The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 17

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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage haste; While yet he chafes 'twere well thou down shouldst go.'

So we descended by the slippery waste[396]

Of s.h.i.+vered 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 h.e.l.l, 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 abyss 40 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 seen 80 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 bulicame[411] seemed to stand.

Thence a lone shade to us he pointed out Saying: 'In G.o.d'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 pa.s.sage[413] to the other sh.o.r.e.

'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 s.e.xtus: and for ever drains Tears out of Rinier of Corneto[416] pressed And Rinier Pazzo[417] in that boiling ma.s.s, Whose brigandage did so the roads infest.'

Then turned he back alone, the ford to pa.s.s.

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 Pasiphae; 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 Pasiphae 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: Praedamque 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 pa.s.sed. 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 bulicame_: The stream of boiling blood is probably named from the bulicame, or hot spring, best known to Dante--that near Viterbo (see _Inf._ xiv. 79). And it may be that the mention of the bulicame suggests the reference at line 119.

[412] _In G.o.d's house_: Literally, 'In the bosom of G.o.d.' 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 pa.s.sage_: 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. _s.e.xtus_: 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.