The Divine Comedy (Illustrated Edition). Dante Alighieri

on one, whose trust

      He wins, or on another who withholds

      Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way

      Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes.

      Whence in the second circle have their nest

      Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries,

      Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce

      To lust, or set their honesty at pawn,

      With such vile scum as these. The other way

      Forgets both Nature’s general love, and that

      Which thereto added afterwards gives birth

      To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle,

      Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis,

      The traitor is eternally consum’d.”

      I thus: “Instructor, clearly thy discourse

      Proceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm

      And its inhabitants with skill exact.

      But tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool,

      Whom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives,

      Or who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet,

      Wherefore within the city fire-illum’d

      Are not these punish’d, if God’s wrath be on them?

      And if it be not, wherefore in such guise

      Are they condemned?” He answer thus return’d:

      “Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind,

      Not so accustom’d? or what other thoughts

      Possess it? Dwell not in thy memory

The words, wherein thy ethic page2 describes

      Three dispositions adverse to Heav’n’s will,

      Incont’nence, malice, and mad brutishness,

      And how incontinence the least offends

      God, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note

      This judgment, and remember who they are,

      Without these walls to vain repentance doom’d,

      Thou shalt discern why they apart are plac’d

      From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours

      Justice divine on them its vengeance down.”

      “O Sun! who healest all imperfect sight,

      Thou so content’st me, when thou solv’st my doubt,

      That ignorance not less than knowledge charms.

      Yet somewhat turn thee back,” I in these words

      Continu’d, “where thou saidst, that usury

      Offends celestial Goodness; and this knot

      Perplex’d unravel.” He thus made reply:

      “Philosophy, to an attentive ear,

      Clearly points out, not in one part alone,

      How imitative nature takes her course

      From the celestial mind and from its art:

And where her laws3 the Stagyrite unfolds,

      Not many leaves scann’d o’er, observing well

      Thou shalt discover, that your art on her

      Obsequious follows, as the learner treads

      In his instructor’s step, so that your art

      Deserves the name of second in descent

      From God. These two, if thou recall to mind

Creation’s holy book,4 from the beginning

      Were the right source of life and excellence

      To human kind. But in another path

      The usurer walks; and Nature in herself

      And in her follower thus he sets at nought,

Placing elsewhere his hope.5 But follow now

      My steps on forward journey bent; for now

      The Pisces play with undulating glance

Along the’ horizon, and the Wain6 lies all

      O’er the north-west; and onward there a space

      Is our steep passage down the rocky height.”

      Footnotes

1 By some supposed to have been Anastasius II.; by others, the fourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that our poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., Emperor of the East.

2 “Thy ethic page.” He refers to Aristotle’s Ethics, lib. vii. c. 1: “———let it be defined that respecting morals there are three sorts of things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness.”

3 “Her laws.” Aristotle’s Physics, lib. ii. c. 2: “Art imitates nature.”

4 “Creation’s holy book.” Genesis, c. ii. v. 15: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it.” And, Genesis, c. iii. v. 19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”

5 “Placing elsewhere his hope.” The usurer, trusting in the produce of his wealth lent out on usury, despises nature directly, because he does not avail himself of her means for maintaining or enriching himself; and indirectly, because he does not avail himself of the means which art, the follower and imitator of nature, would afford him for the same purposes.

6 “The Wain.” The constellation Boötes, or Charles’s Wain.

      Canto XII

       Table of Contents

      ARGUMENT.—Descending by a very rugged way into the seventh circle, where the violent are punished, Dante and his leader find it guarded by the Minotaur; whose fury being pacified by Virgil, they step downward from crag to crag; till, drawing near the bottom, they descry a river of blood, wherein are tormented such as have committed violence against their neighbor. At these, when they strive to emerge from the blood, a troop of Centaurs, running along the side of the river, aim their arrows; and three of their band opposing our travellers at the foot of the steep, Virgil prevails so far that one consents to carry them both across the stream; and on their passage, Dante is informed by him of the course of