The Divine Comedy (Complete Annotated Edition). Dante Alighieri

than all the rest I scan thee more.”

      Then beating on his brain these words he spake:

      “Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk,

      Wherewith I ne’er enough could glut my tongue.”

      My leader thus: “A little further stretch

      Thy face, that thou the visage well mayst note

      Of that besotted, sluttish courtezan,

      Who there doth rend her with defiled nails,

      Now crouching down, now risen on her feet.

Thaïs6 is this, the harlot, whose false lip

      Answer’d her doting paramour that ask’d,

      ‘Thankest me much!’ — ‘Say rather wondrously,’

      And seeing this here satiate be our view.”

      Footnotes

1 In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII, to remedy the inconvenience occasioned by the press over the bridge of St. Angelo during the time of the Jubilee, caused it to be divided lengthwise by a partition. G. Villani, who was present, describes the order that was preserved, lib. viii. c. xxxvi. It was at this time, and on this occasion, that he first conceived the design of “compiling his book.”

2 Venedico Caccianimico, a Bolognese, who prevailed on his sister Ghisola to prostitute herself to Obizzo da Este. (See Canto xii.)

3 “To answer Sipa.” He denotes Bologna by its situation between the rivers Savena to the east and Reno to the west, and by a peculiarity of dialect, the use of the affirmative “sipa” instead either of “si” or of “sia.”

4 She deceived the other women, by concealing her father Thoas, when they slew their males.

5 Of the old Interminei family.

6 “Thaïs.” In the Eunuchus of Terence, Thraso asks if Thaïs was obliged to him for his present; and Gnatho replies, that she had expressed her obligation in the most forcible terms.

      Canto XIX

       Table of Contents

      ARGUMENT.—They come to the third gulf, wherein are punished those who have been guilty of simony. These are fixed with the head downward in certain apertures, so that no more of them than the legs appears without, and on the soles of their feet are seen burning flames. Dante is taken down by his guide into the bottom of the gulf; and there finds Pope Nicholas V, whose evil deeds, together with those of other pontiffs, are bitterly reprehended. Virgil then carries him up again to the arch, which affords them a passage over the following gulf.

      WOE to thee, Simon Magus! woe to you,

      His wretched followers! who the things of God,

      Which should be wedded unto goodness, them,

      Rapacious as ye are, do prostitute

      For gold and silver in adultery!

      Now must the trumpet sound for you, since yours

      Is the third chasm. Upon the following vault

      We now had mounted, where the rock impends

      Directly o’er the centre of the foss.

      Wisdom Supreme! how wonderful the art,

      Which thou dost manifest in heaven, in earth,

      And in the evil world, how just a meed

      Allotting by thy virtue unto all!

      I saw the livid stone, throughout the sides

      And in its bottom full of apertures,

      All equal in their width, and circular each,

      Nor ample less nor larger they appear’d

Than in Saint John’s fair dome1 of me belov’d

      Those fram’d to hold the pure baptismal streams,

      One of the which I brake, some few years past,

      To save a whelming infant; and be this

      A seal to undeceive whoever doubts

      The motive of my deed. From out the mouth

      Of every one, emerg’d a sinner’s feet

      And of the legs high upward as the calf

      The rest beneath was hid. On either foot

      The soles were burning, whence the flexile joints

      Glanc’d with such violent motion, as had snapt

      Asunder cords or twisted withs. As flame,

      Feeding on unctuous matter, glides along

      The surface, scarcely touching where it moves;

      So here, from heel to point, glided the flames.

      “Master! say who is he, than all the rest

      Glancing in fiercer agony, on whom

      A ruddier flame doth prey?” I thus inquir’d.

      “If thou be willing,” he replied, “that I

      Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,

      He of himself shall tell thee and his wrongs.”

      I then: “As pleases thee to me is best.

      Thou art my lord; and know’st that ne’er I quit

      Thy will: what silence hides that knowest thou.”

      Thereat on the fourth pier we came, we turn’d,

      And on our left descended to the depth,

      A narrow strait and perforated close.

      Nor from his side my leader set me down,

      Till to his orifice he brought, whose limb

      Quiv’ring express’d his pang. “Whoe’er thou art,

      Sad spirit! thus revers’d, and as a stake

      Driv’n in the soil!” I in these words began,

      “If thou be able, utter forth thy voice.”

      There stood I like the friar, that doth shrive

      A wretch for murder doom’d, who e’en when fix’d,

      Calleth him back, whence death awhile delays.

      He shouted: “Ha! already standest there?

Already standest there, O Boniface!2

      By many a year the writing play’d me false.

      So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,

      For