The Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri

I followed him, and we had gone little way before the sound of the water was so near to us, that had we spoken we scarce had heard. As that river on the left slope of the Apennine, which, the first from Monte Veso toward the east, has its proper course,—which is called Acquacheta up above, before it sinks valleyward into its low bed, and at Forli no longer has that name,4 —reverberates from the alp in falling with a single leap there above San Benedetto, where there ought to be shelter for a thousand;5 thus down from a precipitous bank we found that dark-tinted water resounding, so that in short while it would have hurt the ears.

I had a cord girt around me, and with it I had once thought to take the leopard of the dappled skin.6 After I had loosed it wholly from me, even as my Leader had commanded me, I reached it to him wound up and coiled. Whereon he turned toward the right, and somewhat far from the edge threw it down into that deep abyss. "And surely some strange thing must needs respond," said I to myself, "to the strange signal which the Master so follows with his eye."

      Ah! how cautious men ought to be near those who see not only the act, but with their wisdom look within the thoughts. He said to me: "Soon will come up that which I await, and what thy thought is dreaming must soon discover itself unto thy sight."

To that truth which has the aspect of falsehood ought one always to close his lips so far as he can, because without fault it causes shame;7 but here I cannot be silent, and by the notes of this comedy, Reader, I swear to thee,—so may they not be void of lasting grace,—that I saw through that thick and dark air a shape come swimming upwards marvelous to every steadfast heart; like as he returns who goes down sometimes to loose an anchor that grapples either a rock or other thing that in the sea is hid, who stretches upward, and draws in his feet.

      Footnotes

1 Concerning Tegghiaio and Rusticucci Dante had enquired of Ciacco, Canto vi. They and Guido Guerra were illustrious citizens of Florence in the thirteenth century. Their deeds are recorded by Villani and Ricordano Malespini. The good Gualdrada, famed for her beauty and her modesty, was the daughter of Messer Bellincione Berti, referred to in Cantos w. and wi. of Paradise as one of the early worthies of the city. See O. Villani, Cronica. V. xxxvii.

2 Nothing is known from contemporary record of Borsiere, but Boccaccio tells a story of him in the Decameron, giorn. i. nov. 8.

3 Florence had grown rapidly in population and in wealth during the last years of the thirteenth century.

4 At Forli the river is called the Montone; it was the first of the rivers on the left of the Apennines that had its course to the sea; the others before it being tributaries of the Po, which rises on Monte Veso.

5 These last words are obscure, and none of the commentators explain them satisfactorily.

6 The leopard of the dappled skin, which had often turned back Dante from the Mountain to the Dark Wood (see Canto i.); the type of sensual sin. The cord is the type of religions asceticism, of which the poet no longer has need. The meaning of its use as a signal is not apparent.

7 Because the narrator is falsely taxed with falsehood.

      Canto XVII

       Table of Contents

      Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have done violence to Art.—Geryon.—The Usurers.—Descent to the Eighth Circle.

"Behold the wild beast with the pointed tail, that passes mountains, and breaks walls and weapons; behold him that infects all the world."1 Thus began my Leader to speak to me; and he beckoned to him that he should come to shore near the end of the trodden marbles.2 And that loathsome image of fraud came onward, and landed his head and his body, but drew not his tail upon the bank. His face was the face of a just man (so benignant was its skin outwardly), and of a serpent all the trunk beside; he had two paws, hairy to the armpits; his back and breast and both his sides were painted with nooses and circles. With more colors of woof and warp Tartars or Turks never made cloth, nor were such webs woven by Arachne.

As sometimes boats lie on the shore, so that they are partly in water and partly on the ground, and as yonder, among the gluttonous Germans, the beaver settles himself to make his war,3 so lay that worst of beasts upon the rim that closes in the sand with stone. In the void all his tail was quivering, twisting upwards its venomous fork, which like a scorpion's armed the point.

The Leader said: "Now needs must our way bend a little toward that wicked beast that is couching there." Therefore we descended on the right hand and took ten steps upon the verge quite to avoid the sand and flame. And when we had come to it, I see, a little farther on, people sitting upon the sand near to the void place.4

      Here the Master said to me: "In order that thou mayst bear away complete experience of this round, now go and see their condition. Let thy discourse there be brief. Till thou returnest I will speak with this one, that he may concede to us his strong shoulders."

Thus, still up by the extreme head of that seventh circle, all alone, I went where the sad people were sitting. Through the eyes their woe was bursting forth. This way and that they helped with their hands, sometimes against the vapors,5 and sometimes against the hot soil. Not otherwise do the dogs in summer, now with muzzle, now with paw, when they are bitten either by fleas, or flies, or gadflies. When I set my eyes on the face of some on whom the woeful fire falls, not one of them I recognized;6 but I perceived that from the neck of each was hanging a pouch, that had a certain color and a certain device,7 and thereupon it seems their eyes feed. And as I looking come among them, I saw upon a yellow purse azure that had the face and bearing of a lion.8 Then as the current of my look proceeded I saw another, red as blood, display a goose whiter than butter. And one, who had his little white bag marked with an azure and pregnant sow,9 said to me, "What art thou doing in this ditch? Now get thee gone, and since thou art still alive, know that my neighbor, Vitaliano, will sit here at my left side. With these Florentines am I, a Paduan; often they stun my ears shouting, "Let the sovereign cavalier come who will bring the pouch with the three goats."10 Then he twisted his mouth, and stuck out his tongue, like an ox that licks his nose.

And I, fearing lest longer stay might vex him who had admonished me to stay but little, turned back from these weary souls. I found my Leader, who had already mounted upon the croup of the fierce animal, and he said to me, "Now be strong and courageous; henceforth