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Title: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno

Author: Dante Alighieri

Translator: James Romanes Sibbald

Release date: December 2, 2012 [eBook #41537]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVINE
COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI: THE INFERNO ***

THE DIVINE COMEDY OF
DANTE ALIGHIERI

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 32
Tempest—The Troop of those who died because of their Love—

Francesca da Rimini—Dante’s Swoon,

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— 47
the Lofty Tower,

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 62
Tombs,

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, 84
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,

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’ 91
Andrea—Florence and its Patrons,

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 98
Infernal Rivers,

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 130
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,

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 145
Mantua—Eurypylus—Michael Scott—Guido Bonatti—Asdente,

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 153
guard the Moat—the Devilish Escort,

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 176
Bolgia, where the Thieves are tormented by Serpents, and are

constantly undergoing a hideous metamorphosis—Vanni Fucci,

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 217
Arezzo—Capocchio on the Sienese,

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 233
—this, the Central Pit of Inferno, is encircled and guarded by Giants

—Nimrod, Ephialtes, and Antæus—entrance to the Pit,

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— 241
Antenora, the Second Ring, where are such as betrayed their Country
—Bocca degli Abati—Buoso da Duera—Ugolino,

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 260
Centre of the Earth—ascent from the depths to the light of the stars in
the Southern Hemisphere,

NDEX,
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 lain20
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 sway20
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 speed100
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 obscure10
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 plain130
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 face20
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 shade80
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, were140
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 combined40
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 run70
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 cast130
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 swooned140
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 come60
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 spume100
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 so40
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 dower79
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 it110
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 appear70
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 pursue20
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 tone50
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 down10
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 stand40
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 aware70
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 ray130
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 treat80
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 abyss40
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 seen80
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 recognise20
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 green40
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 bested120
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 went130
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 fain50
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 forlorn50
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, fain70
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 on100

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 mind110
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 sand40
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 restrain50
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 hound50
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 go100
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 feet20
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 set40
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 known60
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 gone100
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 doubt120
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 would20
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 side50
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 sought90
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 restrained100
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 well20
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 descried50
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 mind100
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 sign110
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