

of impartiality to their proceedings, at the same time banished some of

the Whites, and among them Guido Cavalcanti. It was afterwards made a

charge against Dante that he had procured the recall of his friend Guido

and the other Whites from exile; but to this he could answer that he was

not then in office.[87] Corso in the meantime was using his enforced

absence from Florence to treat freely with the Pope.

Boniface had already entered into correspondence with Charles of Valois,

brother of Philip, the reigning King of France, with the view of

securing the services of a strongly-connected champion. It was the game

that had been played before by the Roman Court when Charles of Anjou was

called to Italy to crush the Hohenstaufens. This second Charles was a

man of ability of a sort, as he had given cruel proof in his brother's

Flemish wars. By the death of his wife, daughter of his kinsman Charles

II. of Naples and so grand-daughter of Charles of Anjou, he had lost the

dominions of Maine and Anjou, and had got the nickname of Lackland from

his want of a kingdom. He lent a willing ear to Boniface, who presented

him with the crown of Sicily on condition that he first wrested it from

the Spaniard who wore it.[88] All the Papal influence was exerted to get

money for the expenses of the descent on Sicily. Even churchmen were

required to contribute, for it was a holy war, and the hope was that

when Charles, the champion of the Church, had reduced Italy to

obedience, won Sicily for himself by arms, and perhaps the Eastern

Empire by marriage, he would win the Holy Sepulchre for Christendom.

Charles crossed the Alps in August 1301, with five hundred men-at-arms,

and, avoiding Florence on his southward march, found Boniface at his

favourite residence of Anagni. He was created Pacificator of Tuscany,

and loaded with other honours. What better served the purpose of his

ambition, he was urged to retrace his steps and justify his new title by

restoring peace to Florence. There the Whites were still in power, but

they dared not declare themselves openly hostile to the Papal and Guelf

interest by refusing him admission to the city. He came with gentle

words, and ready to take the most stringent oaths not to tamper with the

liberties of the Commonwealth; but once he had gained an entrance

(November 1301) and secured his hold on Florence, he threw off every

disguise, gave full play to his avarice, and amused himself with looking

on at the pillage of the dwellings and warehouses of the Whites by the

party of Corso Donati. By all this, says Dante, Charles 'gained no

land,' Lackland as he was, 'but only sin and shame.'[89]

There is a want of precise information as to the events of this time.

But it seems probable that Dante formed one of an embassy sent by the

rulers of Florence to the Pope in the autumn of this year; and that on

the occasion of the entrance of Charles he was absent from Florence.

What the embassy had to propose which Boniface could be expected to be

satisfied with, short of complete submission, is not known and is not

easy to guess. It seems clear at least that Dante cannot have been

chosen as a person likely to be specially pleasing to the Roman Court.

Within the two years preceding he had made himself prominent in the

various Councils of which he was a member, by his sturdy opposition to

affording aid to the Pope in his Romagnese wars. It is even possible

that his theory of the Empire was already more or less known to

Boniface, and as that Pontiff claimed Imperial authority over such

states as Florence, this would be sufficient to secure him a rough

reception.[90] Where he was when the terrible news came to him that for

some days there had been no law in Florence, and that Corso Donati was

sharing in the triumph of Charles, we do not know. Presageful of worse

things to come, he did not seek to return, and is said to have been in

Siena when he heard that, on the 27th January 1302, he had been

sentenced to a heavy fine and political disabilities for having been

guilty of extortion while a Prior, of opposing the coming of Charles,

and of crimes against the peace of Florence and the interest of the

_Parte Guelfa_. If the fine was not paid within three days his goods and

property were to be confiscated. This condemnation he shared with three

others. In the following March he was one of twelve condemned, for

contumacy, to be burned alive if ever they fell into the hands of the

Florentine authorities. We may perhaps assume that the cruel sentence,

as well as the charge of peculation, was uttered only in order to

conform to some respectable precedents.

V.

Besides Dante many other Whites had been expelled from Florence.[91]

Whether they liked it or not, they were forced to seek aid from the

Ghibelines of Arezzo and Romagna. This led naturally to a change of

political views, and though at the time of their banishment all of them

were Guelfs in various degrees, as months and years went on they

developed into Ghibelines, more or less declared. Dissensions, too,

would be bred among them out of recriminations touching the past, and

charges of deserting the general interest for the sake of securing

private advantage in the way of making peace with the Republic. For a

time, however, the common desire of gaining a return to Florence held

them together. Of the Council constituted to bring this about, Dante was

a member. Once only with his associates does he appear to have come the

length of formal negotiations with a view to getting back. Charles of

Valois had passed away from the temporary scene of his extortions and

treachery, upon the futile quest of a crown. Boniface, ere being

persecuted to death by his old ally, Philip of France (1303), had vainly

attempted to check the cruelty of the Blacks; and Benedict, his

successor, sent the Cardinal of Ostia to Florence with powers to

reconcile the two parties. Dante is usually credited with the

composition of the letter in which Vieri dei Cerchi and his

fellow-exiles answered the call of the Cardinal to discuss the

conditions of their return home. All that had been done by the banished

party, said the letter, had been done for the public good.[92] The

negotiations came to nothing; nor were the exiles more fortunate in

arms. Along with their allies they did once succeed by a sudden dash in

penetrating to the market-place, and Florence lay within their grasp

when, seized with panic, they turned and fled from the city, which many

of them were never to see again.

Almost certainly Dante took no active part in this attempt, and indeed

there is little to show that he was ever heartily associated with the

exiles. In his own words, he was compelled to break with his companions

owing to their imbecility and wickedness, and to form a party by

himself.[93] With the Whites, then, he had little more to do; and the

story of their fortunes need not longer detain us. It is enough to say

that while, like Dante, the chief men among them were for ever excluded

from Florence, the principles for which they had contended survived, and

even obtained something like a triumph within its walls. The success of

Donati and his party, though won with the help of the people, was too

clearly opposed to the popular interest to be permanent. Ere long the

inveterate contradiction between magnate and merchant was again to

change the course of Florentine politics; the disabilities against

lawless nobles were again to be enforced; and Corso Donati himself was

to be crushed in the collision of passions he had evoked but could not

control (1308). Though tenderly attached to members of his family, Dante

bore Corso a grudge as having been the chief agent in procuring his

exile--a grudge which years could do nothing to wipe out. He places in

the mouth of Forese Donati a prophecy of the great Baron's shameful

death, expressed in curt and scornful words, terrible from a

brother.[94] It is no figure of speech to say that Dante nursed revenge.

For some few years his hopes were set on Henry of Luxemburg, elected

Emperor in 1308. A Ghibeline, in the ordinary sense of the term, Dante

never was. We have in his _De Monarchia_ a full account of the

conception he had formed of the Empire--that of authority in temporal

affairs embodied in a just ruler, who, being already supreme, would be

delivered from all personal ambition; who should decree justice and be a

refuge for all that were oppressed. He was to be the captain of

Christian society and the guardian of civil right; as in another sphere

the Pope was to be the shepherd of souls and the guardian of the deposit

of Divine truth. In Dante's eyes the one great officer was as much God's

vicegerent as the other. While the most that a Ghibeline or a moderate

Guelf would concede was that there should be a division of power between

Pope and Emperor--the Ghibeline leaving it to the Emperor and the Guelf

to the Pope to define their provinces--Dante held, and in this he stood

almost alone among politicians, that they ought to be concerned with

wholly different kingdoms, and that Christendom was wronged by the

trespass of either upon the other's domain. An equal wrong was done by

the neglect by either of his duty, and both, as Dante judged, had been

shamefully neglecting it. For more than half a century no Emperor had

set foot in Italy; and since the Papal Court had under Clement V. been

removed to Avignon (1305), the Pope had ceased to be a free agent, owing

to his neighbourhood to France and the unscrupulous Philip.[95]

Dante trusted that the virtuous single-minded Henry VII. would prove a

monarch round whom all the best in Italy might gather to make him

Emperor in deed as well as in name. His judgment took the colour of his

hopes, for under the awful shadow of the Emperor he trusted to enter

Florence. Although no Ghibeline or Imperialist in the vulgar sense, he

constituted himself Henry's apologist and herald; and in letters

addressed to the 'wicked Florentines,' to the Emperor, and to the

Princes and Peoples of Italy, he blew as it were a trumpet-blast of

triumph over the Emperor's enemies and his own. Henry had crossed the

Alps, and was tarrying in the north of Italy, when Dante, with a keen

eye for where the key of the situation lay, sharpened by his own wishes,

urged him to lose no more time in reducing the Lombard cities to

obedience, but to descend on Florence, the rotten sheep which was

corrupting all the Italian flock. The men of Florence he bids prepare to

receive the just reward of their crimes.

The Florentines answered Dante's bitter invective and the Emperor's

milder promises by an unwearied opposition with the arms which their

increasing command of all that tends to soften life made them now less

willing to take up, and by the diplomacy in which they were supreme The

exiles were recalled, always excepting the more stubborn or dangerous;

and among these was reckoned Dante. Alliances were made on all hands, an

art which Henry was notably wanting in the trick of. Wherever he turned

he was met and checkmated by the Florentines, who, wise by experience,

were set on retaining control of their own affairs. After his coronation

at Rome (1312),[96] he marched northwards, and with his Pisan and

Aretine allies for six weeks laid fruitless siege to Florence. King

Robert of Naples, whose aid he had hoped to gain by means of a family

alliance, was joined to the league of Guelfs, and Henry passed away from

Florence to engage in an enterprise against the Southern Kingdom, a

design cut short by his death (1313). He was the last Emperor that ever

sought to take the part in Italian affairs which on Dante's theory

belonged to the Imperial office. Well-meaning but weak, he was not the

man to succeed in reducing to practice a scheme of government which had

broken down even in the strong hands of the two Fredericks, and ere the

Commonwealths of Italy had become each as powerful as a Northern

kingdom. To explain his failure, Dante finds that his descent into Italy

was unseasonable: he came too soon. Rather, it may be said, he came far

too late.[97]

When, on the death of Henry, Dante was disappointed in his hopes of a

true revival of the Empire, he devoted himself for a time to urging the

restoration of the Papal Court to Rome, so that Italy might at least not

be left without some centre of authority. In a letter addressed to the

Italian Cardinals, he besought them to replace Clement V., who died in

1314,[98] by an Italian Pope. Why should they, he asked, resign this

great office into Gascon hands? Why should Rome, the true centre of

Christendom, be left deserted and despised? His appeal was fruitless, as

indeed it could not fail to be with only six Italian Cardinals in a

College of twenty-four; and after a vacancy of two years the Gascon

Clement was succeeded by another Gascon. Although Dante's motives in

making this attempt were doubtless as purely patriotic as those which

inspired Catherine of Siena to similar action a century later, he met,

we may be sure, with but little sympathy from his former

fellow-citizens. They were intent upon the interests of Florence alone,

and even of these they may sometimes have taken a narrow view. His was

the wider patriotism of the Italian, and it was the whole Peninsula

that he longed to see delivered from French influence and once more

provided with a seat of authority in its midst, even if it were only

that of spiritual power. The Florentines for their part, desirous of

security against the incursions of the northern horde, were rather set

on retaining the goodwill of France than on enjoying the neighbourhood

of the Pope. In this they were guilty of no desertion of their

principles. Their Guelfism had never been more than a mode of minding

themselves.

For about three years (1313-1316) the most dangerous foe of Florence was

Uguccione de la Faggiuola, a partisan Ghibeline chief, sprung from the

mountain-land of Urbino, which lies between Tuscany and Romagna. He made

himself lord of Pisa and Lucca, and defeated the Florentines and their

allies in the great battle of Montecatini (1315). To him Dante is

believed to have attached himself.[99] It would be easy for the Republic

to form an exaggerated idea of the part which the exile had in shaping

the policy or contributing to the success of his patron; and we are not

surprised to find that, although Dante's fighting days were done, he was

after the defeat subjected to a third condemnation (November 1315). If

caught, he was to lose his head; and his sons, or some of them, were

threatened with the same fate. The terms of the sentence may again have

been more severe than the intentions of those who uttered it. However

this may be, an amnesty was passed in the course of the following year,

and Dante was urged to take advantage of it. He found the conditions of

pardon too humiliating. Like a malefactor he would require to walk,

taper in hand and a shameful mitre on his head, to the church of St

John, and there make an oblation for his crimes. It was not in this

fashion that in his more hopeful hours the exile had imagined his

restoration. If ever he trod again the pavement of his beautiful St

John's, it was to be proudly, as a patriot touching whom his country had

confessed her sins; or, with a poet's more bashful pride, to receive the

laurel crown beside the font in which he was baptized. But as he would

not enter his well beloved, well hated Florence on the terms imposed by

his enemies, so he never had the chance of entering it on his own. The

spirit in which he, as it were, turned from the open gates of his native

town is well expressed in a letter to a friend, who would seem to have

been a churchman who had tried to win his compliance with the terms of

the pardon. After thanking his correspondent for his kindly eagerness to

recover him, and referring to the submission required, he says:--'And is

it in this glorious fashion that Dante Alighieri, wearied with an almost

trilustral exile, is recalled to his country? Is this the desert of an

innocence known to all, and of laborious study which for long has kept

him asweat?... But, Father, this is no way for me to return to my

country by; though if by you or others one can be hit upon through which

the honour and fame of Dante will take no hurt, it shall be followed by

me with no tardy steps. If by none such Florence is to be entered, I

will never enter Florence. What then! Can I not, wherever I may be,

behold the sun and stars? Is not meditation upon the sweetness of truth

as free to me in one place as another? To enjoy this, no need to submit

myself ingloriously and with ignominy to the State and People of

Florence! And wherever I may be thrown, in any case I trust at least to

find daily bread.'

The cruelty and injustice of Florence to her greatest son have been the

subject of much eloquent blame. But, in justice to his contemporaries,

we must try to see Dante as they saw him, and bear in mind that the very

qualities fame makes so much of--his fervent temper and devotion to

great ideas--placed him out of the reach of common sympathy. Others

besides him had been banished from Florence, with as much or as little

reason, and had known the saltness of bread which has been begged, and

the steepness of strange stairs. The pains of banishment made them the

more eager to have it brought to a close. With Dante all that he

suffered went to swell the count of grievances for which a reckoning was

some day to be exacted. The art of returning was, as he himself knew

well, one he was slow to learn.[100] His noble obstinacy, which would

stoop to no loss of dignity or sacrifice of principle, must excite our

admiration; it also goes far to account for his difficulty in getting

back. We can even imagine that in Florence his refusal to abate one

tittle of what was due to him in the way of apology was, for a time, the

subject of wondering speculation to the citizens, ere they turned again

to their everyday affairs of politics and merchandise. Had they been

more used to deal with men in whom a great genius was allied to a

stubborn sense of honour, they would certainly have left less room in

their treatment of Dante for happier ages to cavil at.

How did the case stand? In the letter above quoted from, Dante says that

his innocence was known to all. As far as the charge of corruption in

his office-bearing went, his banishment--no one can doubt it for a

moment--was certainly unjust; and the political changes in Florence

since the death of Corso Donati had taken all the life out of the other

charges. But by his eager appeals to the Emperor to chastise the

Florentines he had raised fresh barriers against his return. The

governors of the Republic could not be expected to adopt his theory of

the Empire and share his views of the Imperial claims; and to them Dante

must have seemed as much guilty of disloyalty to the Commonwealth in

inviting the presence of Henry, as Corso Donati had been in Dante's eyes

for his share in bringing Charles of Valois to harry Florence. His

political writings since his exile--and all his writings were more or

less political--had been such as might well confirm or create an opinion

of him as a man difficult to live with, as one whose intellectual

arrogance had a ready organ in his unsparing tongue or pen. Rumour

would most willingly dwell upon and distort the features of his

character and conduct that separated him from the common herd. And to

add to all this, even after he had deserted the party of the Whites in

exile, and had become a party to himself, he found his friends and

patrons--for where else could he find them?--among the foes of Florence.

VI.

History never abhors a vacuum so much as when she has to deal with the

life of a great man, and for those who must have details of Dante's

career during the nineteen years which elapsed between his banishment

and his death, the industry of his biographers has exhausted every

available hint, while some of them press into their service much that

has only the remotest bearing on their hero. If even one-half of their

suppositions were adopted, we should be forced to the conclusion that

the _Comedy_ and all the other works of his exile were composed in the

intervals of a very busy life. We have his own word for this much,

(_Convito_ i. 3,) that since he was cast forth out of Florence--in which

he would 'fain rest his wearied soul and fulfil his appointed time'--he

had been 'a pilgrim, nay, even a mendicant,' in every quarter of

Italy,[101] and had 'been held cheap by many who, because of his fame,

had looked to find him come in another guise.' But he gives no journal

of his wanderings, and, as will have been observed, says no word of any

country but Italy. Keeping close to well-ascertained facts, it seems

established that in the earlier period of his exile he sojourned with

members of the great family of the Counts Guidi,[102] and that he also

found hospitality with the Malaspini,[103] lords of the Val di Magra,

between Genoa and Lucca. At a still earlier date (August 1306) he is

found witnessing a deed in Padua. It was most probably in the same year

that Dante found Giotto there, painting the walls of the Scrovegni

Chapel, and was courteously welcomed by the artist, and taken to his

house.[104] At some time of his life he studied at Bologna: John Villani

says, during his exile.[105] Of his supposed residence in Paris, though

it is highly probable, there is a want of proof; of a visit to England,

none at all that is worth a moment's consideration. Some of his

commentators and biographers seem to think he was so short-witted that

he must have been in a place before it could occur to him to name it in

his verse.

We have Dante's own word for it that he found his exile almost

intolerable. Besides the bitter resentment which he felt at the

injustice of it, he probably cherished the conviction that his career

had been cut short when he was on the point of acquiring great influence

in affairs. The illusion may have been his--one not uncommon among men

of a powerful imagination--that, given only due opportunity, he could

mould the active life of his time as easily as he moulded and fashioned

the creations of his fancy. It was, perhaps, owing to no fault of his

own that when a partial opportunity had offered itself, he failed to get

his views adopted in Florence; indeed, to judge from the kind of

employment in which he was more than once engaged for his patrons, he

must have been possessed of no little business tact. Yet, as when his

feelings were deeply concerned his words knew no restraint, so his hopes

would partake of the largeness of his genius. In the restored Empire,

which he was almost alone in longing for as he conceived of it, he may

have imagined for himself a place beside Henry like what in Frederick's

court had been filled by Pier delle Vigne--the man who held both keys to

the Emperor's heart, and opened and shut it as he would.[106]

Thus, as his exile ran on it would grow sadder with the accumulating

memories of hopes deferred and then destroyed, and of dreams which had

faded away in the light of a cheerless reality. But some consolations he

must have found even in the conditions of his exile. He had leisure for

meditation, and time enough to spend in that other world which was all

his own. With the miseries of a wanderer's life would come not a few of

its sweets--freedom from routine, and the intellectual stimulus supplied

by change of place. Here and there he would find society such as he

cared for--that of scholars, theologians, and men familiar with every

court and school of Christendom. And, beyond all, he would get access to

books that at home he might never have seen. It was no spare diet that

would serve his mind while he was making such ample calls on it for his

great work. As it proceeds we seem to detect a growing fulness of

knowledge, and it is by reason of the more learned treatment, as well as

the loftier theme of the Third Cantica, that so many readers, when once

well at sea in the _Paradiso_, recognise the force of the warning with

which it begins.[107]

What amount of intercourse he was able to maintain with Florence during

his wanderings is a matter of mere speculation, although of a more

interesting kind than that concerned with the chronology of his uneasy

travels. That he kept up at least some correspondence with his friends

is proved by the letter regarding the terms of his pardon. There is also

the well-known anecdote told by Boccaccio as to the discovery and

despatch to him of the opening Cantos of the _Inferno_--an anecdote we

may safely accept as founded on fact, although Boccaccio's informants

may have failed to note at the time what the manuscript consisted of,

and in the course of years may have magnified the importance of their

discovery. With his wife he would naturally communicate on subjects of

common interest--as, for instance, that of how best to save or recover

part of his property--and especially regarding the welfare of his sons,

of whom two are found to be with him when he acquires something like a

settlement in Verona.

It is quite credible that, as Boccaccio asserts, he would never after

his exile was once begun 'go to his wife or suffer her to join him where

he was;' although the statement is probably an extension of the fact

that she never did join him. In any case it is to make too large a use

of the words to find in them evidence, as has frequently been done, of

the unhappiness of all his married life, and of his utter estrangement

from Gemma during his banishment. The union--marriage of convenience

though it was--might be harmonious enough as long as things went

moderately well with the pair. Dante was never wealthy, but he seems to

have had his own house in Florence and small landed possessions in its

neighbourhood.[108] That before his banishment he was considerably in

debt appears to be ascertained;[109] but, without knowing the

circumstances in which he borrowed, it is impossible to be sure whether

he may not only have been making use of his credit in order to put out

part of his means to advantage in some of the numerous commercial

enterprises in which his neighbours were engaged. In any case his career

must have seemed full of promise till he was driven into banishment.

When that blow had fallen, it is easy to conceive how what if it was not

mutual affection had come to serve instead of it--esteem and

forbearance--would be changed into indifference with the lapse of months

and years of enforced separation, embittered and filled on both sides

with the mean cares of indigence, and, it may be, on Gemma's side with

the conviction that her husband had brought her with himself into

disgrace. If all that is said by Boccaccio and some of Dante's enemies

as to his temperament and behaviour were true, we could only hope that

Gemma's indifference was deep enough to save her from the pangs of

jealousy. And on the other hand, if we are to push suspicion to its

utmost length, we may find an allusion to his own experience in the

lines where Dante complains of how soon a widow forgets her

husband.[110] But this is all matter of the merest speculation. Gemma

is known to have been alive in 1314.[111] She brought up her children,

says Boccaccio, upon a trifling part of her husband's confiscated

estate, recovered on the plea that it was a portion of her dowry. There

may have been difficulties of a material kind, insuperable save to an

ardent love that was not theirs, in the way of Gemma's joining her

husband in any of his cities of refuge.

Complete evidence exists of Dante's having in his later years lived for

a longer or shorter time in the three cities of Lucca, Verona, and

Ravenna. In Purgatory he meets a shade from Lucca, in the murmur of

whose words he catches he 'knows not what of Gentucca;'[112] and when he

charges the Lucchese to speak plainly out, he is told that Lucca shall

yet be found pleasant by him because of a girl not yet grown to

womanhood. Uguccione, acting in the interest of Pisa, took possession of

Lucca in 1314, and Dante is supposed to have taken up his residence

there for some considerable time. What we may certainly infer from his

own words in the _Purgatorio_ is that they were written after a stay in

Lucca had been sweetened to him by the society of a lady named Gentucca.

He cannot well have found shelter there before the city was held by

Uguccione; and research has established that at least two ladies of the

uncommon name of Gentucca were resident there in 1314. From the whole

tone of his allusion--the mention of her very name and of her innocent

girlhood--we may gather that there was nothing in his liking for her of

which he had any reason to feel ashamed. In the _Inferno_ he had covered

the whole people of Lucca with his scorn.[113] By the time he got thus

far with the _Purgatorio_ his thoughts of the place were all softened by

his memory of one fair face--or shall we rather say, of one

compassionate and womanly soul? That Dante was more than susceptible to

feminine charms is coarsely asserted by Boccaccio.[114] But on such a

matter Boccaccio is a prejudiced witness, and, in the absence of

sufficient proof to the contrary, justice requires us to assume that the

tenor of Dante's life was not at variance with that of his writings. He

who was so severe a judge of others was not, as we can infer from more

than one passage of the _Comedy_, a lenient judge when his own failings

were concerned.[115] That his conduct never fell short of his standard

no one will venture to maintain. But what should have hindered him, in

his hours of weariness and when even his hold on the future seemed to

slacken, in lonely castle or strange town, to seek sympathy from some

fair woman who might remind him in something of Beatrice?[116]

When, in 1316, Uguccione was driven out of Lucca and Pisa, that great

partisan took military service with Can Grande. It has been disputed

whether Dante had earlier enjoyed the hospitality of the Scaligers, or

was indebted for his first reception in Verona to the good offices of

Uguccione. It is barely credible that by this time in his life he stood

in need of any one to answer for him in the court of Can Grande. His

fame as a political writer must have preceded him; and it was of a

character to commend him to the good graces of the great Imperialist. In

his _De Monarchia_ he had, by an exhaustive treatment of propositions

which now seem childish or else the mere commonplaces of everyday

political argument, established the right of the civil power to

independence of Church authority; and though to the Scaliger who aimed

at becoming Imperial lieutenant for all the North of Italy he might seem

needlessly tender to the spiritual lordship of the Holy Father, yet the

drift of his reasoning was all in favour of the Ghibeline position.[117]

Besides this he had written on the need of refining the dialects of

Italian, and reducing them to a language fit for general use in the

whole of the Peninsula; and this with a novelty of treatment and wealth

of illustration unequalled before or since in any first work on such a

subject.[118] And, what would recommend him still more to a youthful

prince of lofty taste, he was the poet of the 'sweet new style' of the

_Vita Nuova_, and of sonnets, ballads, and canzoni rich in language and

thought beyond the works of all previous poets in the vulgar tongues.

Add to this that the _Comedy_ was already written, and published up,

perhaps, to the close of the _Purgatorio_, and that all Italy was eager

to find who had a place, and what kind of place, in the strange new

world from which the veil was being withdrawn; and it is easy to imagine

that Dante's reception at Can Grande's court was rather that of a man

both admired and feared for his great genius, than that of a wandering

scholar and grumbling exile.

At what time Dante came to Verona, and for how long he stayed, we have

no means of fixing with certainty. He himself mentions being there in

1320,[119] and it is usually supposed that his residence covered three

years previous to that date; as also that it was shared by his two sons,

Piero and Jacopo. One of these was afterwards to find a settlement at

Verona in a high legal post. Except some frivolous legends, there is no

evidence that Dante met with anything but generous treatment from Can

Grande. A passage of the _Paradiso_, written either towards the close of

the poet's residence at Verona, or after he had left it, is full of a

praise of the great Scaliger so magnificent[120] as fully to make amends

for the contemptuous mention in the _Purgatorio_ of his father and

brother.[121] To Can Grande the _Paradiso_ was dedicated by the author

in a long epistle containing an exposition of how the first Canto of

that Cantica, and, by implication, the whole of the poem, is to be

interpreted. The letter is full of gratitude for favours already

received, and of expectation of others yet to come. From the terms of

the dedication it has been assumed that ere it was made the whole of the

_Paradiso_ was written, and that Dante praises the lord of Verona after

a long experience of his bounty.[122]

Whether owing to the restlessness of an exile, or to some prospect of

attaining a state of greater ease or of having the command of more

congenial society, we cannot tell; but from the splendid court of Can

Grande he moved down into Romagna, to Ravenna, the city which of all in

Italy would now be fixed upon by the traveller as the fittest place for

a man of genius, weighed down by infinite sorrows, to close his days in

and find a tomb. Some writers on the life of Dante will have it that in

Ravenna he spent the greater part of his exile, and that when he is

found elsewhere--in Lucca or Verona--he is only on a temporary absence

from his permanent home.[123] But this conclusion requires some facts to

be ignored, and others unduly dwelt on. In any case his patron there,

during at least the last year or two of his life, was Guido Novello of

Polenta, lord of Ravenna, the nephew of her who above all the persons of

the _Comedy_ lives in the hearts of its readers.

Bernardino, the brother of Francesca and uncle of Guido, had fought on

the side of Florence at the battle of Campaldino, and Dante may then

have become acquainted with him. The family had the reputation of being

moderate Guelfs; but ere this the exile, with his ripe experience of

men, had doubtless learned, while retaining intact his own opinions as

to what was the true theory of government, to set good-heartedness and

a noble aim in life above political orthodoxy. This Guido Novello--the

younger Guido--bears the reputation of having been well-informed, of

gentle manners, and fond of gathering around him men accomplished in

literature and the fine arts. On the death of Dante he made a formal

oration in honour of the poet. If his welcome of Dante was as cordial as

is generally supposed, and as there is no reason to doubt that it was,

it proved his magnanimity; for in the _Purgatorio_ a family specially

hostile to the Polentas had been mentioned with honour,[124] while that

to which his wife belonged had been lightly spoken of. How he got over

the condemnation of his kinswoman to Inferno--even under such gentle

conditions--it would be more difficult to understand were there not

reason to believe that ere Dante went to Ravenna it had come to be a

matter of pride in Italy for a family to have any of its members placed

anywhere in that other world of which Dante held the key.

It seems as if we might assume that the poet's last months or years were

soothed by the society of his daughter--the child whom he had named

after the object of his first and most enduring love.[125] Whether or

not he was acting as Ambassador for Guido to Venice when he caught his

last illness, it appears to be pretty well established that he was held

in honour by his patron and all around him.[126] For his hours of

meditation he had the solemn churches of Ravenna with their storied

walls,[127] and the still more solemn pine forest of Classis, by him

first annexed to the world of Romance.[128] For hours of relaxation,

when they came, he had neighbours who dabbled in letters and who could

at any rate sympathise with him in his love of study. He maintained

correspondence with poets and scholars in other cities. In at least one

instance this was conducted in the bitter fashion with which the

humanists of a century or two later were to make the world

familiar;[129] but with the Bolognese scholar, Giovanni del Virgilio, he

engaged in a good-humoured, half-bantering exchange of Latin pastoral

poems, through the artificial imagery of which there sometimes breaks a

natural thought, as when in answer to the pedant's counsel to renounce

the vulgar tongue and produce in Latin something that will entitle him

to receive the laurel crown in Bologna, he declares that if ever he is

crowned as a poet it will be on the banks of the Arno.

Most of the material for forming a judgment of how Dante stood affected

to the religious beliefs of his time is to be gathered from the

_Comedy_, and the place for considering it would rather be in an essay

on that work than in a sketch of his life which necessity compels to be

swift. A few words may however be here devoted to the subject, as it is

one with some bearing on the manner in which he would be regarded by

those around him, and through that on the tenor of his life. That Dante

conformed to Church observances, and, except with a few malevolent

critics, bore the reputation of a good Catholic, there can be no doubt.

It was as a politician and not as a heretic that he suffered

persecution; and when he died he was buried in great honour within the

Franciscan Church at Ravenna. Some few years after his death, it is

true, his _De Monarchia_ was burned as heretical by orders of the Papal

Legate in Lombardy, who would gladly, if he could, have had the bones of

the author exhumed to share the fate of his book. But all this was only

because the partisans of Lewis of Bavaria were making political capital

out of the treatise.

Attempts have been made to demonstrate that in spite of his outward

conformity Dante was an unbeliever at heart, and that the _Comedy_ is

devoted to the promulgation of a Ghibeline heresy--of which, we may be

sure, no Ghibeline ever heard--and to the overthrow of all that the

author professed most devoutly to believe.[130] Other critics of a more

sober temper in speculation would find in him a Catholic who held the

Catholic beliefs with the same slack grasp as the teaching of Luther was

held by Lessing or Goethe.[131] But this is surely to misread the

_Comedy_, which is steeped from beginning to end in a spirit of the

warmest faith in the great Christian doctrines. It was no mere

intellectual perception of these that Dante had--or professed to

have--for when in Paradise he has satisfied Saint Peter of his being

possessed of a just conception of the nature of faith, and is next asked

if, besides knowing what is the alloy of the coin and the weight of it,

he has it in his own purse, he answers boldly, 'Yea, and so shining and

round that of a surety it has the lawful stamp.'[132] And further on,

when required to declare in what he believes, nothing against the

fulness of his creed is to be inferred from the fact that he stops short

after pronouncing his belief in the existence of God and in the Trinity.

This article he gives as implying all the others; it is 'the spark which

spreads out into a vivid flame.'[133]

Yet if the inquiry were to be pushed further, and it were sought to find

how much of free thought he allowed himself in matters of religion,

Dante might be discovered to have reached his orthodox position by ways

hateful to the bigots who then took order for preserving the purity of

the faith. The office of the Pope he deeply revered, but the Papal

absolution avails nothing in his eyes compared with one tear of

heartfelt repentance.[134] It is not on the word of Pope or Council that

he rests his faith, but on the Scriptures, and on the evidences of the

truth of Christianity, freely examined and weighed.[135] Chief among

these evidences, it must however be noted, he esteemed the fact of the

existence of the Church as he found it;[136] and in his inquiries he

accepted as guides the Scholastic Doctors on whose reasonings the Church

had set its seal of approbation. It was a foregone conclusion he reached

by stages of his own. Yet that he sympathised at least as much with the

honest search for truth as with the arrogant profession of orthodoxy, is

shown by his treatment of heretics. He could not condemn severely such

as erred only because their reason would not consent to rest like his in

the prevalent dogmatic system; and so we find that he makes heresy

consist less in intellectual error than in beliefs that tend to vitiate

conduct, or to cause schism in societies divinely constituted.[137] For

his own part, orthodox although he was, or believed himself to be--which

is all that needs to be contended for,--in no sense was he

priest-ridden. It was liberty that he went seeking on his great

journey;[138] and he gives no hint that it is to be gained by the

observance of forms or in submission to sacerdotal authority. He knows

it is in his reach only when he has been crowned, and mitred too, lord

of himself[139]--subject to Him alone of whom even Popes were

servants.[140]

Although in what were to prove his last months Dante might amuse himself

with the composition of learned trifles, and in the society and

correspondence of men who along with him, if on lines apart from his,

were preparing the way for the revival of classical studies, the best

part of his mind, then as for long before, was devoted to the _Comedy_;

and he was counting on the suffrages of a wider audience than courts and

universities could supply.

Here there is no room to treat at length of that work, to which when we

turn our thoughts all else he wrote--though that was enough to secure

him fame--seems to fall into the background as if unworthy of his

genius. What can hardly be passed over in silence is that in the

_Comedy_, once it was begun, he must have found a refuge for his soul

from all petty cares, and a shield against all adverse fortune. We must

search its pages, and not the meagre records of his biographers, to find

what was the life he lived during the years of his exile; for, in a

sense, it contains the true journal of his thoughts, of his hopes, and

of his sorrows. The plan was laid wide enough to embrace the

observations he made of nature and of man, the fruits of his painful

studies, and the intelligence he gathered from those experienced in

travel, politics, and war. It was not only his imagination and artistic

skill that were spent upon the poem: he gave his life to it. The future

reward he knew was sure--an immortal fame; but he hoped for a nearer

profit on his venture. Florence might at last relent, if not because of

his innocence and at the spectacle of his inconsolable exile, at least

on hearing the rumour of his genius borne to her from every corner of

Italy:--

If e'er it comes that this my sacred Lay,

To which both Heaven and Earth have set their hand--

Through which these many years I waste away--

Shall quell the cruelty that keeps me banned

From the fair fold where I, a lamb, was found

Hostile to wolves who 'gainst it violence planned;

With other fleece and voice of other sound,

Poet will I return, and at the font

Where I was christened be with laurel crowned.[141]

But with the completion of the _Comedy_ Dante's life too came to a

close. He died at Ravenna in the month of September 1321.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Matilda died in 1115. The name Tessa, the contraction of Contessa,

was still, long after her time, sometimes given to Florentine girls. See

Perrens, _Histoire de Florence_, vol. i. p. 126.

[2] Whether by Matilda the great Countess is meant has been eagerly

disputed, and many of the best critics--such as Witte and

Scartazzini--prefer to find in her one of the ladies of the _Vita

Nuova_. In spite of their pains it seems as if more can be said for the

great Matilda than for any other. The one strong argument against her

is, that while she died old, in the poem she appears as young.

[3] See note on _Inferno_ xxx. 73.

[4] It might, perhaps, be more correct to say that to some offices the

nobles were eligible, but did not elect.

[5] _Inf._ xiii. 75.

[6] _Inf._ x. 119.

[7] _Inf._ xxiii. 66.

[8] _Inf._ x. 51.

[9] _Purg._ vi. 144.

[10] Dante sets the Abbot among the traitors in Inferno, and says

scornfully of him that his throat was cut at Florence (_Inf._ xxxii.

119).

[11] Villani throws doubt on the guilt of the Abbot. There were some

cases of churchmen being Ghibelines, as for instance that of the

Cardinal Ubaldini (_Inf._ x. 120). Twenty years before the Abbot's death

the General of the Franciscans had been jeered at in the streets of

Florence for turning his coat and joining the Emperor. On the other

hand, many civilians were to be found among the Guelfs.

[12] Manfred, says John Villani (_Cronica_, vi. 74 and 75), at first

sent only a hundred men. Having by Farinata's advice been filled with

wine before a skirmish in which they were induced to engage, they were

easily cut in pieces by the Florentines; and the royal standard was

dragged in the dust. The truth of the story matters less than that it

was believed in Florence.

[13] Provenzano is found by Dante in Purgatory, which he has been

admitted to, in spite of his sins, because of his self-sacrificing

devotion to a friend (_Purg._ xi. 121).

[14] For this good advice he gets a word of praise in Inferno (_Inf._

xvi. 42).

[15] These mercenaries, though called Germans, were of various races.

There were even Greeks and Saracens among them. The mixture corresponded

with the motley civilisation of Manfred's court.

[16] _Inf._ xxxii. 79.

[17] _Inf._ x. 93.

[18] Lucera was a fortress which had been peopled with Saracens by

Frederick.

[19] Manfred, _Purg._ iii. 112; Charles, _Purg._ vii. 113.

[20] _Purg._ xx. 67.

[21] _Purg._ iii. 122.

[22] For an account of the constitution and activity of the _Parte

Guelfa_ at a later period, see Perrens, _Hist. de Florence_, vol. iv. p.

482.

[23] _Purg._ xx. 68.

[24] _Parad._ xi. 89.

[25] _Parad._ xvi. 40, etc.

[26] _Inf._ xxix. 31.

[27] _Inf._ x. 42. Though Dante was descended from nobles, his rank in

Florence was not that of a noble or magnate, but of a commoner.

[28] The month is indicated by Dante himself, _Parad._ xxii. 110. The

year has recently been disputed. For 1265 we have J. Villani and the

earliest biographers; and Dante's own expression at the beginning of the

_Comedy_ is in favour of it.

[29] _Inf._ xxiii. 95.

[30] _Inf._ xix. 17; _Parad._ xxv. 9.

[31] _Purg._ xxx. 55.

[32] _Inf._ viii. 45, where Virgil says of Dante that blessed was she

that bore him, can scarcely be regarded as an exception to this

statement.

[33] In 1326, out of a population of ninety thousand, from eight to ten

thousand children were being taught to read; and from five to six

hundred were being taught grammar and logic in four high schools. There

was not in Dante's time, or till much later, a University in Florence.

See J. Villani, xi. 94, and Burckhardt, _Cultur der Renaissance_, vol.

i. p. 76.

[34] For an interesting account of Heresy in Florence from the eleventh

to the thirteenth centuries, see Perrens, _Hist. de Florence_, vol. i.

livre ii. chap. iii.

[35] It opens with Brunetto's being lost in the forest of Roncesvalles,

and there are some other features of resemblance--all on the

surface--between his experience and Dante's.

[36] G. Villani, viii. 10. Latini died in 1294. Villani gives the old

scholar a very bad moral character.

[37] _Inf._ xv. 84.

[38] We may, I think, assume the _Vita Nuova_ to have been published

some time between 1291 and 1300; but the dates of Dante's works are far

from being ascertained.

[39] So long as even Italian critics are not agreed as to whether the

title means _New Life_, or _Youth_, I suppose one is free to take his

choice; and it seems most natural to regard it as referring to the new

world into which the lover is transported by his passion.

[40] As, indeed, Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, expressly says was the

case.

[41] In this adopting a device frequently used by the love-poets of the

period.--Witte, _Dante-Forschungen_, vol. ii. p. 312.

[42] The _Vita Nuova_ contains some thirty poems.

[43] See Sir Theodore Martin's Introduction to his Translation of _Vita

Nuova_, page xxi.

[44] In this matter we must not judge the conduct of Dante by English

customs.

[45] _Donne, ch' avete intelletto d' amore_: Ladies that are acquainted

well with love. Quoted in _Purg._ xxiv. 51.

[46] Beatrice died in June 1290, having been born in April 1266.

[47] _Purg._ xi. 98.

[48] _Purg._ xxiv. 52.

[49] The date of the _Convito_ is still the subject of controversy, as

is that of most of Dante's works. But it certainly was composed between

the _Vita Nuova_ and the _Comedy_.

There is a remarkable sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti addressed to Dante,

reproaching him for the deterioration in his thoughts and habits, and

urging him to rid himself of the woman who has bred the trouble. This

may refer to the time after the death of Beatrice. See also _Purg._ xxx.

124.

[50] _Convito_ ii. 13.

[51] Some recent writers set his marriage five years later, and reduce

the number of his children to three.

[52] His sister is probably meant by the 'young and gentle lady, most

nearly related to him by blood' mentioned in the _Vita Nuova_.

[53] The difference between the Teutonic and Southern conception of

marriage must be kept in mind.

[54] He describes the weather on the day of the battle with the

exactness of one who had been there (_Purg._ v. 155).

[55] Leonardo Bruni.

[56] _Inf._ xxii. 4.

[57] _Inf._ xxi. 95.

[58] _Conv._ iii. 9, where he illustrates what he has to say about the

nature of vision, by telling that for some time the stars, when he

looked at them, seemed lost in a pearly haze.

[59] The _Convito_ was to have consisted of fifteen books. Only four

were written.

[60] _Wife of Bath's Tale._ In the context he quotes _Purg._ vii. 121,

and takes ideas from the _Convito_.

[61] Dies to sensual pleasure and is abstracted from all worldly affairs

and interests. See _Convito_ iv. 28.

[62] From the last canzone of the _Convito_.

[63] In the _Vita Nuova_.

[64] _Purg._ xxiii. 115, xxiv. 75; _Parad._ iii. 49.

[65] _Purg._ xi. 95.

[66] _Purg._ ii. 91.

[67] _Purg._ iv. 123.

[68] Sacchetti's stories of how Dante showed displeasure with the

blacksmith and the donkey-driver who murdered his _canzoni_ are

interesting only as showing what kind of legends about him were current

in the streets of Florence.--Sacchetti, _Novelle_, cxiv, cxv.

[69] _Purg._ xii. 101.

[70] _Purg._ xi. 94:--

'In painting Cimabue deemed the field

His own, but now on Giotto goes the cry,

Till by his fame the other's is concealed.'

[71] Giotto is often said to have drawn inspiration from the _Comedy_;

but that Dante, on his side, was indebted to the new school of painting

and sculpture appears from many a passage of the _Purgatorio_.

[72] Serfage had been abolished in 1289. But doubt has been thrown on

the authenticity of the deed of abolition. See Perrens, _Hist. de

Florence_, vol. ii. p. 349.

[73] No unusual provision in the industrious Italian cities. Harsh

though it may seem, it was probably regarded as a valuable concession to

the nobles, for their disaffection appears to have been greatly caused

by their uneasiness under disabilities. There is much obscurity on

several points. How, for example, came the nobles to be allowed to

retain the command of the vast resources of the _Parte Guelfa_? This

made them almost independent of the Commonwealth.

[74] At a later period the Priors were known as the Signory.

[75] Fraticelli, _Storia della Vita di Dante_, page 112 and note.

[76] It is to be regretted that Ampère in his charming _Voyage

Dantesque_ devoted no chapter to San Gemigniano, than which no Tuscan

city has more thoroughly preserved its mediæval character. There is no

authority for the assertion that Dante was employed on several

Florentine embassies. The tendency of his early biographers is to

exaggerate his political importance and activity.

[77] Under the date of April 1301 Dante is deputed by the Road Committee

to see to the widening, levelling, and general improvement of a street

in the suburbs.--Witte, _Dante-Forschungen_, vol. ii. p. 279.

[78] Dante has a word of praise for Giano, at _Parad._ xvi. 127.

[79] At which Dante fought. See page lxii.

[80] Vieri was called Messer, a title reserved for magnates, knights,

and lawyers of a certain rank--notaries and jurisconsults; Dante, for

example, never gets it.

[81] Villani acted for some time as an agent abroad of the great

business house of Peruzzi.

[82] _Inf._ iii. 60.

[83] He is 'the Prince of the modern Pharisees' (_Inf._ xxvii. 85); his

place is ready for him in hell (_Inf._ xix. 53); and he is elsewhere

frequently referred to. In one great passage Dante seems to relent

towards him (_Purg._ xx. 86).

[84] Albert of Hapsburg was chosen Emperor in 1298, but was never

crowned at Rome.

[85] As in the days of Guelf and Ghibeline, so now in those of Blacks

and Whites, the common multitude of townsmen belonged to neither party.

[86] An interdict means that priests are to refuse sacred offices to all

in the community, who are thus virtually subjected to the minor

excommunication.

[87] Guido died soon after his return in 1301. He had suffered in health

during his exile. See _Inf._ x. 63.

[88] Charles of Anjou had lost Sicily at the Sicilian Vespers, 1282.

[89] _Purg._ xx. 76.

[90] Witte attributes the composition of the _De Monarchia_ to a period

before 1301 (_Dante-Forschungen_, vol. i. Fourth Art.), but the general

opinion of critics sets it much later.

[91] _Inf._ vi. 66, where their expulsion is prophesied.

[92] Dante's authorship of the letter is now much questioned. The drift

of recent inquiries has been rather to lessen than to swell the bulk of

materials for his biography.

[93] _Parad._ xvii. 61.

[94] _Purg._ xxiv. 82.

[95] See at _Purg._ xx. 43 Dante's invective against Philip and the

Capets in general.

[96] Henry had come to Italy with the Pope's approval. He was crowned by

the Cardinals who were in Rome as Legates.

[97] _Parad._ xxx. 136. High in Heaven Dante sees an ample chair with a

crown on it, and is told it is reserved for Henry. He is to sit among

those who are clothed in white. The date assigned to the action of the

_Comedy_, it will be remembered, is the year 1300.

[98] _Inf._ xix. 82, where the Gascon Clement is described as a 'Lawless

Pastor from the West.'

[99] The ingenious speculations of Troya (_Del Veltro Allegorico di

Dante_) will always mark a stage in the history of the study of Dante,

but as is often the case with books on the subject, his shows a

considerable gap between the evidence adduced and the conclusions drawn

from it. He would make Dante to have been for many years a satellite of

the great Ghibeline chief. Dante's temper or pride, however we call it,

seems to have been such as to preserve him from ever remaining attached

for long to any patron.

[100] _Inf._ x. 81.

[101] The _Convito_ is in Italian, and his words are: 'wherever this

language is spoken.'

[102] His letter to the Florentines and that to the Emperor are dated in

1311, from 'Near the sources of the Arno'--that is, from the Casentino,

where the Guidi of Romena dwelt. If the letter of condolence with the

Counts Oberto and Guido of Romena on the death of their uncle is

genuine, it has great value for the passage in which he excuses himself

for not having come to the funeral:--'It was not negligence or

ingratitude, but the poverty into which I am fallen by reason of my

exile. This, like a cruel persecutor, holds me as in a prison-house

where I have neither horse nor arms; and though I do all I can to free

myself, I have failed as yet.' The letter has no date. Like the other

ten or twelve epistles attributed to Dante, it is in Latin.

[103] There is a splendid passage in praise of this family, _Purg._

viii. 121. A treaty is on record in which Dante acts as representative

of the Malaspini in settling the terms of a peace between them and the

Bishop of Luni in October 1306.

[104] The authority for this is Benvenuto of Imola in his comment on the

_Comedy_ (_Purg._ xi.). The portrait of Dante by Giotto, still in

Florence, but ruined by modern bungling restoration, is usually believed

to have been executed in 1301 or 1302. But with regard to this, see the

note at the end of this essay.

[105] It is true that Villani not only says that 'he went to study at

Bologna,' but also that 'he went to Paris and many parts of the world'

(_Cronica_, ix. 136), and that Villani, of all contemporary or nearly

contemporary writers, is by far the most worthy of credence. But he

proves to be more than once in error regarding Dante; making him,

_e.g._, die in a wrong month and be buried in a wrong church at Ravenna.

And the 'many parts of the world' shows that here he is dealing in

hearsay of the vaguest sort. Nor can much weight be given to Boccaccio

when he sends Dante to Bologna and Paris. But Benvenuto of Imola, who

lectured on the _Comedy_ at Bologna within fifty years of Dante's death,

says that Dante studied there. It would indeed be strange if he did not,

and at more than one period, Bologna being the University nearest

Florence. Proof of Dante's residence in Paris has been found in his

familiar reference to the Rue du Fouarre (_Parad._ x. 137). His graphic

description of the coast between Lerici and Turbia (_Purg._ iii. 49, iv.

25) certainly seems to show a familiarity with the Western as well as

the Eastern Rivieras of Genoa. But it scarcely follows that he was on

his way to Paris when he visited them.

[106] _Inf._ xiii. 58.

[107] 'O ye, who have hitherto been following me in some small

craft, ... put not further to sea, lest, losing sight of me, you lose

yourselves' (_Parad._ ii. 1). But, to tell the truth, Dante is never so

weak as a poet as when he is most the philosopher or the theologian.

The following list of books more or less known to him is not given as

complete:--The Vulgate, beginning with St. Jerome's Prologue; Aristotle,

through the Latin translation then in vogue; Averroes, etc.; Thomas

Aquinas and the other Schoolmen; much of the Civil and Canon law;

Boethius; Homer only in scraps, through Aristotle, etc.; Virgil, Cicero

in part, Livy, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Lucan, and Statius; the works of

Brunetto Latini; the poetical literature of Provence, France, and Italy,

including the Arthurian Romances--the favourite reading of the Italian

nobles, and the tales of Charlemagne and his Peers--equally in favour

with the common people. There is little reason to suppose that among the

treatises of a scientific and quasi-scientific kind that he fell in

with, and of which he was an eager student, were included the works of

Roger Bacon. These there was a conspiracy among priests and schoolmen to

keep buried. Dante seems to have set little store on ecclesiastical

legends of wonder; at least he gives them a wide berth in his works.

[108] In the notes to Fraticelli's _Vita di Dante_ (Florence 1861) are

given copies of documents relating to the property of the Alighieri, and

of Dante in particular. In 1343 his son Jacopo, by payment of a small

fine, recovered vineyards and farms that had been his father's.--Notes

to Chap. iii. Fraticelli's admirable Life is now in many respects out of

date. He accepts, _e.g._, Dino Compagni as an authority, and believes in

the romantic story of the letter of Fra Ilario.

[109] The details are given by Witte, _Dante-Forschungen_, vol ii. p.

61. The amount borrowed by Dante and his brother (and a friend) comes to

nearly a thousand gold florins. Witte takes this as equivalent to 37,000

francs, _i.e._ nearly £1500. But the florin being the eighth of an

ounce, or about ten shillings' worth of gold, a thousand florins would

be equal only to £500--representing, of course, an immensely greater sum

now-a-days.

[110] _Purg._ viii. 76.

[111] See in Scartazzini, _Dante Alighieri_, 1879, page 552, extract

from the will of her mother Maria Donati, dated February 1314. Many of

these Florentine dates are subject to correction, the year being usually

counted from Lady-Day. 'In 1880 a document was discovered which proves

Gemma to have been engaged in a law-suit in 1332.--_Il Propugnatore_,

xiii^a. 156,'--Scheffer-Boichorst, _Aus Dantes Verbannung_, page 213.

[112] _Purg._ xxiv. 37.

[113] _Inf._ xxi. 40.

[114] _In questo mirifico poeta trovò ampissimo luego la lussuria; e non

solamente ne' giovanili anni, ma ancora ne' maturi._--Boccaccio, _La

Vita di Dante_. After mentioning that Dante was married, he indulges in

a long invective against marriage; confessing, however, that he is

ignorant of whether Dante experienced the miseries he describes. His

conclusion on the subject is that philosophers should leave marriage to

rich fools, to nobles, and to handicraftsmen.

[115] In Purgatory his conscience accuses him of pride, and he already

seems to feel the weight of the grievous burden beneath which the proud

bend as they purge themselves of their sin (_Purg._ xiii. 136). Some

amount of self-accusation seems to be implied in such passages as

_Inf._, v. 142 and _Purg._ xxvii. 15, etc.; but too much must not be

made of it.

[116] In a letter of a few lines to one of the Marquises Malaspina,

written probably in the earlier years of his exile, he tells how his

purpose of renouncing ladies' society and the writing of love-songs had

been upset by the view of a lady of marvellous beauty who 'in all

respects answered to his tastes, habits, and circumstances.' He says he

sends with the letter a poem containing a fuller account of his

subjection to this new passion. The poem is not found attached to the

copy of the letter, but with good reason it is guessed to be the Canzone

beginning _Amor, dacchè convien_, which describes how he was

overmastered by a passion born 'in the heart of the mountains in the

valley of that river beside which he had always been the victim of

love.' This points to the Casentino as the scene. He also calls the

Canzone his 'mountain song.' The passion it expresses may be real, but

that he makes the most of it appears from the close, which is occupied

by the thought of how the verses will be taken in Florence.

[117] However early the _De Monarchia_ may have been written, it is

difficult to think that it can be of a later date than the death of

Henry.

[118] The _De Vulgari Eloquio_ is in Latin. Dante's own Italian is

richer and more elastic than that of contemporary writers. Its base is

the Tuscan dialect, as refined by the example of the Sicilian poets. His

Latin, on the contrary, is I believe regarded as being somewhat

barbarous, even for the period.

[119] In his _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_. In it he speaks of having been

in Mantua. The thesis was maintained in Verona, but of course he may,

after a prolonged absence, have returned to that city.

[120] _Parad._ xvii. 70.

[121] _Purg._ xviii. 121.

[122] But in urgent need of more of it.--He says of 'the sublime

Cantica, adorned with the title of the _Paradiso_', that '_illam sub

præsenti epistola, tamquam sub epigrammate proprio dedicatam, vobis

adscribo, vobis offero, vobis denique recommendo_.' But it may be

questioned if this involves that the Cantica was already finished.

[123] As, for instance, Herr Scheffer-Boichorst in his _Aus Dantes

Verbannung_, 1882.

[124] The Traversari (_Purg._ xiv. 107). Guido's wife was of the

Bagnacavalli (_Purg._ xiv. 115). The only mention of the Polenta family,

apart from that of Francesca, is at _Inf._ xxvii. 41.

[125] In 1350 a sum of ten gold florins was sent from Florence by the

hands of Boccaccio to Beatrice, daughter of Dante; she being then a nun

at Ravenna.

[126] The embassy to Venice is mentioned by Villani, and there was a

treaty concluded in 1321 between the Republic and Guido. But Dante's

name does not appear in it among those of the envoys from Ravenna. A

letter, probably apocryphal, to Guido from Dante in Venice is dated

1314. If Dante, as is maintained by some writers, was engaged in tuition

while in Ravenna, it is to be feared that his pupils would find in him

an impatient master.

[127] Not that Dante ever mentions these any more than a hundred other

churches in which he must have spent thoughtful hours.

[128] _Purg._ xxviii. 20.

[129] A certain Cecco d'Ascoli stuck to him like a bur, charging him,

among other things, with lust, and a want of religious faith which would

one day secure him a place in his own Inferno. Cecco was himself burned

in Florence, in 1327, for making too much of evil spirits, and holding

that human actions are necessarily affected by the position of the

stars. He had been at one time a professor of astronomy.

[130] Gabriel Rossetti, _Comment on the Divina Commedia_, 1826, and

Aroux, _Dante, Hérétique, Révolutionnaire et Socialiste_, 1854.

[131] Scartazzini, _Dante Alighieri, Seine Zeit_, etc., 1879, page 268.

[132] _Parad._ xxiv. 86.

[133] _Parad._ xxiv. 145.

[134] _Inf._ xxvii. 101; _Purg._ iii. 118.

[135] _Parad._ xxiv. 91.

[136] _Parad._ xxiv. 106.

[137] _Inf._ x. and xxviii. There is no place in Purgatory where those

who in their lives had once held heretical opinions are purified of the

sin; leaving us to infer that it could be repented of in the world so as

to obliterate the stain. See also _Parad._ iv. 67.

[138] _Purg._ i. 71.

[139] _Purg._ xxvii. 139.

[140] _Purg._ xix. 134.

[141] _Parad._ xxv. 1.

GIOTTO'S PORTRAIT OF DANTE.[142]

Vasari, in his _Lives of the Painters_, tells that in his day the

portrait of Dante by Giotto was still to be seen in the chapel of the

Podesta's palace in Florence. Writers of an earlier date had already

drawn attention to this work.[143] But in the course of an age when

Italians cared little for Dante, and less for Giotto, it was allowed to

be buried out of sight; and when at length there came a revival of

esteem for these great men, the alterations in the interior arrangement

of the palace were found to have been so sweeping that it was even

uncertain which out of many chambers had formerly served as the chapel.

Twenty years after a fruitless attempt had been made to discover whether

or not the portrait was still in existence, Signor Aubrey Bezzi,

encouraged by Mr. Wilde and Mr. Kirkup, took the first step in a search

(1839) which was to end by restoring to the world what is certainly the

most interesting of all portraits, if account be taken of its beauty,

as well as of who was its author and who its subject.

On the removal from it of a layer of lime, one of the end walls of what

had been the chapel was found to be covered by a fresco painting,

evidently the work of Giotto, and representing a Paradise--the subject

in which Dante's portrait was known to occur. As is usual in such works,

from the time of Giotto downwards, the subject is treated so as to allow

of the free introduction of contemporary personages. Among these was a

figure in a red gown, which there was no difficulty in recognising as

the portrait of Dante. It shows him younger and with a sweeter

expression than does Raphael's Dante, or Masaccio's,[144] or that in the

Cathedral of Florence,[145] or that of the mask said to have been taken

after his death. But to all of them it bears a strong resemblance.

The question of when this portrait was painted will easily be seen to be

one of much importance in connection with Dante's biography. The fresco

it belongs to is found to contain a cardinal, and a young man, who,

because he wears his hair long and has a coronet set on his cap, is

known to be meant for a French prince.[146] If, as is usually assumed,

this prince is Charles of Valois, then the date of the event celebrated

in the fresco is 1301 or 1302. With regard to when the work was

executed, Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their valuable book, say as

follows:[147]--

'All inferences to be deduced from the subject and form of these

frescos point to the date of 1301-2. It may be inquired whether

they were executed by Giotto at the time, and this inquiry can only

be satisfied approximatively. It may be inferred that Dante's

portrait would hardly have been introduced into a picture so

conspicuously visible as this, had not the poet at the time been

influent in Florence.... Dante's age in the fresco corresponds with

the date of 1302, and is that of a man of thirty-five. He had

himself enjoyed the highest office of Florence from June to August

1300.[148] In the fresco he does not wear the dress of the

"Priori," but he holds in the ranks of those near Charles of Valois

an honourable place. It may be presumed that the frescos were

executed previous[149] to Dante's exile, and this view is confirmed

by the technical and artistic progress which they reveal. They

exhibit, indeed, the master in a higher sphere of development than

at Assisi and Rome.'

This account of the subject of the work and the probable date of its

execution may, I think, be accepted as containing all that is to be said

in favour of the current opinion on the matter. That writer after writer

has adopted that opinion without a sign of doubt as to its credibility

must surely have arisen from failure to observe the insuperable

difficulties it presents.

Both Charles of Valois and the Cardinal Acquasparta were in Florence

during part of the winter of 1301-1302; but the circumstances under

which they were there make it highly improbable that the Commonwealth

was anxious to do them honour beyond granting them the outward show of

respect which it would have been dangerous to refuse. Earlier in the

year 1301 the Cardinal Acquasparta, having failed in gaining the object

which brought him to Florence, had, as it were, shaken the dust of the

city from off his feet and left the people of it under interdict. While

Charles of Valois was in Florence the Cardinal returned to make a second

attempt to reconcile the opposing parties, failed a second time, and

again left the city under an interdict--if indeed the first had ever

been raised. On the occasion of his first visit, the Whites, who were

then in power, would have none of his counsels; on his second, the

Blacks in their turn despised them.[150] There would therefore have been

something almost satirical in the compliment, had the Commonwealth

resolved to give him a place in a triumphal picture.

As for Charles of Valois, though much was expected from an alliance with

him while he was still at a distance, the very party that invited his

presence was soon disgusted with him owing to his faithlessness and

greed. The earlier part of his stay was disturbed by pillage and

bloodshed. Nor is it easy to imagine how, at any time during his

residence of five months, the leading citizens could have either the

time or the wish to arrange for honouring him in a fashion he was not

the man to care for. His one craving was for money, and still more

money; and any leisure the members of public bodies had to spare from

giving heed to their own interests and securing vengeance upon their

opponents, was devoted to holding the common purse shut as tightly as

they could against their avaricious Pacificator. When he at last

delivered the city from his presence no one would have the heart to

revive the memory of his disastrous visit.

But if, in all this confusion of Florentine affairs, Giotto did receive

a commission to paint in the palace of the Podesta, yet it remains

incredible that he should have been suffered to assign to Dante, of all

men, a place of honour in the picture. No citizen had more stubbornly

opposed the policy which brought Charles of Valois to Florence, and that

Charles was in the city was reason enough for Dante to keep out of it.

In his absence, he was sentenced in January 1302 to pay a ruinously

heavy fine, and in the following March he was condemned to be put to

death if ever he was caught. On fuller acquaintance his fellow-citizens

liked the Frenchman as little as he, but this had no effect in softening

their dislike or removing their fear of Dante. We may be sure that any

friends he may still have had in Florence, as their influence could not

protect his goods from confiscation or him from banishment, would hardly

care to risk their own safety by urging, while his condemnation was

still fresh, the admission of his portrait among those of illustrious

Florentines.[151] It is true that there have been instances of great

artists having reached so high a pitch of fame as to be able to dictate

terms to patrons, however exalted. In his later years Giotto could

perhaps have made such a point a matter of treaty with his employers,

but in 1301 he was still young,[152] and great although his fame already

was, he could scarcely have ventured to insist on the Republic's

confessing its injustice to his friend; as it would have done had it

consented that Dante, newly driven into exile, should obtain a place of

honour in a work painted at the public cost.

These considerations seem to make it highly improbable that Giotto's

wall-painting was meant to do honour to Charles of Valois and the

Cardinal Acquasparta. But if it should still be held that it was painted

in 1302, we must either cease to believe, in spite of all that Vasari

and the others say, that the portrait is meant for Dante; or else

confess it to be inexplicable how it got there. A way out of the

difficulty begins to open up as soon as we allow ourselves some latitude

in speculating as to when Giotto may have painted the fresco. The order

in which that artist's works were produced is very imperfectly settled;

and it may easily be that the position in Vasari's pages of the mention

made by him of this fresco has given rise to a misunderstanding

regarding the date of it. He speaks of it at the very beginning of his

Life of Giotto. But this he does because he needs an illustration of

what he has been saying in his opening sentences about the advance that

painter made on Cimabue. Only after making mention of Dante's portrait

does he begin his chronological list of Giotto's works; to the portrait

he never returns, and so, as far as Vasari is concerned, it is without a

date. Judging of it by means of Mr. Kirkup's careful and beautiful

sketch--and unfortunately we have now no other means of knowing what the

original was like--it may safely be asserted to be in Giotto's ripest

style.[153] Everything considered, it is therefore allowable to search

the Florentine chronicles lower down for an event more likely to be the

subject of Giotto's fresco than that usually fixed upon.

We read in John Villani that in the middle of the year 1326 the Cardinal

Gianni Orsini came to Florence as Papal Legate and Pacificator of

Tuscany. The city was greatly pleased at his coming, and as an earnest

of gratitude for his services presented him with a cup containing a

thousand florins.[154] A month later there arrived Charles Duke of

Calabria, the eldest son of King Robert of Naples, and great-grandson of

Charles of Anjou. He came as Protector of the Commonwealth, which

office--an extraordinary one, and with a great salary attached to it--he

had been elected to hold for five years. Never before had a spectacle

like that of his entry been offered to Florence. Villani gives a long

list of the barons who rode in his train, and tells that in his

squadrons of men-at-arms there were no fewer than two hundred knights.

The chronicler pauses to bid the reader note how great an enterprise his

fellow-citizens had shown in bringing to sojourn among them, and in

their interest, not only such a powerful lord as the Duke of Calabria

was, but a Papal Legate as well. Italy counted it a great thing, he

says, and he deems that the whole world ought to know of it.[155]

Charles took up his abode in the Podesta's palace. He appears to have

gained a better place in the hearts of the Florentines than what they

were used to give to strangers and princes. When a son was born to him,

all the city rejoiced, and it mourned with him when, in a few weeks, he

lost the child. After seventeen months' experience of his rule the

citizens were sorry to lose him, and bade him a farewell as hearty as

their welcome had been. To some of them, it is true, the policy seemed a

dangerous one which bore even the appearance of subjecting the Republic

to the Royal House of Naples; and some of them could have wished that he

'had shown more vigour in civil and military affairs. But he was a

gentle lord, popular with the townsfolk, and in the course of his

residence he greatly improved the condition of things in Florence, and

brought to a close many feuds.'[156] They felt that the nine hundred

thousand gold florins spent on him and his men had, on the whole, been

well laid out.

One detail of the Duke's personal appearance deserves remark. We have

seen that the prince in the fresco has long hair. John Villani had known

the Duke well by sight, and when he comes to record his death and

describe what kind of man he was to look upon, he specially says that

'he wore his hair loose.'[157]

A subject worthy of Giotto's pencil, and one likely to be offered to him

if he was then in Florence, we have therefore found in this visit of the

Duke and the Cardinal. But that Giotto was in Florence at that time is

certain. He painted a portrait[158] of the Duke in the Palace of the

Signory; and through that prince, as Vasari tells, he was invited by

King Robert to go down to work in Naples. All this, in the absence of

evidence of any value in favour of another date, makes it, at the very

least, highly probable that the fresco was a work of 1326 or 1327.

In 1326 Dante had been dead for five years. The grudge his

fellow-townsmen had nourished against him for so long was now worn out.

We know that very soon after his death Florence began to be proud of

him; and even such of his old enemies as still survived would be willing

that Giotto should set him in a place of honour among the great

Florentines who help to fill the fresco of the Paradise. That he was

already dead would be no hindrance to his finding room alongside of

Charles of Calabria; for the age was wisely tolerant of such

anachronisms.[159] Had Dante been still living the painter would have

been less at liberty to create, out of the records he doubtless

possessed of the features of the friend who had paid him beforehand with

one immortal line, the face which, as we look into it, we feel to be a

glorified transcript of what it was in the flesh. It is the face of one

who has wellnigh forgotten his earthly life, instead of having the worst

of it still before him; of one who, from that troubled Italy which like

his own Sapia he knew but as a pilgrim, has passed to the 'true city,'

of which he remains for evermore a citizen--the city faintly imaged by

Giotto upon the chapel wall.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] It is best known, and can now be judged of only through the

lithograph after a tracing made by Mr. Seymour Kirkup before it was

restored and ruined: published by the Arundel Society.

[143] Antonio Pucci, born in 1300, in his _Centiloquio_, describes the

figure of Dante as being clothed in blood-red. Philip Villani also

mentions it. He wrote towards the close of the fourteenth century;

Vasari towards the middle of the sixteenth.

[144] In the Munich collection of drawings, and ascribed to Masaccio,

but with how much reason I do not know.

[145] Painted by Domenico Michelino in 1465, after a sketch by Alessio

Baldovinetto.

[146] 'Wearing over the long hair of the Frenchmen of the period a

coroneted cap.'--Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in Italy_

(1864), i. 264.

[147] Vol. i. p. 269.

[148] The Priorate was the highest office to which a citizen could

aspire, but by no means the highest in Florence.

[149] I suppose the meaning is 'immediately previous.'

[150] John Villani, _Cronica_, viii. 40 and 49; and Perrens, _Hist. de

Florence_, under date of 1301. Charles entered Florence on the 1st of

November of that year, and left it in the following April.

[151] Who the other Florentines in the fresco are does not greatly

affect the present question. Villani says that along with Dante Giotto

painted Corso Donati and Brunetto Latini.

[152] Only twenty-five, if the commonly accepted date of his birth is

correct. In any case, he was still a young man.

[153] It is true that, on technical grounds, it has been questioned if

it is Giotto's at all; but there is more than sufficient reason to think

it is. With such doubts however we are scarcely here concerned. Even

were it proved to be by a pupil, everything in the text that applies to

the question of date would still remain in point.

[154] J. Villani, ix. 353.

[155] J. Villani, x. 1.

[156] _Ibid._ x. 49.

[157] J. Villani, x. 107.

[158] Long since destroyed.

[159] An anachronism of another kind would have been committed by

Giotto, if, before the _Comedy_ was even begun, he had represented Dante

as holding the closed book and cluster of three pomegranates--emblematical

of the three regions described by him and of the completion of his

work.--I say nothing of the Inferno found on another wall of the chapel,

since there seems good reason to doubt if it is by Giotto.

THE INFERNO.

CANTO I.

In middle[160] of the journey of our days

I found that I was in a darksome wood[161]--

The right road lost and vanished in the maze.

Ah me! how hard to make it understood

How rough that wood was, wild, and terrible:

By the mere thought my terror is renewed.

More bitter scarce were death. But ere I tell

At large of good which there by me was found,

I will relate what other things befell.

Scarce know I how I entered on that ground, 10

So deeply, at the moment when I passed

From the right way, was I in slumber drowned.

But when beneath a hill[162] arrived at last,

Which for the boundary of the valley stood,

That with such terror had my heart harassed,

I upwards looked and saw its shoulders glowed,

Radiant already with that planet's[163] light

Which guideth surely upon every road.

A little then was quieted by the sight

The fear which deep within my heart had lain 20

Through all my sore experience of the night.

And as the man, who, breathing short in pain,

Hath 'scaped the sea and struggled to the shore,

Turns back to gaze upon the perilous main;

Even so my soul which fear still forward bore

Turned to review the pass whence I egressed,

And which none, living, ever left before.

My wearied frame refreshed with scanty rest,

I to ascend the lonely hill essayed;

The lower foot[164] still that on which I pressed. 30

And lo! ere I had well beginning made,

A nimble leopard,[165] light upon her feet,

And in a skin all spotted o'er arrayed:

Nor ceased she e'er me full in the face to meet,

And to me in my path such hindrance threw

That many a time I wheeled me to retreat.

It was the hour of dawn; with retinue

Of stars[166] that were with him when Love Divine

In the beginning into motion drew

Those beauteous things, the sun began to shine; 40

And I took heart to be of better cheer

Touching the creature with the gaudy skin,

Seeing 'twas morn,[167] and spring-tide of the year;

Yet not so much but that when into sight

A lion[168] came, I was disturbed with fear.

Towards me he seemed advancing in his might,

Rabid with hunger and with head high thrown:

The very air was tremulous with fright.

A she-wolf,[169] too, beheld I further on;

All kinds of lust seemed in her leanness pent: 50

Through her, ere now, much folk have misery known.

By her oppressed, and altogether spent

By the terror breathing from her aspect fell,

I lost all hope of making the ascent.

And as the man who joys while thriving well,

When comes the time to lose what he has won

In all his thoughts weeps inconsolable,

So mourned I through the brute which rest knows none:

She barred my way again and yet again,

And thrust me back where silent is the sun. 60

And as I downward rushed to reach the plain,

Before mine eyes appeared there one aghast,

And dumb like those that silence long maintain.

When I beheld him in the desert vast,

'Whate'er thou art, or ghost or man,' I cried,

'I pray thee show such pity as thou hast.'

'No man,[170] though once I was; on either side

Lombard my parents were, and both of them

For native place had Mantua,' he replied.

'Though late, _sub Julio_,[171] to the world I came, 70

And lived at Rome in good Augustus' day,

While yet false gods and lying were supreme.

Poet I was, renowning in my lay

Anchises' righteous son, who fled from Troy

What time proud Ilion was to flames a prey.

But thou, why going back to such annoy?

The hill delectable why fear to mount,

The origin and ground of every joy?'

'And thou in sooth art Virgil, and the fount

Whence in a stream so full doth language flow?' 80

Abashed, I answered him with humble front.

'Of other poets light and honour thou!

Let the long study and great zeal I've shown

In searching well thy book, avail me now!

My master thou, and author[172] thou, alone!

From thee alone I, borrowing, could attain

The style[173] consummate which has made me known.

Behold the beast which makes me turn again:

Deliver me from her, illustrious Sage;

Because of her I tremble, pulse and vein.' 90

'Thou must attempt another pilgrimage,'

Observing that I wept, he made reply,

'If from this waste thyself thou 'dst disengage.

Because the beast thou art afflicted by

Will suffer none along her way to pass,

But, hindering them, harasses till they die.

So vile a nature and corrupt she has,

Her raging lust is still insatiate,

And food but makes it fiercer than it was.

Many a creature[174] hath she ta'en for mate, 100

And more she'll wed until the hound comes forth

To slay her and afflict with torment great.

He will not batten upon pelf or earth;

But he shall feed on valour, love, and lore;

Feltro and Feltro[175] 'tween shall be his birth.

He will save humbled Italy, and restore,

For which of old virgin Camilla[176] died;

Turnus, Euryalus, Nisus, died of yore.

Her through all cities chasing far and wide,

He at the last to Hell will thrust her down, 110

Whence envy[177] first unloosed her. I decide

Therefore and judge that thou hadst best come on

With me for guide;[178] and hence I'll lead thee where

A place eternal shall to thee be shown.

There shalt thou hear the howlings of despair

In which the ancient spirits make lament,

All of them fain the second death to share.

Next shalt thou them behold who are content,

Because they hope some time, though now in fire,

To join the blessed they will win consent. 120

And if to these thou later wouldst aspire,

A soul[179] shall guide thee, worthier far than I;

When I depart thee will I leave with her.

Because the Emperor[180] who reigns on high

Wills not, since 'gainst His laws I did rebel,[181]

That to His city I bring any nigh.

O'er all the world He rules, there reigns as well;

There is His city and exalted seat:

O happy whom He chooses there to dwell!'

And I to him: 'Poet, I thee entreat, 130

Even by that God who was to thee unknown,

That I may 'scape this present ill, nor meet

With worse, conduct me whither thou hast shown,

That I may see Saint Peter's gate,[182] and those

Whom thou reportest in such misery thrown.'

He moved away; behind him held I close.

FOOTNOTES:

[160] _Middle_: In his _Convito_ (iv. 23), comparing human life to an

arch, Dante says that at the age of thirty-five a man has reached the

top and begins to go down. As he was born in 1265 that was his own age

in 1300, the year in which the action of the poem is laid.

[161] _Darksome wood_: A state of spiritual darkness or despair into

which he has gradually drifted, not without fault of his own.

[162] _A hill_: Lower down this hill is termed 'the origin and cause of

all joy.' It is symbolical of spiritual freedom--of the peace and

security that spring from the practice of virtue. Only, as it seems, by

gaining such a vantage-ground can he escape from the wilderness of

doubt--the valley of the shadow of death--in which he is lost.

[163] _That planet_: On the Ptolemaic system, which, as perfected by the

Arabian astronomers, and with some Christian additions, was that

followed by Dante, the sun is reckoned as one of the seven planets; all

the others as well as the earth and the fixed stars deriving their light

from it. Here the sunlight may signify the Divine help granted to all

men in their efforts after virtue.

[164] _The lower foot, etc._: This describes a cautious, slow ascent.

[165] _A nimble leopard_: The leopard and the lion and wolf that come

with it are suggested by Jeremiah v. 6: 'A lion out of the forest shall

slay them,' etc. We have Dante's own authority for it, in his letter to

Can Grande, that several meanings are often hidden under the incidents

of the _Comedy_. But whatever else the beasts may signify, their chief

meaning is that of moral hindrances. It is plain that the lion and wolf

are the sins of others--pride and avarice. If the leopard agrees with

them in this, it most probably stands for the envy of those among whom

Dante lived: at _Inf._ vi. 74 we find envy, pride, and avarice classed

together as the sins that have corrupted Florence. But from _Inf._ xvi.

106 it appears that Dante hoped to get the better of the leopard by

means of a cord which he wore girt about his loins. The cord is

emblematical of self-control; and hence the leopard seems best to answer

the idea of sensual pleasure in the sense of a temptation that makes

difficult the pursuit of virtue. But it will be observed that this

hindrance Dante trusts to overcome.

[166] _Stars, etc._: The sun being then in Aries, as it was believed to

have been at the creation.

[167] _Morn, etc._: It is the morning of Friday the 25th of March in the

year 1300, and by the use of Florence, which began the year on the

anniversary of the incarnation, it is the first day of the New Year. The

Good Friday of 1300 fell a fortnight later; but the 25th of March was

held to be the true anniversary of the crucifixion as well as of the

incarnation and of the creation of the world. The date of the action is

fixed by _Inf._ xxi. 112. The day was of good omen for success in the

struggle with his lower self.

[168] _A lion_: Pride or arrogance; to be taken in its widest sense of

violent opposition to all that is good.

[169] _A she-wolf_: Used elsewhere in the _Comedy_ to represent avarice.

Dante may have had specially in his mind the greed and worldly ambition

of the Pope and the Court of Rome, but it is plain from line 110 that

the wolf stands primarily for a sin, and not for a person or corporate

body.

[170] _No man_: Brunetto Latini, the friend and master of Dante, says

'the soul is the life of man, but without the body is not man.'

[171] _Sub Julio_: Julius was not even consul when Virgil was born. But

Dante reckoned Julius as the founder of the Empire, and therefore makes

the time in which he flourished his. Virgil was only twenty-five years

of age when Cæsar was slain; and thus it was under Augustus that his

maturer life was spent.

[172] _Author_: Dante defines an author as 'one worthy to be believed

and obeyed' (_Convito_ iv. 6). For a guide and companion on his great

pilgrimage he chooses Virgil, not only because of his fame as a poet,

but also because he had himself described a descent to the Shades--had

been already there. The vulgar conception of Virgil was that of a

virtuous great magician.

[173] _The style, etc._: Some at least of Dante's minor works had been

given to the world before 1300, certainly the _Vita Nuova_ and others of

his poems. To his study of Virgil he may have felt himself indebted for

the purity of taste that kept him superior to the frigid and artificial

style of his contemporaries, He prided himself on suiting his language

to his theme, as well as on writing straight from the heart.

[174] _Many a creature, etc._: Great men and states, infected with

avarice in its extended sense of encroachment on the rights of others.

[175] _Feltro and Feltro, etc._: Who the deliverer was that Dante

prophesies the coming of is not known, and perhaps never can be. Against

the claims of Can Grande of Verona the objection is that, at any date

which can reasonably be assigned for the publication of the _Inferno_,

he had done nothing to justify such bright hopes of his future career.

There seems proof, too, that till the _Paradiso_ was written Dante

entertained no great respect for the Scala family (_Purg._ xvi. 118,

xviii. 121). Neither is Verona, or the widest territory over which Can

Grande ever ruled, at all described by saying it lay between Feltro and

Feltro.--I have preferred to translate _nazi-one_ as birth rather than

as nation or people. 'The birth of the deliverer will be found to have

been between feltro and feltro.' Feltro, as Dante wrote it, would have

no capital letter; and according to an old gloss the deliverer is to be

of humble birth; _feltro_ being the name of a poor sort of cloth. This

interpretation I give as a curiosity more than anything else; for the

most competent critics have decided against it, or ignored it.--Henry of

Luxemburg, chosen Emperor in November 1308, is an old claimant for the

post of the allegorical _veltro_ or greyhound. On him Dante's hopes were

long set as the man who should 'save Italy;' and it seems not out of

place to draw attention to what is said of him by John Villani, the

contemporary and fellow-townsman of Dante: 'He was of a magnanimous

nature, though, as regarded his family, of poor extraction' (_Cronica_,

ix. 1). Whatever may be made of the Feltros, the description in the text

of the deliverer as one superior to all personal ambition certainly

answers better to Dante's ideal of a righteous Emperor than to the

character of a partisan leader like Uguccione della Faggiuola, or an

ambitious prince like Can Grande.

[176] _Camilla, etc._: All persons of the _Æneid_.

[177] _Envy_: That of Satan.

[178] _Thou hadst best, etc._: As will be seen from the next Canto,

Virgil has been sent to the relief of Dante; but how that is to be

wrought out is left to his own judgment. He might secure a partial

deliverance for his ward by conducting him up the Delectable Mount--the

peaceful heights familiar to himself, and which are to be won by the

practice of natural piety. He chooses the other course, of guiding Dante

through the regions of the future state, where the pilgrim's trust in

the Divine government will be strengthened by what he sees, and his soul

acquire a larger peace.

[179] _A soul_: Beatrice.

[180] _The Emperor_: The attribution of this title to God is significant

of Dante's lofty conception of the Empire.

[181] _'Gainst his laws, etc._: Virgil was a rebel only in the sense of

being ignorant of the Christian revelation (_Inf._ iv. 37).

[182] _Saint Peter's gate_: Virgil has not mentioned Saint Peter. Dante

names him as if to proclaim that it is as a Christian, though under

heathen guidance, that he makes the pilgrimage. Here the gate seems to

be spoken of as if it formed the entrance to Paradise, as it was

popularly believed to do, and as if it were at that point Virgil would

cease to guide him. But they are to find it nearer at hand, and after it

has been passed Virgil is to act as guide through Purgatory.

CANTO II.

It was the close of day;[183] the twilight brown

All living things on earth was setting free

From toil, while I preparing was alone[184]

To face the battle which awaited me,

As well of ruth as of the perilous quest,

Now to be limned by faultless memory.

Help, lofty genius! Muses,[185] manifest

Goodwill to me! Recording what befell,

Do thou, O mind, now show thee at thy best!

I thus began: 'Poet, and Guide as well, 10

Ere trusting me on this adventure wide,

Judge if my strength of it be capable.

Thou say'st that Silvius' father,[186] ere he died,

Still mortal to the world immortal went,

There in the body some time to abide.

Yet that the Foe of evil was content

That he should come, seeing what high effect,

And who and what should from him claim descent,

No room for doubt can thoughtful man detect:

For he of noble Rome, and of her sway 20

Imperial, in high Heaven grew sire elect.

And both of these,[187] the very truth to say,

Were founded for the holy seat, whereon

The Greater Peter's follower sits to-day.

Upon this journey, praised by thee, were known

And heard things by him, to the which he owed

His triumph, whence derives the Papal gown.[188]

That path the Chosen Vessel[189] later trod

So of the faith assurance to receive,

Which is beginning of salvation's road. 30

But why should I go? Who will sanction give?

For I am no Æneas and no Paul;

Me worthy of it no one can believe,

Nor I myself. Hence venturing at thy call,

I dread the journey may prove rash. But vain

For me to reason; wise, thou know'st it all.'

Like one no more for what he wished for fain,

Whose purpose shares mutation with his thought

Till from the thing begun he turns again;

On that dim slope so grew I all distraught, 40

Because, by brooding on it, the design

I shrank from, which before I warmly sought.

'If well I understand these words of thine,'

The shade of him magnanimous made reply,

'Thy soul 'neath cowardice hath sunk supine,

Which a man often is so burdened by,

It makes him falter from a noble aim,

As beasts at objects ill-distinguished shy.

To loose thee from this terror, why I came,

And what the speech I heard, I will relate, 50

When first of all I pitied thee. A dame[190]

Hailed me where I 'mongst those in dubious state[191]

Had my abode: so blest was she and fair,

Her to command me I petitioned straight.

Her eyes were shining brighter than the star;[192]

And she began to say in accents sweet

And tuneable as angel's voices are:

"O Mantuan Shade, in courtesy complete,

Whose fame survives on earth, nor less shall grow

Through all the ages, while the world hath seat; 60

A friend of mine, with fortune for his foe,

Has met with hindrance on his desert way,

And, terror-smitten, can no further go,

But turns; and that he is too far astray,

And that I rose too late for help, I dread,

From what in Heaven concerning him they say.

Go, with thy speech persuasive him bestead,

And with all needful help his guardian prove,

That touching him I may be comforted.

Know, it is Beatrice seeks thee thus to move. 70

Thence come I where I to return am fain:

My coming and my plea are ruled by love.

When I shall stand before my Lord again,

Often to Him I will renew thy praise."

And here she ceased, nor did I dumb remain:

"O virtuous Lady, thou alone the race

Of man exaltest 'bove all else that dwell

Beneath the heaven which wheels in narrowest space.[193]

To do thy bidding pleases me so well,

Though 'twere already done 'twere all too slow; 80

Thy wish at greater length no need to tell.

But say, what tempted thee to come thus low,

Even to this centre, from the region vast,[194]

Whither again thou art on fire to go?"

"This much to learn since a desire thou hast,"

She answered, "briefly thee I'll satisfy,

How, coming here, I through no terrors passed.

We are, of right, such things alarmèd by,

As have the power to hurt us; all beside

Are harmless, and not fearful. Wherefore I-- 90

Thus formed by God, His bounty is so wide--

Am left untouched by all your miseries,

And through this burning[195] unmolested glide.

A noble lady[196] is in Heaven, who sighs

O'er the obstruction where I'd have thee go,

And breaks the rigid edict of the skies.

Calling on Lucia,[197] thus she made her know

What she desired: 'Thy vassal[198] now hath need

Of help from thee; do thou then helpful show.'

Lucia, who hates all cruelty, in speed 100

Rose, and approaching where I sat at rest,

To venerable Rachel[199] giving heed,

Me: 'Beatrice, true praise of God,' addressed;

'Why not help him who had such love for thee,

And from the vulgar throng to win thee pressed?

Dost thou not hear him weeping pitiably,

Nor mark the death now threatening him upon

A flood[200] than which less awful is the sea?'

Never on earth did any ever run,

Allured by profit or impelled by fear, 110

Swifter than I, when speaking she had done,

From sitting 'mong the blest descended here,

My trust upon thy comely rhetoric cast,

Which honours thee and those who lend it ear."

When of these words she spoken had the last,

She turned aside bright eyes which tears[201] did fill,

And I by this was urged to greater haste.

And so it was I joined thee by her will,

And from that raging beast delivered thee,

Which barred the near way up the beauteous hill. 120

What ails thee then? Why thus a laggard be?

Why cherish in thy heart a craven fear?

Where is thy franchise, where thy bravery,

When three such blessed ladies have a care

For thee in Heaven's court, and these words of mine

Thee for such wealth of blessedness prepare?'

As flowers, by chills nocturnal made to pine

And shut themselves, when touched by morning bright

Upon their stems arise, full-blown and fine;

So of my faltering courage changed the plight, 130

And such good cheer ran through my heart, it spurred

Me to declare, like free-born generous wight:

'O pitiful, who for my succour stirred!

And thou how full of courtesy to run,

Alert in service, hearkening her true word!

Thou with thine eloquence my heart hast won

To keen desire to go, and the intent

Which first I held I now no longer shun.

Therefore proceed; my will with thine is blent:

Thou art my Guide, Lord, Master;[202] thou alone!' 140

Thus I; and with him, as he forward went,

The steep and rugged road I entered on.

FOOTNOTES:

[183] _Close of day_: The evening of the Friday. It comes on us with

something of a surprise that a whole day has been spent in the attempt

to ascend the hill, and in conference with Virgil.

[184] _Alone_: Of earthly creatures, though in company with Virgil, a

shade. In these words is to be found the keynote to the Canto. With the

sense of deliverance from immediate danger his enthusiasm has died away.

After all, Virgil is only a shade; and his heart misgives him at the

thought of engaging, in the absence of all human companionship, upon a

journey so full of terrors. He is not reassured till Virgil has

displayed his commission.

[185] _Muses_: The invocation comes now, the First Canto being properly

an introduction. Here it may be pointed out, as illustrating the

refinement of Dante's art, that the invocation in the _Purgatorio_ is in

a higher strain, and that in the _Paradiso_ in a nobler still.

[186] _Silvius' father_: Æneas, whose visit to the world of shades is

described in the Sixth _Æneid_. He finds there his father Anchises, who

foretells to him the fortunes of his descendants down to the time of

Augustus.

[187] _Both of these_: Dante uses language slightly apologetic as he

unfolds to Virgil, the great Imperialist poet, the final cause of Rome

and the Empire. But while he thus exalts the Papal office, making all

Roman history a preparation for its establishment, Dante throughout his

works is careful to refuse any but a spiritual or religious allegiance

to the Pope, and leaves himself free, as will be frequently seen in the

course of the _Comedy_, to blame the Popes as men, while yielding all

honour to their great office. In this emphatic mention of Rome as the

divinely-appointed seat of Peter's Chair may be implied a censure on the

Pope for the transference of the Holy See to Avignon, which was effected

in 1305, between the date assigned to the action of the poem and the

period when it was written.

[188] _Papal gown_: 'The great mantle' Dante elsewhere terms it; the

emblem of the Papal dignity. It was only in Dante's own time that

coronation began to take the place of investiture with the mantle.

[189] _Chosen Vessel_: Paul, who like Æneas visited the other world,

though not the same region of it. Throughout the poem instances drawn

from profane history, and even poetry and mythology, are given as of

authority equal to those from Christian sources.

[190] _A dame_: Beatrice, the heroine of the _Vita Nuova_, at the close

of which Dante promises some day to say of her what was never yet said

of any woman. She died in 1290, aged twenty-four. In the _Comedy_ she

fills different parts: she is the glorified Beatrice Portinari whom

Dante first knew as a fair Florentine girl; but she also represents

heavenly truth, or the knowledge of it--the handmaid of eternal life.

Theology is too hard and technical a term to bestow on her. Virgil, for

his part, represents the knowledge that men may acquire of Divine law by

the use of their reason, helped by such illumination as was enjoyed by

the virtuous heathen. In other words, he is the exponent of the Divine

revelation involved in the Imperial system--for the Empire was never far

from Dante's thoughts. To him it meant the perfection of just rule, in

which due cognisance is taken of every right and of every duty. The

relation Dante bears to these two is that of erring humanity struggling

to the light. Virgil leads him as far as he can, and then commits him to

the holier rule of Beatrice. But the poem would lose its charm if the

allegorical meaning of every passage were too closely insisted on. And,

worse than that, it cannot always be found.

[191] _Dubious state_: The limbo of the virtuous heathen (Canto iv.).

[192] _The star_: In the _Vita Nuova_ Dante speaks of the star in the

singular when he means the stars.

[193] _In narrowest space_: The heaven of the moon, on the Ptolemaic

system the lowest of the seven planets. Below it there is only the

heaven of fire, to which all the flames of earth are attracted. The

meaning is, above all on earth.

[194] _The region vast_: The empyrean, or tenth and highest heaven of

all. It is an addition by the Christian astronomers to the heavens of

the Ptolemaic system, and extends above the _primum mobile_, which

imparts to all beneath it a common motion, while leaving its own special

motion to each. The empyrean is the heaven of Divine rest.

[195] _Burning_: 'Flame of this burning,' allegorical, as applied to the

limbo where Virgil had his abode. He and his companions suffer only from

unfulfilled but lofty desire (_Inf._ iv. 41).

[196] _A noble lady_: The Virgin Mary, of whom it is said (_Parad._

xxxiii. 16) that her 'benignity not only succours those who ask, but

often anticipates their demand;' as here. She is the symbol of Divine

grace in its widest sense. Neither Christ nor Mary is mentioned by name

in the _Inferno_.

[197] _Lucia_: The martyr saint of Syracuse. Witte (_Dante-Forschungen_,

vol. ii. 30) suggests that Lucia Ubaldini may be meant, a

thirteenth-century Florentine saint, and sister of the Cardinal (_Inf._

x. 120). The day devoted to her memory was the 30th of May. Dante was

born in May, and if it could be proved that he was born on the 30th of

the month the suggestion would be plausible. But for the greater Lucy is

to be said that she was especially helpful to those troubled in their

eyesight, as Dante was at one time of his life. Here she is the symbol

of illuminating grace.

[198] _Thy vassal_: Saint Lucy being held in special veneration by

Dante; or only that he was one that sought light. The word _fedele_ may

of course, as it usually is, be read in its primary sense of 'faithful

one;' but it is old Italian for vassal; and to take the reference to be

to the duty of the overlord to help his dependant in need seems to give

force to the appeal.

[199] _Rachel_: Symbol of the contemplative life.

[200] _A flood, etc._: 'The sea of troubles' in which Dante is involved.

[201] _Tears_: Beatrice weeps for human misery--especially that of

Dante--though unaffected by the view of the sufferings of Inferno.

[202] _My Guide, etc._: After hearing how Virgil was moved to come,

Dante accepts him not only for his guide, as he did at the close of the

First Canto, but for his lord and master as well.

CANTO III.

Through me to the city dolorous lies the way,

Who pass through me shall pains eternal prove,

Through me are reached the people lost for aye.

'Twas Justice did my Glorious Maker move;

I was created by the Power Divine,[203]

The Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love.

No thing's creation earlier was than mine,

If not eternal;[204] I for aye endure:

Ye who make entrance, every hope resign!

These words beheld I writ in hue obscure 10

On summit of a gateway; wherefore I:

'Hard[205] is their meaning, Master.' Like one sure

Beforehand of my thought, he made reply:

'Here it behoves to leave all fears behind;

All cowardice behoveth here to die.

For now the place I told thee of we find,

Where thou the miserable folk shouldst see

Who the true good[206] of reason have resigned.'

Then, with a glance of glad serenity,

He took my hand in his, which made me bold, 20

And brought me in where secret things there be.

There sighs and plaints and wailings uncontrolled

The dim and starless air resounded through;

Nor at the first could I from tears withhold.

The various languages and words of woe,

The uncouth accents,[207] mixed with angry cries

And smiting palms and voices loud and low,

Composed a tumult which doth circling rise

For ever in that air obscured for aye;

As when the sand upon the whirlwind flies. 30

And, horror-stricken,[208] I began to say:

'Master, what sound can this be that I hear,

And who the folk thus whelmed in misery?'

And he replied: 'In this condition drear

Are held the souls of that inglorious crew

Who lived unhonoured, but from guilt kept clear.

Mingled they are with caitiff angels, who,

Though from avowed rebellion they refrained,

Disloyal to God, did selfish ends pursue.

Heaven hurled them forth, lest they her beauty stained;

Received they are not by the nether hell, 41

Else triumph[209] thence were by the guilty gained.'

And I: 'What bear they, Master, to compel

Their lamentations in such grievous tone?'

He answered: 'In few words I will thee tell.

No hope of death is to the wretches known;

So dim the life and abject where they sigh

They count all sufferings easier than their own.

Of them the world endures no memory;

Mercy and justice them alike disdain. 50

Speak we not of them: glance, and pass them by.'

I saw a banner[210] when I looked again,

Which, always whirling round, advanced in haste

As if despising steadfast to remain.

And after it so many people chased

In long procession, I should not have said

That death[211] had ever wrought such countless waste.

Some first I recognised, and then the shade

I saw and knew of him, the search to close,

Whose dastard soul the great refusal[212] made. 60

Straightway I knew and was assured that those

Were of the tribe of caitiffs,[213] even the race

Despised of God and hated of His foes.

The wretches, who when living showed no trace

Of life, went naked, and were fiercely stung

By wasps and hornets swarming in that place.

Blood drawn by these out of their faces sprung

And, mingled with their tears, was at their feet

Sucked up by loathsome worms it fell among.

Casting mine eyes beyond, of these replete, 70

People I saw beside an ample stream,

Whereon I said: 'O Master, I entreat,

Tell who these are, and by what law they seem

Impatient till across the river gone;

As I distinguish by this feeble gleam.'

And he: 'These things shall unto thee be known

What time our footsteps shall at rest be found

Upon the woful shores of Acheron.'

Then with ashamèd eyes cast on the ground,

Fearing my words were irksome in his ear, 80

Until we reached the stream I made no sound.

And toward us, lo, within a bark drew near

A veteran[214] who with ancient hair was white,

Shouting: 'Ye souls depraved, be filled with fear.

Hope never more of Heaven to win the sight;

I come to take you to the other strand,

To frost and fire and everlasting night.

And thou, O living soul, who there dost stand,

From 'mong the dead withdraw thee.' Then, aware

That not at all I stirred at his command, 90

'By other ways,[215] from other ports thou'lt fare;

But they will lead thee to another shore,

And 'tis a skiff more buoyant must thee bear.'

And then my leader: 'Charon, be not sore,

For thus it has been willed where power ne'er came

Short of the will; thou therefore ask no more.'

And hereupon his shaggy cheeks grew tame

Who is the pilot of the livid pool,

And round about whose eyes glowed wheels of flame.

But all the shades, naked and spent with dool, 100

Stood chattering with their teeth, and changing hue

Soon as they heard the words unmerciful.

God they blasphemed, and families whence they grew;

Mankind, the time, place, seed in which began

Their lives, and seed whence they were born. Then drew

They crowding all together, as they ran,

Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore

Predestinate for every godless man.

The demon Charon, with eyes evermore

Aglow, makes signals, gathering them all; 110

And whoso lingers smiteth with his oar.

And as the faded leaves of autumn fall

One after the other, till at last the bough

Sees on the ground spread all its coronal;

With Adam's evil seed so haps it now:

At signs each falls in turn from off the coast,

As fowls[216] into the ambush fluttering go.

The gloomy waters thus by them are crossed,

And ere upon the further side they land,

On this, anew, is gathering a host. 120

'Son,' said the courteous Master,[217] 'understand,

All such as in the wrath of God expire,

From every country muster on this strand.

To cross the river they are all on fire;

Their wills by Heavenly justice goaded on

Until their terror merges in desire.

This way no righteous soul has ever gone;

Wherefore[218] of thee if Charon should complain,

Now art thou sure what by his words is shown.'

When he had uttered this the dismal plain 130

Trembled[219] so violently, my terror past

Recalling now, I'm bathed in sweat again.

Out of the tearful ground there moaned a blast

Whence lightning flashed forth red and terrible,

Which vanquished all my senses; and, as cast

In sudden slumber, to the ground I fell.

FOOTNOTES:

[203] _Power Divine, etc._: The Persons of the Trinity, described by

their attributes.

[204] _If not eternal_: Only the angels and the heavenly spheres were

created before Inferno. The creation of man came later. But from _Inf._

xxxiv. 124 it appears that Inferno was hollowed out of the earth; and at

_Parad._ vii. 124 the earth is declared to be 'corruptible and enduring

short while;' therefore not eternal.

[205] _Hard, etc._: The injunction to leave all hope behind makes Dante

hesitate to enter. Virgil anticipates the objection before it is fully

expressed, and reminds him that the passage through Inferno is to be

only one stage of his journey. Not by this gate will he seek to quit it.

[206] _True good, etc._: Truth in its highest form--the contemplation of

God.

[207] _Uncouth accents_: 'Like German,' says Boccaccio.

[208] _Horror-stricken_: 'My head enveloped in horror.' Some texts have

'error,' and this yields a better meaning--that Dante is amazed to have

come full into the crowd of suffering shades before he has even crossed

Acheron. If with the best texts 'horror' be read, the meaning seems to

be that he is so overwhelmed by fear as to lose his presence of mind.

They are not yet in the true Inferno, but only in the vestibule or

forecourt of it--the flat rim which runs round the edge of the pit.

[209] _Else triumph, etc._: The satisfaction of the rebel angels at

finding that they endured no worse punishment than that of such as

remained neutral.

[210] _A banner_: Emblem of the instability of those who would never

take a side.

[211] _That death, etc._: The touch is very characteristic of Dante. He

feigns astonishment at finding that such a proportion of mankind can

preserve so pitiful a middle course between good and evil, and spend

lives that are only 'a kind of--as it were.'

[212] _The great refusal_: Dante recognises him, and so he who made the

great refusal must have been a contemporary. Almost beyond doubt

Celestine V. is meant, who was in 1294 elected Pope against his will,

and resigned the tiara after wearing it a few months; the only Pope who

ever resigned it, unless we count Clement I. As he was not canonized

till 1326, Dante was free to form his own judgment of his conduct. It

has been objected that Dante would not treat with contumely a man so

devout as Celestine. But what specially fits him to be the

representative caitiff is just that, being himself virtuous, he

pusillanimously threw away the greatest opportunity of doing good. By

his resignation Boniface VIII. became Pope, to whose meddling in

Florentine affairs it was that Dante owed his banishment. Indirectly,

therefore, he owed it to the resignation of Celestine; so that here we

have the first of many private scores to be paid off in the course of

the _Comedy_. Celestine's resignation is referred to (_Inf._ xxvii.

104).--Esau and the rich young man in the Gospel have both been

suggested in place of Celestine. To either of them there lies the

objection that Dante could not have recognised him. And, besides,

Dante's contemporaries appear at once to have discovered Celestine in

him who made the great refusal. In Paradise the poet is told by his

ancestor Cacciaguida that his rebuke is to be like the wind, which

strikes most fiercely on the loftiest summits (_Parad._ xvii. 133); and

it agrees well with such a profession, that the first stroke he deals in

the _Comedy_ is at a Pope.

[213] _Caitiffs_: To one who had suffered like Dante for the frank part

he took in affairs, neutrality may well have seemed the unpardonable sin

in politics; and no doubt but that his thoughts were set on the trimmers

in Florence when he wrote, 'Let us not speak of them!'

[214] _A veteran_: Charon. In all this description of the passage of the

river by the shades, Dante borrows freely from Virgil. It has been

already remarked on _Inf._ ii. 28 that he draws illustrations from Pagan

sources. More than that, as we begin to find, he boldly introduces

legendary and mythological characters among the persons of his drama.

With Milton in mind, it surprises, on a first acquaintance with the

_Comedy_, to discover how nearly independent of angels is the economy

invented by Dante for the other world.

[215] _Other ways, etc._: The souls bound from earth to Purgatory gather

at the mouth of the Tiber, whence they are wafted on an angel's skiff to

their destination (_Purg._ ii. 100). It may be here noted that never

does Dante hint a fear of one day becoming a denizen of Inferno. It is

only the pains of Purgatory that oppress his soul by anticipation. So

here Charon is made to see at a glance that the pilgrim is not of those

'who make descent to Acheron.'

[216] _As fowls, etc._: 'As a bird to its lure'--generally interpreted

of the falcon when called back. But a witness of the sport of netting

thrushes in Tuscany describes them as 'flying into the vocal ambush in a

hurried, half-reluctant, and very remarkable manner.'

[217] _Courteous Master_: Virgil here gives the answer promised at line

76; and Dante by the epithet he uses removes any impression that his

guide had been wanting in courtesy when he bade him wait.

[218] _Wherefore_: Charon's displeasure only proves that he feels he has

no hold on Dante.

[219] _Trembled, etc._: Symbolical of the increase of woe in Inferno

when the doomed souls have landed on the thither side of Acheron. Hell

opens to receive them. Conversely, when any purified soul is released

from Purgatory the mountain of purification trembles to its base with

joy (_Purg._ xxi. 58).

CANTO IV.

Resounding thunder broke the slumber deep

That drowsed my senses, and myself I shook

Like one by force awakened out of sleep.

Then rising up I cast a steady look,

With eyes refreshed, on all that lay around,

And cognisance of where I found me took.

In sooth, me on the valley's brink I found

Of the dolorous abyss, where infinite

Despairing cries converge with thundering sound.[220]

Cloudy it was, and deep, and dark as night; 10

So dark that, peering eagerly to find

What its depths held, no object met my sight.

'Descend we now into this region blind,'

Began the Poet with a face all pale;

'I will go first, and do thou come behind.'

Marking the wanness on his cheek prevail,

I asked, 'How can I, seeing thou hast dread,

My wonted comforter when doubts assail?'

'The anguish of the people,' then he said,

'Who are below, has painted on my face 20

Pity,[221] by thee for fear interpreted.

Come! The long journey bids us move apace.'

Then entered he and made me enter too

The topmost circle girding the abyss.

Therein, as far as I by listening knew,

There was no lamentation save of sighs,

Whence throbbed the air eternal through and through.

This, sorrow without suffering made arise

From infants and from women and from men,

Gathered in great and many companies. 30

And the good Master: 'Wouldst thou[222] nothing then

Of who those spirits are have me relate?

Yet know, ere passing further, although when

On earth they sinned not, worth however great

Availed them not, they being unbaptized--

Part[223] of the faith thou holdest. If their fate

Was to be born ere man was Christianised,

God, as behoved, they never could adore:

And I myself am with this folk comprised.

For such defects--our guilt is nothing more-- 40

We are thus lost, suffering from this alone

That, hopeless, we our want of bliss deplore.'

Greatly I sorrowed when he made this known,

Because I knew that some who did excel

In worthiness were to that limbo[224] gone.

'Tell me, O Sir,' I prayed him, 'Master,[225] tell,'

--That I of the belief might surety win,

Victorious every error to dispel--

'Did ever any hence to bliss attain

By merit of another or his own?' 50

And he, to whom my hidden drift[226] was plain:

'I to this place but lately[227] had come down,

When I beheld one hither make descent;

A Potentate[228] who wore a victor's crown.

The shade of our first sire forth with him went,

And his son Abel's, Noah's forth he drew,

Moses' who gave the laws, the obedient

Patriarch Abram's, and King David's too;

And, with his sire and children, Israel,

And Rachel, winning whom such toils he knew; 60

And many more, in blessedness to dwell.

And I would have thee know, earlier than these

No human soul was ever saved from Hell.'

While thus he spake our progress did not cease,

But we continued through the wood to stray;

The wood, I mean, with crowded ghosts for trees.

Ere from the summit far upon our way

We yet had gone, I saw a flame which glowed,

Holding a hemisphere[229] of dark at bay.

'Twas still a little further on our road, 70

Yet not so far but that in part I guessed

That honourable people there abode.

'Of art and science Ornament confessed!

Who are these honoured in such high degree,

And in their lot distinguished from the rest?'

He said: 'For them their glorious memory,

Still in thy world the subject of renown,

Wins grace[230] by Heaven distinguished thus to be.'

Meanwhile I heard a voice: 'Be honour shown

To the illustrious poet,[231] for his shade 80

Is now returning which a while was gone.'

When the voice paused nor further utterance made,

Four mighty shades drew near with one accord,

In aspect neither sorrowful nor glad.

'Consider that one, armèd with a sword,'[232]

Began my worthy Master in my ear,

'Before the three advancing like their lord;

For he is Homer, poet with no peer:

Horace the satirist is next in line,

Ovid comes third, and Lucan in the rear. 90

And 'tis because their claim agrees with mine

Upon the name they with one voice did cry,

They to their honour[233] in my praise combine.'

Thus I beheld their goodly company--

The lords[234] of song in that exalted style

Which o'er all others, eagle-like, soars high.

Having conferred among themselves a while

They turned toward me and salutation made,

And, this beholding, did my Master smile.[235]

And honour higher still to me was paid, 100

For of their company they made me one;

So I the sixth part 'mong such genius played.

Thus journeyed we to where the brightness shone,

Holding discourse which now 'tis well to hide,

As, where I was, to hold it was well done.

At length we reached a noble castle's[236] side

Which lofty sevenfold walls encompassed round,

And it was moated by a sparkling tide.

This we traversed as if it were dry ground;

I through seven gates did with those sages go; 110

Then in a verdant mead people we found

Whose glances were deliberate and slow.

Authority was stamped on every face;

Seldom they spake, in tuneful voices low.

We drew apart to a high open space

Upon one side which, luminously serene,

Did of them all a perfect view embrace.

Thence, opposite, on the enamel green

Were shown me mighty spirits; with delight

I still am stirred them only to have seen. 120

With many more, Electra was in sight;

'Mong them I Hector and Æneas spied,

Cæsar in arms,[237] his eyes, like falcon's, bright.

And, opposite, Camilla I descried;

Penthesilea too; the Latian King

Sat with his child Lavinia by his side.

Brutus[238] I saw, who Tarquin forth did fling;

Cornelia, Marcia,[239] Julia, and Lucrece.

Saladin[240] sat alone. Considering

What lay beyond with somewhat lifted eyes, 130

The Master[241] I beheld of those that know,

'Mong such as in philosophy were wise.

All gazed on him as if toward him to show

Becoming honour; Plato in advance

With Socrates: the others stood below.

Democritus[242] who set the world on chance;

Thales, Diogenes, Empedocles,

Zeno, and Anaxagoras met my glance;

Heraclitus, and Dioscorides,

Wise judge of nature. Tully, Orpheus, were 140

With ethic Seneca and Linus.[243] These,

And Ptolemy,[244] too, and Euclid, geometer,

Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicen,[245]

Averroes,[246] the same who did prepare

The Comment, saw I; nor can tell again

The names of all I saw; the subject wide

So urgent is, time often fails me. Then

Into two bands the six of us divide;

Me by another way my Leader wise

Doth from the calm to air which trembles, guide. 150

I reach a part[247] which all benighted lies.

FOOTNOTES:

[220] _Thundering sound_: In a state of unconsciousness, Dante, he knows

not how, has been conveyed across Acheron, and is awakened by what seems

like the thunder-peal following the lightning-flash which made him

insensible. He now stands on the brink of Inferno, where the sounds

peculiar to each region of it converge and are reverberated from its

rim. These sounds are not again to be heard by him except in their

proper localities. No sooner does he actually pass into the First Circle

than he hears only sighs.--As regards the topography of Inferno, it is

enough, as yet, to note that it consists of a cavity extending from the

surface to the centre of the earth; narrowing to its base, and with many

circular ledges or terraces, of great width in the case of the upper

ones, running round its wall--that is, round the sides of the pit. Each

terrace or circle is thus less in circumference than the one above it.

From one circle to the next there slopes a bank of more or less height

and steepness. Down the bank which falls to the comparatively flat

ground of the First Circle they are now about to pass.--To put it

otherwise, the Inferno is an inverted hollow cone.

[221] _Pity_: The pity felt by Virgil has reference only to those in the

circle they are about to enter, which is his own. See also _Purg._ iii.

43.

[222] _Wouldst thou, etc._: He will not have Dante form a false opinion

of the character of those condemned to the circle which is his own.

[223] _Part_: _parte_, altered by some editors into _porta_; but though

baptism is technically described as the gate of the sacraments, it never

is as the gate of the faith. A tenet of Dante's faith was that all the

unbaptized are lost. He had no choice in the matter.

[224] _Limbo_: Border, or borderland. Dante makes the First Circle

consist of the two limbos of Thomas Aquinas: that of unbaptized infants,

_limbus puerorum_, and that of the fathers of the old covenant, _limbus

sanctorum patrum_. But the second he finds is now inhabited only by the

virtuous heathen.

[225] _Sir_--_Master_: As a delicate means of expressing sympathy, Dante

redoubles his courtesy to Virgil.

[226] _Hidden drift_: to find out, at first hand as it were, if the

article in the creed is true which relates to the Descent into Hell;

and, perhaps, to learn if when Christ descended He delivered none of the

virtuous heathen.

[227] _Lately_: Virgil died about half a century before the crucifixion.

[228] _A Potentate_: The name of Christ is not mentioned in the

_Inferno_.

[229] _A hemisphere, etc._: An elaborate way of saying that part of the

limbo was clearly lit. The flame is symbolical of the light of genius,

or of virtue; both in Dante's eyes being modes of worth.

[230] _Wins grace, etc._: The thirst for fame was one keenly felt and

openly confessed by Dante. See, _e.g._ _De Monarchia_, i. 1. In this he

anticipated the humanists of the following century. Here we find that to

be famous on earth helps the case of disembodied souls.

[231] _Poet_: Throughout the _Comedy_, with the exception of _Parad._ i.

29, and xxv. 8, the term 'poet' is confined to those who wrote in Greek

and Latin. In _Purg._ xxi. 85 the name of poet is said to be that 'which

is most enduring and honourable.'

[232] _A sword_: Because Homer sings of battles. Dante's acquaintance

with his works can have been but slight, as they were not then

translated into Latin, and Dante knew little or no Greek.

[233] _To their honour_: 'And in that they do well:' perhaps as showing

themselves free from jealousy. But the remark of Benvenuto of Imola is:

'Poets love and honour one another, and are never envious and

quarrelsome like those who cultivate the other arts and sciences.'--I

quote with misgiving from Tamburini's untrustworthy Italian translation.

Benvenuto lectured on the _Comedy_ in Bologna for some years about 1370.

It is greatly to be wished that his commentary, lively and full of

side-lights as it is, should be printed in full from the original Latin.

[234] _The lords, etc._: Not the company of him--Homer or Virgil--who is

lord of the great song, and soars above all others; but the company of

the great masters, whose verse, etc.

[235] _Did my Master smile_: To see Dante made free of the guild of

great poets; or, it may be, to think they are about to discover in him a

fellow poet.

[236] _A noble castle_: Where the light burns, and in which, as their

peculiar seat, the shades of the heathen distinguished for virtue and

genius reside. The seven walls are in their number symbolical of the

perfect strength of the castle; or, to take it more pedantically, may

mean the four moral virtues and the three speculative. The gates will

then stand for the seven liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, etc. The

moat may be eloquence, set outside the castle to signify that only as

reflected in the eloquent words of inspired men can the outside world

get to know wisdom. Over the stream Dante passes easily, as being an

adept in learned speech. The castle encloses a spacious mead enamelled

with eternal green.

[237] _Cæsar in arms, etc._: Suetonius says of Cæsar that he was of

fair complexion, but had black and piercing eyes. Brunetto Latini,

Dante's teacher, says in his _Tesoro_ (v. 11), of the hawk here

mentioned--the _grifagno_--that its eyes 'flame like fire.'

[238] _Brutus_: Introduced here that he may not be confounded with the

later Brutus, for whom is reserved the lowest place of all in Inferno.

[239] _Marcia_: Wife of Cato; mentioned also in _Purg._ i. _Julia_:

daughter of Cæsar and wife of Pompey.

[240] _Saladin_: Died 1193. To the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

he supplied the ideal of a just Mohammedan ruler. Here are no other

such. 'He sits apart, because not of gentle birth,' says Boccaccio;

which shows what even a man of genius risks when he becomes a

commentator.

[241] _The Master_: Aristotle, often spoken of by Dante as the

Philosopher, and reverenced by him as the genius to whom the secrets of

nature lay most open.

[242] _Democritus, etc._: According to whom the world owes its form to a

chance arrangement of atoms.

[243] _Linus_: Not Livy, into which some have changed it. Linus is

mentioned by Virgil along with Orpheus, _Egl._ iv.

[244] _Ptolemy_: Greek geographer of the beginning of the second

century, and author of the system of the world believed in by Dante, and

freely used by him throughout the poem.

[245] _Avicenna_: A physician, born in Bokhara, and died at Ispahan,

1037. His _Medical Canon_ was for centuries used as a text-book in

Europe.

[246] _Averroes_: A Mohammedan philosopher of Cordova, died 1198. In his

great Commentary on Aristotle he gives and explains every sentence of

that philosopher's works. He was himself ignorant of Greek, and made use

of Arabic versions. Out of his Arabic the Commentary was translated into

Hebrew, and thence into Latin. The presence of the three Mohammedans in

this honourable place greatly puzzles the early commentators.

[247] _A part, etc._: He passes into the darkness of the Limbo out of

the brightly-lit, fortified enclosure. It is worth remarking, as one

reads, how vividly he describes his first impression of a new scene,

while when he comes to leave it a word is all he speaks.

CANTO V.

From the First Circle thus I downward went

Into the Second,[248] which girds narrower space,

But greater woe compelling loud lament.

Minos[249] waits awful there and snarls, the case

Examining of all who enter in;

And, as he girds him, dooms them to their place.

I say, each ill-starred spirit must begin

On reaching him its guilt in full to tell;

And he, omniscient as concerning sin,

Sees to what circle it belongs in Hell; 10

Then round him is his tail as often curled

As he would have it stages deep to dwell.

And evermore before him stand a world

Of shades; and all in turn to judgment come,

Confess and hear, and then are downward hurled.[250]

'O thou who comest to the very home

Of woe,' when he beheld me Minos cried,

Ceasing a while from utterance of doom,

'Enter not rashly nor in all confide;

By ease of entering be not led astray.' 20

'Why also[251] growling?' answered him my Guide;

'Seek not his course predestinate to stay;

For thus 'tis willed[252] where nothing ever fails

Of what is willed. No further speech essay.'

And now by me are agonising wails

Distinguished plain; now am I come outright

Where grievous lamentation me assails.

Now had I reached a place devoid of light,

Raging as in a tempest howls the sea

When with it winds, blown thwart each other, fight. 30

The infernal storm is raging ceaselessly,

Sweeping the shades along with it, and them

It smites and whirls, nor lets them ever be.

Arrived at the precipitous extreme,[253]

In shrieks and lamentations they complain,

And even the Power Divine itself blaspheme.

I understood[254] that to this mode of pain

Are doomed the sinners of the carnal kind,

Who o'er their reason let their impulse reign.

As starlings in the winter-time combined 40

Float on the wing in crowded phalanx wide,

So these bad spirits, driven by that wind,

Float up and down and veer from side to side;

Nor for their comfort any hope they spy

Of rest, or even of suffering mollified.

And as the cranes[255] in long-drawn company

Pursue their flight while uttering their song,

So I beheld approach with wailing cry

Shades lifted onward by that whirlwind strong.

'Master, what folk are these,'[256] I therefore said, 50

'Who by the murky air are whipped along?'

'She, first of them,' his answer thus was made,

'Of whom thou wouldst a wider knowledge win,

O'er many tongues and peoples, empire swayed.

So ruined was she by licentious sin

That she decreed lust should be uncontrolled,

To ease the shame that she herself was in.

She is Semiramis, of whom 'tis told

She followed Ninus, and his wife had been.

Hers were the realms now by the Sultan ruled. 60

The next[257] is she who, amorous and self-slain,

Unto Sichæus' dust did faithless show:

Then lustful Cleopatra.' Next was seen

Helen, for whom so many years in woe

Ran out; and I the great Achilles knew,

Who at the last[258] encountered love for foe.

Paris I saw and Tristram.[259] In review

A thousand shades and more, he one by one

Pointed and named, whom love from life withdrew.

And after I had heard my Teacher run 70

O'er many a dame of yore and many a knight,

I, lost in pity, was wellnigh undone.

Then I: 'O Poet, if I only might

Speak with the two that as companions hie,

And on the wind appear to be so light!'[260]

And he to me: 'When they shall come more nigh

Them shalt thou mark, and by the love shalt pray

Which leads them onward, and they will comply.'

Soon as the wind bends them to where we stay

I lift my voice: 'O wearied souls and worn! 80

Come speak with us if none[261] the boon gainsay.'

Then even as doves,[262] urged by desire, return

On outspread wings and firm to their sweet nest

As through the air by mere volition borne,

From Dido's[263] band those spirits issuing pressed

Towards where we were, athwart the air malign;

My passionate prayer such influence possessed.

'O living creature,[264] gracious and benign,

Us visiting in this obscurèd air,

Who did the earth with blood incarnadine; 90

If in the favour of the King we were

Who rules the world, we for thy peace[265] would pray,

Since our misfortunes thy compassion stir.

Whate'er now pleases thee to hear or say

We listen to, or tell, at your demand;[266]

While yet the wind, as now, doth silent stay.

My native city[267] lies upon the strand

Where to the sea descends the river Po

For peace, with all his tributary band.

Love, in a generous heart set soon aglow, 100

Seized him for the fair form was mine above;

And still it irks me to have lost it so.[268]

Love, which absolves[269] no one beloved from love,

So strong a passion for him in me wrought

That, as thou seest, I still its mastery prove.

Love led us where we in one death were caught.

For him who slew us waits Caïna[270] now.'

Unto our ears these words from them were brought.

When I had heard these troubled souls, my brow

I downward bent, and long while musing stayed, 110

Until the Poet asked: 'What thinkest thou?'

And when I answered him, 'Alas!' I said,

'Sweet thoughts how many, and what strong desire,

These to their sad catastrophe betrayed!'

Then, turned once more to them, I to inquire

Began: 'Francesca, these thine agonies

Me with compassion unto tears inspire.

But tell me, at the season of sweet sighs

What sign made love, and what the means he chose

To strip your dubious longings of disguise?' 120

And she to me: 'The bitterest of woes

Is to remember in the midst of pain

A happy past; as well thy teacher[271] knows.

Yet none the less, and since thou art so fain

The first occasion of our love to hear,

Like one I speak that cannot tears restrain.

As we for pastime one day reading were

How Lancelot[272] by love was fettered fast--

All by ourselves and without any fear--

Moved by the tale our eyes we often cast 130

On one another, and our colour fled;

But one word was it, vanquished us at last.

When how the smile, long wearied for, we read

Was kissed by him who loved like none before,

This one, who henceforth never leaves me, laid

A kiss on my mouth, trembling the while all o'er.

The book was Galahad,[273] and he as well

Who wrote the book. That day we read no more.'

And while one shade continued thus to tell,

The other wept so bitterly, I swooned 140

Away for pity, and as dead I fell:

Yea, as a corpse falls, fell I on the ground.

FOOTNOTES:

[248] _The Second_: The Second Circle of the Inferno, and the first of

punishment. The lower the circle, the more rigorous the penalty endured

in it. Here is punished carnal sin.

[249] _Minos_: Son of Jupiter and King of Crete, so severely just as to

be made after death one of the judges of the under world. He is degraded

by Dante, as many other noble persons of the old mythology are by him,

into a demon. Unlike the fallen angels of Milton, Dante's devils have no

interest of their own. Their only function is to help in working out

human destinies.

[250] _Downward hurled_: Each falls to his proper place without

lingering by the way. All through Inferno there is an absence of direct

Divine interposition. It is ruled, as it were, by a course of nature.

The sinners, compelled by a fatal impulse, advance to hear their doom,

just as they fall inevitably one by one into Charon's boat. Minos by a

sort of devilish instinct sentences each sinner to his appropriate

punishment. In _Inf._ xxvii. 127 we find the words in which Minos utters

his judgment. In _Inf._ xxi. 29 a devil bears the sinner to his own

place.

[251] _Why also, etc._: Like Charon. If Minos represents conscience, as

some would have it, Dante is here again assailed by misgivings as to his

enterprise, and is quieted by reason in the person of Virgil.

[252] _Thus 'tis willed, etc._: These two lines are the same as those to

Charon, _Inf._ iii. 95, 96.

[253] _Precipitous extreme_: Opinions vary as to what is meant by

_ruina_. As Dante is certainly still on the outer edge of the Second

Circle or terrace, and while standing there hears distinctly the words

the spirits say when they reach the _ruina_, it most likely denotes the

steep slope falling from the First to the Second Circle. The spirits,

driven against the wall which hems them in, burst into sharp

lamentations against their irremediable fate.

[254] _I understood, etc._: From the nature of the punishment, which,

like all the others invented by Dante, bears some relation to the sin to

which it is assigned. They who on earth failed to exercise

self-restraint are beaten hither and thither by every wind that blows;

and, as once they were blinded by passion, so now they see nothing

plainly in that dim and obscure place. That Dante should assign the

least grievous punishment of all to this sin throws light upon his views

of life. In his eyes it had more than any other the excuse of natural

bent, and had least of malice. Here, it must be remarked, are no

seducers. For them a lower depth is reserved (_Inf._ xviii. See also

_Purg._ xxvii. 15).

[255] _The cranes_: 'The cranes are a kind of bird that go in a troop,

as cavaliers go to battle, following one another in single file. And one

of them goes always in front as their gonfalonier, guiding and leading

them with its voice' (Brunetto Latini, _Tesoro_, v. 27).

[256] _What folk are these_: The general crowd of sinners guilty of

unlawful love are described as being close packed like starlings. The

other troop, who go in single file like cranes, are those regarding whom

Dante specially inquires; and they prove to be the nobler sort of

sinners--lovers with something tragic or pathetic in their fate.

[257] _The next_: Dido, perhaps not named by Virgil because to him she

owed her fame. For love of Æneas she broke the vow of perpetual chastity

made on the tomb of her husband.

[258] _At the last, etc._: Achilles, when about to espouse Polyxena, and

when off his guard, was slain.

[259] _Paris ... and Tristram_: Paris of Troy, and the Tristram of King

Arthur's Table.

[260] _So light_: Denoting the violence of the passion to which they had

succumbed.

[261] _If none_: If no Superior Power.

[262] _Doves_: The motion of the tempest-driven shades is compared to

the flight of birds--starlings, cranes, and doves. This last simile

prepares us for the tenderness of Francesca's tale.

[263] _Dido_: Has been already indicated, and is now named. This

association of the two lovers with Virgil's Dido is a further delicate

touch to engage our sympathy; for her love, though illicit, was the

infirmity of a noble heart.

[264] _Living creature_: 'Animal.' No shade, but an animated body.

[265] _Thy peace_: Peace from all the doubts that assail him, and which

have compelled him to the journey: peace, it may be, from temptation to

sin cognate to her own. Even in the gloom of Inferno her great

goodheartedness is left her--a consolation, if not a grace.

[266] _Your demand_: By a refinement of courtesy, Francesca, though

addressing only Dante, includes Virgil in her profession of willingness

to tell all they care to hear. But as almost always, he remains silent.

It is not for his good the journey is being made.

[267] _Native city_: Ravenna. The speaker is Francesca, daughter of

Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna. About the year 1275 she was married

to Gianciotto (Deformed John) Malatesta, son of the lord of Rimini; the

marriage, like most of that time in the class to which she belonged,

being one of political convenience. She allowed her affections to settle

on Paolo, her husband's handsome brother; and Gianciotto's suspicions

having been aroused, he surprised the lovers and slew them on the spot.

This happened at Pesaro. The association of Francesca's name with Rimini

is merely accidental. The date of her death is not known. Dante can

never have set eyes on Francesca; but at the battle of Campaldino in

1289, where he was present, a troop of cavaliers from Pistoia fought on

the Florentine side under the command of her brother Bernardino; and in

the following year, Dante being then twenty-five years of age, her

father, Guido, was Podesta in Florence. The Guido of Polenta, lord of

Ravenna, whom Dante had for his last and most generous patron, was

grandson of that elder Guido, and nephew of Francesca.

[268] _To have lost it so_: A husband's right and duty were too well

defined in the prevalent social code for her to complain that Gianciotto

avenged himself. What she does resent is that she was left no

breathing-space for repentance and farewells.

[269] _Which absolves, etc._: Which compels whoever is beloved to love

in return. Here is the key to Dante's comparatively lenient estimate of

the guilt of Francesca's sin. See line 39, and _Inf._ xi. 83. The Church

allowed no distinctions with regard to the lost. Dante, for his own

purposes, invents a scale of guilt; and in settling the degrees of it he

is greatly influenced by human feeling--sometimes by private likes and

dislikes. The vestibule of the caitiffs, _e.g._, is his own creation.

[270] _Caïna_: The Division of the Ninth and lowest Circle, assigned to

those treacherous to their kindred (_Inf._ xxxii. 58). Her husband was

still living in 1300.--May not the words of this line be spoken by

Paolo? It is as a fratricide even more than as the slayer of his wife

that Gianciotto is to find his place in Caïna. The words are more in

keeping with the masculine than the feminine character. They certainly

jar somewhat with the gentler censure of line 102. And, immediately

after, Dante speaks of what the 'souls' have said.

[271] _Thy teacher_: Boethius, one of Dante's favourite authors

(_Convito_ ii. 13), says in his _De Consol. Phil._, 'The greatest misery

in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.' But, granting that Dante

found the idea in Boethius, it is clearly Virgil that Francesca means.

She sees that Dante's guide is a shade, and gathers from his grave

passionless aspect that he is one condemned for ever to look back with

futile regret upon his happier past.

[272] _Lancelot_: King Arthur's famous knight, who was too bashful to

make his love for Queen Guinivere known to her. Galahad, holding the

secret of both, persuaded the Queen to make the first declaration of

love at a meeting he arranged for between them. Her smile, or laugh, as

she 'took Lancelot by the chin and kissed him,' assured her lover of his

conquest. The Arthurian Romances were the favourite reading of the

Italian nobles of Dante's time.

[273] _Galahad_: From the part played by Galahad, or Galeotto, in the

tale of Lancelot, his name grew to be Italian for Pander. The book, says

Francesca, was that which tells of Galahad; and the author of it proved

a very Galahad to us. The early editions of the _Decameron_ bear the

second title of 'The Prince Galeotto.'

CANTO VI.

When I regained my senses, which had fled

At my compassion for the kindred two,

Which for pure sorrow quite had turned my head,

New torments and a crowd of sufferers new

I see around me as I move again,[274]

Where'er I turn, where'er I bend my view.

In the Third Circle am I of the rain

Which, heavy, cold, eternal, big with woe,

Doth always of one kind and force remain.

Large hail and turbid water, mixed with snow, 10

Keep pouring down athwart the murky air;

And from the ground they fall on, stenches grow.

The savage Cerberus,[275] a monster drear,

Howls from his threefold throat with canine cries

Above the people who are whelmèd there.

Oily and black his beard, and red his eyes,

His belly huge: claws from his fingers sprout.

The shades he flays, hooks, rends in cruel wise.

Beat by the rain these, dog-like, yelp and shout,

And shield themselves in turn with either side; 20

And oft[276] the wretched sinners turn about.

When we by Cerberus, great worm,[277] were spied,

He oped his mouths and all his fangs he showed,

While not a limb did motionless abide.

My Leader having spread his hands abroad,

Filled both his fists with earth ta'en from the ground,

And down the ravening gullets flung the load.

Then, as sharp set with hunger barks the hound,

But is appeased when at his meat he gnaws,

And, worrying it, forgets all else around; 30

So with those filthy faces there it was

Of the fiend Cerberus, who deafs the crowd

Of souls till they from hearing fain would pause.

We, travelling o'er the spirits who lay cowed

And sorely by the grievous showers harassed,

Upon their semblances[278] of bodies trod.

Prone on the ground the whole of them were cast,

Save one of them who sat upright with speed

When he beheld that near to him we passed.

'O thou who art through this Inferno led,[279] 40

Me if thou canst,' he asked me, 'recognise;

For ere I was dismantled thou wast made.'

And I to him: 'Thy present tortured guise

Perchance hath blurred my memory of thy face,

Until it seems I ne'er on thee set eyes.

But tell me who thou art, within this place

So cruel set, exposed to such a pain,

Than which, if greater, none has more disgrace.'

And he: 'Thy city, swelling with the bane

Of envy till the sack is running o'er, 50

Me in the life serene did once contain.

As Ciacco[280] me your citizens named of yore;

And for the damning sin of gluttony

I, as thou seest, am beaten by this shower.

No solitary woful soul am I,

For all of these endure the selfsame doom

For the same fault.' Here ended his reply.

I answered him, 'O Ciacco, with such gloom

Thy misery weighs me, I to weep am prone;

But, if thou canst, declare to what shall come 60

The citizens[281] of the divided town.

Holds it one just man? And declare the cause

Why 'tis of discord such a victim grown.'

Then he to me: 'After[282] contentious pause

Blood will be spilt; the boorish party[283] then

Will chase the others forth with grievous loss.

The former it behoves to fall again

Within three suns, the others to ascend,

Holpen[284] by him whose wiles ere now are plain.

Long time, with heads held high, they'll make to bend

The other party under burdens dire, 71

Howe'er themselves in tears and rage they spend.

There are two just[285] men, at whom none inquire.

Envy, and pride, and avarice, even these

Are the three sparks have set all hearts on fire.'

With this the tearful sound he made to cease:

And I to him, 'Yet would I have thee tell--

And of thy speech do thou the gift increase--

Tegghiaio[286] and Farinata, honourable,

James Rusticucci,[287] Mosca, Arrigo, 80

With all the rest so studious to excel

In good; where are they? Help me this to know;

Great hunger for the news hath seizèd me;

Delights them Heaven, or tortures Hell below?'

He said: 'Among the blackest souls they be;

Them to the bottom weighs another sin.

Shouldst thou so far descend, thou mayst them see.

But when[288] the sweet world thou again dost win,

I pray thee bring me among men to mind;

No more I tell, nor new reply begin.' 90

Then his straightforward eyes askance declined;

He looked at me a moment ere his head

He bowed; then fell flat 'mong the other blind.

'Henceforth he waketh not,' my Leader said,

'Till he shall hear the angel's trumpet sound,

Ushering the hostile Judge. By every shade

Its dismal sepulchre shall then be found,

Its flesh and ancient form it shall resume,

And list[289] what echoes in eternal round.'

So passed we where the shades and rainy spume 100

Made filthy mixture, with steps taken slow;

Touching a little on the world to come.[290]

Wherefore I said: 'Master, shall torments grow

After the awful sentence hath been heard,

Or lesser prove and not so fiercely glow?'

'Repair unto thy Science,'[291] was his word;

'Which tells, as things approach a perfect state

To keener joy or suffering they are stirred.

Therefore although this people cursed by fate

Ne'er find perfection in its full extent, 110

To it they then shall more approximate

Than now.'[292] Our course we round the circle bent,

Still holding speech, of which I nothing say,

Until we came where down the pathway went:

There found we Plutus, the great enemy.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] _As I move again_: In his swoon he has been conveyed from the

Second Circle down to the Third.

[275] _Cerberus_: In the Greek mythology Cerberus is the watch-dog of

the under world. By Dante he is converted into a demon, and with his

three throats, canine voracity, and ugly inflamed bulk, is appropriately

set to guard the entrance to the circle of the gluttonous and

wine-bibbers.

[276] _And oft, etc._: On entering the circle the shades are seized and

torn by Cerberus; once over-nice in how they fed, they are now treated

as if they were food for dogs. But their enduring pain is to be

subjected to every kind of physical discomfort. Their senses of hearing,

touch, and smell are assailed by the opposite of what they were most

used to enjoy at their luxurious feasts.

[277] _Great worm_: Though human in a monstrous form, Cerberus is so

called as being a disgusting brute.

[278] _Semblances, etc._: 'Emptiness which seems to be a person.' To

this conception of the shades as only seeming to have bodies, Dante has

difficulty in remaining true. For instance, at line 101 they mix with

the sleet to make a sludgy mass; and cannot therefore be impalpable.

[279] Ciacco at once perceives by the weight of Dante's tread that he is

a living man.

[280] _Ciacco_: The name or nickname of a Florentine wit, and, in his

day, a great diner-out. Boccaccio, in his commentary, says that, though

poor, Ciacco associated with men of birth and wealth, especially such as

ate and drank delicately. In the _Decameron_, ix. 8, he is introduced as

being on such terms with the great Corso Donati as to be able to propose

himself to dinner with him. Clearly he was not a bad fellow, and his

pitiful case, perhaps contrasted with the high spirits and jovial

surroundings in which he was last met by Dante, almost, though not

quite, win a tear from the stern pilgrim.

[281] _The citizens, etc._: Dante eagerly confers on Florentine politics

with the first Florentine he encounters in Inferno.

[282] _After, etc._: In the following nine lines the party history of

Florence for two years after the period of the poem (March 1300) is

roughly indicated. The city was divided into two factions--the Whites,

led by the great merchant Vieri dei Cerchi, and the Blacks, led by Corso

Donati, a poor and turbulent noble. At the close of 1300 there was a

bloody encounter between the more violent members of the two parties. In

May 1301 the Blacks were banished. In the autumn of that year they

returned in triumph to the city in the train of Charles of Valois, and

got the Whites banished in April 1302, within three years, that is, of

the poet's talk with Ciacco. Dante himself was associated with the

Whites, but not as a violent partisan; for though he was a strong

politician no party quite answered his views. From the middle of June

till the middle of August 1300 he was one of the Priors. In the course

of 1301 he is believed to have gone on an embassy to Rome to persuade

the Pope to abstain from meddling in Florentine affairs. He never

entered Florence again, being condemned virtually to banishment in

January 1302.

[283] _The boorish party_: _la parte selvaggia_. The Whites; but what is

exactly meant by _selvaggia_ is not clear. Literally it is 'woodland,'

and some say it refers to the Cerchi having originally come from a

well-wooded district; which is absurd. Nor, taking the word in its

secondary meaning of savage, does it apply better to one party than

another--not so well, perhaps, to the Whites as to the Blacks. Villani

also terms the Cerchi _salvatichi_ (viii. 39), and in a connection where

it may mean rude, ill-mannered. I take it that Dante here indulges in a

gibe at the party to which he once belonged, but which, ere he began the

_Comedy_, he had quite broken with. In _Parad._ xvii. 62 he terms the

members of it 'wicked and stupid.' The sneer in the text would come well

enough from the witty and soft-living Ciacco.

[284] _Holpen, etc._: Pope Boniface, already intriguing to gain the

preponderance in Florence, which for a time he enjoyed, with the greedy

and faithless Charles of Valois for his agent.

[285] _Two just_: Dante and another, unknown. He thus distinctly puts

from himself any blame for the evil turn things had taken in Florence.

How thoroughly he had broken with his party ere he wrote this is proved

by his exclusion of the irresolute but respectable Vieri dei Cerchi from

the number of the just men. He, in Dante's judgment, was only too much

listened to.--It will be borne in mind that, at the time assigned to the

action of the _Comedy_, Dante was still resident in Florence.

[286] _Tegghiaio_: See _Inf._ xvi. 42. _Farinata_: _Inf._ x. 32.

[287] _Rusticucci_: _Inf._ xvi. 44. _Mosca_: _Inf._ xxviii. 106.

_Arrigo_: Cannot be identified. All these distinguished Florentines we

may assume to have been hospitable patrons of Ciacco's.

[288] _But when, etc._: In the Inferno many such prayers are addressed

to Dante. The shades in Purgatory ask to have their friends on earth

stirred to offer up petitions for their speedy purification and

deliverance; but the only alleviation possible for the doomed spirits is

to know that they are not yet forgotten up in the 'sweet world.' A

double artistic purpose is served by representing them as feeling thus.

It relieves the mind to think that in such misery there is any source of

comfort at all. And by making them be still interested on their own

account in the thoughts of men, the eager colloquies in which they

engage with Dante on such unequal terms gain in verisimilitude.

[289] _And list, etc._: The final sentence against them is to echo, in

its results, through all eternity.

[290] _The world to come_: The life after doomsday.

[291] _Thy Science_: To Aristotle. In the _Convito_, iv. 16, he quotes

'the Philosopher' as teaching that 'everything is then at its full

perfection when it thoroughly fulfils its special functions.'

[292] _Than now_: Augustine says that 'after the resurrection of the

flesh the joys of the blessed and the sufferings of the wicked will be

enhanced.' And, according to Thomas Aquinas, 'the soul, without the

body, is wanting in the perfection designed for it by Nature.'

CANTO VII.

Pape[293] Satan! Pape Satan! Aleppe!

Plutus[294] began in accents rough and hard:

And that mild Sage, all-knowing, said to me,

For my encouragement: 'Pay no regard

Unto thy fear; whatever power he sways

Thy passage down this cliff shall not be barred.'

Then turning round to that inflamèd face

He bade: 'Accursed wolf,[295] at peace remain;

And, pent within thee, let thy fury blaze.

Down to the pit we journey not in vain: 10

So rule they where by Michael in Heaven's height

On the adulterous pride[296] was vengeance ta'en.'

Then as the bellied sails, by wind swelled tight,

Suddenly drag whenever snaps the mast;

Such, falling to the ground, the monster's plight.

To the Fourth Cavern so we downward passed,

Winning new reaches of the doleful shore

Where all the vileness of the world is cast.

Justice of God! which pilest more and more

Pain as I saw, and travail manifold! 20

Why will we sin, to be thus wasted sore?

As at Charybdis waves are forward rolled

To break on other billows midway met,

The people here a counterdance must hold.

A greater crowd than I had seen as yet,

With piercing yells advanced on either track,

Rolling great stones to which their chests were set.

They crashed together, and then each turned back

Upon the way he came, while shouts arise,

'Why clutch it so?' and 'Why to hold it slack?' 30

In the dark circle wheeled they on this wise

From either hand to the opposing part,

Where evermore they raised insulting cries.

Thither arrived, each, turning, made fresh start

Through the half circle[297] a new joust to run;

And I, stung almost to the very heart,

Said, 'O my Master, wilt thou make it known

Who the folk are? Were these all clerks[298] who go

Before us on the left, with shaven crown?'

And he replied: 'All of them squinted so 40

In mental vision while in life they were,

They nothing spent by rule. And this they show,

And with their yelping voices make appear

When half-way round the circle they have sped,

And sins opposing them asunder tear.

Each wanting thatch of hair upon his head

Was once a clerk, or pope, or cardinal,

In whom abound the ripest growths of greed.'

And I: 'O Master, surely among all

Of these I ought[299] some few to recognise, 50

Who by such filthy sins were held in thrall.'

And he to me: 'Vain thoughts within thee rise;

Their witless life, which made them vile, now mocks--

Dimming[300] their faces still--all searching eyes.

Eternally they meet with hostile shocks;

These rising from the tomb at last shall stand

With tight clenched fists, and those with ruined locks.[301]

Squandering or hoarding, they the happy land[302]

Have lost, and now are marshalled for this fray;

Which to describe doth no fine words demand. 60

Know hence, my Son, how fleeting is the play

Of goods at the dispose of Fortune thrown,

And which mankind to such fierce strife betray.

Not all the gold which is beneath the moon

Could purchase peace, nor all that ever was,

To but one soul of these by toil undone.'

'Master,' I said, 'tell thou, ere making pause,

Who Fortune is of whom thou speak'st askance,

Who holds all worldly riches in her claws.'[303]

'O foolish creatures, lost in ignorance!' 70

He answer made. 'Now see that the reply

Thou store, which I concerning her advance.

He who in knowledge is exalted high,

Framing[304] all Heavens gave such as should them guide,

That so each part might shine to all; whereby

Is equal light diffused on every side:

And likewise to one guide and governor,

Of worldly splendours did control confide,

That she in turns should different peoples dower 79

With this vain good; from blood should make it pass

To blood, in spite of human wit. Hence, power,

Some races failing,[305] other some amass,

According to her absolute decree

Which hidden lurks, like serpent in the grass.

Vain 'gainst her foresight yours must ever be.

She makes provision, judges, holds her reign,

As doth his power supreme each deity.

Her permutations can no truce sustain;

Necessity[306] compels her to be swift,

So swift they follow who their turn must gain. 90

And this is she whom they so often[307] lift

Upon the cross, who ought to yield her praise;

And blame on her and scorn unjustly shift.

But she is blest nor hears what any says,

With other primal creatures turns her sphere,

Jocund and glad, rejoicing in her ways.

To greater woe now let us downward steer.

The stars[308] which rose when I began to guide

Are falling now, nor may we linger here.'

We crossed the circle to the other side, 100

Arriving where a boiling fountain fell

Into a brooklet by its streams supplied.

In depth of hue the flood did perse[309] excel,

And we, with this dim stream to lead us on,

Descended by a pathway terrible.

A marsh which by the name of Styx is known,

Fed by this gloomy brook, lies at the base

Of threatening cliffs hewn out of cold grey stone.

And I, intent on study of the place,[310]

Saw people in that ditch, mud-smeared. In it 110

All naked stood with anger-clouded face.

Nor with their fists alone each fiercely hit

The other, but with feet and chest and head,

And with their teeth to shreds each other bit.

'Son, now behold,' the worthy Master said,

'The souls of those whom anger made a prize;

And, further, I would have thee certified

That 'neath the water people utter sighs,

And make the bubbles to the surface come;

As thou mayst see by casting round thine eyes. 120

Fixed in the mud they say: "We lived in gloom[311]

In the sweet air made jocund by the day,

Nursing within us melancholy fume.

In this black mud we now our gloom display."

This hymn with gurgling throats they strive to sound,

Which they in speech unbroken fail to say.'

And thus about the loathsome pool we wound

For a wide arc, between the dry and soft,

With eyes on those who gulp the filth, turned round.

At last we reached a tower that soared aloft. 130

FOOTNOTES:

[293] _Pape, etc._: These words have exercised the ingenuity of many

scholars, who on the whole lean to the opinion that they contain an

appeal to Satan against the invasion of his domain. Virgil seems to have

understood them, but the text leaves it doubtful whether Dante himself

did. Later on, but there with an obvious purpose, we find a line of pure

gibberish (_Inf._ xxxi. 67).

[294] _Plutus_: The god of riches; degraded here into a demon. He guards

the Fourth Circle, which is that of the misers and spendthrifts.

[295] _Wolf_: Frequently used by Dante as symbolical of greed.

[296] _Pride_: Which in its way was a kind of greed--that of dominion.

Similarly, the avarice represented by the wolf of Canto i. was seen to

be the lust of aggrandisement. Virgil here answers Plutus's (supposed)

appeal to Satan by referring to the higher Power, under whose protection

he and his companion come.

[297] _The half circle_: This Fourth Circle is divided half-way round

between the misers and spendthrifts, and the two bands at set periods

clash against one another in their vain effort to pass into the section

belonging to the opposite party. Their condition is emblematical of

their sins while in life. They were one-sided in their use of wealth; so

here they can never complete the circle. The monotony of their

employment and of their cries represents their subjection to one idea,

and, as in life, so now, their displeasure is excited by nothing so much

as by coming into contact with the failing opposite to their own. Yet

they are set in the same circle because the sin of both arose from

inordinate desire of wealth, the miser craving it to hoard, and the

spendthrift to spend. In Purgatory also they are placed together (see

_Purg._ xxii. 40). So, on Dante's scheme, liberality is allied to and

dependent on a wise and reasonable frugality.--There is no hint of the

enormous length of the course run by these shades. Far lower down, when

the circles of the Inferno have greatly narrowed, the circuit is

twenty-two miles (_Inf._ xxix. 9).

[298] _Clerks_: Churchmen. The tonsure is the sign that a man is of

ecclesiastical condition. Many took the tonsure who never became

priests.

[299] _I ought, etc._: Dante is astonished that he can pick out no

greedy priest or friar of his acquaintance, when he had known so many.

[300] _Dimming, etc._: Their original disposition is by this time

smothered by the predominance of greed. Dante treats these sinners with

a special contemptuous bitterness. Scores of times since he became

dependent on the generosity of others he must have watched how at a bare

hint the faces of miser and spendthrift fell, while their eyes travelled

vaguely beyond him, and their voices grew cold.

[301] _Ruined locks_: 'A spendthrift will spend his very hair,' says an

Italian proverb.

[302] _The happy land_: Heaven.

[303] _Her claws_: Dante speaks of Fortune as if she were a brutal and

somewhat malicious power. In Virgil's answer there is a refutation of

the opinion of Fortune given by Dante himself, in the _Convito_ (iv.

11). After describing three ways in which the goods of Fortune come to

men he says: 'In each of these three ways her injustice is manifest.'

This part of the _Convito_ Fraticelli seems almost to prove was written

in 1297.

[304] _Framing, etc._: According to the scholastic theory of the world,

each of the nine heavens was directed in its motion by intelligences,

called angels by the vulgar, and by the heathen, gods (_Convito_ ii. 5).

As these spheres and the influences they exercise on human affairs are

under the guidance of divinely-appointed ministers, so, Virgil says, is

the distribution of worldly wealth ruled by Providence through Fortune.

[305] _Some races failing_: It was long believed, nor is the belief

quite obsolete, that one community can gain only at the expense of

another. Sir Thomas Browne says: 'All cannot be happy at once; for

because the glory of one state depends upon the ruin of another, there

is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatness, and all must obey

the swing of that wheel, not moved by intelligences, but by the hand of

God, whereby all states arise to their zeniths and vertical points

according to their predestinated periods.'--_Rel. Med._ i. 17.

[306] _Necessity, etc._: Suggested, perhaps, by Horace's _Te semper

anteit sæva necessitas_ (_Od._ i. 35). The question of how men can be

free in the face of necessity, here associated with Fortune, more than

once emerges in the _Comedy_. Dante's belief on the subject was

substantially that of his favourite author Boethius, who holds that

ultimately 'it is Providence that turns the wheel of all things;' and

who says, that 'if you spread your sails to the wind you will be

carried, not where you would, but whither you are driven by the gale: if

you choose to commit yourself to Fortune, you must endure the manners of

your mistress.'

[307] _Whom they so often, etc._: Treat with contumely.

[308] _The stars, etc._: It is now past midnight, and towards the

morning of Saturday, the 26th of March 1300. Only a few hours have been

employed as yet upon the journey.

[309] _Perse_: 'Perse is a colour between purple and black, but the

black predominates' (_Conv._ iv. 20). The hue of the waters of Styx

agrees with the gloomy temper of the sinners plunged in them.

[310] _The place_: They are now in the Fifth Circle, where the wrathful

are punished.

[311] _In gloom_: These submerged spirits are, according to the older

commentators, the slothful--those guilty of the sin of slackness in the

pursuit of good, as, _e.g._ neglect of the means of grace. This is,

theologically speaking, the sin directly opposed to the active grace of

charity. By more modern critics it has been ingeniously sought to find

in this circle a place not only for the slothful but for the proud and

envious as well. To each of these classes of sinners--such of them as

have repented in this life--a terrace of Purgatory is assigned, and at

first sight it does seem natural to expect that the impenitent among

them should be found in Inferno. But, while in Purgatory souls purge

themselves of every kind of mortal sin, Inferno, as Dante conceived of

it, contains only such sinners as have been guilty of wicked acts. Drift

and bent of heart and mind are taken no account of. The evil seed must

have borne a harvest, and the guilt of every victim of Justice must be

plain and open. Now, pride and envy are sins indeed, but sins that a man

may keep to himself. If they have betrayed the subject of them into the

commission of crimes, in those crimes they are punished lower down, as

is indicated at xii. 49. And so we find that Lucifer is condemned as a

traitor, though his treachery sprang from envy: the greater guilt

includes the less. For sluggishness in the pursuit of good the vestibule

of the caitiffs seems the appropriate place.--There are two kinds of

wrath. One is vehement, and declares itself in violent acts; the other

does not blaze out, but is grudging and adverse to all social good--the

wrath that is nursed. One as much as the other affects behaviour. So in

this circle, as in the preceding, we have represented the two excesses

of one sin.--Dante's theory of sins is ably treated of in Witte's

_Dante-Forschungen_, vol. ii. p. 121.

CANTO VIII.

I say, continuing,[312] that long before

To its foundations we approachèd nigh

Our eyes went travelling to the top of the tower;

For, hung out there, two flames[313] we could espy.

Then at such distance, scarce our eyesight made

It clearly out, another gave reply.

And, to the Sea of Knowledge turned, I said:

'What meaneth this? and what reply would yield

That other light, and who have it displayed?'

'Thou shouldst upon the impure watery field,' 10

He said, 'already what approaches know,

But that the fen-fog holds it still concealed.'

Never was arrow yet from sharp-drawn bow

Urged through the air upon a swifter flight

Than what I saw a tiny vessel show,

Across the water shooting into sight;

A single pilot served it for a crew,

Who shouted: 'Art thou come, thou guilty sprite?'[314]

'O Phlegyas, Phlegyas,[315] this thy loud halloo!

For once,' my Lord said, 'idle is and vain. 20

Thou hast us only till the mud we're through.'

And, as one cheated inly smarts with pain

When the deceit wrought on him is betrayed,

His gathering ire could Phlegyas scarce contain.

Into the bark my Leader stepped, and made

Me take my place beside him; nor a jot,

Till I had entered, was it downward weighed.

Soon as my Guide and I were in the boat,

To cleave the flood began the ancient prow,

Deeper[316] than 'tis with others wont to float. 30

Then, as the stagnant ditch we glided through,

One smeared with filth in front of me arose

And said: 'Thus coming ere thy period,[317] who

Art thou?' And I: 'As one who forthwith goes

I come; but thou defiled, how name they thee?'

'I am but one who weeps,'[318] he said. 'With woes,'

I answered him, 'with tears and misery,

Accursèd soul, remain; for thou art known

Unto me now, all filthy though thou be.'

Then both his hands were on the vessel thrown; 40

But him my wary Master backward heaved,

Saying: 'Do thou 'mong the other dogs be gone!'

Then to my neck with both his arms he cleaved,

And kissed my face, and, 'Soul disdainful,'[319] said,

'O blessed she in whom thou wast conceived!

He in the world great haughtiness displayed.

No deeds of worth his memory adorn;

And therefore rages here his sinful shade.

And many are there by whom crowns are worn

On earth, shall wallow here like swine in mire, 50

Leaving behind them names o'erwhelmed[320] in scorn.'

And I: 'O Master, I have great desire

To see him well soused in this filthy tide,

Ere from the lake we finally retire.'

And he: 'Or ever shall have been descried

The shore by thee, thy longing shall be met;

For such a wish were justly gratified.'

A little after in such fierce onset

The miry people down upon him bore,

I praise and bless God for it even yet. 60

'Philip Argenti![321] at him!' was the roar;

And then that furious spirit Florentine

Turned with his teeth upon himself and tore.

Here was he left, nor wins more words of mine.

Now in my ears a lamentation rung,

Whence I to search what lies ahead begin.

And the good Master told me: 'Son, ere long

We to the city called of Dis[322] draw near,

Where in great armies cruel burghers[323] throng.'

And I: 'Already, Master, I appear 70

Mosques[324] in the valley to distinguish well,

Vermilion, as if they from furnace were

Fresh come.' And he: 'Fires everlasting dwell

Within them, whence appear they glowing hot,

As thou discernest in this lower hell.'

We to the moat profound at length were brought,

Which girds that city all disconsolate;

The walls around it seemed of iron wrought.

Not without fetching first a compass great,

We came to where with angry cry at last: 80

'Get out,' the boatman yelled; 'behold the gate!'[325]

More than a thousand, who from Heaven[326] were cast,

I saw above the gates, who furiously

Demanded: 'Who, ere death on him has passed,

Holds through the region of the dead his way?'

And my wise Master made to them a sign

That he had something secretly to say.

Then ceased they somewhat from their great disdain,

And said: 'Come thou, but let that one be gone

Who thus presumptuous enters on this reign. 90

Let him retrace his madcap way alone,

If he but can; thou meanwhile lingering here,

Through such dark regions who hast led him down.'

Judge, reader, if I was not filled with fear,

Hearing the words of this accursèd threat;

For of return my hopes extinguished were.

'Beloved Guide, who more than seven times[327] set

Me in security, and safely brought

Through frightful dangers in my progress met,

Leave me not thus undone;' I him besought: 100

'If further progress be to us denied,

Let us retreat together, tarrying not.'

The Lord who led me thither then replied:

'Fear not: by One so great has been assigned

Our passage, vainly were all hindrance tried.

Await me here, and let thy fainting mind

Be comforted and with good hope be fed,

Not to be left in this low world behind.'

Thus goes he, thus am I abandonèd

By my sweet Father. I in doubt remain, 110

With Yes and No[328] contending in my head.

I could not hear what speech he did maintain,

But no long time conferred he in that place,

Till, to be first, all inward raced again.

And then the gates were closed in my Lord's face

By these our enemies; outside stood he;

Then backward turned to me with lingering pace,

With downcast eyes, and all the bravery

Stripped from his brows; and he exclaimed with sighs;

'Who dare[329] deny the doleful seats to me!' 120

And then he said: 'Although my wrath arise,

Fear not, for I to victory will pursue,

Howe'er within they plot, the enterprise.

This arrogance of theirs is nothing new;

They showed it[330] once at a less secret door

Which stands unbolted since. Thou didst it view,

And saw the dark-writ legend which it bore.

Thence, even now, is one who hastens down

Through all the circles, guideless, to this shore,

And he shall win us entrance to the town.' 130

FOOTNOTES:

[312] _Continuing_: The account of the Fifth Circle, begun in the

preceding Canto, is continued in this. It is impossible to adopt

Boccaccio's story of how the first seven Cantos were found among a heap

of other papers, years after Dante's exile began; and that 'continuing'

marks the resumption of his work. The word most probably suggested the

invention of the incident, or at least led to the identification of some

manuscript that may have been sent to Dante, with the opening pages of

the _Comedy_. If the tale were true, not only must Ciacco's prophecy

(_Inf._ vi.) have been interpolated, but we should be obliged to hold

that Dante began the poem while he was a prosperous citizen.--Boccaccio

himself in his Comment on the _Comedy_ points out the difficulty of

reconciling the story with Ciacco's prophecy.

[313] _Two flames_: Denoting the number of passengers who are to be

conveyed across the Stygian pool. It is a signal for the ferryman, and

is answered by a light hung out on the battlements of the city of Dis.

[314] _Guilty sprite_: Only one is addressed; whether Virgil or Dante is

not clear.

[315] _Phlegyas_: Who burnt the temple of Apollo at Delphi in revenge

for the violation of his daughter by the god.

[316] _Deeper, etc._: Because used to carry only shades.

[317] _Ere thy period_: The curiosity of the shade is excited by the

sinking of the boat in the water. He assumes that Dante will one day be

condemned to Inferno. Neither Francesca nor Ciacco made a like mistake.

[318] _One who weeps_: He is ashamed to tell his name, and hopes in his

vile disguise to remain unknown by Dante, whose Florentine speech and

dress, and perhaps whose features, he has now recognised.

[319] _Soul disdainful_: Dante has been found guilty of here glorying in

the same sin which he so severely reprobates in others. But, without

question, of set purpose he here contrasts righteous indignation with

the ignoble rage punished in this circle. With his quick temper and zeal

so often kindling into flame, he may have felt a special personal need

of emphasising the distinction.

[320] _Names o'erwhelmed, etc._: 'Horrible reproaches.'

[321] _Philip Argenti_: A Florentine gentleman related to the great

family of the Adimari, and a contemporary of Dante's. Boccaccio in his

commentary describes him as a cavalier, very rich, and so ostentatious

that he once shod his horse with silver, whence his surname. In the

_Decameron_ (ix. 8) he is introduced as violently assaulting--tearing

out his hair and dragging him in the mire--the victim of a practical

joke played by the Ciacco of Canto vi. Some, without reason, suppose

that Dante shows such severity to him because he was a Black, and so a

political opponent of his own.

[322] _Dis_: A name of Pluto, the god of the infernal regions.

[323] _Burghers_: The city of Dis composes the Sixth Circle, and, as

immediately appears, is populated by demons. The sinners punished in it

are not mentioned at all in this Canto, and it seems more reasonable to

apply _burghers_ to the demons than to the shades. They are called

_gravi_, generally taken to mean sore burdened, and the description is

then applicable to the shades; but _grave_ also bears the sense of

cruel, and may describe the fierceness of the devils. Though the city is

inhabited by the subjects of Dis, he is found as Lucifer at the very

bottom of the pit. By some critics the whole of the lower Inferno, all

that lies beyond this point, is regarded as being the city of Dis. But

it is the Sixth Circle, with its minarets, that is the city; its walls,

however, serving as bulwarks for all the lower Inferno. The shape of the

city is, of course, that of a circular belt. Here it may be noted that

the Fifth and Sixth Circles are on the same level; the water of Styx,

which as a marsh covers the Fifth, is gathered into a moat to surround

the walls of the Sixth.

[324] _Mosques_: The feature of an Infidel city that first struck

crusader and pilgrim.

[325] _The gate_: They have floated across the stagnant marsh into the

deeper waters of the moat, and up to the gate where Phlegyas is used to

land his passengers. It may be a question whether his services are

required for all who are doomed to the lower Inferno, or only for those

bound to the city.

[326] _From Heaven_: 'Rained from Heaven.' Fallen angels.

[327] _Seven times_: Given as a round number.

[328] _Yes and No_: He will return--He will not return. The demons have

said that Virgil shall remain, and he has promised Dante not to desert

him.

[329] _Who dare, etc._: Virgil knows the hindrance is only temporary,

but wonders what superior devilish power can have incited the demons to

deny him entrance. The incident displays the fallen angels as being

still rebellious, and is at the same time skilfully conceived to mark a

pause before Dante enters on the lower Inferno.

[330] _They showed it, etc._: At the gate of Inferno, on the occasion of

Christ's descent to Limbo. The reference is to the words in the Missal

service for Easter Eve: 'This is the night in which, having burst the

bonds of death, Christ victoriously ascended from Hell.'

CANTO IX.

The hue which cowardice on my face did paint

When I beheld my guide return again,

Put his new colour[331] quicker 'neath restraint.

Like one who listens did he fixed remain;

For far to penetrate the air like night,

And heavy mist, the eye was bent in vain.

'Yet surely we must vanquish in the fight;'

Thus he, 'unless[332]--but with such proffered aid--

O how I weary till he come in sight!'

Well I remarked how he transition made, 10

Covering his opening words with those behind,

Which contradicted what at first he said.

Nath'less his speech with terror charged my mind,

For, haply, to the word which broken fell

Worse meaning than he purposed, I assigned.

Down to this bottom[333] of the dismal shell

Comes ever any from the First Degree,[334]

Where all their pain is, stripped of hope to dwell?

To this my question thus responded he:

'Seldom it haps to any to pursue 20

The journey now embarked upon by me.

Yet I ere this descended, it is true,

Beneath a spell of dire Erichtho's[335] laid,

Who could the corpse with soul inform anew.

Short while my flesh of me was empty made

When she required me to o'erpass that wall,

From Judas' circle[336] to abstract a shade.

That is the deepest, darkest place of all,

And furthest from the heaven[337] which moves the skies;

I know the way; fear nought that can befall. 30

These fens[338] from which vile exhalations rise

The doleful city all around invest,

Which now we reach not save in angry wise.'

Of more he spake nought in my mind doth rest,

For, with mine eyes, my every thought had been

Fixed on the lofty tower with flaming crest,

Where, in a moment and upright, were seen

Three hellish furies, all with blood defaced,

And woman-like in members and in mien.

Hydras of brilliant green begirt their waist; 40

Snakes and cerastes for their tresses grew,

And these were round their dreadful temples braced.

That they the drudges were, full well he knew,

Of her who is the queen of endless woes,

And said to me: 'The fierce Erynnyes[339] view!

Herself upon the left Megæra shows;

That is Alecto weeping on the right;

Tisiphone's between.' Here made he close.

Each with her nails her breast tore, and did smite

Herself with open palms. They screamed in tone 50

So fierce, I to the Poet clove for fright.

'Medusa,[340] come, that we may make him stone!'

All shouted as they downward gazed; 'Alack!

Theseus[341] escaped us when he ventured down.'

'Keep thine eyes closed and turn to them thy back,

For if the Gorgon chance to be displayed

And thou shouldst look, farewell the upward track!'

Thus spake the Master, and himself he swayed

Me round about; nor put he trust in mine

But his own hands upon mine eyelids laid. 60

O ye with judgment gifted to divine

Look closely now, and mark what hidden lore

Lies 'neath the veil of my mysterious line![342]

Across the turbid waters came a roar

And crash of sound, which big with fear arose:

Because of it fell trembling either shore.

The fashion of it was as when there blows

A blast by cross heats made to rage amain,

Which smites the forest and without repose

The shattered branches sweeps in hurricane; 70

In clouds of dust, majestic, onward flies,

Wild beasts and herdsmen driving o'er the plain.

'Sharpen thy gaze,' he bade--and freed mine eyes--

'Across the foam-flecked immemorial lake,

Where sourest vapour most unbroken lies.'

And as the frogs before the hostile snake

Together of the water get them clear,

And on the dry ground, huddling, shelter take;

More than a thousand ruined souls in fear

Beheld I flee from one who, dry of feet, 80

Was by the Stygian ferry drawing near.

Waving his left hand he the vapour beat

Swiftly from 'fore his face, nor seemed he spent

Save with fatigue at having this to meet.

Well I opined that he from Heaven[343] was sent,

And to my Master turned. His gesture taught

I should be dumb and in obeisance bent.

Ah me, how with disdain appeared he fraught!

He reached the gate, which, touching with a rod,[344]

He oped with ease, for it resisted not. 90

'People despised and banished far from God,'

Upon the awful threshold then he spoke,

'How holds in you such insolence abode?

Why kick against that will which never broke

Short of its end, if ever it begin,

And often for you fiercer torments woke?

Butting 'gainst fate, what can ye hope to win?

Your Cerberus,[345] as is to you well known,

Still bears for this a well-peeled throat and chin.'

Then by the passage foul he back was gone, 100

Nor spake to us, but like a man was he

By other cares[346] absorbed and driven on

Than that of those who may around him be.

And we, confiding in the sacred word,

Moved toward the town in all security.

We entered without hindrance, and I, spurred

By my desire the character to know

And style of place such strong defences gird,

Entering, begin mine eyes around to throw,

And see on every hand a vast champaign, 110

The teeming seat of torments and of woe.

And as at Arles[347] where Rhone spreads o'er the plain,

Or Pola,[348] hard upon Quarnaro sound

Which bathes the boundaries Italian,

The sepulchres uneven make the ground;

So here on every side, but far more dire

And grievous was the fashion of them found.

For scattered 'mid the tombs blazed many a fire,

Because of which these with such fervour burned

No arts which work in iron more require. 120

All of the lids were lifted. I discerned

By keen laments which from the tombs arose

That sad and suffering ones were there inurned.

I said: 'O Master, tell me who are those

Buried within the tombs, of whom the sighs

Come to our ears thus eloquent of woes?'

And he to me: 'The lords of heresies[349]

With followers of all sects, a greater band

Than thou wouldst think, these sepulchres comprise.

To lodge them like to like the tombs are planned. 130

The sepulchres have more or less of heat.'[350]

Then passed we, turning to the dexter hand,[351]

'Tween torments and the lofty parapet.

FOOTNOTES:

[331] _New colour_: Both have changed colour, Virgil in anger and Dante

in fear.

[332] _Unless_: To conceal his misgiving from Dante, Virgil refrains

from expressing all his thought. The 'unless' may refer to what the

lying demons had told him or threatened him with; the 'proffered aid,'

to that involved in Beatrice's request.

[333] _This bottom_: The lower depths of Inferno. How much still lies

below him is unknown to Dante.

[334] _First Degree_: The limbo where Virgil resides. Dante by an

indirect question, seeks to learn how much experience of Inferno is

possessed by his guide.

[335] _Erichtho_: A Thessalian sorceress, of whom Lucan (_Pharsalia_

vi.) tells that she evoked a shade to predict to Sextus Pompey the

result of the war between his father and Cæsar. This happened thirty

years before the death of Virgil.

[336] _Judas' circle_: The Judecca, or very lowest point of the Inferno.

Virgil's death preceded that of Judas by fifty years. He gives no hint

of whose the shade was that he went down to fetch; but Lucan's tale was

probably in Dante's mind. In the Middle Ages the memory of Virgil was

revered as that of a great sorcerer, especially in the neighbourhood of

Naples.

[337] _The heaven, etc._: The _Primum Mobile_; but used here for the

highest heaven. See _Inf._ ii. 83, _note_.

[338] _These fens, etc._: Virgil knows the locality. They have no

choice, but must remain where they are, for the same moat and wall gird

the city all around.

[339] _Erynnyes_: The Furies. The Queen of whom they are handmaids is

Proserpine, carried off by Dis, or Pluto, to the under world.

[340] _Medusa_: One of the Gorgons. Whoever looked on the head of Medusa

was turned into stone.

[341] _Theseus_: Who descended into the infernal regions to rescue

Proserpine, and escaped by the help of Hercules.

[342] _Mysterious line_: 'Strange verses:' That the verses are called

strange, as Boccaccio and others of the older commentators say, because

treating of such a subject in the vulgar tongue for the first time, and

in rhyme, is difficult to believe. Rather they are strange because of

the meaning they convey. What that is, Dante warns the reader of

superior intellect to pause and consider. It has been noted (_Inf._ ii.

28) how he uses the characters of the old mythology as if believing in

their real existence. But this is for his poetical ends. Here he bids us

look below the surface and seek for the truth hidden under the strange

disguise.--The opposition to their progress offered by the powers of

Hell perplexes even Virgil, while Dante is reduced to a state of

absolute terror, and is afflicted with still sharper misgivings than he

had at the first as to the issue of his adventure. By an indirect

question he seeks to learn how much Virgil really knows of the economy

of the lower world; but he cannot so much as listen to all of his

Master's reassuring answer, terrified as he is by the sudden appearance

of the Furies upon the tower, which rises out of the city of unbelief.

These symbolise the trouble of his conscience, and, assailing him with

threats, shake his already trembling faith in the Divine government.

How, in the face of such foes, is he to find the peace and liberty of

soul of which he is in search? That this is the city of unbelief he has

not yet been told, and without knowing it he is standing under the very

walls of Doubting Castle. And now, if he chance to let his eyes rest on

the Gorgon's head, his soul will be petrified by despair; like the

denizens of Hell, he will lose the 'good of the intellect,' and will

pass into a state from which Virgil--or reason--will be powerless to

deliver him. But Virgil takes him in time, and makes him avert his eyes;

which may signify that the only safe course for men is to turn their

backs on the deep and insoluble problem of how the reality of the Divine

government can be reconciled with the apparent triumph of evil.

[343] _From Heaven_: The messenger comes from Heaven, and his words are

holy. Against the obvious interpretation, that he is a good angel, there

lies the objection that no other such is met with in Inferno, and also

that it is spoken of as a new sight for him when Dante first meets with

one in Purgatory. But the obstruction now to be overcome is worthy of

angelic interference; and Dante can hardly be said to meet the

messenger, who does not even glance in his direction. The commentators

have made this angel mean all kind of outlandish things.

[344] _A rod_: A piece of the angelic outfit, derived from the

_caduceus_ of Mercury.

[345] _Cerberus_: Hercules, when Cerberus opposed his entrance to the

infernal regions, fastened a chain round his neck and dragged him to the

gate. The angel's speech answers Dante's doubts as to the limits of

diabolical power.

[346] _By other cares, etc._: It is not in Inferno that Dante is to hold

converse with celestial intelligences. The angel, like Beatrice when she

sought Virgil in Limbo, is all on fire to return to his own place.

[347] _Arles_: The Alyscampo (Elysian Fields) at Arles was an enormous

cemetery, of which ruins still exist. It had a circumference of about

six miles, and contained numerous sarcophagi dating from Roman times.

[348] _Pola_: In Istria, near the Gulf of Quarnaro, said to have

contained many ancient tombs.

[349] _Lords of heresies_: 'Heresiarchs.' Dante now learns for the first

time that Dis is the city of unbelief. Each class of heretics has its

own great sepulchre.

[350] _More or less of heat_: According to the heinousness of the heresy

punished in each. It was natural to associate heretics and punishment by

fire in days when Dominican monks ruled the roast.

[351] _Dexter hand_: As they move across the circles, and down from one

to the other, their course is usually to the left hand. Here for some

reason Virgil turns to the right, so as to have the tombs on the left as

he advances. It may be that a special proof of his knowledge of the

locality is introduced when most needed--after the repulse by the

demons--to strengthen Dante's confidence in him as a guide; or, as some

subtly think, they being now about to enter the abode of heresy, the

movement to the right signifies the importance of the first step in

forming opinion. The only other occasion on which their course is taken

to the right hand is at _Inf._ xvii. 31.

CANTO X.

And now advance we by a narrow track

Between the torments and the ramparts high,

My Master first, and I behind his back.

'O mighty Virtue,[352] at whose will am I

Wheeled through these impious circles,' then I said,

'Speak, and in full my longing satisfy.

The people who within the tombs are laid,

May they be seen? The coverings are all thrown

Open, nor is there[353] any guard displayed.'

And he to me: 'All shall be fastened down 10

When hither from Jehoshaphat[354] they come

Again in bodies which were once their own.

All here with Epicurus[355] find their tomb

Who are his followers, and by whom 'tis held

That the soul shares the body's mortal doom.

Things here discovered then shall answer yield,

And quickly, to thy question asked of me;

As well as[356] to the wish thou hast concealed.'

And I: 'Good Leader, if I hide from thee

My heart, it is that I may little say; 20

Nor only now[357] learned I thus dumb to be.'

'O Tuscan, who, still living, mak'st thy way,

Modest of speech, through the abode of flame,

Be pleased[358] a little in this place to stay.

The accents of thy language thee proclaim

To be a native of that state renowned

Which I, perchance, wronged somewhat.' Sudden came

These words from out a tomb which there was found

'Mongst others; whereon I, compelled by fright,

A little toward my Leader shifted ground. 30

And he: 'Turn round, what ails thee? Lo! upright

Beginneth Farinata[359] to arise;

All of him 'bove the girdle comes in sight.'

On him already had I fixed mine eyes.

Towering erect with lifted front and chest,

He seemed Inferno greatly to despise.

And toward him I among the tombs was pressed

By my Guide's nimble and courageous hand,

While he, 'Choose well thy language,' gave behest.

Beneath his tomb when I had ta'en my stand 40

Regarding me a moment, 'Of what house

Art thou?' as if in scorn, he made demand.

To show myself obedient, anxious,

I nothing hid, but told my ancestors;

And, listening, he gently raised his brows.[360]

'Fiercely to me they proved themselves adverse,

And to my sires and party,' then he said;

'Because of which I did them twice disperse.'[361]

I answered him: 'And what although they fled!

Twice from all quarters they returned with might, 50

An art not mastered yet by these you[362] led.'

Beside him then there issued into sight

Another shade, uncovered to the chin,

Propped on his knees, if I surmised aright.

He peered around as if he fain would win

Knowledge if any other was with me;

And then, his hope all spent, did thus begin,

Weeping: 'By dint of genius if it be

Thou visit'st this dark prison, where my son?

And wherefore not found in thy company?' 60

And I to him: 'I come not here alone:

He waiting yonder guides me: but disdain

Of him perchance was by your Guido[363] shown.'

The words he used, and manner of his pain,

Revealed his name to me beyond surmise;

Hence was I able thus to answer plain.

Then cried he, and at once upright did rise,

'How saidst thou--was? Breathes he not then the air?

The pleasant light no longer smites his eyes?'

When he of hesitation was aware 70

Displayed by me in forming my reply,

He fell supine, no more to reappear.

But the magnanimous, at whose bidding I

Had halted there, the same expression wore,

Nor budged a jot, nor turned his neck awry.

'And if'--resumed he where he paused before--

'They be indeed but slow that art to learn,

Than this my bed, to hear it pains me more.

But ere the fiftieth time anew shall burn

The lady's[364] face who reigneth here below, 80

Of that sore art thou shalt experience earn.

And as to the sweet world again thou'dst go,

Tell me, why is that people so without

Ruth for my race,[365] as all their statutes show?'

And I to him: 'The slaughter and the rout

Which made the Arbia[366] to run with red,

Cause in our fane[367] such prayers to be poured out.'

Whereon he heaved a sigh and shook his head:

'There I was not alone, nor to embrace

That cause was I, without good reason, led. 90

But there I was alone, when from her place

All granted Florence should be swept away.

'Twas I[368] defended her with open face.'

'So may your seed find peace some better day,'

I urged him, 'as this knot you shall untie

In which my judgment doth entangled stay.

If I hear rightly, ye, it seems, descry

Beforehand what time brings, and yet ye seem

'Neath other laws[369] as touching what is nigh.'

'Like those who see best what is far from them, 100

We see things,' said he, 'which afar remain;

Thus much enlightened by the Guide Supreme.

To know them present or approaching, vain

Are all our powers; and save what they relate

Who hither come, of earth no news we gain.

Hence mayst thou gather in how dead a state

Shall all our knowledge from that time be thrown

When of the future shall be closed the gate.'

Then, for my fault as if repentant grown,

I said: 'Report to him who fell supine, 110

That still among the living breathes his son.

And if I, dumb, seemed answer to decline,

Tell him it was that I upon the knot

Was pondering then, you helped me to untwine.'

Me now my Master called, whence I besought

With more than former sharpness of the shade,

To tell me what companions he had got.

He answered me: 'Some thousand here are laid

With me; 'mong these the Second Frederick,[370]

The Cardinal[371] too; of others nought be said.' 120

Then was he hid; and towards the Bard antique

I turned my steps, revolving in my brain

The ominous words[372] which I had heard him speak.

He moved, and as we onward went again

Demanded of me: 'Wherefore thus amazed?'

And to his question I made answer plain.

'Within thy mind let there be surely placed,'

The Sage bade, 'what 'gainst thee thou heardest say.

Now mark me well' (his finger here he raised),

'When thou shalt stand within her gentle ray 130

Whose beauteous eye sees all, she will make known

The stages[373] of thy journey on life's way.'

Turning his feet, he to the left moved on;

Leaving the wall, we to the middle[374] went

Upon a path that to a vale strikes down,

Which even to us above its foulness sent.

FOOTNOTES:

[352] _Virtue_: Virgil is here addressed by a new title, which, with the

words of deep respect that follow, marks the full restoration of Dante's

confidence in him as his guide.

[353] _Nor is there, etc._: The gate was found to be strictly guarded,

but not so are the tombs.

[354] _Jehoshaphat_: 'I will also gather all nations, and will bring

them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat' (Joel iii. 2).

[355] _Epicurus_: The unbelief in a future life, or rather the

indifference to everything but the calls of ambition and worldly

pleasure, common among the nobles of Dante's age and that preceding it,

went by the name of Epicureanism. It is the most radical of heresies,

because adverse to the first principles of all religions. Dante, in his

treatment of heresy, dwells more on what affects conduct as does the

denial of the Divine government--than on intellectual divergence from

orthodox belief.

[356] _As well as, etc._: The question is: 'May they be seen?' The wish

is a desire to speak with them.

[357] _Nor only now, etc._: Virgil has on previous occasions imposed

silence on Dante, as, for instance, at _Inf._ iii. 51.

[358] _Be pleased, etc._: From one of the sepulchres, to be imagined as

a huge sarcophagus, come words similar to the _Siste Viator!_ common on

Roman tombs.

[359] _Farinata_: Of the great Florentine family of the Uberti, and, in

the generation before Dante, leader of the Ghibeline or Imperialist

party in Florence. His memory long survived among his fellow-townsmen as

that of the typical noble, rough-mannered, unscrupulous, and arrogant;

but yet, for one good action that he did, he at the same time ranked in

the popular estimation as a patriot and a hero. Boccaccio, misled

perhaps by the mention of Epicurus, says that he loved rich and delicate

fare. It is because all his thoughts were worldly that he is condemned

to the city of unbelief. Dante has already (_Inf._ vi. 79) inquired

regarding his fate. He died in 1264.

[360] _His brows_: When Dante tells he is of the Alighieri, a Guelf

family, Farinata shows some slight displeasure. Or, as a modern

Florentine critic interprets the gesture, he has to think a moment

before he can remember on which side the Alighieri ranged

themselves--they being of the small gentry, while he was a great noble,

But this gloss requires Dante to have been more free from pride of

family than he really was.

[361] _Twice disperse_: The Alighieri shared in the exile of the Guelfs

in 1248 and 1260.

[362] _You_: See also line 95. Dante never uses the plural form to a

single person except when desirous of showing social as distinguished

from, or over and above, moral respect.

[363] _Guido_: Farinata's companion in the tomb is Cavalcante

Cavalcanti, who, although a Guelf, was tainted with the more specially

Ghibeline error of Epicureanism. When in order to allay party rancour

some of the Guelf and Ghibeline families were forced to intermarry, his

son Guido took a daughter of Farinata's to wife. This was in 1267, so

that Guido was much older than Dante. Yet they were very intimate, and,

intellectually, had much in common. With him Dante exchanged poems of

occasion, and he terms him more than once in the _Vita Nuova_ his chief

friend. The disdain of Virgil need not mean more than is on the surface.

Guido died in 1301. He is the hero of the _Decameron_, vi. 9.

[364] _The Lady_: Proserpine; _i.e._ the moon. Ere fifty months from

March 1300 were past, Dante was to see the failure of more than one

attempt made by the exiles, of whom he was one, to gain entrance to

Florence. The great attempt was in the beginning of 1304.

[365] _Ruth for my race_: When the Ghibeline power was finally broken in

Florence the Uberti were always specially excluded from any amnesty.

There is mention of the political execution of at least one descendant

of Farinata's. His son when being led to the scaffold said, 'So we pay

our fathers' debts!'--It has been so long common to describe Dante as a

Ghibeline, though no careful writer does it now, that it may be worth

while here to remark that Ghibelinism, as Farinata understood it, was

practically extinct in Florence ere Dante entered political life.

[366] _The Arbia_: At Montaperti, on the Arbia, a few miles from Siena,

was fought in 1260 a great battle between the Guelf Florence and her

allies on the one hand, and on the other the Ghibelines of Florence,

then in exile, under Farinata; the Sienese and Tuscan Ghibelines in

general; and some hundreds of men-at-arms lent by Manfred.

Notwithstanding the gallant behaviour of the Florentine burghers, the

Guelf defeat was overwhelming, and not only did the Arbia run red with

Florentine blood--in a figure--but the battle of Montaperti ruined for a

time the cause of popular liberty and general improvement in Florence.

[367] _Our fane_: The Parliament of the people used to meet in Santa

Reparata, the cathedral; and it is possible that the maintenance of the

Uberti disabilities was there more than once confirmed by the general

body of the citizens. The use of the word is in any case accounted for

by the frequency of political conferences in churches. And the temple

having been introduced, edicts are converted into 'prayers.'

[368] _'Twas I, etc._: Some little time after the victory of Montaperti

there was a great Ghibeline gathering from various cities at Empoli,

when it was proposed, with general approval, to level Florence with the

ground in revenge for the obstinate Guelfism of the population. Farinata

roughly declared that as long as he lived and had a sword he would

defend his native place, and in the face of this protest the resolution

was departed from. It is difficult to understand how of all the

Florentine nobles, whose wealth consisted largely in house property,

Farinata should have stood alone in protesting against the ruin of the

city. But so it seems to have been; and in this great passage Farinata

is repaid for his service, in despite of Inferno.

[369] _Other laws_: Ciacco, in Canto vi., prophesied what was to happen

in Florence, and Farinata has just told him that four years later than

now he will have failed in an attempt to return from exile: yet Farinata

does not know if his family is still being persecuted, and Cavalcanti

fears that his son Guido is already numbered with the dead. Farinata

replies that like the longsighted the shades can only see what is some

distance off, and are ignorant of what is going on, or about to happen;

which seems to imply that they forget what they once foresaw. Guido was

to die within a few months, and the event was too close at hand to come

within the range of his father's vision.

[370] _The Second Frederick_: The Emperor of that name who reigned from

1220 to 1250, and waged a life-long war with the Popes for supremacy in

Italy. It is not however for his enmity with Rome that he is placed in

the Sixth Circle, but for his Epicureanism--as Dante understood it. From

his Sicilian court a spirit of free inquiry spread through the

Peninsula. With men of the stamp of Farinata it would be converted into

a crude materialism.

[371] _The Cardinal_: Ottaviano, of the powerful Tuscan family of the

Ubaldini, a man of great political activity, and known in Tuscany as

'The Cardinal.' His sympathies were not with the Roman Court. The news

of Montaperti filled him with delight, and later, when the Tuscan

Ghibelines refused him money he had asked for, he burst out with 'And

yet I have lost my soul for the Ghibelines--if I have a soul.' He died

not earlier than 1273. After these illustrious names Farinata scorns to

mention meaner ones.

[372] _Ominous words_: Those in which Farinata foretold Dante's exile.

[373] _The stages, etc._: It is Cacciaguida, his ancestor, who in

Paradise instructs Dante in what his future life is to be--one of

poverty and exile (_Parad._ xvii.). This is, however, done at the

request of Beatrice.

[374] _To the middle_: Turning to the left they cut across the circle

till they reach the inner boundary of the city of tombs. Here there is

no wall.

CANTO XI.

We at the margin of a lofty steep

Made of great shattered stones in circle bent,

Arrived where worser torments crowd the deep.

So horrible a stench and violent

Was upward wafted from the vast abyss,[375]

Behind the cover we for shelter went

Of a great tomb where I saw written this:

'Pope Anastasius[376] is within me thrust,

Whom the straight way Photinus made to miss.'

'Now on our course a while we linger must,' 10

The Master said, 'be but our sense resigned

A little to it, and the filthy gust

We shall not heed.' Then I: 'Do thou but find

Some compensation lest our time should run

Wasted.' And he: 'Behold, 'twas in my mind.

Girt by the rocks before us, O my son,

Lie three small circles,'[377] he began to tell,

'Graded like those with which thou now hast done,

All of them filled with spirits miserable.

That sight[378] of them may thee henceforth suffice. 20

Hear how and wherefore in these groups they dwell.

Whate'er in Heaven's abhorred as wickedness

Has injury[379] for its end; in others' bane

By fraud resulting or in violent wise.

Since fraud to man alone[380] doth appertain,

God hates it most; and hence the fraudulent band,

Set lowest down, endure a fiercer pain.

Of the violent is the circle next at hand

To us; and since three ways is violence shown,

'Tis in three several circuits built and planned. 30

To God, ourselves, or neighbours may be done

Violence, or on the things by them possessed;

As reasoning clear shall unto thee make known.

Our neighbour may by violence be distressed

With grievous wounds, or slain; his goods and lands

By havoc, fire, and plunder be oppressed.

Hence those who wound and slay with violent hands,

Robbers, and spoilers, in the nearest round

Are all tormented in their various bands.

Violent against himself may man be found, 40

And 'gainst his goods; therefore without avail

They in the next are in repentance drowned

Who on themselves loss of your world entail,

Who gamble[381] and their substance madly spend,

And who when called to joy lament and wail.

And even to God may violence extend

By heart denial and by blasphemy,

Scorning what nature doth in bounty lend.

Sodom and Cahors[382] hence are doomed to lie

Within the narrowest circlet surely sealed; 50

And such as God within their hearts defy.

Fraud,[383] 'gainst whose bite no conscience findeth shield,

A man may use with one who in him lays

Trust, or with those who no such credence yield.

Beneath this latter kind of it decays

The bond of love which out of nature grew;

Hence, in the second circle[384] herd the race

To feigning given and flattery, who pursue

Magic, false coining, theft, and simony,

Pimps, barrators, and suchlike residue. 60

The other form of fraud makes nullity

Of natural bonds; and, what is more than those,

The special trust whence men on men rely.

Hence in the place whereon all things repose,

The narrowest circle and the seat of Dis,[385]

Each traitor's gulfed in everlasting woes.'

'Thy explanation, Master, as to this

Is clear,' I said, 'and thou hast plainly told

Who are the people stowed in the abyss.

But tell why those the muddy marshes hold, 70

The tempest-driven, those beaten by the rain,

And such as, meeting, virulently scold,

Are not within the crimson city ta'en

For punishment, if hateful unto God;

And, if not hateful, wherefore doomed to pain?'

And he to me: 'Why wander thus abroad,

More than is wont, thy wits? or how engrossed

Is now thy mind, and on what things bestowed?

Hast thou the memory of the passage lost

In which thy Ethics[386] for their subject treat 80

Of the three moods by Heaven abhorred the most--

Malice and bestiality complete;

And how, compared with these, incontinence

Offends God less, and lesser blame doth meet?

If of this doctrine thou extract the sense,

And call to memory what people are

Above, outside, in endless penitence,

Why from these guilty they are sundered far

Thou shalt discern, and why on them alight

The strokes of justice in less angry war.' 90

'O Sun that clearest every troubled sight,

So charmed am I by thy resolving speech,

Doubt yields me joy no less than knowing right.

Therefore, I pray, a little backward reach,'

I asked, 'to where thou say'st that usury

Sins 'gainst God's bounty; and this mystery teach.'

He said: 'Who gives ear to Philosophy

Is taught by her, nor in one place alone,

What nature in her course is governed by,

Even Mind Divine, and art which thence hath grown; 100

And if thy Physics[387] thou wilt search within,

Thou'lt find ere many leaves are open thrown,

This art by yours, far as your art can win,

Is followed close--the teacher by the taught;

As grandchild then to God your art is kin.

And from these two--do thou recall to thought

How Genesis[388] begins--should come supplies

Of food for man, and other wealth be sought.

And, since another plan the usurer plies,

Nature and nature's child have his disdain;[389] 110

Because on other ground his hope relies.

But come,[390] for to advance I now am fain:

The Fishes[391] over the horizon line

Quiver; o'er Caurus now stands all the Wain;

And further yonder does the cliff decline.'

FOOTNOTES:

[375] _Vast abyss_: They are now at the inner side of the Sixth Circle,

and upon the verge of the rocky steep which slopes down from it into the

Seventh. All the lower Hell lies beneath them, and it is from that

rather than from the next circle in particular that the stench arises,

symbolical of the foulness of the sins which are punished there. The

noisome smells which make part of the horror of Inferno are after this

sometimes mentioned, but never dwelt upon (_Inf._ xviii. 106, and xxix.

50).

[376] _Pope Anastasius_: The second of the name, elected Pope in 496.

Photinus, bishop of Sirenium, was infected with the Sabellian heresy,

but he was deposed more than a century before the time of Anastasius.

Dante follows some obscure legend in charging Anastasius with heresy.

The important point is that the one heretic, in the sense usually

attached to the term, named as being in the city of unbelief, is a Pope.

[377] _Three small circles_: The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth; small in

circumference compared with those above. The pilgrims are now deep in

the hollow cone.

[378] _That sight, etc._: After hearing the following explanation Dante

no longer asks to what classes the sinners met with belong, but only as

to the guilt of individual shades.

[379] _Injury_: They have left above them the circles of those whose sin

consists in the exaggeration or misdirection of a wholesome natural

instinct. Below them lie the circles filled with such as have been

guilty of malicious wickedness. This manifests itself in two ways: by

violence or by fraud. After first mentioning in a general way that the

fraudulent are set lowest in Inferno, Virgil proceeds to define

violence, and to tell how the violent occupy the circle immediately

beneath them--the Seventh. For division of the maliciously wicked into

two classes Dante is supposed to be indebted to Cicero: 'Injury may be

wrought by force or by fraud.... Both are unnatural for man, but fraud

is the more hateful.'--_De Officiis_, i. 13. It is remarkable that

Virgil says nothing of those in the Sixth Circle in this account of the

classes of sinners.

[380] _To man alone, etc._: Fraud involves the corrupt use of the powers

that distinguish us from the brutes.

[381] _Who gamble, etc._: A different sin from the lavish spending

punished in the Fourth Circle (_Inf._ vii.). The distinction is that

between thriftlessness and the prodigality which, stripping a man of the

means of living, disgusts him with life, as described in the following

line. It is from among prodigals that the ranks of suicides are greatly

filled, and here they are appropriately placed together. It may seem

strange that in his classification of guilt Dante should rank violence

to one's self as a more heinous sin than that committed against one's

neighbour. He may have in view the fact that none harm their neighbours

so much as they who are oblivious of their own true interest.

[382] _Sodom and Cahors_: Sins against nature are reckoned sins against

God, as explained lower down in this Canto. Cahors in Languedoc had in

the Middle Ages the reputation of being a nest of usurers. These in old

English Chronicles are termed Caorsins. With the sins of Sodom and

Cahors are ranked the denial of God and blasphemy against Him--deeper

sins than the erroneous conceptions of the Divine nature and government

punished in the Sixth Circle. The three concentric rings composing the

Seventh Circle are all on the same level, as we shall find.

[383] _Fraud, etc._: Fraud is of such a nature that conscience never

fails to give due warning against the sin. This is an aggravation of the

guilt of it.

[384] _The second circle_: The second now beneath them; that is, the

Eighth.

[385] _Seat of Dis_: The Ninth and last Circle.

[386] _Thy Ethics_: The Ethics of Aristotle, in which it is said: 'With

regard to manners, these three things are to be eschewed: incontinence,

vice, and bestiality.' Aristotle holds incontinence to consist in the

immoderate indulgence of propensities which under right guidance are

adapted to promote lawful pleasure. It is, generally speaking, the sin

of which those about whom Dante has inquired were guilty.--It has been

ingeniously sought by Philalethes (_Gött. Com._) to show that Virgil's

disquisition is founded on this threefold classification of

Aristotle's--violence being taken to be the same as bestiality, and

malice as vice. But the reference to Aristotle is made with the limited

purpose of justifying the lenient treatment of incontinence; in the same

way as a few lines further on Genesis is referred to in support of the

harsh treatment of usury.

[387] _Physics_: The Physics of Aristotle, in which it is said: 'Art

imitates nature.' Art includes handicrafts.

[388] _Genesis_: 'And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the

garden to dress it and to keep it.' 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou

eat bread.'

[389] _His disdain_: The usurer seeks to get wealth independently of

honest labour or reliance on the processes of nature. This far-fetched

argument against usury closes one of the most arid passages of the

_Comedy_. The shortness of the Canto almost suggests that Dante had

himself got weary of it.

[390] _But come, etc._: They have been all this time resting behind the

lid of the tomb.

[391] _The Fishes, etc._: The sun being now in Aries the stars of Pisces

begin to rise about a couple of hours before sunrise. The Great Bear

lies above Caurus, the quarter of the N.N.W. wind. It seems impossible

to harmonise the astronomical indications scattered throughout the

_Comedy_, there being traces of Dante's having sometimes used details

belonging rather to the day on which Good Friday fell in 1300, the 8th

of April, than to the (supposed) true anniversary of the crucifixion.

That this, the 25th of March, is the day he intended to conform to

appears from _Inf._ xxi. 112.--The time is now near dawn on the Saturday

morning. It is almost needless to say that Virgil speaks of the stars as

he knows they are placed, but without seeing them. By what light they

see in Inferno is nowhere explained. We have been told that it was dark

as night (_Inf._ iv. 10, v. 28).

CANTO XII.

The place of our descent[392] before us lay

Precipitous, and there was something more

From sight of which all eyes had turned away.

As at the ruin which upon the shore

Of Adige[393] fell upon this side of Trent--

Through earthquake or by slip of what before

Upheld it--from the summit whence it went

Far as the plain, the shattered rocks supply

Some sort of foothold to who makes descent;

Such was the passage down the precipice high. 10

And on the riven gully's very brow

Lay spread at large the Cretan Infamy[394]

Which was conceived in the pretended cow.

Us when he saw, he bit himself for rage

Like one whose anger gnaws him through and through.

'Perhaps thou deemest,' called to him the Sage,

'This is the Duke of Athens[395] drawing nigh,

Who war to the death with thee on earth did wage.

Begone, thou brute, for this one passing by

Untutored by thy sister has thee found, 20

And only comes thy sufferings to spy,'

And as the bull which snaps what held it bound

On being smitten by the fatal blow,

Halts in its course, and reels upon the ground,

The Minotaur I saw reel to and fro;

And he, the alert, cried: 'To the passage haste;

While yet he chafes 'twere well thou down shouldst go.'

So we descended by the slippery waste[396]

Of shivered stones which many a time gave way

'Neath the new weight[397] my feet upon them placed. 30

I musing went; and he began to say:

'Perchance this ruined slope thou thinkest on,

Watched by the brute rage I did now allay.

But I would have thee know, when I came down

The former time[398] into this lower Hell,

The cliff had not this ruin undergone.

It was not long, if I distinguish well,

Ere He appeared who wrenched great prey from Dis[399]

From out the upmost circle. Trembling fell

Through all its parts the nauseous abyss 40

With such a violence, the world, I thought,

Was stirred by love; for, as they say, by this

She back to Chaos[400] has been often brought.

And then it was this ancient rampart strong

Was shattered here and at another spot.[401]

But toward the valley look. We come ere long

Down to the river of blood[402] where boiling lie

All who by violence work others wrong.'

O insane rage! O blind cupidity!

By which in our brief life we are so spurred, 50

Ere downward plunged in evil case for aye!

An ample ditch I now beheld engird

And sweep in circle all around the plain,

As from my Escort I had lately heard.

Between this and the rock in single train

Centaurs[403] were running who were armed with bows,

As if they hunted on the earth again.

Observing us descend they all stood close,

Save three of them who parted from the band

With bow, and arrows they in coming chose. 60

'What torment,' from afar one made demand,

'Come ye to share, who now descend the hill?

I shoot unless ye answer whence ye stand.'

My Master said: 'We yield no answer till

We come to Chiron[404] standing at thy side;

But thy quick temper always served thee ill.'

Then touching me: ''Tis Nessus;[405] he who died

With love for beauteous Dejanire possessed,

And who himself his own vendetta plied.

He in the middle, staring on his breast, 70

Is mighty Chiron, who Achilles bred;

And next the wrathful Pholus. They invest

The fosse and in their thousands round it tread,

Shooting whoever from the blood shall lift,

More than his crime allows, his guilty head.'

As we moved nearer to those creatures swift

Chiron drew forth a shaft and dressed his beard

Back on his jaws, using the arrow's cleft.

And when his ample mouth of hair was cleared,

He said to his companions: 'Have ye seen 80

The things the second touches straight are stirred,

As they by feet of shades could ne'er have been?'

And my good Guide, who to his breast had gone--

The part where join the natures,[406] 'Well I ween

He lives,' made answer; 'and if, thus alone,

He seeks the valley dim 'neath my control,

Necessity, not pleasure, leads him on.

One came from where the alleluiahs roll,

Who charged me with this office strange and new:

No robber he, nor mine a felon soul. 90

But, by that Power which makes me to pursue

The rugged journey whereupon I fare,

Accord us one of thine to keep in view,

That he may show where lies the ford, and bear

This other on his back to yonder strand;

No spirit he, that he should cleave the air.'

Wheeled to the right then Chiron gave command

To Nessus: 'Turn, and lead them, and take tent

They be not touched by any other band.'[407]

We with our trusty Escort forward went, 100

Threading the margin of the boiling blood

Where they who seethed were raising loud lament.

People I saw up to the chin imbrued,

'These all are tyrants,' the great Centaur said,

'Who blood and plunder for their trade pursued.

Here for their pitiless deeds tears now are shed

By Alexander,[408] and Dionysius fell,

Through whom in Sicily dolorous years were led.

The forehead with black hair so terrible

Is Ezzelino;[409] that one blond of hue, 110

Obizzo[410] d'Este, whom, as rumours tell,

His stepson murdered, and report speaks true.'

I to the Poet turned, who gave command:

'Regard thou chiefly him. I follow you.'

Ere long the Centaur halted on the strand,

Close to a people who, far as the throat,

Forth of that bulicamë[411] seemed to stand.

Thence a lone shade to us he pointed out

Saying: 'In God's house[412] ran he weapon through

The heart which still on Thames wins cult devout.' 120

Then I saw people, some with heads in view,

And some their chests above the river bore;

And many of them I, beholding, knew.

And thus the blood went dwindling more and more,

Until at last it covered but the feet:

Here took we passage[413] to the other shore.

'As on this hand thou seest still abate

In depth the volume of the boiling stream,'

The Centaur said, 'so grows its depth more great,

Believe me, towards the opposite extreme, 130

Until again its circling course attains

The place where tyrants must lament. Supreme

Justice upon that side involves in pains,

With Attila,[414] once of the world the pest,

Pyrrhus[415] and Sextus: and for ever drains

Tears out of Rinier of Corneto[416] pressed

And Rinier Pazzo[417] in that boiling mass,

Whose brigandage did so the roads infest.'

Then turned he back alone, the ford to pass.

FOOTNOTES:

[392] _Our descent_: To the Seventh Circle.

[393] _Adige_: Different localities in the valley of the Adige have been

fixed on as the scene of this landslip. The Lavini di Marco, about

twenty miles south of Trent, seem best to answer to the description.

They 'consist of black blocks of stone and fragments of a landslip

which, according to the Chronicle of Fulda, fell in the year 883 and

overwhelmed the valley for four Italian miles' (Gsell-Fels, _Ober.

Ital._ i. 35).

[394] _The Cretan Infamy_: The Minotaur, the offspring of Pasiphaë; a

half-bovine monster who inhabited the Cretan labyrinth, and to whom a

human victim was offered once a year. He lies as guard upon the Seventh

Circle--that of the violent (_Inf._ xi. 23, _note_)--and is set at the

top of the rugged slope, itself the scene of a violent convulsion.

[395] _Duke of Athens_: Theseus, instructed by Ariadne, daughter of

Pasiphaë and Minos, how to outwit the Minotaur, entered the labyrinth in

the character of a victim, slew the monster, and then made his way out,

guided by a thread he had unwound as he went in.

[396] _The slippery waste_: The word used here, _scarco_, means in

modern Tuscan a place where earth or stones have been carelessly shot

into a heap.

[397] _The new weight_: The slope had never before been trodden by

mortal foot.

[398] _The former time_: When Virgil descended to evoke a shade from the

Ninth Circle (_Inf._ ix. 22).

[399] _Prey from Dis_: The shades delivered from Limbo by Christ (_Inf._

iv. 53). The expression in the text is probably suggested by the words

of the hymn _Vexilla: Prædamque tulit Tartaris_.

[400] _To Chaos_: The reference is to the theory of Empedocles, known to

Dante through the refutation of it by Aristotle. The theory was one of

periods of unity and division in nature, according as love or hatred

prevailed.

[401] _Another spot_: See _Inf._ xxi. 112. The earthquake at the

Crucifixion shook even Inferno to its base.

[402] _The river of blood_: Phlegethon, the 'boiling river.' Styx and

Acheron have been already passed. Lethe, the fourth infernal river, is

placed by Dante in Purgatory. The first round or circlet of the Seventh

Circle is filled by Phlegethon.

[403] _Centaurs_: As this round is the abode of such as are guilty of

violence against their neighbours, it is guarded by these brutal

monsters, half-man and half-horse.

[404] _Chiron_: Called the most just of the Centaurs.

[405] _Nessus_: Slain by Hercules with a poisoned arrow. When dying he

gave Dejanira his blood-stained shirt, telling her it would insure the

faithfulness to her of any whom she loved. Hercules wore it and died of

the venom; and thus Nessus avenged himself.

[406] The natures: The part of the Centaur where the equine body is

joined on to the human neck and head.

[407] _Other band_: Of Centaurs.

[408] _Alexander_: It is not known whether Alexander the Great or a

petty Thessalian tyrant is here meant. _Dionysius_: The cruel tyrant of

Syracuse.

[409] _Ezzelino_: Or Azzolino of Romano, the greatest Lombard Ghibeline

of his time. He was son-in-law of Frederick II., and was Imperial Vicar

of the Trevisian Mark. Towards the close of Fredrick's life, and for

some years after, he exercised almost independent power in Vicenza,

Padua, and Verona. Cruelty, erected into a system, was his chief

instrument of government, and 'in his dungeons men found something worse

than death.' For Italians, says Burckhardt, he was the most impressive

political personage of the thirteenth century; and around his memory, as

around Frederick's, there gathered strange legends. He died in 1259, of

a wound received in battle. When urged to confess his sins by the monk

who came to shrive him, he declared that the only sin on his conscience

was negligence in revenge. But this may be mythical, as may also be the

long black hair between his eyebrows, which rose up stiff and terrible

as his anger waxed.

[410] _Obizzo_: The second Marquis of Este of that name. He was lord of

Ferrara. There seems little, if any, evidence extant of his being

specially cruel. As a strong Guelf he took sides with Charles of Anjou

against Manfred. He died in 1293, smothered, it was believed, by a son,

here called a stepson for his unnatural conduct. But though Dante

vouches for the truth of the rumour it seems to have been an invention.

[411] _That bulicamë_: The stream of boiling blood is probably named

from the bulicamë, or hot spring, best known to Dante--that near Viterbo

(see _Inf._ xiv. 79). And it may be that the mention of the bulicamë

suggests the reference at line 119.

[412] _In God's house_: Literally, 'In the bosom of God.' The shade is

that of Guy, son of Simon of Montfort and Vicar in Tuscany of Charles of

Anjou. In 1271 he stabbed, in the Cathedral of Viterbo, Henry, son of

Richard of Cornwall and cousin of Edward I. of England. The motive of

the murder was to revenge the death of his father, Simon, at Evesham.

The body of the young prince was conveyed to England, and the heart was

placed in a vase upon the tomb of the Confessor. The shade of Guy stands

up to the chin in blood among the worst of the tyrants, and alone,

because of the enormity of his crime.

[413] _Here took we passage_: Dante on Nessus' back. Virgil has fallen

behind to allow the Centaur to act as guide; and how he crosses the

stream Dante does not see.

[414] _Attila_: King of the Huns, who invaded part of Italy in the fifth

century; and who, according to the mistaken belief of Dante's age, was

the devastator of Florence.

[415] _Pyrrhus_: King of Epirus. _Sextus_: Son of Pompey; a great

sea-captain who fought against the Triumvirs. The crime of the first, in

Dante's eyes, is that he fought with Rome; of the second, that he

opposed Augustus.

[416] _Rinier of Corneto_: Who in Dante's time disturbed the coast of

the States of the Church by his robberies and violence.

[417] _Rinier Pazzo_: Of the great family of the Pazzi of Val d'Arno,

was excommunicated in 1269 for robbing ecclesiastics.

CANTO XIII.

Ere Nessus landed on the other shore

We for our part within a forest[418] drew,

Which of no pathway any traces bore.

Not green the foliage, but of dusky hue;

Not smooth the boughs, but gnarled and twisted round;

For apples, poisonous thorns upon them grew.

No rougher brakes or matted worse are found

Where savage beasts betwixt Corneto[419] roam

And Cecina,[419] abhorring cultured ground.

The loathsome Harpies[420] nestle here at home, 10

Who from the Strophades the Trojans chased

With dire predictions of a woe to come.

Great winged are they, but human necked and faced,

With feathered belly, and with claw for toe;

They shriek upon the bushes wild and waste.

'Ere passing further, I would have thee know,'

The worthy Master thus began to say,

'Thou'rt in the second round, nor hence shalt go

Till by the horrid sand thy footsteps stay.

Give then good heed, and things thou'lt recognise 20

That of my words will prove[421] the verity.'

Wailings on every side I heard arise:

Of who might raise them I distinguished nought;

Whereon I halted, smitten with surprise.

I think he thought that haply 'twas my thought

The voices came from people 'mong the trees,

Who, to escape us, hiding-places sought;

Wherefore the Master said: 'From one of these

Snap thou a twig, and thou shalt understand

How little with thy thought the fact agrees.' 30

Thereon a little I stretched forth my hand

And plucked a tiny branch from a great thorn.

'Why dost thou tear me?' made the trunk demand.

When dark with blood it had begun to turn,

It cried a second time: 'Why wound me thus?

Doth not a spark of pity in thee burn?

Though trees we be, once men were all of us;

Yet had our souls the souls of serpents been

Thy hand might well have proved more piteous.'

As when the fire hath seized a fagot green 40

At one extremity, the other sighs,

And wind, escaping, hisses; so was seen,

At where the branch was broken, blood to rise

And words were mixed with it. I dropped the spray

And stood like one whom terror doth surprise.

The Sage replied: 'Soul vexed with injury,

Had he been only able to give trust

To what he read narrated in my lay,[422]

His hand toward thee would never have been thrust.

'Tis hard for faith; and I, to make it plain, 50

Urged him to trial, mourn it though I must.

But tell him who thou wast; so shall remain

This for amends to thee, thy fame shall blow

Afresh on earth, where he returns again.'

And then the trunk: 'Thy sweet words charm me so,

I cannot dumb remain; nor count it hard

If I some pains upon my speech bestow.

For I am he[423] who held both keys in ward

Of Frederick's heart, and turned them how I would,

And softly oped it, and as softly barred, 60

Till scarce another in his counsel stood.

To my high office I such loyalty bore,

It cost me sleep and haleness of my blood.

The harlot[424] who removeth nevermore

From Cæsar's house eyes ignorant of shame--

A common curse, of courts the special sore--

Set against me the minds of all aflame,

And these in turn Augustus set on fire,

Till my glad honours bitter woes became.

My soul, filled full with a disdainful ire, 70

Thinking by means of death disdain to flee,

'Gainst my just self unjustly did conspire.

I swear even by the new roots of this tree

My fealty to my lord I never broke,

For worthy of all honour sure was he.

If one of you return 'mong living folk,

Let him restore my memory, overthrown

And suffering yet because of envy's stroke.'

Still for a while the poet listened on,

Then said: 'Now he is dumb, lose not the hour, 80

But make request if more thou'dst have made known.'

And I replied: 'Do thou inquire once more

Of what thou thinkest[425] I would gladly know;

I cannot ask; ruth wrings me to the core.'

On this he spake: 'Even as the man shall do,

And liberally, what thou of him hast prayed,

Imprisoned spirit, do thou further show

How with these knots the spirits have been made

Incorporate; and, if thou canst, declare

If from such members e'er is loosed a shade.' 90

Then from the trunk came vehement puffs of air;

Next, to these words converted was the wind:

'My answer to you shall be short and clear.

When the fierce soul no longer is confined

In flesh, torn thence by action of its own,

To the Seventh Depth by Minos 'tis consigned.

No choice is made of where it shall be thrown

Within the wood; but where by chance 'tis flung

It germinates like seed of spelt that's sown.

A forest tree it grows from sapling young; 100

Eating its leaves, the Harpies cause it pain,

And open loopholes whence its sighs are wrung.

We for our vestments shall return again

Like others, but in them shall ne'er be clad:[426]

Men justly lose what from themselves they've ta'en.

Dragged hither by us, all throughout the sad

Forest our bodies shall be hung on high;

Each on the thorn of its destructive shade.'

While to the trunk we listening lingered nigh,

Thinking he might proceed to tell us more, 110

A sudden uproar we were startled by

Like him who, that the huntsman and the boar

To where he stands are sweeping in the chase,

Knows by the crashing trees and brutish roar.

Upon our left we saw a couple race

Naked[427] and scratched; and they so quickly fled

The forest barriers burst before their face.

'Speed to my rescue, death!' the foremost pled.

The next, as wishing he could use more haste;

'Not thus, O Lano,[428] thee thy legs bested 120

When one at Toppo's tournament thou wast.'

Then, haply wanting breath, aside he stepped,

Merged with a bush on which himself he cast.

Behind them through the forest onward swept

A pack of dogs, black, ravenous, and fleet,

Like greyhounds from their leashes newly slipped.

In him who crouched they made their teeth to meet,

And, having piecemeal all his members rent,

Haled them away enduring anguish great.

Grasping my hand, my Escort forward went 130

And led me to the bush which, all in vain,

Through its ensanguined openings made lament.

'James of St. Andrews,'[429] it we heard complain;

'What profit hadst thou making me thy shield?

For thy bad life doth blame to me pertain?'

Then, halting there, this speech my Master held:

'Who wast thou that through many wounds dost sigh,

Mingled with blood, words big with sorrow swelled?'

'O souls that hither come,' was his reply,

'To witness shameful outrage by me borne, 140

Whence all my leaves torn off around me lie,

Gather them to the root of this drear thorn.

My city[430] for the Baptist changed of yore

Her former patron; wherefore, in return,

He with his art will make her aye deplore;

And were it not some image doth remain

Of him where Arno's crossed from shore to shore,

Those citizens who founded her again

On ashes left by Attila,[431] had spent

Their labour of a surety all in vain. 150

In my own house[432] I up a gibbet went.'

FOOTNOTES:

[418] _A forest_: The second round of the Seventh Circle consists of a

belt of tangled forest, enclosed by the river of blood, and devoted to

suicides and prodigals.

[419] _Corneto and Cecina_: Corneto is a town on the coast of what used

to be the States of the Church; Cecina a stream not far south of

Leghorn. Between them lies the Maremma, a district of great natural

fertility, now being restored again to cultivation, but for ages a

neglected and poisonous wilderness.

[420] _Harpies_: Monsters with the bodies of birds and the heads of

women. In the _Æneid_ iii., they are described as defiling the feast of

which the Trojans were about to partake on one of the

Strophades--islands of the Ægean; and on that occasion the prophecy was

made that Æneas and his followers should be reduced to eat their tables

ere they acquired a settlement in Italy. Here the Harpies symbolise

shameful waste and disgust with life.

[421] _Will prove, etc._: The things seen by Dante are to make credible

what Virgil tells (_Æn._ iii.) of the blood and piteous voice that

issued from the torn bushes on the tomb of Polydorus.

[422] _My lay_: See previous note. Dante thus indirectly acknowledges

his debt to Virgil; and, perhaps, at the same time puts in his claim to

an imaginative licence equal to that taken by his master. On a modern

reader the effect of the reference is to weaken the verisimilitude of

the incident.

[423] _For I am he, etc._: The speaker is Pier delle Vigne, who from

being a begging student of Bologna rose to be the Chancellor of the

Emperor Frederick II., the chief councillor of that monarch, and one of

the brightest ornaments of his intellectual court. Peter was perhaps the

more endeared to his master because, like him, he was a poet of no mean

order. There are two accounts of what caused his disgrace. According to

one of these he was found to have betrayed Frederick's interests in

favour of the Pope's; and according to the other he tried to poison him.

Neither is it known whether he committed suicide; though he is said to

have done so after being disgraced, by dashing his brains out against a

church wall in Pisa. Dante clearly follows this legend. The whole

episode is eloquent of the esteem in which Peter's memory was held by

Dante. His name is not mentioned in Inferno, but yet the promise is

amply kept that it shall flourish on earth again, freed from unmerited

disgrace. He died about 1249.

[424] _The harlot_: Envy.

[425] _Of what thou thinkest, etc._: Virgil never asks a question for

his own satisfaction. He knows who the spirits are, what brought them

there, and which of them will speak honestly out on the promise of

having his fame refreshed in the world. It should be noted how, by a

hint, he has made Peter aware of who he is (line 48); a delicate

attention yielded to no other shade in the Inferno, except Ulysses

(_Inf._ xxvi. 79), and, perhaps, Brunetto Latini (_Inf._ xv. 99).

[426] _In them shall ne'er be clad_: Boccaccio is here at great pains to

save Dante from a charge of contradicting the tenet of the resurrection

of the flesh.

[427] _Naked_: These are the prodigals; their nakedness representing the

state to which in life they had reduced themselves.

[428] _Lano_: Who made one of a club of prodigals in Siena (_Inf._ xxix.

130) and soon ran through his fortune. Joining in a Florentine

expedition in 1288 against Arezzo, he refused to escape from a defeat

encountered by his side at Pieve del Toppo, preferring, as was supposed,

to end his life at once rather than drag it out in poverty.

[429] _James of St. Andrews_: Jacopo da Sant' Andrea, a Paduan who

inherited enormous wealth which did not last him for long. He literally

threw money away, and would burn a house for the sake of the blaze. His

death has been placed in 1239.

[430] _My city, etc._: According to tradition the original patron of

Florence was Mars. In Dante's time an ancient statue, supposed to be of

that god, stood upon the Old Bridge of Florence. It is referred to in

_Parad._ xvi. 47 and 145. Benvenuto says that he had heard from

Boccaccio, who had frequently heard it from old people, that the statue

was regarded with great awe. If a boy flung stones or mud at it, the

bystanders would say of him that he would make a bad end. It was lost in

the great flood of 1333. Here the Florentine shade represents Mars as

troubling Florence with wars in revenge for being cast off as a patron.

[431] _Attila_: A confusion with Totila. Attila was never so far south

as Tuscany. Neither is there reason to believe that when Totila took the

city he destroyed it. But the legend was that it was rebuilt in the time

of Charles the Great.

[432] _My own house, etc._: It is not settled who this was who hanged

himself from the beams of his own roof. One of the Agli, say some;

others, one of the Mozzi. Boccaccio and Peter Dante remark that suicide

by hanging was common in Florence. But Dante's text seems pretty often

to have suggested the invention of details in support or illustration of

it.

CANTO XIV.

Me of my native place the dear constraint[433]

Led to restore the leaves which round were strewn,

To him whose voice by this time was grown faint.

Thence came we where the second round joins on

Unto the third, wherein how terrible

The art of justice can be, is well shown.

But, clearly of these wondrous things to tell,

I say we entered on a plain of sand

Which from its bed doth every plant repel.

The dolorous wood lies round it like a band, 10

As that by the drear fosse is circled round.

Upon its very edge we came to a stand.

And there was nothing within all that bound

But burnt and heavy sand; like that once trod

Beneath the feet of Cato[434] was the ground.

Ah, what a terror, O revenge of God!

Shouldst thou awake in any that may read

Of what before mine eyes was spread abroad.

I of great herds of naked souls took heed.

Most piteously was weeping every one; 20

And different fortunes seemed to them decreed.

For some of them[435] upon the ground lay prone,

And some were sitting huddled up and bent,

While others, restless, wandered up and down.

More numerous were they that roaming went

Than they that were tormented lying low;

But these had tongues more loosened to lament.

O'er all the sand, deliberate and slow,

Broad open flakes of fire were downward rained,

As 'mong the Alps[436] in calm descends the snow. 30

Such Alexander[437] saw when he attained

The hottest India; on his host they fell

And all unbroken on the earth remained;

Wherefore he bade his phalanxes tread well

The ground, because when taken one by one

The burning flakes they could the better quell.

So here eternal fire[438] was pouring down;

As tinder 'neath the steel, so here the sands

Kindled, whence pain more vehement was known.

And, dancing up and down, the wretched hands[439] 40

Beat here and there for ever without rest;

Brushing away from them the falling brands.

And I: 'O Master, by all things confessed

Victor, except by obdurate evil powers

Who at the gate[440] to stop our passage pressed,

Who is the enormous one who noway cowers

Beneath the fire; with fierce disdainful air

Lying as if untortured by the showers?'

And that same shade, because he was aware

That touching him I of my Guide was fain 50

To learn, cried: 'As in life, myself I bear

In death. Though Jupiter should tire again

His smith, from whom he snatched in angry bout

The bolt by which I at the last was slain;[441]

Though one by one he tire the others out

At the black forge in Mongibello[442] placed,

While "Ho, good Vulcan, help me!" he shall shout--

The cry he once at Phlegra's[443] battle raised;

Though hurled with all his might at me shall fly

His bolts, yet sweet revenge he shall not taste.' 60

Then spake my Guide, and in a voice so high

Never till then heard I from him such tone:

'O Capaneus, because unquenchably

Thy pride doth burn, worse pain by thee is known.

Into no torture save thy madness wild

Fit for thy fury couldest thou be thrown.'

Then, to me turning with a face more mild,

He said: 'Of the Seven Kings was he of old,

Who leaguered Thebes, and as he God reviled

Him in small reverence still he seems to hold; 70

But for his bosom his own insolence

Supplies fit ornament,[444] as now I told.

Now follow; but take heed lest passing hence

Thy feet upon the burning sand should tread;

But keep them firm where runs the forest fence.'[445]

We reached a place--nor any word we said--

Where issues from the wood a streamlet small;

I shake but to recall its colour red.

Like that which does from Bulicamë[446] fall,

And losel women later 'mong them share; 80

So through the sand this brooklet's waters crawl.

Its bottom and its banks I was aware

Were stone, and stone the rims on either side.

From this I knew the passage[447] must be there.

'Of all that I have shown thee as thy guide

Since when we by the gateway[448] entered in,

Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

Nothing by thee has yet encountered been

So worthy as this brook to cause surprise,

O'er which the falling fire-flakes quenched are seen.' 90

These were my Leader's words. For full supplies

I prayed him of the food of which to taste

Keen appetite he made within me rise.

'In middle sea there lies a country waste,

Known by the name of Crete,' I then was told,

'Under whose king[449] the world of yore was chaste.

There stands a mountain, once the joyous hold

Of woods and streams; as Ida 'twas renowned,

Now 'tis deserted like a thing grown old.

For a safe cradle 'twas by Rhea found. 100

To nurse her child[450] in; and his infant cry,

Lest it betrayed him, she with clamours drowned.

Within the mount an old man towereth high.

Towards Damietta are his shoulders thrown;

On Rome, as on his mirror, rests his eye.

His head is fashioned of pure gold alone;

Of purest silver are his arms and chest;

'Tis brass to where his legs divide; then down

From that is all of iron of the best,

Save the right foot, which is of baken clay; 110

And upon this foot doth he chiefly rest.

Save what is gold, doth every part display

A fissure dripping tears; these, gathering all

Together, through the grotto pierce a way.

From rock to rock into this deep they fall,

Feed Acheron[451] and Styx and Phlegethon,

Then downward travelling by this strait canal,

Far as the place where further slope is none,

Cocytus form; and what that pool may be

I say not now. Thou'lt see it further on.' 120

'If this brook rises,' he was asked by me,

'Within our world, how comes it that no trace

We saw of it till on this boundary?'

And he replied: 'Thou knowest that the place

Is round, and far as thou hast moved thy feet,

Still to the left hand[452] sinking to the base,

Nath'less thy circuit is not yet complete.

Therefore if something new we chance to spy,

Amazement needs not on thy face have seat.'

I then: 'But, Master, where doth Lethe lie, 130

And Phlegethon? Of that thou sayest nought;

Of this thou say'st, those tears its flood supply.'

'It likes me well to be by thee besought;

But by the boiling red wave,' I was told,

'To half thy question was an answer brought.

Lethe,[453] not in this pit, shalt thou behold.

Thither to wash themselves the spirits go,

When penitence has made them spotless souled.'

Then said he: 'From the wood 'tis fitting now

That we depart; behind me press thou nigh. 140

Keep we the margins, for they do not glow,

And over them, ere fallen, the fire-flakes die.'

FOOTNOTES:

[433] _Dear constraint_: The mention of Florence has awakened Dante to

pity, and he willingly complies with the request of the unnamed suicide

(_Inf._ xiii. 142). As a rule, the only service he consents to yield the

souls with whom he converses in Inferno is to restore their memory upon

earth; a favour he does not feign to be asked for in this case, out of

consideration, it may be, for the family of the sinner.

[434] _Cato_: Cato of Utica, who, after the defeat of Pompey at

Pharsalia, led his broken army across the Libyan desert to join King

Juba.

[435] _Some of them, etc._: In this the third round of the Seventh

Circle are punished those guilty of sins of violence against God,

against nature, and against the arts by which alone a livelihood can

honestly be won. Those guilty as against God, the blasphemers, lie prone

like Capaneus (line 46), and are subject to the fiercest pain. Those

guilty of unnatural vice are stimulated into ceaseless motion, as

described in Cantos XV. and XVI. The usurers, those who despise honest

industry and the humanising arts of life, are found crouching on the

ground (_Inf._ xvii. 43).

[436] _The Alps_: Used here for mountains in general.

[437] _Such Alexander, etc._: The reference is to a pretended letter of

Alexander to Aristotle, in which he tells of the various hindrances met

with by his army from snow and rain and showers of fire. But in that

narrative it is the snow that is trampled down, while the flakes of fire

are caught by the soldiers upon their outspread cloaks. The story of the

shower of fire may have been suggested by Plutarch's mention of the

mineral oil in the province of Babylon, a strange thing to the Greeks;

and of how they were entertained by seeing the ground, which had been

sprinkled with it, burst into flame.

[438] _Eternal fire_: As always, the character of the place and of the

punishment bears a relation to the crimes of the inhabitants. They

sinned against nature in a special sense, and now they are confined to

the sterile sand where the only showers that fall are showers of fire.

[439] _The wretched hands_: The dance, named in the original the

_tresca_, was one in which the performers followed a leader and imitated

him in all his gestures, waving their hands as he did, up and down, and

from side to side. The simile is caught straight from common life.

[440] _At the gate_: Of the city of Dis (_Inf._ viii. 82).

[441] _Was slain, etc._: Capaneus, one of the Seven Kings, as told

below, when storming the walls of Thebes, taunted the other gods with

impunity, but his blasphemy against Jupiter was answered by a fatal

bolt.

[442] _Mongibello_: A popular name of Etna, under which mountain was

situated the smithy of Vulcan and the Cyclopes.

[443] _Phlegra_: Where the giants fought with the gods.

[444] _Fit ornament, etc._: Even if untouched by the pain he affects to

despise, he would yet suffer enough from the mad hatred of God that

rages in his breast. Capaneus is the nearest approach to the Satan of

Milton found in the _Inferno_. From the need of getting law enough by

which to try the heathen Dante is led into some inconsistency. After

condemning the virtuous heathen to Limbo for their ignorance of the one

true God, he now condemns the wicked heathen to this circle for

despising false gods. Jupiter here stands for, as need scarcely be said,

the Supreme Ruler; and in that sense he is termed God (line 69). But it

remains remarkable that the one instance of blasphemous defiance of God

should be taken from classical fable.

[445] _The forest fence_: They do not trust themselves so much as to

step upon the sand, but look out on it from the verge of the forest

which encircles it, and which as they travel they have on the left hand.

[446] _Bulicamë_: A hot sulphur spring a couple of miles from Viterbo,

greatly frequented for baths in the Middle Ages; and, it is said,

especially by light women. The water boils up into a large pool, whence

it flows by narrow channels; sometimes by one and sometimes by another,

as the purposes of the neighbouring peasants require. Sulphurous fumes

rise from the water as it runs. The incrustation of the bottom, sides,

and edges of those channels gives them the air of being solidly built.

[447] _The passage_: On each edge of the canal there is a flat pathway

of solid stone; and Dante sees that only by following one of these can a

passage be gained across the desert, for to set foot on the sand is

impossible for him owing to the falling flakes of fire. There may be

found in his description of the solid and flawless masonry of the canal

a trace of the pleasure taken in good building by the contemporaries of

Arnolfo. Nor is it without meaning that the sterile sands, the abode of

such as despised honest labour, is crossed by a perfect work of art

which they are forbidden ever to set foot upon.

[448] _The gateway_: At the entrance to Inferno.

[449] _Whose king_: Saturn, who ruled the world in the Golden Age. He,

as the devourer of his own offspring, is the symbol of Time; and the

image of Time is therefore set by Dante in the island where he reigned.

[450] _Her child_: Jupiter, hidden in the mountain from his father

Saturn.

[451] _Feed Acheron, etc._: The idea of this image is taken from the

figure in Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel ii. But here, instead of the

Four Empires, the materials of the statue represent the Four Ages of the

world; the foot of clay on which it stands being the present time, which

is so bad that even iron were too good to represent it. Time turns his

back to the outworn civilisations of the East, and his face to Rome,

which, as the seat of the Empire and the Church, holds the secret of the

future. The tears of time shed by every Age save that of Gold feed the

four infernal streams and pools of Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, and

Cocytus. Line 117 indicates that these are all fed by the same water;

are in fact different names for the same flood of tears. The reason why

Dante has not hitherto observed the connection between them is that he

has not made a complete circuit of each or indeed of any circle, as

Virgil reminds him at line 124, etc. The rivulet by which they stand

drains the boiling Phlegethon--where the water is all changed to blood,

because in it the murderers are punished--and flowing through the forest

of the suicides and the desert of the blasphemers, etc., tumbles into

the Eighth Circle as described in Canto xvi. 103. Cocytus they are

afterward to reach. An objection to this account of the infernal rivers

as being all fed by the same waters may be found in the difference of

volume of the great river of Acheron (_Inf._ iii. 71) and of this

brooklet. But this difference is perhaps to be explained by the

evaporation from the boiling waters of Phlegethon and of this stream

which drains it. Dante is almost the only poet applied to whom such

criticism would not be trifling. Another difficult point is how Cocytus

should not in time have filled, and more than filled, the Ninth Circle.

[452] _To the left hand_: Twice only as they descend they turn their

course to the right hand (_Inf._ ix. 132, and xvii. 31). The circuit of

the Inferno they do not complete till they reach the very base.

[453] _Lethe_: Found in the Earthly Paradise, as described in

_Purgatorio_ xxviii. 130.

CANTO XV.

Now lies[454] our way along one of the margins hard;

Steam rising from the rivulet forms a cloud,

Which 'gainst the fire doth brook and borders guard.

Like walls the Flemings, timorous of the flood

Which towards them pours betwixt Bruges and Cadsand,[455]

Have made, that ocean's charge may be withstood;

Or what the Paduans on the Brenta's strand

To guard their castles and their homesteads rear,

Ere Chiarentana[456] feel the spring-tide bland;

Of the same fashion did those dikes appear, 10

Though not so high[457] he made them, nor so vast,

Whoe'er the builder was that piled them here.

We, from the wood when we so far had passed

I should not have distinguished where it lay

Though I to see it backward glance had cast,

A group of souls encountered on the way,

Whose line of march was to the margin nigh.

Each looked at us--as by the new moon's ray

Men peer at others 'neath the darkening sky--

Sharpening his brows on us and only us, 20

Like an old tailor on his needle's eye.

And while that crowd was staring at me thus,

One of them knew me, caught me by the gown,

And cried aloud: 'Lo, this is marvellous!'[458]

And straightway, while he thus to me held on,

I fixed mine eyes upon his fire-baked face,

And, spite of scorching, seemed his features known,

And whose they were my memory well could trace;

And I, with hand[459] stretched toward his face below,

Asked: 'Ser Brunetto![460] and is this your place?' 30

'O son,' he answered, 'no displeasure show,

If now Brunetto Latini shall some way

Step back with thee, and leave his troop to go.'

I said: 'With all my heart for this I pray,

And, if you choose, I by your side will sit;

If he, for I go with him, grant delay.'

'Son,' said he, 'who of us shall intermit

Motion a moment, for an age must lie

Nor fan himself when flames are round him lit.

On, therefore! At thy skirts I follow nigh, 40

Then shall I overtake my band again,

Who mourn a loss large as eternity.'

I dared not from the path step to the plain

To walk with him, but low I bent my head,[461]

Like one whose steps are all with reverence ta'en.

'What fortune or what destiny,' he said,

'Hath brought thee here or e'er thou death hast seen;

And who is this by whom thou'rt onward led?'

'Up yonder,' said I, 'in the life serene,

I in a valley wandered all forlorn 50

Before my years had full accomplished been.

I turned my back on it but yestermorn;[462]

Again I sought it when he came in sight

Guided by whom[463] I homeward thus return.'

And he to me: 'Following thy planet's light[464]

Thou of a glorious haven canst not fail,

If in the blithesome life I marked aright.

And had my years known more abundant tale,

Seeing the heavens so held thee in their grace

I, heartening thee, had helped thee to prevail. 60

But that ungrateful and malignant race

Which down from Fiesole[465] came long ago,

And still its rocky origin betrays,

Will for thy worthiness become thy foe;

And with good reason, for 'mong crab-trees wild

It ill befits the mellow fig to grow.

By widespread ancient rumour are they styled

A people blind, rapacious, envious, vain:

See by their manners thou be not defiled.

Fortune reserves such honour for thee, fain 70

Both sides[466] will be to enlist thee in their need;

But from the beak the herb shall far remain.

Let beasts of Fiesole go on to tread

Themselves to litter, nor the plants molest,

If any such now spring on their rank bed,

In whom there flourishes indeed the blest

Seed of the Romans who still lingered there

When of such wickedness 'twas made the nest.'

'Had I obtained full answer to my prayer,

You had not yet been doomed,' I then did say, 80

'This exile from humanity to bear.

For deep within my heart and memory

Lives the paternal image good and dear

Of you, as in the world, from day to day,

How men escape oblivion you made clear;

My thankfulness for which shall in my speech

While I have life, as it behoves, appear.

I note what of my future course you teach.

Stored with another text[467] it will be glozed

By one expert, should I that Lady reach. 90

Yet would I have this much to you disclosed:

If but my conscience no reproaches yield,

To all my fortune is my soul composed.

Not new to me the hint by you revealed;

Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel apace,

Even as she will; the clown[468] his mattock wield.'

Thereon my Master right about[469] did face,

And uttered this, with glance upon me thrown:

'He hears[470] to purpose who doth mark the place.'

And none the less I, speaking, still go on 100

With Ser Brunetto; asking him to tell

Who of his band[471] are greatest and best known.

And he to me: 'To hear of some is well,

But of the rest 'tis fitting to be dumb,

And time is lacking all their names to spell.

That all of them were clerks, know thou in sum,

All men of letters, famous and of might;

Stained with one sin[472] all from the world are come.

Priscian[473] goes with that crowd of evil plight,

Francis d'Accorso[474] too; and hadst thou mind 110

For suchlike trash thou mightest have had sight

Of him the Slave[475] of Slaves to change assigned

From Arno's banks to Bacchiglione, where

His nerves fatigued with vice he left behind.

More would I say, but neither must I fare

Nor talk at further length, for from the sand

I see new dust-clouds[476] rising in the air,

I may not keep with such as are at hand.

Care for my _Treasure_;[477] for I still survive

In that my work. I nothing else demand.' 120

Then turned he back, and ran like those who strive

For the Green Cloth[478] upon Verona's plain;

And seemed like him that shall the first arrive,

And not like him that labours all in vain.

FOOTNOTES:

[454] _Now lies, etc._: The stream on issuing from the wood flows right

across the waste of sand which that encompasses. To follow it they must

turn to the right, as always when, their general course being to the

left, they have to cross a Circle. But such a veering to the right is a

consequence of their leftward course, and not an exception to it.

[455] _Cadsand_: An island opposite to the mouth of the great canal of

Bruges.

[456] _Chiarentana_: What district or mountain is here meant has been

much disputed. It can be taken for Carinthia only on the supposition

that Dante was ignorant of where the Brenta rises. At the source of that

river stands the Monte Chiarentana, but it may be a question how old

that name is. The district name of it is Canzana, or Carenzana.

[457] _Not so high, etc._: This limitation is very characteristic of

Dante's style of thought, which compels him to a precision that will

produce the utmost possible effect of verisimilitude in his description.

Most poets would have made the walls far higher and more vast, by way of

lending grandeur to the conception.

[458] _Marvellous_: To find Dante, whom he knew, still living, and

passing through the Circle.

[459] _With hand, etc._: 'With my face bent to his' is another reading,

but there seems to be most authority for that in the text.--The fiery

shower forbids Dante to stoop over the edge of the causeway. To

Brunetto, who is some feet below him, he throws out his open hand, a

gesture of astonishment mingled with pity.

[460] _Ser Brunetto_: Brunetto Latini, a Florentine, was born in 1220.

As a notary he was entitled to be called Ser, or Messer. As appears from

the context, Dante was under great intellectual obligations to him, not,

we may suppose, as to a tutor so much as to an active-minded and

scholarly friend of mature age, and possessed of a ripe experience of

affairs. The social respect that Dante owed him is indicated by the use

of the plural form of address. See note, _Inf._ x. 51. Brunetto held

high appointments in the Republic. Perhaps with some exaggeration,

Villani says of him that he was the first to refine the Florentines,

teaching them to speak correctly, and to administer State affairs on

fixed principles of politics (_Cronica_, viii. 10). A Guelf in politics,

he shared in the exile of his party after the Ghibeline victory of

Montaperti in 1260, and for some years resided in Paris. There is reason

to suppose that he returned to Florence in 1269, and that he acted as

prothonotary of the court of Charles of Valois' vicar-general in

Tuscany. His signature as secretary to the Council of Florence is found

under the date of 1273. He died in 1294, when Dante was twenty-nine, and

was buried in the cloister of Santa Maria Maggiore, where his tombstone

may still be seen. (Not in Santa Maria Novella.) Villani mentions him in

his Chronicle with some reluctance, seeing he was a 'worldly man.' His

life must indeed have been vicious to the last, before Dante could have

had the heart to fix him in such company. Brunetto's chief works are the

_Tesoro_ and _Tesoretto_. For the _Tesoro_, see note at line 119. The

_Tesoretto_, or _Little Treasure_, is an allegorical poem in Italian

rhymed couplets. In it he imagines himself, as he is on his return from

an embassy to Alphonso of Castile, meeting a scholar of Bologna of whom

he asks 'in smooth sweet words for news of Tuscany.' Having been told of

the catastrophe of Montaperti he wanders out of the beaten way into the

Forest of Roncesvalles, where he meets with various experiences; he is

helped by Ovid, is instructed by Ptolemy, and grows penitent for his

sins. In this, it will be seen, there is a general resemblance to the

action of the _Comedy_. There are even turns of expression that recall

Dante (_e.g._ beginning of _Cap._ iv.); but all together amounts to

little.

[461] _Low I bent my head_: But not projecting it beyond the line of

safety, strictly defined by the edge of the causeway. We are to imagine

to ourselves the fire of Sodom falling on Brunetto's upturned face, and

missing Dante's head only by an inch.

[462] _Yestermorn_: This is still the Saturday. It was Friday when Dante

met Virgil.

[463] _Guided by whom_: Brunetto has asked who the guide is, and Dante

does not tell him. A reason for the refusal has been ingeniously found

in the fact that among the numerous citations of the _Treasure_ Brunetto

seldom quotes Virgil. See also the charge brought against Guido

Cavalcanti (_Inf._ x. 63), of holding Virgil in disdain. But it is

explanation enough of Dante's omission to name his guide that he is

passing through Inferno to gain experience for himself, and not to

satisfy the curiosity of the shades he meets. See note on line 99.

[464] _Thy planet's light_: Some think that Brunetto had cast Dante's

horoscope. In a remarkable passage (_Parad._ xxii. 112) Dante attributes

any genius he may have to the influence of the Twins, which

constellation was in the ascendant when he was born. See also _Inf._

xxvi. 23. But here it is more likely that Brunetto refers to his

observation of Dante's good qualities, from which he gathered that he

was well starred.

[465] _Fiesole_: The mother city of Florence, to which also most of the

Fiesolans were believed to have migrated at the beginning of the

eleventh century. But all the Florentines did their best to establish a

Roman descent for themselves; and Dante among them. His fellow-citizens

he held to be for the most part of the boorish Fiesolan breed, rude and

stony-hearted as the mountain in whose cleft the cradle of their race

was seen from Florence.

[466] _Both sides_: This passage was most likely written not long after

Dante had ceased to entertain any hope of winning his way back to

Florence in the company of the Whites, whose exile he shared, and when

he was already standing in proud isolation from Black and White, from

Guelf and Ghibeline. There is nothing to show that his expectation of

being courted by both sides ever came true. Never a strong partisan, he

had, to use his own words, at last to make a party by himself, and stood

out an Imperialist with his heart set on the triumph of an Empire far

nobler than that the Ghibeline desired. Dante may have hoped to hold a

place of honour some day in the council of a righteous Emperor; and this

may be the glorious haven with the dream of which he was consoled in the

wanderings of his exile.

[467] _Another text_: Ciacco and Farinata have already hinted at the

troubles that lie ahead of him (_Inf._ vi. 65, and x. 79).

[468] _The clown, etc._: The honest performance of duty is the best

defence against adverse fortune.

[469] _Right about_: In traversing the sands they keep upon the

right-hand margin of the embanked stream, Virgil leading the way, with

Dante behind him on the right so that Brunetto may see and hear him

well.

[470] _He hears, etc._: Of all the interpretations of this somewhat

obscure sentence that seems the best which applies it to Virgil's

_Quicquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est_--'Whatever shall

happen, every fate is to be vanquished by endurance' (_Æn._ v. 710).

Taking this way of it, we have in the form of Dante's profession of

indifference to all the adverse fortune that may be in store for him a

refined compliment to his Guide; and in Virgil's gesture and words an

equally delicate revelation of himself to Brunetto, in which is conveyed

an answer to the question at line 48, 'Who is this that shows the

way?'--Otherwise, the words convey Virgil's approbation of Dante's

having so well attended to his advice to store Farinata's prophecy in

his memory (_Inf._ x.127).

[471] _His band_: That is, the company to which Brunetto specially

belongs, and from which for the time he has separated himself.

[472] _Stained with one sin_: Dante will not make Brunetto individually

confess his sin.

[473] _Priscian_: The great grammarian of the sixth century; placed here

without any reason, except that he is a representative teacher of youth.

[474] _Francis d'Accorso_: Died about 1294. The son of a great civil

lawyer, he was himself professor of the civil law at Bologna, where his

services were so highly prized that the Bolognese forbade him, on pain

of the confiscation of his goods, to accept an invitation from Edward I.

to go to Oxford.

[475] _Of him the Slave, etc._: One of the Pope's titles is _Servus

Servorum Domini_. The application of it to Boniface, so hated by Dante,

may be ironical: 'Fit servant of such a slave to vice!' The priest

referred to so contemptuously is Andrea, of the great Florentine family

of the Mozzi, who was much engaged in the political affairs of his time,

and became Bishop of Florence in 1286. About ten years later he was

translated to Vicenza, which stands on the Bacchiglione; and he died

shortly afterwards. According to Benvenuto he was a ridiculous preacher

and a man of dissolute manners. What is now most interesting about him

is that he was Dante's chief pastor during his early manhood, and is

consigned by him to the same disgraceful circle of Inferno as his

beloved master Brunetto Latini--a terrible evidence of the corruption of

life among the churchmen as well as the scholars of the thirteenth

century.

[476] _New dust-clouds_: Raised by a band by whom they are about to be

met.

[477] _My Treasure_: The _Trésor_, or _Tesoro_, Brunetto's principal

work, was written by him in French as being 'the pleasantest language,

and the most widely spread.' In it he treats of things in general in the

encyclopedic fashion set him by Alphonso of Castile. The first half

consists of a summary of civil and natural history. The second is

devoted to ethics, rhetoric, and politics. To a great extent it is a

compilation, containing, for instance, a translation, nearly complete,

of the Ethics of Aristotle--not, of course, direct from the Greek. It is

written in a plodding style, and speaks to more industry than genius. To

it Dante is indebted for some facts and fables.

[478] _The Green Cloth_: To commemorate a victory won by the Veronese

there was instituted a race to be run on the first Sunday of Lent. The

prize was a piece of green cloth. The competitors ran naked.--Brunetto

does not disappear into the gloom without a parting word of applause

from his old pupil. Dante's rigorous sentence on his beloved master is

pronounced as softly as it can be. We must still wonder that he has the

heart to bring him to such an awful judgment.

CANTO XVI.

Now could I hear the water as it fell

To the next circle[479] with a murmuring sound

Like what is heard from swarming hives to swell;

When three shades all together with a bound

Burst from a troop met by us pressing on

'Neath rain of that sharp torment. O'er the ground

Toward us approaching, they exclaimed each one:

'Halt thou, whom from thy garb[480] we judge to be

A citizen of our corrupted town.'

Alas, what scars I on their limbs did see, 10

Both old and recent, which the flames had made:

Even now my ruth is fed by memory.

My Teacher halted at their cry, and said:

'Await a while:' and looked me in the face;

'Some courtesy to these were well displayed.

And but that fire--the manner of the place--

Descends for ever, fitting 'twere to find

Rather than them, thee quickening thy pace.'

When we had halted, they again combined

In their old song; and, reaching where we stood, 20

Into a wheel all three were intertwined.

And as the athletes used, well oiled and nude,

To feel their grip and, wary, watch their chance,

Ere they to purpose strike and wrestle could;

So each of them kept fixed on me his glance

As he wheeled round,[481] and in opposing ways

His neck and feet seemed ever to advance.

'Ah, if the misery of this sand-strewn place

Bring us and our petitions in despite,'

One then began, 'and flayed and grimy face; 30

Let at the least our fame goodwill incite

To tell us who thou art, whose living feet

Thus through Inferno wander without fright.

For he whose footprints, as thou see'st, I beat,

Though now he goes with body peeled and nude,

More than thou thinkest, in the world was great.

The grandson was he of Gualdrada good;

He, Guidoguerra,[482] with his armèd hand

Did mighty things, and by his counsel shrewd.

The other who behind me treads the sand 40

Is one whose name should on the earth be dear;

For he is Tegghiaio[483] Aldobrand.

And I, who am tormented with them here,

James Rusticucci[484] was; my fierce and proud

Wife of my ruin was chief minister.'

If from the fire there had been any shroud

I should have leaped down 'mong them, nor have earned

Blame, for my Teacher sure had this allowed.

But since I should have been all baked and burned,

Terror prevailed the goodwill to restrain 50

With which to clasp them in my arms I yearned.

Then I began: ''Twas not contempt but pain

Which your condition in my breast awoke,

Where deeply rooted it will long remain,

When this my Master words unto me spoke,

By which expectancy was in me stirred

That ye who came were honourable folk.

I of your city[485] am, and with my word

Your deeds and honoured names oft to recall

Delighted, and with joy of them I heard. 60

To the sweet fruits I go, and leave the gall,

As promised to me by my Escort true;

But first I to the centre down must fall.'

'So may thy soul thy members long endue

With vital power,' the other made reply,

'And after thee thy fame[486] its light renew;

As thou shalt tell if worth and courtesy

Within our city as of yore remain,

Or from it have been wholly forced to fly.

For William Borsier,[487] one of yonder train, 70

And but of late joined with us in this woe,

Causeth us with his words exceeding pain.'

'Upstarts, and fortunes suddenly that grow,

Have bred in thee pride and extravagance,[488]

Whence tears, O Florence! thou art shedding now.'

Thus cried I with uplifted countenance.

The three, accepting it for a reply,

Glanced each at each as hearing truth men glance.

And all: 'If others thou shalt satisfy

As well at other times[489] at no more cost, 80

Happy thus at thine ease the truth to cry!

Therefore if thou escap'st these regions lost,

Returning to behold the starlight fair,

Then when "There was I,"[490] thou shalt make thy boast,

Something of us do thou 'mong men declare.'

Then broken was the wheel, and as they fled

Their nimble legs like pinions beat the air.

So much as one _Amen!_ had scarce been said

Quicker than what they vanished from our view.

On this once more the way my Master led. 90

I followed, and ere long so near we drew

To where the water fell, that for its roar

Speech scarcely had been heard between us two.

And as the stream which of all those which pour

East (from Mount Viso counting) by its own

Course falls the first from Apennine to shore--

As Acquacheta[491] in the uplands known

By name, ere plunging to its bed profound;

Name lost ere by Forlì its waters run--

Above St. Benedict with one long bound, 100

Where for a thousand[492] would be ample room,

Falls from the mountain to the lower ground;

Down the steep cliff that water dyed in gloom

We found to fall echoing from side to side,

Stunning the ear with its tremendous boom.

There was a cord about my middle tied,

With which I once had thought that I might hold

Secure the leopard with the painted hide.

When this from round me I had quite unrolled

To him I handed it, all coiled and tight; 110

As by my Leader I had first been told.

Himself then bending somewhat toward the right,[493]

He just beyond the edge of the abyss

Threw down the cord,[494] which disappeared from sight.

'That some strange thing will follow upon this

Unwonted signal which my Master's eye

Thus follows,' so I thought, 'can hardly miss.'

Ah, what great caution need we standing by

Those who behold not only what is done,

But who have wit our hidden thoughts to spy! 120

He said to me: 'There shall emerge, and soon,

What I await; and quickly to thy view

That which thou dream'st of shall be clearly known.'[495]

From utterance of truth which seems untrue

A man, whene'er he can, should guard his tongue;

Lest he win blame to no transgression due.

Yet now I must speak out, and by the song

Of this my Comedy, Reader, I swear--

So in good liking may it last full long!--

I saw a shape swim upward through that air. 130

All indistinct with gross obscurity,

Enough to fill the stoutest heart with fear:

Like one who rises having dived to free

An anchor grappled on a jagged stone,

Or something else deep hidden in the sea;

With feet drawn in and arms all open thrown.

FOOTNOTES:

[479] _The next circle_: The Eighth.

[480] _Thy garb_: 'Almost every city,' says Boccaccio, 'had in those

times its peculiar fashion of dress distinct from that of neighboring

cities.'

[481] _As he wheeled round_: Virgil and Dante have come to a halt upon

the embankment. The three shades, to whom it is forbidden to be at rest

for a moment, clasping one another as in a dance, keep wheeling round in

circle upon the sand.

[482] _Guidoguerra_: A descendant of the Counts Guidi of Modigliana.

Gualdrada was the daughter of Bellincion Berti de' Ravignani, praised

for his simple habits in the _Paradiso_, xv. 112. Guidoguerra was a

Guelf leader, and after the defeat of Montaperti acted as Captain of his

party, in this capacity lending valuable aid to Charles of Anjou at the

battle of Benevento, 1266, when Manfred was overthrown. He had no

children, and left the Commonwealth of Florence his heir.

[483] _Tegghiaio_: Son of Aldobrando of the Adimari. His name should be

dear in Florence, because he did all he could to dissuade the citizens

from the campaign which ended so disastrously at Montaperti.

[484] _James Rusticucci_: An accomplished cavalier of humble birth, said

to have been a retainer of Dante's friends the Cavalcanti. The

commentators have little to tell of him except that he made an unhappy

marriage, which is evident from the text. Of the sins of him and his

companions there is nothing known beyond what is to be inferred from the

poet's words, and nothing to say, except that when Dante consigned men

of their stamp, frank and amiable, to the Infernal Circles, we may be

sure that he only executed a verdict already accepted as just by the

whole of Florence. And when we find him impartially damning Guelf and

Ghibeline we may be equally sure that he looked for the aid of neither

party, and of no family however powerful in the State, to bring his

banishment to a close. He would even seem to be careful to stop any hole

by which he might creep back to Florence. When he did return, it was to

be in the train of the Emperor, so he hoped, and as one who gives rather

than seeks forgiveness.

[485] _Of your city, etc._: At line 32 Rusticucci begs Dante to tell who

he is. He tells that he is of their city, which they have already

gathered from his _berretta_ and the fashion of his gown; but he tells

nothing, almost, of himself. Unless to Farinata, indeed, he never makes

an open breast to any one met in Inferno. But here he does all that

courtesy requires.

[486] _Thy fame_: Dante has implied in his answer that he is gifted with

oratorical powers and is the object of a special Divine care; and the

illustrious Florentine, frankly acknowledging the claim he makes,

adjures him by the fame which is his in store to appease an eager

curiosity about the Florence which even in Inferno is the first thought

of every not ignoble Florentine.

[487] _William Borsiere_: A Florentine, witty and well bred, according

to Boccaccio. Being once at Genoa he was shown a fine new palace by its

miserly owner, and was asked to suggest a subject for a painting with

which to adorn the hall. The subject was to be something that nobody had

ever seen. Borsiere proposed liberality as something that the miser at

any rate had never yet got a good sight of; an answer of which it is not

easy to detect either the wit or the courtesy, but which is said to have

converted the churl to liberal ways (_Decam._ i. 8). He is here

introduced as an authority on the noble style of manners.

[488] _Pride and extravagance_: In place of the nobility of mind that

leads to great actions, and the gentle manners that prevail in a society

where there is a due subordination of rank to rank and well-defined

duties for every man. This, the aristocratic in a noble sense, was

Dante's ideal of a social state; for all his instincts were those of a

Florentine aristocrat, corrected though they were by his good sense and

his thirst for a reign of perfect justice. During his own time he had

seen Florence grow more and more democratic; and he was

irritated--unreasonably, considering that it was only a sign of the

general prosperity--at the spectacle of the amazing growth of wealth in

the hands of low-born traders, who every year were coming more to the

front and monopolising influence at home and abroad at the cost of their

neighbours and rivals with longer pedigrees and shorter purses. In

_Paradiso_ xvi. Dante dwells at length on the degeneracy of the

Florentines.

[489] _At other times_: It is hinted that his outspokenness will not in

the future always give equal satisfaction to those who hear.

[490] _There was I, etc._: _Forsan et hæc olim meminisse

juvabit._--_Æn._ i. 203.

[491] _Acquacheta_: The fall of the water of the brook over the lofty

cliff that sinks from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle is compared to

the waterfall upon the Montone at the monastery of St. Benedict, in the

mountains above Forlì. The Po rises in Monte Viso. Dante here travels in

imagination from Monte Viso down through Italy, and finds that all the

rivers which rise on the left hand, that is, on the north-east of the

Apennine, fall into the Po, till the Montone is reached, that river

falling into the Adriatic by a course of its own. Above Forlì it was

called Acquacheta. The Lamone, north of the Montone, now follows an

independent course to the sea, having cut a new bed for itself since

Dante's time.

[492] _Where for a thousand, etc._: In the monastery there was room for

many more monks, say most of the commentators; or something to the like

effect. Mr. Longfellow's interpretation seems better: Where the height

of the fall is so great that it would divide into a thousand falls.

[493] _Toward the right_: The attitude of one about to throw.

[494] _The cord_: The services of Geryon are wanted to convey them down

the next reach of the pit; and as no voice could be heard for the noise

of the waterfall, and no signal be made to catch the eye amid the gloom,

Virgil is obliged to call the attention of the monster by casting some

object into the depth where he lies concealed. But, since they are

surrounded by solid masonry and slack sand, one or other of them must

supply something fit to throw down; and the cord worn by Dante is fixed

on as what can best be done without. There may be a reference to the

cord of Saint Francis, which Dante, according to one of his

commentators, wore when he was a young man, following in this a fashion

common enough among pious laymen who had no thought of ever becoming

friars. But the simile of the cord, as representing sobriety and

virtuous purpose, is not strange to Dante. In _Purg._ vii. 114 he

describes Pedro of Arragon as being girt with the cord of every virtue;

and Pedro was no Franciscan. Dante's cord may therefore be taken as

standing for vigilance or self-control. With it he had hoped to get the

better of the leopard (_Inf._ i. 32), and may have trusted in it for

support as against the terrors of Inferno. But although he has been girt

with it ever since he entered by the gate, it has not saved him from a

single fear, far less from a single danger; and now it is cast away as

useless. Henceforth, more than ever, he is to confide wholly in Virgil

and have no confidence in himself. Nor is he to be girt again till he

reaches the coast of Purgatory, and then it is to be with a reed, the

emblem of humility.--But, however explained, the incident will always be

somewhat of a puzzle.

[495] Dante attributes to Virgil full knowledge of all that is in his

own mind. He thus heightens our conception of his dependence on his

guide, with whose will his will is blent, and whose thoughts are always

found to be anticipating his own. Few readers will care to be constantly

recalling to mind that Virgil represents enlightened human reason. But

even if we confine ourselves to the easiest sense of the narrative, the

study of the relations between him and Dante will be found one of the

most interesting suggested by the poem--perhaps only less so than that

of Dante's moods of wonder, anger, and pity.

CANTO XVII.

'Behold the monster[496] with the pointed tail,

Who passes mountains[497] and can entrance make

Through arms and walls! who makes the whole world ail,

Corrupted by him!' Thus my Leader spake,

And beckoned him that he should land hard by,

Where short the pathways built of marble break.

And that foul image of dishonesty

Moving approached us with his head and chest,

But to the bank[498] drew not his tail on high.

His face a human righteousness expressed, 10

'Twas so benignant to the outward view;

A serpent was he as to all the rest.

On both his arms hair to the arm-pits grew:

On back and chest and either flank were knot[499]

And rounded shield portrayed in various hue;

No Turk or Tartar weaver ever brought

To ground or pattern a more varied dye;[500]

Nor by Arachne[501] was such broidery wrought.

As sometimes by the shore the barges lie

Partly in water, partly on dry land; 20

And as afar in gluttonous Germany,[502]

Watching their prey, alert the beavers stand;

So did this worst of brutes his foreparts fling

Upon the stony rim which hems the sand.

All of his tail in space was quivering,

Its poisoned fork erecting in the air,

Which scorpion-like was armèd with a sting.

My Leader said: 'Now we aside must fare

A little distance, so shall we attain

Unto the beast malignant crouching there.' 30

So we stepped down upon the right,[503] and then

A half score steps[504] to the outer edge did pace,

Thus clearing well the sand and fiery rain.

And when we were hard by him I could trace

Upon the sand a little further on

Some people sitting near to the abyss.

'That what this belt containeth may be known

Completely by thee,' then the Master said;

'To see their case do thou advance alone.

Let thy inquiries be succinctly made. 40

While thou art absent I will ask of him,

With his strong shoulders to afford us aid.'

Then, all alone, I on the outmost rim

Of that Seventh Circle still advancing trod,

Where sat a woful folk.[505] Full to the brim

Their eyes with anguish were, and overflowed;

Their hands moved here and there to win some ease,

Now from the flames, now from the soil which glowed.

No otherwise in summer-time one sees,

Working its muzzle and its paws, the hound 50

When bit by gnats or plagued with flies or fleas.

And I, on scanning some who sat around

Of those on whom the dolorous flames alight,

Could recognise[506] not one. I only found

A purse hung from the throat of every wight,

Each with its emblem and its special hue;

And every eye seemed feasting on the sight.

As I, beholding them, among them drew,

I saw what seemed a lion's face and mien

Upon a yellow purse designed in blue. 60

Still moving on mine eyes athwart the scene

I saw another scrip, blood-red, display

A goose more white than butter could have been.

And one, on whose white wallet blazoned lay

A pregnant sow[507] in azure, to me said:

'What dost thou in this pit? Do thou straightway

Begone; and, seeing thou art not yet dead,

Know that Vitalian,[508] neighbour once of mine,

Shall on my left flank one day find his bed.

A Paduan I: all these are Florentine; 70

And oft they stun me, bellowing in my ear:

"Come, Pink of Chivalry,[509] for whom we pine,

Whose is the purse on which three beaks appear:"'

Then he from mouth awry his tongue thrust out[510]

Like ox that licks its nose; and I, in fear

Lest more delay should stir in him some doubt

Who gave command I should not linger long,

Me from those wearied spirits turned about.

I found my Guide, who had already sprung

Upon the back of that fierce animal: 80

He said to me: 'Now be thou brave and strong.

By stairs like this[511] we henceforth down must fall.

Mount thou in front, for I between would sit

So thee the tail shall harm not nor appal.'

Like one so close upon the shivering fit

Of quartan ague that his nails grow blue,

And seeing shade he trembles every whit,

I at the hearing of that order grew;

But his threats shamed me, as before the face

Of a brave lord his man grows valorous too. 90

On the great shoulders then I took my place,

And wished to say, but could not move my tongue

As I expected: 'Do thou me embrace!'

But he, who other times had helped me 'mong

My other perils, when ascent I made

Sustained me, and strong arms around me flung,

And, 'Geryon, set thee now in motion!' said;

'Wheel widely; let thy downward flight be slow;

Think of the novel burden on thee laid.'

As from the shore a boat begins to go 100

Backward at first, so now he backward pressed,

And when he found that all was clear below,

He turned his tail where earlier was his breast;

And, stretching it, he moved it like an eel,

While with his paws he drew air toward his chest.

More terror Phaëthon could hardly feel

What time he let the reins abandoned fall,

Whence Heaven was fired,[512] as still its tracts reveal;

Nor wretched Icarus, on finding all

His plumage moulting as the wax grew hot, 110

While, 'The wrong road!' his father loud did call;

Than what I felt on finding I was brought

Where nothing was but air and emptiness;

For save the brute I could distinguish nought.

He slowly, slowly swims; to the abyss

Wheeling he makes descent, as I surmise

From wind felt 'neath my feet and in my face.

Already on the right I heard arise

From out the caldron a terrific roar,[513]

Whereon I stretch my head with down-turned eyes. 120

Terror of falling now oppressed me sore;

Hearing laments, and seeing fires that burned,

My thighs I tightened, trembling more and more.

Earlier I had not by the eye discerned

That we swept downward; scenes of torment now

Seemed drawing nearer wheresoe'er we turned.

And as a falcon (which long time doth go

Upon the wing, not finding lure[514] or prey),

While 'Ha!' the falconer cries, 'descending so!'

Comes wearied back whence swift it soared away; 130

Wheeling a hundred times upon the road,

Then, from its master far, sulks angrily:

So we, by Geryon in the deep bestowed,

Were 'neath the sheer-hewn precipice set down:

He, suddenly delivered from our load,

Like arrow from the string was swiftly gone.

FOOTNOTES:

[496] _The monster_: Geryon, a mythical king of Spain, converted here

into the symbol of fraud, and set as the guardian demon of the Eighth

Circle, where the fraudulent are punished. There is nothing in the

mythology to justify this account of Geryon; and it seems that Dante has

created a monster to serve his purpose. Boccaccio, in his _Genealogy of

the Gods_ (Lib. i.), repeats the description of Geryon given by 'Dante

the Florentine, in his poem written in the Florentine tongue, one

certainly of no little importance among poems;' and adds that Geryon

reigned in the Balearic Isles, and was used to decoy travellers with his

benignant countenance, caressing words, and every kind of friendly lure,

and then to murder them when asleep.

[497] _Who passes mountains, etc._: Neither art nor nature affords any

defence against fraud.

[498] _The bank_: Not that which confines the brook but the inner limit

of the Seventh Circle, from which the precipice sinks sheer into the

Eighth, and to which the embankment by which the travellers have crossed

the sand joins itself on. Virgil has beckoned Geryon to come to that

part of the bank which adjoins the end of the causeway.

[499] _Knot and rounded shield_: Emblems of subtle devices and

subterfuges.

[500]_ Varied dye_: Denoting the various colours of deceit.

[501] _Arachne_: The Lydian weaver changed into a spider by Minerva. See

_Purg._ xii. 43.

[502] _Gluttonous Germany_: The habits of the German men-at-arms in

Italy, odious to the temperate Italians, explains this gibe.

[503] _The right_: This is the second and last time that, in their

course through Inferno, they turn to the right. See _Inf._ ix. 132. The

action may possibly have a symbolical meaning, and refer to the

protection against fraud which is obtained by keeping to a righteous

course. But here, in fact, they have no choice, for, traversing the

Inferno as they do to the left hand, they came to the right bank of the

stream which traverses the fiery sands, followed it, and now, when they

would leave its edge, it is from the right embankment that they have to

step down, and necessarily to the right hand.

[504] _A half score steps, etc._: Traversing the stone-built border

which lies between the sand and the precipice. Had the brook flowed to

the very edge of the Seventh Circle before tumbling down the rocky wall

it is clear that they might have kept to the embankment until they were

clear beyond the edge of the sand. We are therefore to figure to

ourselves the water as plunging down at a point some yards, perhaps the

width of the border, short of the true limit of the circle; and this is

a touch of local truth, since waterfalls in time always wear out a

funnel for themselves by eating back the precipice down which they

tumble. It was into this funnel that Virgil flung the cord, and up it

that Geryon was seen to ascend, as if by following up the course of the

water he would find out who had made the signal. To keep to the narrow

causeway where it ran on by the edge of this gulf would seem too full of

risk.

[505] _Woful folk_: Usurers; those guilty of the unnatural sin of

contemning the legitimate modes of human industry. They sit huddled up

on the sand, close to its bound of solid masonry, from which Dante looks

down on them. But that the usurers are not found only at the edge of the

plain is evident from _Inf._ xiv. 19.

[506] _Could recognise, etc._: Though most of the group prove to be from

Florence Dante recognises none of them; and this denotes that nothing so

surely creates a second nature in a man, in a bad sense, as setting the

heart on money. So in the Fourth Circle those who, being unable to spend

moderately, are always thinking of how to keep or get money are

represented as 'obscured from any recognition' (_Inf._ vii. 44).

[507] _A pregnant sow_: The azure lion on a golden field was the arms of

the Gianfigliazzi, eminent usurers of Florence; the white goose on a red

ground was the arms of the Ubriachi of Florence; the azure sow, of the

Scrovegni of Padua.

[508] _Vitalian_: A rich Paduan noble, whose palace was near that of the

Scrovegni.

[509] _Pink of Chivalry_: 'Sovereign Cavalier;' identified by his arms

as Ser Giovanni Buiamonte, still alive in Florence in 1301, and if we

are to judge from the text, the greatest usurer of all. A northern poet

of the time would have sought his usurers in the Jewry of some town he

knew, but Dante finds his among the nobles of Padua and Florence. He

ironically represents them as wearing purses ornamented with their coats

of arms, perhaps to hint that they pursued their dishonourable trade

under shelter of their noble names--their shop signs, as it were. The

whole passage may have been planned by Dante so as to afford him the

opportunity of damning the still living Buiamonte without mentioning his

name.

[510] _His tongue thrust out_: As if to say: We know well what sort of

fine gentleman Buiamonte is.

[511] _By stairs like this_: The descent from one circle to another

grows more difficult the further down they come. They appear to have

found no special obstacle in the nature of the ground till they reached

the bank sloping down to the Fifth Circle, the pathway down which is

described as terrible (_Inf._ vii. 105). The descent into the Seventh

Circle is made practicable, and nothing more (_Inf._ xii. I).

[512] _Heaven was fired_: As still appears in the Milky Way. In the

_Convito_, ii. 15, Dante discusses the various explanations of what

causes the brightness of that part of the heavens.

[513] _A terrific roar_: Of the water falling to the ground. On

beginning the descent they had left the waterfall on the left hand, but

Geryon, after fetching one or more great circles, passes in front of it,

and then they have it on the right. There is no further mention of the

waters of Phlegethon till they are found frozen in Cocytus (_Inf._

xxxii. 23). Philalethes suggests that they flow under the Eighth Circle.

[514] _Lure_: An imitation bird used in training falcons. Dante

describes the sulky, slow descent of a falcon which has either lost

sight of its prey, or has failed to discover where the falconer has

thrown the lure. Geryon has descended thus deliberately owing to the

command of Virgil.

CANTO XVIII.

Of iron colour, and composed of stone,

A place called Malebolge[515] is in Hell,

Girt by a cliff of substance like its own.

In that malignant region yawns a well[516]

Right in the centre, ample and profound;

Of which I duly will the structure tell.

The zone[517] that lies between them, then, is round--

Between the well and precipice hard and high;

Into ten vales divided is the ground.

As is the figure offered to the eye, 10

Where numerous moats a castle's towers enclose

That they the walls may better fortify;

A like appearance was made here by those.

And as, again, from threshold of such place

Many a drawbridge to the outworks goes;

So ridges from the precipice's base

Cutting athwart the moats and barriers run,

Till at the well join the extremities.[518]

From Geryon's back when we were shaken down

'Twas here we stood, until the Poet's feet 20

Moved to the left, and I, behind, came on.

New torments on the right mine eyes did meet

With new tormentors, novel woe on woe;

With which the nearer Bolgia was replete.

Sinners, all naked, in the gulf below,

This side the middle met us; while they strode

On that side with us, but more swift did go.[519]

Even so the Romans, that the mighty crowd

Across the bridge, the year of Jubilee,

Might pass with ease, ordained a rule of road[520]-- 30

Facing the Castle, on that side should be

The multitude which to St. Peter's hied;

So to the Mount on this was passage free.

On the grim rocky ground, on either side,

I saw horned devils[521] armed with heavy whip

Which on the sinners from behind they plied.

Ah, how they made the wretches nimbly skip

At the first lashes; no one ever yet

But sought from the second and the third to slip.

And as I onward went, mine eyes were set 40

On one of them; whereon I called in haste:

'This one already I have surely met!'

Therefore to know him, fixedly I gazed;

And my kind Leader willingly delayed,

While for a little I my course retraced.

On this the scourged one, thinking to evade

My search, his visage bent without avail,

For: 'Thou that gazest on the ground,' I said,

'If these thy features tell trustworthy tale,

Venedico Caccianimico[522] thou! 50

But what has brought thee to such sharp regale?'[523]

And he, 'I tell it 'gainst my will, I trow,

But thy clear accents[524] to the old world bear

My memory, and make me all avow.

I was the man who Ghisola the fair

To serve the Marquis' evil will led on,

Whatever[525] the uncomely tale declare.

Of Bolognese here weeping not alone

Am I; so full the place of them, to-day

'Tween Reno and Savena[526] are not known 60

So many tongues that _Sipa_ deftly say:

And if of this thou'dst know the reason why,

Think but how greedy were our hearts alway.'

To him thus speaking did a demon cry:

'Pander, begone!' and smote him with his thong;

'Here are no women for thy coin to buy.'

Then, with my Escort joined, I moved along.

Few steps we made until we there had come,

Where from the bank a rib of rock was flung.

With ease enough up to its top we clomb, 70

And, turning on the ridge, bore to the right;[527]

And those eternal circles[528] parted from.

When we had reached where underneath the height

A passage opes, yielding the scourged a way,

My Guide bade: 'Tarry, so to hold in sight

Those other spirits born in evil day,

Whose faces until now from thee have been

Concealed, because with ours their progress lay.'

Then from the ancient bridge by us were seen

The troop which toward us on that circuit sped, 80

Chased onward, likewise, by the scourges keen.

And my good Master, ere I asked him, said:

'That lordly one now coming hither, see,

By whom, despite of pain, no tears are shed.

What mien he still retains of majesty!

'Tis Jason, who by courage and by guile

The Colchians of the ram deprived. 'Twas he

Who on his passage by the Lemnian isle,

Where all of womankind with daring hand

Upon their males had wrought a murder vile, 90

With loving pledges and with speeches bland

The tender-yeared Hypsipyle betrayed,

Who had herself a fraud on others planned.

Forlorn he left her then, when pregnant made.

That is the crime condemns him to this pain;

And for Medea[529] too is vengeance paid.

Who in his manner cheat compose his train.

Of the first moat sufficient now is known,

And those who in its jaws engulfed remain.'

Already had we by the strait path gone 100

To where 'tis with the second bank dovetailed--

The buttress whence a second arch is thrown.

Here heard we who in the next Bolgia wailed[530]

And puffed for breath; reverberations told

They with their open palms themselves assailed.

The sides were crusted over with a mould

Plastered upon them by foul mists that rise,

And both with eyes and nose a contest hold.

The bottom is so deep, in vain our eyes

Searched it till further up the bridge we went, 110

To where the arch o'erhangs what under lies.

Ascended there, our eyes we downward bent,

And I saw people in such ordure drowned,

A very cesspool 'twas of excrement.

And while I from above am searching round,

One with a head so filth-smeared I picked out,

I knew not if 'twas lay, or tonsure-crowned.

'Why then so eager,' asked he with a shout,

'To stare at me of all the filthy crew?'

And I to him: 'Because I scarce can doubt 120

That formerly thee dry of hair I knew,

Alessio Interminei[531] the Lucchese;

And therefore thee I chiefly hold in view.'

Smiting his head-piece, then, his words were these:

''Twas flattery steeped me here; for, using such,

My tongue itself enough could never please.'

'Now stretch thou somewhat forward, but not much,'

Thereon my Leader bade me, 'and thine eyes

Slowly advance till they her features touch

And the dishevelled baggage recognise, 130

Clawing her yonder with her nails unclean,

Now standing up, now squatting on her thighs.

'Tis harlot Thais,[532] who, when she had been

Asked by her lover, "Am I generous

And worthy thanks?" said, "Greatly so, I ween."

Enough[533] of this place has been seen by us.'

FOOTNOTES:

[515] _Malebolge_: Or Evil Pits; literally, Evil Pockets.

[516] _A well_: The Ninth and lowest Circle, to be described in Canto

xxxii., etc.

[517] _The zone_: The Eighth Circle, in which the fraudulent of all

species are punished, lies between the precipice and the Ninth Circle. A

vivid picture of the enormous height of the enclosing wall has been

presented to us at the close of the preceding Canto. As in the

description of the Second Circle the atmosphere is represented as

malignant, being murky and disturbed with tempest; so the Malebolge is

called malignant too, being all of barren iron-coloured rock. In both

cases the surroundings of the sinners may well be spoken of as malign,

adverse to any thought of goodwill and joy.

[518] _The extremities_: The _Malebolge_ consists of ten circular pits

or fosses, one inside of another. The outermost lies under the precipice

which falls sheer from the Seventh Circle; the innermost, and of course

the smallest, runs immediately outside of the 'Well,' which is the Ninth

Circle. The Bolgias or valleys are divided from each other by rocky

banks; and, each Bolgia being at a lower level than the one that

encloses it, the inside of each bank is necessarily deeper than the

outside. Ribs or ridges of rock--like spokes of a wheel to the

axle-tree--run from the foot of the precipice to the outer rim of the

'Well,' vaulting the moats at right angles with the course of them. Thus

each rib takes the form of a ten-arched bridge. By one or other of these

Virgil and Dante now travel towards the centre and the base of Inferno;

their general course being downward, though varied by the ascent in turn

of the hog-backed arches over the moats.

[519] _More swift_: The sinners in the First Bolgia are divided into two

gangs, moving in opposite directions, the course of those on the outside

being to the right, as looked at by Dante. These are the shades of

panders; those in the inner current are such as seduced on their own

account. Here a list of the various classes of sinners contained in the

Bolgias of the Eighth Circle may be given:--

1st Bolgia--Seducers, CANTO XVIII.

2d " Flatterers, " "

3d " Simoniacs, " XIX.

4th " Soothsayers, " XX.

5th " Barrators, " XXI. XXII.

6th " Hypocrites, " XXIII.

7th " Thieves, " XXIV. XXV.

8th " Evil Counsellors, " XXVI. XXVII.

9th " Scandal and Heresy Mongers, " XXVIII. XXIX.

10th " Falsifiers, " XXIX. XXX.

[520] _A rule of road_: In the year 1300 a Jubilee was held in Rome with

Plenary Indulgence for all pilgrims. Villani says that while it lasted

the number of strangers in Rome was never less than two hundred

thousand. The bridge and castle spoken of in the text are those of St.

Angelo. The Mount is probably the Janiculum.

[521] _Horned devils_: Here the demons are horned--terrible

remembrancers to the sinner of the injured husband.

[522] _Venedico Caccianimico_: A Bolognese noble, brother of Ghisola,

whom he inveigled into yielding herself to the Marquis of Este, lord of

Ferrara. Venedico died between 1290 and 1300.

[523] _Such sharp regale_: 'Such pungent sauces.' There is here a play

of words on the _Salse_, the name of a wild ravine outside the walls of

Bologna, where the bodies of felons were thrown. Benvenuto says it used

to be a taunt among boys at Bologna: Your father was pitched into the

Salse.

[524] _Thy clear accents_: Not broken with sobs like his own and those

of his companions.

[525] _Whatever, etc._: Different accounts seem to have been current

about the affair of Ghisola.

[526] _'Tween Reno, etc._: The Reno and Savena are streams that flow

past Bologna. _Sipa_ is Bolognese for Maybe, or for Yes. So Dante

describes Tuscany as the country where _Si_ is heard (_Inf._ xxxiii.

80). With regard to the vices of the Bolognese, Benvenuto says: 'Dante

had studied in Bologna, and had seen and observed all these things.'

[527] _To the right_: This is only an apparent departure from their

leftward course. Moving as they were to the left along the edge of the

Bolgia, they required to turn to the right to cross the bridge that

spanned it.

[528] _Those eternal circles_: The meaning is not clear; perhaps it only

is that they have now done with the outer stream of sinners in this

Bolgia, left by them engaged in endless procession round and round.

[529] _Medea_: When the Argonauts landed on Lemnos, they found it

without any males, the women, incited by Venus, having put them all to

death, with the exception of Thoas, saved by his daughter Hypsipyle.

When Jason deserted her he sailed for Colchis, and with the assistance

of Medea won the Golden Fleece. Medea, who accompanied him from Colchis,

was in turn deserted by him.

[530] _Who in the next Bolgia wailed_: The flatterers in the Second

Bolgia.

[531] _Alessio Interminei_: Of the Great Lucchese family of the

Interminelli, to which the famous Castruccio Castrucani belonged.

Alessio is know to have been living in 1295. Dante may have known him

personally. Benvenuto says he was so liberal of his flattery that he

spent it even on menial servants.

[532] _Thais_: In the _Eunuch_ of Terence, Thraso, the lover of that

courtesan, asks Gnatho, their go-between, if she really sent him many

thanks for the present of a slave-girl he had sent her. 'Enormous!' says

Gnatho. It proves what great store Dante set on ancient instances when

he thought this worth citing.

[533] _Enough, etc._: Most readers will agree with Virgil.

CANTO XIX.

O Simon Magus![534] ye his wretched crew!

The gifts of God, ordained to be the bride

Of righteousness, ye prostitute that you

With gold and silver may be satisfied;

Therefore for you let now the trumpet[535] blow,

Seeing that ye in the Third Bolgia 'bide.

Arrived at the next tomb,[536] we to the brow

Of rock ere this had finished our ascent,

Which hangs true plumb above the pit below.

What perfect art, O Thou Omniscient, 10

Is Thine in Heaven and earth and the bad world found!

How justly does Thy power its dooms invent!

The livid stone, on both banks and the ground,

I saw was full of holes on every side,

All of one size, and each of them was round.

No larger seemed they to me nor less wide

Than those within my beautiful St. John[537]

For the baptizers' standing-place supplied;

And one of which, not many years agone,

I broke to save one drowning; and I would 20

Have this for seal to undeceive men known.

Out of the mouth of each were seen protrude

A sinner's feet, and of the legs the small

Far as the calves; the rest enveloped stood.

And set on fire were both the soles of all,

Which made their ankles wriggle with such throes

As had made ropes and withes asunder fall.

And as flame fed by unctuous matter goes

Over the outer surface only spread;

So from their heels it flickered to the toes. 30

'Master, who is he, tortured more,' I said,

'Than are his neighbours, writhing in such woe;

And licked by flames of deeper-hearted red?'

And he: 'If thou desirest that below

I bear thee by that bank[538] which lowest lies,

Thou from himself his sins and name shalt know.'

And I: 'Thy wishes still for me suffice:

Thou art my Lord, and knowest I obey

Thy will; and dost my hidden thoughts surprise.'

To the fourth barrier then we made our way, 40

And, to the left hand turning, downward went

Into the narrow hole-pierced cavity;

Nor the good Master caused me make descent

From off his haunch till we his hole were nigh

Who with his shanks was making such lament.

'Whoe'er thou art, soul full of misery,

Set like a stake with lower end upcast,'

I said to him, 'Make, if thou canst, reply.'

I like a friar[539] stood who gives the last

Shrift to a vile assassin, to his side 50

Called back to win delay for him fixed fast.

'Art thou arrived already?' then he cried,

'Art thou arrived already, Boniface?

By several years the prophecy[540] has lied.

Art so soon wearied of the wealthy place,

For which thou didst not fear to take with guile,

Then ruin the fair Lady?'[541] Now my case

Was like to theirs who linger on, the while

They cannot comprehend what they are told,

And as befooled[542] from further speech resile. 60

But Virgil bade me: 'Speak out loud and bold,

"I am not he thou thinkest, no, not he!"'

And I made answer as by him controlled.

The spirit's feet then twisted violently,

And, sighing in a voice of deep distress,

He asked: 'What then requirest thou of me?

If me to know thou hast such eagerness,

That thou the cliff hast therefore ventured down,

Know, the Great Mantle sometime was my dress.

I of the Bear, in sooth, was worthy son: 70

As once, the Cubs to help, my purse with gain

I stuffed, myself I in this purse have stown.

Stretched out at length beneath my head remain

All the simoniacs[543] that before me went,

And flattened lie throughout the rocky vein.

I in my turn shall also make descent,

Soon as he comes who I believed thou wast,

When I asked quickly what for him was meant.

O'er me with blazing feet more time has past,

While upside down I fill the topmost room, 80

Than he his crimsoned feet shall upward cast;

For after him one viler still shall come,

A Pastor from the West,[544] lawless of deed:

To cover both of us his worthy doom.

A modern Jason[545] he, of whom we read

In Maccabees, whose King denied him nought:

With the French King so shall this man succeed.'

Perchance I ventured further than I ought,

But I spake to him in this measure free:

'Ah, tell me now what money was there sought 90

Of Peter by our Lord, when either key

He gave him in his guardianship to hold?

Sure He demanded nought save: "Follow me!"

Nor Peter, nor the others, asked for gold

Or silver when upon Matthias fell

The lot instead of him, the traitor-souled.

Keep then thy place, for thou art punished well,[546]

And clutch the pelf, dishonourably gained,

Which against Charles[547] made thee so proudly swell.

And, were it not that I am still restrained 100

By reverence[548] for those tremendous keys,

Borne by thee while the glad world thee contained,

I would use words even heavier than these;

Seeing your avarice makes the world deplore,

Crushing the good, filling the bad with ease.

'Twas you, O Pastors, the Evangelist bore

In mind what time he saw her on the flood

Of waters set, who played with kings the whore;

Who with seven heads was born; and as she would

By the ten horns to her was service done, 110

Long as her spouse[549] rejoiced in what was good.

Now gold and silver are your god alone:

What difference 'twixt the idolater and you,

Save that ye pray a hundred for his one?

Ah, Constantine,[550] how many evils grew--

Not from thy change of faith, but from the gift

Wherewith thou didst the first rich Pope endue!'

While I my voice continued to uplift

To such a tune, by rage or conscience stirred

Both of his soles he made to twist and shift. 120

My Guide, I well believe, with pleasure heard;

Listening he stood with lips so well content

To me propounding truthful word on word.

Then round my body both his arms he bent,

And, having raised me well upon his breast,

Climbed up the path by which he made descent.

Nor was he by his burden so oppressed

But that he bore me to the bridge's crown,

Which with the fourth joins the fifth rampart's crest.

And lightly here he set his burden down, 130

Found light by him upon the precipice,

Up which a goat uneasily had gone.

And thence another valley met mine eyes.

FOOTNOTES:

[534] _Simon Magus_: The sin of simony consists in setting a price on

the exercise of a spiritual grace or the acquisition of a spiritual

office. Dante assails it at headquarters, that is, as it was practised

by the Popes; and in their case it took, among other forms, that of

ecclesiastical nepotism.

[535] _The trumpet_: Blown at the punishment of criminals, to call

attention to their sentence.

[536] _The next tomb_: The Third Bolgia, appropriately termed a tomb,

because its manner of punishment is that of a burial, as will be seen.

[537] _St. John_: The church of St. John's, in Dante's time, as now, the

Baptistery of Florence. In _Parad._ xxv. he anticipates the day, if it

should ever come, when he shall return to Florence, and in the church

where he was baptized a Christian be crowned as a Poet. Down to the

middle of the sixteenth century all baptisms, except in cases of urgent

necessity, were celebrated in St. John's; and, even there, only on the

eves of Easter and Pentecost. For protection against the crowd, the

officiating priests were provided with standing-places, circular

cavities disposed around the great font. To these Dante compares the

holes of this Bolgia, for the sake of introducing a defence of himself

from a charge of sacrilege. Benvenuto tells that once when some boys

were playing about the church one of them, to hide himself from his

companions, squeezed himself into a baptizer's standing-place, and made

so tight a fit of it that he could not be rescued till Dante with his

own hands plied a hammer upon the marble, and so saved the child from

drowning. The presence of water in the cavity may be explained by the

fact of the church's being at that time lighted by an unglazed opening

in the roof; and as baptisms were so infrequent the standing-places,

situated as they were in the centre of the floor, may often have been

partially flooded. It is easy to understand how bitterly Dante would

resent a charge of irreverence connected with his 'beautiful St.

John's;' 'that fair sheep-fold' (_Parad._ xxv. 5).

[538] _That bank, etc._: Of each Bolgia the inner bank is lower than the

outer; the whole of Malebolge sloping towards the centre of the Inferno.

[539] _Like a friar, etc._: In those times the punishment of an assassin

was to be stuck head downward in a pit, and then to have earth slowly

shovelled in till he was suffocated. Dante bends down, the better to

hear what the sinner has to say, like a friar recalled by the felon on

the pretence that he has something to add to his confession.

[540] _The prophecy_: 'The writing.' The speaker is Nicholas III., of

the great Roman family of the Orsini, and Pope from 1277 to 1280; a man

of remarkable bodily beauty and grace of manner, as well as of great

force of character. Like many other Holy Fathers he was either a great

hypocrite while on his promotion, or else he degenerated very quickly

after getting himself well settled on the Papal Chair. He is said to

have been the first Pope who practised simony with no attempt at

concealment. Boniface VIII., whom he is waiting for to relieve him,

became Pope in 1294, and died in 1303. None of the four Popes between

1280 and 1294 were simoniacs; so that Nicholas was uppermost in the hole

for twenty-three years. Although ignorant of what is now passing on the

earth, he can refer back to his foreknowledge of some years earlier (see

_Inf._ x. 99) as if to a prophetic writing, and finds that according to

this it is still three years too soon, it being now only 1300, for the

arrival of Boniface. This is the usual explanation of the passage. To it

lies the objection that foreknowledge of the present that can be

referred back to is the same thing as knowledge of it, and with this the

spirits in Inferno are not endowed. But Dante elsewhere shows that he

finds it hard to observe the limitation. The alternative explanation,

supported by the use of _scritto_ (writing) in the text, is that

Nicholas refers to some prophecy once current about his successors in

Rome.

[541] _The fair Lady_: The Church. The guile is that shown by Boniface

in getting his predecessor Celestine v. to abdicate (_Inf._ iii. 60).

[542] _As befooled_: Dante does not yet suspect that it is with a Pope

he is speaking. He is dumbfounded at being addressed as Boniface.

[543] _All the simoniacs_: All the Popes that had been guilty of the

sin.

[544] _A Pastor from the West_: Boniface died in 1303, and was succeeded

by Benedict XI., who in his turn was succeeded by Clement V., the Pastor

from the West. Benedict was not stained with simony, and so it is

Clement that is to relieve Boniface; and he is to come from the West,

that is, from Avignon, to which the Holy See was removed by him. Or the

reference may simply be to the country of his birth. Elsewhere he is

spoken of as 'the Gascon who shall cheat the noble Henry' of Luxemburg

(_Parad._ xvii. 82).--This passage has been read as throwing light on

the question of when the _Inferno_ was written. Nicholas says that from

the time Boniface arrives till Clement relieves him will be a shorter

period than that during which he has himself been in Inferno, that is to

say, a shorter time than twenty years. Clement died in 1314; and so, it

is held, we find a date before which the _Inferno_ was, at least, not

published. But Clement was known for years before his death to be ill of

a disease usually soon fatal. He became Pope in 1305, and the wonder was

that he survived so long as nine years. Dante keeps his prophecy

safe--if it is a prophecy; and there does seem internal evidence to

prove the publication of the _Inferno_ to have taken place long before

1314.--It is needless to point out how the censure of Clement gains in

force if read as having been published before his death.

[545] _Jason_: Or Joshua, who purchased the office of High Priest from

Antiochus Epiphanes, and innovated the customs of the Jews (2 Maccab.

iv. 7).

[546] _Punished well_: At line 12 Dante has admired the propriety of the

Divine distribution of penalties. He appears to regard with a special

complacency that which he invents for the simoniacs. They were

industrious in multiplying benefices for their kindred; Boniface, for

example, besides Cardinals, appointed about twenty Archbishops and

Bishops from among his own relatives. Here all the simoniacal Popes have

to be contented with one place among them. They paid no regard to

whether a post was well filled or not: here they are set upside down.

[547] _Charles_: Nicholas was accused of taking a bribe to assist Peter

of Arragon in ousting Charles of Anjou from the kingdom of Sicily.

[548] _By reverence, etc._: Dante distinguishes between the office and

the unworthy holder of it. So in Purgatory he prostrates himself before

a Pope (_Purg._ xix. 131).

[549] _Her spouse_: In the preceding lines the vision of the Woman in

the Apocalypse is applied to the corruption of the Church, represented

under the figure of the seven-hilled Rome seated in honour among the

nations and receiving observance from the kings of the earth till her

spouse, the Pope, began to prostitute her by making merchandise of her

spiritual gifts. Of the Beast there is no mention here, his qualities

being attributed to the Woman.

[550] _Ah, Constantine, etc._: In Dante's time, and for some centuries

later, it was believed that Constantine, on transferring the seat of

empire to Byzantium, had made a gift to the Pope of rights and

privileges almost equal to those of the Emperor. Rome was to be the

Pope's; and from his court in the Lateran he was to exercise supremacy

over all the West. The Donation of Constantine, that is, the instrument

conveying these rights, was a forgery of the Middle Ages.

CANTO XX.

Now of new torment must my verses tell,

And matter for the Twentieth Canto win

Of Lay the First,[551] which treats of souls in Hell.

Already was I eager to begin

To peer into the visible profound,[552]

Which tears of agony was bathèd in:

And I saw people in the valley round;

Like that of penitents on earth the pace

At which they weeping came, nor uttering[553] sound.

When I beheld them with more downcast gaze,[554] 10

That each was strangely screwed about I learned,

Where chest is joined to chin. And thus the face

Of every one round to his loins was turned;

And stepping backward[555] all were forced to go,

For nought in front could be by them discerned.

Smitten by palsy although one might show

Perhaps a shape thus twisted all awry,

I never saw, and am to think it slow.

As, Reader,[556] God may grant thou profit by

Thy reading, for thyself consider well 20

If I could then preserve my visage dry

When close at hand to me was visible

Our human form so wrenched that tears, rained down

Out of the eyes, between the buttocks fell.

In very sooth I wept, leaning upon

A boss of the hard cliff, till on this wise

My Escort asked: 'Of the other fools[557] art one?

Here piety revives as pity dies;

For who more irreligious is than he

In whom God's judgments to regret give rise? 30

Lift up, lift up thy head, and thou shalt see

Him for whom earth yawned as the Thebans saw,

All shouting meanwhile: "Whither dost thou flee,

Amphiaraüs?[558] Wherefore thus withdraw

From battle?" But he sinking found no rest

Till Minos clutched him with all-grasping claw.

Lo, how his shoulders serve him for a breast!

Because he wished to see too far before

Backward he looks, to backward course addressed.

Behold Tiresias,[559] who was changed all o'er, 40

Till for a man a woman met the sight,

And not a limb its former semblance bore;

And he behoved a second time to smite

The same two twisted serpents with his wand,

Ere he again in manly plumes was dight.

With back to him, see Aruns next at hand,

Who up among the hills of Luni, where

Peasants of near Carrara till the land,

Among the dazzling marbles[560] held his lair

Within a cavern, whence could be descried 50

The sea and stars of all obstruction bare.

The other one, whose flowing tresses hide

Her bosom, of the which thou seest nought,

And all whose hair falls on the further side,

Was Manto;[561] who through many regions sought:

Where I was born, at last her foot she stayed.

It likes me well thou shouldst of this be taught.

When from this life her father exit made,

And Bacchus' city had become enthralled,

She for long time through many countries strayed. 60

'Neath mountains by which Germany is walled

And bounded at Tirol, a lake there lies

High in fair Italy, Benacus[562] called.

The waters of a thousand springs that rise

'Twixt Val Camonica and Garda flow

Down Pennine; and their flood this lake supplies.

And from a spot midway, if they should go

Thither, the Pastors[563] of Verona, Trent,

And Brescia might their blessings all bestow.

Peschiera,[564] with its strength for ornament, 70

Facing the Brescians and the Bergamese

Lies where the bank to lower curve is bent.

And there the waters, seeking more of ease,

For in Benacus is not room for all,

Forming a river, lapse by green degrees.

The river, from its very source, men call

No more Benacus--'tis as Mincio known,

Which into Po does at Governo fall.

A flat it reaches ere it far has run,

Spreading o'er which it feeds a marshy fen, 80

Whence oft in summer pestilence has grown.

Wayfaring here the cruel virgin, when

She found land girdled by the marshy flood,

Untilled and uninhabited of men,

That she might 'scape all human neighbourhood

Stayed on it with her slaves, her arts to ply;

And there her empty body was bestowed.

On this the people from the country nigh

Into that place came crowding, for the spot,

Girt by the swamp, could all attack defy, 90

And for the town built o'er her body sought

A name from her who made it first her seat,

Calling it Mantua, without casting lot.[565]

The dwellers in it were in number great,

Till stupid Casalodi[566] was befooled

And victimised by Pinamonte's cheat.

Hence, shouldst thou ever hear (now be thou schooled!)

Another story to my town assigned,

Let by no fraud the truth be overruled.'

And I: 'Thy reasonings, Master, to my mind 100

So cogent are, and win my faith so well,

What others say I shall black embers find.

But of this people passing onward tell,

If thou, of any, something canst declare,

For all my thoughts[567] on that intently dwell.'

And then he said: 'The one whose bearded hair

Falls from his cheeks upon his shoulders dun,

Was, when the land of Greece[568] of males so bare

Was grown the very cradles scarce held one,

An augur;[569] he with Calchas gave the sign 110

In Aulis through the first rope knife to run.

Eurypylus was he called, and in some line

Of my high Tragedy[570] is sung the same,

As thou know'st well, who mad'st it wholly thine.

That other, thin of flank, was known to fame

As Michael Scott;[571] and of a verity

He knew right well the black art's inmost game.

Guido Bonatti,[572] and Asdente see

Who mourns he ever should have parted from

His thread and leather; but too late mourns he. 120

Lo the unhappy women who left loom,

Spindle, and needle that they might divine;

With herb and image[573] hastening men's doom.

But come; for where the hemispheres confine

Cain and the Thorns[574] is falling, to alight

Underneath Seville on the ocean line.

The moon was full already yesternight;

Which to recall thou shouldst be well content,

For in the wood she somewhat helped thy plight.'

Thus spake he to me while we forward went. 130

FOOTNOTES:

[551] _Lay the First_: The _Inferno_.

[552] _The visible profound_: The Fourth Bolgia, where soothsayers of

every kind are punished. Their sin is that of seeking to find out what

God has made secret. That such discoveries of the future could be made

by men, Dante seems to have had no doubt; but he regards the exercise of

the power as a fraud on Providence, and also credits the adepts in the

black art with ruining others by their spells (line 123).

[553] _Nor uttering, etc._: They who on earth told too much are now

condemned to be for ever dumb. It will be noticed that with none of them

does Dante converse.

[554] _More downcast gaze_: Standing as he does on the crown of the

arch, the nearer they come to him the more he has to decline his eyes.

[555] _Stepping backward_: Once they peered far into the future; now

they cannot see a step before them.

[556]_ As, Reader, etc._: Some light may be thrown on this unusual, and,

at first sight, inexplicable display of pity, by the comment of

Benvenuto da Imola:--'It is the wisest and most virtuous of men that are

most subject to this mania of divination; and of this Dante is himself

an instance, as is well proved by this book of his.' Dante reminds the

reader how often since the journey began he has sought to have the veil

of the future lifted; and would have it understood that he was seized by

a sudden misgiving as to whether he too had not overstepped the bounds

of what, in that respect, is allowed and right.

[557] _Of the other fools_: Dante, weeping like the sinners in the

Bolgia, is asked by Virgil: 'What, art thou then one of them?' He had

been suffered, without reproof, to show pity for Francesca and Ciacco.

The terrors of the Lord grow more cogent as they descend, and even pity

is now forbidden.

[558] _Amphiaraüs_: One of the Seven Kings who besieged Thebes. He

foresaw his own death, and sought by hiding to evade it; but his wife

revealed his hiding-place, and he was forced to join in the siege. As he

fought, a thunderbolt opened a chasm in the earth, into which he fell.

[559] _Tiresias_: A Theban soothsayer whose change of sex is described

by Ovid (_Metam._ iii.).

[560] _The dazzling marbles_: Aruns, a Tuscan diviner, is introduced by

Lucan as prophesying great events to come to pass in Rome--the Civil War

and the victories of Cæsar. His haunt was the deserted city of Luna,

situated on the Gulf of Spezia, and under the Carrara mountains

(_Phars._ i. 586).

[561] _Manto_: A prophetess, a native of Thebes the city of Bacchus, and

daughter of Tiresias.--Here begins a digression on the early history of

Mantua, the native city of Virgil. In his account of the foundation of

it Dante does not agree with Virgil, attributing to a Greek Manto what

his master attributes to an Italian one (_Æn._ x. 199).

[562] _Benacus_: The ancient Benacus, now known as the Lake of Garda.

[563] _The Pastors, etc._: About half-way down the western side of the

lake a stream falls into it, one of whose banks, at its mouth, is in the

diocese of Trent, and the other in that of Brescia, while the waters of

the lake are in that of Verona. The three Bishops, standing together,

could give a blessing each to his own diocese.

[564] _Peschiera_: Where the lake drains into the Mincio. It is still a

great fortress.

[565] _Without casting lot_; Without consulting the omens, as was usual

when a city was to be named.

[566] _Casalodi_: Some time in the second half of the thirteenth century

Alberto Casalodi was befooled out of the lordship of Mantua by Pinamonte

Buonacolsi. Benvenuto tells the tale as follows:--Pinamonte was a bold,

ambitious man, with a great troop of armed followers; and, the nobility

being at that time in bad odour with the people at large, he persuaded

the Count Albert that it would be a popular measure to banish the

suspected nobles for a time. Hardly was this done when he usurped the

lordship; and by expelling some of the citizens and putting others of

them to death he greatly thinned the population of the city.

[567] _All my thoughts, etc._: The reader's patience is certainly abused

by this digression of Virgil's, and Dante himself seems conscious that

it is somewhat ill-timed.

[568] _The land of Greece, etc._: All the Greeks able to bear arms being

engaged in the Trojan expedition.

[569] _An augur_: Eurypylus, mentioned in the Second _Æneid_ as being

employed by the Greeks to consult the oracle of Apollo regarding their

return to Greece. From the auspices Calchas had found at what hour they

should set sail for Troy. Eurypylus can be said only figuratively to

have had to do with cutting the cable.

[570] _Tragedy_: The _Æneid_. Dante defines Comedy as being written in a

style inferior to that of Tragedy, and as having a sad beginning and a

happy ending (Epistle to Can Grande, 10). Elsewhere he allows the comic

poet great licence in the use of common language (_Vulg. El._ ii. 4). By

calling his own poem a Comedy he, as it were, disarms criticism.

[571] _Michael Scott_: Of Balwearie in Scotland, familiar to English

readers through the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. He flourished in the

course of the thirteenth century, and made contributions to the

sciences, as they were then deemed, of astrology, alchemy, and

physiognomy. He acted for some time as astrologer to the Emperor

Frederick II., and the tradition of his accomplishments powerfully

affected the Italian imagination for a century after his death. It was

remembered that the terrible Frederick, after being warned by him to

beware of Florence, had died at a place called Firenzuola; and more than

one Italian city preserved with fear and trembling his dark sayings

regarding their fate. Villani frequently quotes his prophecies; and

Boccaccio speaks of him as a great necromancer who had been in Florence.

A commentary of his on Aristotle was printed at Venice in 1496. The

thinness of his flanks may refer to a belief that he could make himself

invisible at will.

[572] _Guido Bonatti_: Was a Florentine, a tiler by trade, and was

living in 1282. When banished from his own city he took refuge at Forlì

and became astrologer to Guido of Montefeltro (_Inf._ xxvii.), and was

credited with helping his master to a great victory.--_Asdente_: A

cobbler of Parma, whose prophecies were long renowned, lived in the

twelfth century. He is given in the _Convito_ (iv. 16) as an instance

that a man may be very notorious without being truly noble.

[573] _Herb and image_: Part of the witch's stock in trade. All that was

done to a waxen image of him was suffered by the witch's victim.

[574] _Cain and the Thorns_: The moon. The belief that the spots in the

moon are caused by Cain standing in it with a bundle of thorns is

referred to at _Parad._ ii. 51. Although it is now the morning of the

Saturday, the 'yesternight' refers to the night of Thursday, when Dante

found some use of the moon in the Forest. The moon is now setting on the

line dividing the hemisphere of Jerusalem, in which they are, from that

of the Mount of Purgatory. According to Dante's scheme of the world,

Purgatory is the true opposite of Jerusalem; and Seville is ninety

degrees from Jerusalem. As it was full moon the night before last, and

the moon is now setting, it is now fully an hour after sunrise. But, as

has already been said, it is not possible to reconcile the astronomical

indications thoroughly with one another.--Virgil serves as clock to

Dante, for they can see nothing of the skies.

CANTO XXI.

Conversing still from bridge to bridge[575] we went;

But what our words I in my Comedy

Care not to tell. The top of the ascent

Holding, we halted the next pit to spy

Of Malebolge, with plaints bootless all:

There, darkness[576] full of wonder met the eye.

As the Venetians[577] in their Arsenal

Boil the tenacious pitch at winter-tide,

To caulk the ships with for repairs that call;

For then they cannot sail; and so, instead, 10

One builds his bark afresh, one stops with tow

His vessel's ribs, by many a voyage tried;

One hammers at the poop, one at the prow;

Some fashion oars, and others cables twine,

And others at the jib and main sails sew:

So, not by fire, but by an art Divine,

Pitch of thick substance boiled in that low Hell,

And all the banks did as with plaster line.

I saw it, but distinguished nothing well

Except the bubbles by the boiling raised, 20

Now swelling up and ceasing now to swell.

While down upon it fixedly I gazed,

'Beware, beware!' my Leader to me said,

And drew me thence close to him. I, amazed,

Turned sharply round, like him who has delayed,

Fain to behold the thing he ought to flee,

Then, losing nerve, grows suddenly afraid,

Nor lingers longer what there is to see;

For a black devil I beheld advance

Over the cliff behind us rapidly. 30

Ah me, how fierce was he of countenance!

What bitterness he in his gesture put,

As with spread wings he o'er the ground did dance!

Upon his shoulders, prominent and acute,

Was perched a sinner[578] fast by either hip;

And him he held by tendon of the foot.

He from our bridge: 'Ho, Malebranche![579] Grip

An Elder brought from Santa Zita's town:[580]

Stuff him below; myself once more I slip

Back to the place where lack of such is none. 40

There, save Bonturo, barrates[581] every man,

And No grows Yes that money may be won.'

He shot him down, and o'er the cliff began

To run; nor unchained mastiff o'er the ground,

Chasing a robber, swifter ever ran.

The other sank, then rose with back bent round;

But from beneath the bridge the devils cried:

'Not here the Sacred Countenance[582] is found,

One swims not here as on the Serchio's[583] tide;

So if thou wouldst not with our grapplers deal 50

Do not on surface of the pitch abide.'

Then he a hundred hooks[584] was made to feel.

'Best dance down there,' they said the while to him,

'Where, if thou canst, thou on the sly mayst steal.'

So scullions by the cooks are set to trim

The caldrons and with forks the pieces steep

Down in the water, that they may not swim.

And the good Master said to me: 'Now creep

Behind a rocky splinter for a screen;

So from their knowledge thou thyself shalt keep. 60

And fear not thou although with outrage keen

I be opposed, for I am well prepared,

And formerly[585] have in like contest been.'

Then passing from the bridge's crown he fared

To the sixth bank,[586] and when thereon he stood

He needed courage doing what he dared.

In the same furious and tempestuous mood

In which the dogs upon the beggar leap,

Who, halting suddenly, seeks alms or food,

They issued forth from underneath the deep 70

Vault of the bridge, with grapplers 'gainst him stretched;

But he exclaimed: 'Aloof, and harmless keep!

Ere I by any of your hooks be touched,

Come one of you and to my words give ear;

And then advise you if I should be clutched.'

All cried: 'Let Malacoda then go near;'

On which one moved, the others standing still.

He coming said: 'What will this[587] help him here?'

'O Malacoda, is it credible

That I am come,' my Master then replied, 80

'Secure your opposition to repel,

Without Heaven's will, and fate, upon my side?

Let me advance, for 'tis by Heaven's behest

That I on this rough road another guide.'

Then was his haughty spirit so depressed,

He let his hook drop sudden to his feet,

And, 'Strike him not!' commanded all the rest

My Leader charged me thus: 'Thou, from thy seat

Where 'mid the bridge's ribs thou crouchest low,

Rejoin me now in confidence complete.' 90

Whereon I to rejoin him was not slow;

And then the devils, crowding, came so near,

I feared they to their paction false might show.

So at Caprona[588] saw I footmen fear,

Spite of their treaty, when a multitude

Of foes received them, crowding front and rear.

With all my body braced I closer stood

To him, my Leader, and intently eyed

The aspect of them, which was far from good.

Lowering their grapplers, 'mong themselves they cried:

'Shall I now tickle him upon the thigh?' 101

'Yea, see thou clip him deftly,' one replied.

The demon who in parley had drawn nigh

Unto my Leader, upon this turned round;

'Scarmiglione, lay thy weapon by!'

He said; and then to us: 'No way is found

Further along this cliff, because, undone,

All the sixth arch lies ruined on the ground.

But if it please you further to pass on,

Over this rocky ridge advancing climb 110

To the next rib,[589] where passage may be won.

Yestreen,[590] but five hours later than this time,

Twelve hundred sixty-six years reached an end,

Since the way lost the wholeness of its prime.

Thither I some of mine will straightway send

To see that none peer forth to breathe the air:

Go on with them; you they will not offend.

You, Alichin[591] and Calcabrin, prepare

To move,' he bade; 'Cagnazzo, thou as well;

Guiding the ten, thou, Barbariccia, fare. 120

With Draghignazzo, Libicocco fell,

Fanged Ciriatto, Graffiacane too,

Set on, mad Rubicant and Farfarel:

Search on all quarters round the boiling glue.

Let these go safe, till at the bridge they be,

Which doth unbroken[592] o'er the caverns go.'

'Alas, my Master, what is this I see?'

Said I, 'Unguided, let us forward set,

If thou know'st how. I wish no company.

If former caution thou dost not forget, 130

Dost thou not mark how each his teeth doth grind,

The while toward us their brows are full of threat?'

And he: 'I would not fear should fill thy mind;

Let them grin all they will, and all they can;

'Tis at the wretches in the pitch confined.'

They wheeled and down the left hand bank began

To march, but first each bit his tongue,[593] and passed

The signal on to him who led the van.

He answered grossly as with trumpet blast.

FOOTNOTES:

[575] _From bridge to bridge_: They cross the barrier separating the

Fourth from the Fifth Bolgia, and follow the bridge which spans the

Fifth until they have reached the crown of it. We may infer that the

conversation of Virgil and Dante turned on foreknowledge of the future.

[576] _Darkness, etc._: The pitch with which the trench of the Bolgia is

filled absorbs most of the scanty light accorded to Malebolge.

[577] _The Venetians_: But for this picturesque description of the old

Arsenal, and a passing mention of the Rialto in one passage of the

_Paradiso_, and of the Venetian coinage in another, it could not be

gathered from the _Comedy_, with all its wealth of historical and

geographical references, that there was such a place as Venice in the

Italy of Dante. Unlike the statue of Time (_Inf._ xiv.), the Queen of

the Adriatic had her face set eastwards. Her back was turned and her

ears closed as in a proud indifference to the noise of party conflicts

which filled the rest of Italy.

[578] _A sinner_: This is the only instance in the _Inferno_ of the

arrival of a sinner at his special place of punishment. See _Inf._ v.

15, _note_.

[579] _Malebranche_: Evil Claws, the name of the devils who have the

sinners of this Bolgia in charge.

[580] _Santa Zita's town_: Zita was a holy serving-woman of Lucca, who

died some time between 1270 and 1280, and whose miracle-working body is

still preserved in the church of San Frediano. Most probably, although

venerated as a saint, she was not yet canonized at the time Dante writes

of, and there may be a Florentine sneer hidden in the description of

Lucca as her town. Even in Lucca there was some difference of opinion as

to her merits, and a certain unlucky Ciappaconi was pitched into the

Serchio for making fun of the popular enthusiasm about her. See

Philalethes, _Gött. Com._ In Lucca the officials that were called Priors

in Florence, were named Elders. The commentators give a name to this

sinner, but it is only guesswork.

[581] _Save Bonturo_, _barrates, etc._: It is the barrators, those who

trafficked in offices and sold justice, that are punished in this

Bolgia. The greatest barrator of all in Lucca, say the commentators, was

this Bonturo; but there seems no proof of it, though there is of his

arrogance. He was still living in 1314.

[582] _The Sacred Countenance_: An image in cedar wood, of Byzantine

workmanship, still preserved and venerated in the cathedral of Lucca.

According to the legend, it was carved from memory by Nicodemus, and

after being a long time lost was found again in the eighth century by an

Italian bishop travelling in Palestine. He brought it to the coast at

Joppa, where it was received by a vessel without sail or oar, which,

with its sacred freight, floated westwards and was next seen at the port

of Luna. All efforts to approach the bark were vain, till the Bishop of

Lucca descended to the seashore, and to him the vessel resigned itself

and suffered him to take the image into his keeping. 'Believe what you

like of all this,' says Benvenuto; 'it is no article of faith.'--The

sinner has come to the surface, bent as if in an attitude of prayer,

when he is met by this taunt.

[583] _The Serchio_: The stream which flows past Lucca.

[584] _A hundred hooks_: So many devils with their pronged hooks were

waiting to receive the victim. The punishment of the barrators bears a

relation to their sins. They wrought their evil deeds under all kinds of

veils and excuses, and are now themselves effectually buried out of

sight. The pitch sticks as close to them as bribes ever did to their

fingers. They misused wards and all subject to them, and in their turn

are clawed and torn by their devilish guardians.

[585] _Formerly, etc._: On the occasion of his previous descent (_Inf._

ix. 22).

[586] _The sixth bank_: Dante remains on the crown of the arch

overhanging the pitch-filled moat. Virgil descends from the bridge by

the left hand to the bank on the inner side of the Fifth Bolgia.

[587] _What will this, etc._: As if he said: What good will this delay

do him in the long-run?

[588] _At Caprona_: Dante was one of the mounted militia sent by

Florence in 1289 to help the Lucchese against the Pisans, and was

present at the surrender by the Pisan garrison of the Castle of Caprona.

Some make the reference to be to a siege of the same stronghold by the

Pisans in the following year, when the Lucchese garrison, having

surrendered on condition of having their lives spared, were met as they

issued forth with cries of 'Hang them! Hang them!' But of this second

siege it is only a Pisan commentator that speaks.

[589] _The next rib_: Malacoda informs them that the arch of rock across

the Sixth Bolgia in continuation of that by which they have crossed the

Fifth is in ruins, but that they will find a whole bridge if they keep

to the left hand along the rocky bank on the inner edge of the

pitch-filled moat. But, as appears further on, he is misleading them. It

will be remembered that from the precipice enclosing the Malebolge there

run more than one series of bridges or ribs into the central well of

Inferno.

[590] _Yestreen, etc._: This is the principal passage in the _Comedy_

for fixing the date of the journey. It is now, according to the text,

twelve hundred and sixty-six years and a day since the crucifixion.

Turning to the _Convito_, iv. 23, we find Dante giving his reasons for

believing that Jesus, at His death, had just completed His thirty-fourth

year. This brings us to the date of 1300 A.D. But according to Church

tradition the crucifixion happened on the 25th March, and to get

thirty-four years His life must be counted from the incarnation, which

was held to have taken place on the same date, namely the 25th March. It

was in Dante's time optional to reckon from the incarnation or the birth

of Christ. The journey must therefore be taken to have begun on Friday

the 25th March, a fortnight before the Good Friday of 1300; and,

counting strictly from the incarnation, on the first day of 1301--the

first day of the new century. So we find Boccaccio in his unfinished

commentary saying in _Inf._ iii. that it will appear from Canto xxi.

that Dante began his journey in MCCCI.--The hour is now five hours

before that at which the earthquake happened which took place at the

death of Jesus. This is held by Dante (_Convito_ iv. 23), who professes

to follow the account by Saint Luke, to have been at the sixth hour,

that is, at noon; thus the time is now seven in the morning.

[591] _Alichino, etc._: The names of the devils are all descriptive:

Alichino, for instance, is the Swooper; but in this and the next Canto

we have enough of the horrid crew without considering too closely how

they are called.

[592] _Unbroken_: Malacoda repeats his lie.

[593] _Each bit his tongue, etc._: The demons, aware of the cheat played

by Malacoda, show their devilish humour by making game of Virgil and

Dante.--Benvenuto is amazed that a man so involved in his own thoughts

as Dante was, should have been such a close observer of low life as this

passage shows him. He is sure that he laughed to himself as he wrote the

Canto.

CANTO XXII.

Horsemen I've seen in march across the field,

Hastening to charge, or, answering muster, stand,

And sometimes too when forced their ground to yield;

I have seen skirmishers upon your land,

O Aretines![594] and those on foray sent;

With trumpet and with bell[595] to sound command

Have seen jousts run and well-fought tournament,

With drum, and signal from the castle shown,

And foreign music with familiar blent;

But ne'er by blast on such a trumpet blown 10

Beheld I horse or foot to motion brought,

Nor ship by star or landmark guided on.

With the ten demons moved we from the spot;

Ah, cruel company! but 'with the good

In church, and in the tavern with the sot.'

Still to the pitch was my attention glued

Fully to see what in the Bolgia lay,

And who were in its burning mass imbrued.

As when the dolphins vaulted backs display,

Warning to mariners they should prepare 20

To trim their vessel ere the storm makes way;

So, to assuage the pain he had to bear,

Some wretch would show his back above the tide,

Then swifter plunge than lightnings cleave the air.

And as the frogs close to the marsh's side

With muzzles thrust out of the water stand,

While feet and bodies carefully they hide;

So stood the sinners upon every hand.

But on beholding Barbariccia nigh

Beneath the bubbles[596] disappeared the band. 30

I saw what still my heart is shaken by:

One waiting, as it sometimes comes to pass

That one frog plunges, one at rest doth lie;

And Graffiacan, who nearest to him was,

Him upward drew, clutching his pitchy hair:

To me he bore the look an otter has.

I of their names[597] ere this was well aware,

For I gave heed unto the names of all

When they at first were chosen. 'Now prepare,

And, Rubicante, with thy talons fall 40

Upon him and flay well,' with many cries

And one consent the accursed ones did call.

I said: 'O Master, if in any wise

Thou canst, find out who is the wretched wight

Thus at the mercy of his enemies.'

Whereon my Guide drew full within his sight,

Asking him whence he came, and he replied:

'In kingdom of Navarre[598] I first saw light.

Me servant to a lord my mother tied;

Through her I from a scoundrel sire did spring, 50

Waster of goods and of himself beside.