The Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri

"So may this man do for thee freely what thy speech prays, spirit incarcerate, still be pleased to tell us how the soul is bound within these knots, and tell us, if thou canst, if any from such limbs is ever loosed."

Then the trunk puffed strongly, and soon that wind was changed into this voice: "Briefly shall ye be answered. When the ferocious soul departeth from the body wherefrom itself hath torn itself, Minos sends it to the seventh gulf. It falls into the wood, and no part is chosen for it, but where fortune flings it, there it takes root like a grain of spelt; it springs up in a shoot and to a wild plant. The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves, give pain, and to the pain a window.4 Like the rest we shall go for our spoils,5 but not, forsooth, that any one may revest himself with them, for it is not just to have that of which one deprives himself. Hither shall we drag them, and through the melancholy wood shall our bodies be suspended, each on the thorn-tree of his molested shade."

We were still attentive to the trunk, believing that it might wish to say more to us, when we were surprised by an uproar, as one who perceives the wild boar and the chase coming toward his stand and hears the Feasts and the branches crashing. And behold two on the left hand, naked and scratched, flying so violently that they broke all the limbs of the wood. The one in front was shouting, "Now, help, help, Death!" and the other, who seemed to himself too slow, "Lano, thy legs were not so nimble at the jousts of the Toppo:"6 and when perhaps his breath was failing, of himself and of a bush he made a group. Behind them the wood was full of black bitches, ravenous and running like greyhounds that have been unleashed. On him that had squatted they set their teeth and tore him to pieces, bit by bit, then carried off his woeful limbs.

My Guide then took me by the hand, and led me to the bush, which was weeping through its bleeding breaks in vain. "O Jacomo of Sant' Andrea," it was saying, "what hath it vantaged thee to make of me a screen? What blame have I for thy wicked life?" When the Master had stopped beside it, he said, "Who wast thou, who through so many wounds blowest forth with blood thy woeful speech?" And he to us, "O souls who art arrived to see the shameful ravage that hath thus disjoined my leaves from me, collect them at the foot of the wretched bush. I was of the city which for the Baptist changed her first patron;7 wherefore will he always make her sorrowful with his art. And were it not that at the passage of the Arno some semblance of him yet remains, those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the ashes that were left by Attila8 would have labored in vain. I made a gibbet for myself of my own dwelling."

      Footnotes

1 Things which if told would seem incredible.

2 In the story of Polydorus, in the third book of the Aeneid.

3 The spirit who speaks is Pier delle Vigne, the Chancellor of Frederick II.; of low birth, he rose to the first place in the state; he was one of the earliest writers of Italian verse. Dante has placed his master as well as him in Hell. See Canto X.

4a Envie ys lavendere of the court alway; For she ne parteth neither nyght ne day Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Daunte. Legende of Goode Women, 358.60.

4 The tearing of the leaves gives an outlet to the woe.

5 Our bodies, at the Last Judgment.

6 Lano was slain in flight at the defeat of the Sienese by the Aretines, near the Pieve del Toppo, in 1280. He and Jacomo were notorious prodigals.

7 The first patron of florence was Mars; a fragment of a statue of whom stood till 1333 on the Ponte Vecchio.

8 It was not Attila, but Totila, who in 542 besieged Florence, and, according to false popular tradition, burned it. The names and personages were frequently confounded in the Dark Ages.

      Canto XIV

       Table of Contents

      Third round of the Seventh Circle of those who have done violence to God.—The Burning Sand.—Capaneus.—Figure of the Old Man in Crete.—The Rivers of Hell.

      Because the charity of my native place constrained me, I gathered up the scattered leaves and gave them back to him who was already hoarse.

      Then we came to the confine, where the second round is divided from the third, and where is seen a horrible mode of justice.

      To make clearly manifest the new things, I say that we had reached a plain which from its bed removeth every plant. The woeful wood is a garland round about it, even as the dismal foss to that. Here, on the very edge, we stayed our steps. The floor was a dry and dense sand, not made in other fashion than that which of old was trodden by the feet of Cato.

      O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest to be feared by every one who readeth that which was manifest unto mine eyes!

      Of naked souls I saw many flocks, that were all weeping very miserably, and diverse law seemed imposed upon them. Some folk were lying supine on the ground, some were seated all crouched up, and others were going about continually. Those who were going around were far the more, and those the fewer who were lying down under the torment, but they had their tongues more loose for wailing.

      Over all the sand, with a slow falling, were raining down dilated flakes of fire, as of snow on alps without a wind. As the flames which Alexander in those hot parts of India saw falling upon his host, solid to the ground, wherefore he took care to trample the soil by his troops, because the vapor was better extinguished while it was single; so was descending the eternal glow whereby the sand was kindled, like tinder beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole. Without repose was ever the dance of the wretched hands, now there, now here, brushing from them the fresh burning.

      I began, "Master, thou that overcomest everything, except the obdurate demons, who at the entrance of the gate came out against us, who is that great one that seemeth not to heed the fire, and lies scornful and contorted, so that the rain seems not to ripen him?" And that same one who had perceived that I was asking my Leader about him, cried out, "Such as I was alive, such am I dead. Though Jove weary his smith, from whom in wrath he took the sharp thunderbolt wherewith on my last day I was smitten, or though he weary the others, turn by turn, in Mongibello at the black forge, crying, 'Good Vulcan, help, help!' even as he did at the fight of Phlegra, and should hurl on me with all his might, thereby he should not have glad vengeance."

      Then my Leader spoke with force so great that I had not heard him so loud, "O Capaneus, in that thy pride is not quenched, art thou the more punished; no torture save thine own rage would be a pain adequate to thy fury."

      Then he turned round to me with better look, saying, "He was one of the Seven Kings that besieged Thebes, and he held, and it appears that he holds God in disdain, and little it appears that he prizes Him; but as I said to him, his own despites are very due adornments for his breast. Now come on behind me, and take heed withal, not to set thy feet upon the burning sand, but keep them always close unto the wood."