The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 32

[716] _Apulia_: The south-eastern district of Italy, owing to its situation a frequent battle-field in ancient and modern times.

[717] _Rome_: 'Trojans' in most MSS.; and then the Romans are described as descended from Trojans. The reference may be to the defeat of the Apulians with considerable slaughter by P. Decius Mus, or to their losses in general in the course of the Samnite war.

[718] _War procrastinate_: The second Punic war lasted fully fifteen years, and in the course of it the battle of Cannae was gained by Hannibal, where so many Roman knights fell that the spoil of rings amounted to a peck.

[719] _Guiscard_: One of the Norman conquerors of the regions which up to our own time const.i.tuted the kingdom of Naples. In Apulia he did much fighting against Lombards, Saracens, and Greeks. He is found by Dante in Paradise among those who fought for the faith (_Par._ xviii. 48). His death happened in Cephalonia in 1085, at the age of seventy, when he was engaged on an expedition against Constantinople.

[720] _Ceperan_: In the swift and decisive campaign undertaken by Charles of Anjou against Manfred, King of Sicily and Naples, the first victory was obtained at Ceperano; but it was won owing to the treachery of Manfred's lieutenant, and not by the sword. The true battle was fought at Benevento (_Purg._ iii. 128). Ceperano may be named by Dante as the field where the defeat of Manfred was virtually begun, and where the Apulians first failed in loyalty to their gallant king. Dante was a year old at the time of Manfred's overthrow (1266).

[721] _Tagliacozzo_: The crown Charles had won from Manfred he had to defend against Manfred's nephew Conradin (grandson and last representative of Frederick II. and the legitimate heir to the kingdom of Sicily), whom, in 1268, he defeated near Tagliacozzo in the Abruzzi.

He made his victory the more complete by acting on the advice of Alardo or Erard de Valery, an old Crusader, to hold good part of his force in reserve. Charles wrote to the Pope that the slaughter was so great as far to exceed that at Benevento. The feet of all the low-born prisoners not slain on the field were cut off, while the gentlemen were beheaded or hanged.

[722] _Mahomet_: It has been objected to Dante by M. Littre that he treats Mahomet, the founder of a new religion, as a mere schismatic. The wonder would have been had he dwelt on the good qualities of the Prophet at a time when Islam still threatened Europe. He goes on the fact that Mahomet and his followers rent great part of the East and South from Christendom; and for this the Prophet is represented as being mutilated in a sorer degree than the other schismatics.

[723] _Ali_: Son-in-law of Mahomet.

[724] _Fra Dolcin_: At the close of the thirteenth century, Boniface being Pope, the general discontent with the corruption of the higher clergy found expression in the north of Italy in the foundation of a new sect, whose leader was Fra Dolcino. What he chiefly was--enthusiast, reformer, or impostor--it is impossible to ascertain; all we know of him being derived from writers in the Papal interest. Among other crimes he was charged with that of teaching the lawfulness of telling an Inquisitor a lie to save your life, and with prophesying the advent of a pious Pope. A holy war on a small scale was preached against him. After suffering the extremities of famine, snowed up as he was among the mountains, he was taken prisoner and cruelly put to death (1307). It may have been in order to save himself from being suspected of sympathy with him, that Dante, whose hatred of Boniface and the New Pharisees was equal to Dolcino's, provides for him by antic.i.p.ation a place with Mahomet.

[725] _Pier da Medicin_: Medicina is in the territory of Bologna. Piero is said to have stirred up dissensions between the Polentas of Ravenna and the Malatestas of Rimini.

[726] _From Vercelli, etc._: From the district of Vercelli to where the castle of Marcab once stood, at the mouth of the Po, is a distance of two hundred miles. The plain is Lombardy.

[727] _Majolica, etc._: On all the Mediterranean, from Cyprus in the east to Majorca in the west.

[728] _The traitor, etc._: The one-eyed traitor is Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Young Mastiff of the preceding Canto. He invited the two chief citizens of Fano, named in the text, to hold a conference with him, and procured that on their way they should be pitched overboard opposite the castle of Cattolica, which stood between Fano and Rimini.

This is said to have happened in 1304.

[729] _Focara_: The name of a promontory near Cattolica, subject to squalls. The victims were never to double the headland.

[730] _Curio_: The Roman Tribune who, according to Lucan--the incident is not historically correct--found Caesar hesitating whether to cross the Rubicon, and advised him: _Tolle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis_.

'No delay! when men are ready they always suffer by putting off.' The pa.s.sage of the Rubicon was counted as the beginning of the Civil War.--Curio gets scant justice, seeing that in Dante's view Caesar in all he did was only carrying out the Divine purpose regarding the Empire.

[731] _Mosca_: In 1215 one of the Florentine family of the Buondelmonti jilted a daughter of the Amidei. When these with their friends met to take counsel touching revenge for the insult, Mosca, one of the Uberti or of the Lamberti, gave his opinion in the proverb, _Cosa fatta ha capo_: 'A thing once done is done with.' The hint was approved of, and on the following Easter morning the young Buondelmonte, as, mounted on a white steed and dressed in white he rode across the Ponte Vecchio, was dragged to the ground and cruelly slain. All the great Florentine families took sides in the feud, and it soon widened into the civil war between Florentine Guelf and Ghibeline.

[732] _Bertrand de Born_: Is mentioned by Dante in his Treatise _De Vulgari Eloquio_, ii. 2, as specially the poet of warlike deeds. He was a Gascon n.o.ble who used his poetical gift very much to stir up strife.

For patron he had the Prince Henry, son of Henry II. of England. Though Henry never came to the throne he was, during his father's lifetime, crowned as his successor, and was known as the young King. After the death of the Prince, Bertrand was taken prisoner by the King, and, according to the legend, was loaded with favours because he had been so true a friend to his young master. That he had a turn for fomenting discord is shown by his having also led a revolt in Aquitaine against Richard I.--All the old MSS. and all the earlier commentators read _Re Giovanni_, King John; _Re Giovane_, the young King, being a comparatively modern emendation. In favour of adopting this it may be mentioned that in his poems Bertrand calls Prince Henry _lo Reys joves_, the young King; that it was Henry and not John that was his friend and patron; and that in the old _Cento Novelle_ Henry is described as the young King: in favour of the older reading, that John as well as his brother was a rebel to Henry; and that the line is hurt by the change from _Giovanni_ to _Giovane_. Considering that Dante almost certainly wrote _Giovanni_ it seems most reasonable to suppose that he may have confounded the _Re Giovane_ with King John.

[733] _From what, etc._: The spinal cord, as we should now say, though Dante may have meant the heart.

[734] _Pain for pain_: In the City of Dis we found the heresiarchs, those who lead others to think falsely. The lower depth of the Malebolge is reserved for such as needlessly rend any Divinely-const.i.tuted order of society, civil or religious. Conduct counts more with Dante than opinion--in this case.

CANTO XXIX.

The many folk and wounds of divers kind Had flushed mine eyes and set them on the flow, Till I to weep and linger had a mind; But Virgil said to me: 'Why gazing so?

Why still thy vision fastening on the crew Of dismal shades dismembered there below?

Thou didst not[735] thus the other Bolgias view: Think, if to count them be thine enterprise, The valley circles twenty miles and two.[736]

Beneath our feet the moon[737] already lies; 10 The time[738] wears fast away to us decreed; And greater things than these await thine eyes.'

I answered swift: 'Hadst thou but given heed To why it was my looks were downward bent, To yet more stay thou mightest have agreed.'

My Guide meanwhile was moving, and I went Behind him and continued to reply, Adding: 'Within the moat on which intent I now was gazing with such eager eye I trow a spirit weeps, one of my kin, 20 The crime whose guilt is rated there so high.'

Then said the Master: 'Henceforth hold thou in Thy thoughts from wandering to him: new things claim Attention now, so leave him with his sin.

Him saw I at thee from the bridge-foot aim A threatening finger, while he made thee known; Geri del Bello[739] heard I named his name.

But, at the time, thou wast with him alone Engrossed who once held Hautefort,[740] nor the place Didst look at where he was; so pa.s.sed he on.' 30 'O Leader mine! death violent and base, And not avenged as yet,' I made reply, 'By any of his partners in disgrace, Made him disdainful; therefore went he by And spake not with me, if I judge aright; Which does the more my ruth[741] intensify.'

So we conversed till from the cliff we might Of the next valley have had prospect good Down to the bottom, with but clearer light.[742]

When we above the inmost Cloister stood 40 Of Malebolge, and discerned the crew Of such as there compose the Brotherhood,[743]

So many lamentations pierced me through-- And barbed with pity all the shafts were sped-- My open palms across my ears I drew.

From Valdichiana's[744] every spital bed All ailments to September from July, With all in Maremma and Sardinia[745] bred, Heaped in one pit a sickness might supply Like what was here; and from it rose a stink 50 Like that which comes from limbs that putrefy.

Then we descended by the utmost brink Of the long ridge[746]--leftward once more we fell-- Until my vision, quickened now, could sink Deeper to where Justice infallible, The minister of the Almighty Lord, Chastises forgers doomed on earth[747] to h.e.l.l.

aegina[748] could no sadder sight afford, As I believe (when all the people ailed And all the air was so with sickness stored, 60 Down to the very worms creation failed And died, whereon the pristine folk once more, As by the poets is for certain held, From seed of ants their family did restore), Than what was offered by that valley black With plague-struck spirits heaped upon the floor.

Supine some lay, each on the other's back Or stomach; and some crawled with crouching gait For change of place along the doleful track.

Speechless we moved with step deliberate, 70 With eyes and ears on those disease crushed down Nor left them power to lift their bodies straight.

I saw two sit, shoulder to shoulder thrown As plate holds plate up to be warmed, from head Down to the feet with scurf and scab o'ergrown.

Nor ever saw I curry-comb so plied By varlet with his master standing by, Or by one kept unwillingly from bed, As I saw each of these his scratchers ply Upon himself; for nought else now avails 80 Against the itch which plagues them furiously.

The scab[749] they tore and loosened with their nails, As with a knife men use the bream to strip, Or any other fish with larger scales.

'Thou, that thy mail dost with thy fingers rip,'

My Guide to one of them began to say, 'And sometimes dost with them as pincers nip, Tell, is there any here from Italy Among you all, so may thy nails suffice For this their work to all eternity.'[750] 90 'Latians are both of us in this disguise Of wretchedness,' weeping said one of those; 'But who art thou, demanding on this wise?'

My Guide made answer: 'I am one who goes Down with this living man from steep to steep That I to him Inferno may disclose.'

Then broke their mutual prop; trembling with deep Amazement each turned to me, with the rest To whom his words had echoed in the heap.

Me the good Master cordially addressed: 100 'Whate'er thou hast a mind to ask them, say.'

And since he wished it, thus I made request: 'So may remembrance of you not decay Within the upper world out of the mind Of men, but flourish still for many a day, As ye shall tell your names and what your kind: Let not your vile, disgusting punishment To full confession make you disinclined.'

'An Aretine,[751] I to the stake was sent By Albert of Siena,' one confessed, 110 'But came not here through that for which I went To death. 'Tis true I told him all in jest, I through the air could float in upward gyre; And he, inquisitive and dull at best, Did full instruction in the art require: I could not make him Daedalus,[752] so then His second father sent me to the fire.

But to the deepest Bolgia of the ten, For alchemy which in the world I wrought, The unerring Minos doomed me.' 'Now were men E'er found,' I of the Poet asked, 'so fraught 121 With vanity as are the Sienese?[753]

French vanity to theirs is surely nought.'

The other leper hearing me, to these My words: 'Omit the Stricca,'[754] swift did shout, 'Who knew his tastes with temperance to please; And Nicholas,[755] who earliest found out The lavish custom of the clove-stuffed roast Within the garden where such seed doth sprout.

Nor count the club[756] where Caccia d' Ascian lost 130 Vineyards and woods; 'mid whom away did throw His wit the Abbagliato.[757] But whose ghost It is, that thou mayst weet, that backs thee so Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eyes That thou my countenance mayst surely know.

In me Capocchio's[758] shade thou'lt recognise, Who forged false coin by means of alchemy: Thou must remember, if I well surmise, How I of nature very ape could be.'

FOOTNOTES:

[735] _Thou didst not, etc._: It is a noteworthy feature in the conduct of the Poem that when Dante has once gained sufficient knowledge of any group in the Inferno he at once detaches his mind from it, and, carrying on as little arrear of pity as he can, gives his thoughts to further progress on the journey. The departure here made from his usual behaviour is presently accounted for. Virgil knows why he lingers, but will not seem to approve of the cause.

[736] _Twenty miles and two_: The Ninth Bolgia has a circ.u.mference of twenty-two miles, and as the procession of the shades is slow it would indeed involve a protracted halt to wait till all had pa.s.sed beneath the bridge. Virgil asks ironically if he wishes to count them all. This precise detail, taken along with one of the same kind in the following Canto (line 86), has suggested the attempt to construct the Inferno to a scale. Dante wisely suffers us to forget, if we will, that--taking the diameter of the earth at 6500 miles, as given by him in the _Convito_--he travels from the surface of the globe to the centre at the rate of more than two miles a minute, counting downward motion alone. It is only when he has come to the lowest rings that he allows himself to give details of size; and probably the mention of the extent of the Ninth Bolgia, which comes on the reader as a surprise, is thrown out in order to impress on the imagination some sense of the enormous extent of the regions through which the pilgrim has already pa.s.sed. Henceforth he deals in exact measurement.

[737] _The moon_: It is now some time after noon on the Sat.u.r.day. The last indication of time was at Canto xxi. 112.

[738] _The time, etc._: Before nightfall they are to complete their exploration of the Inferno, and they will have spent twenty-four hours in it.

[739] _Geri del Bello_: One of the Alighieri, a full cousin of Dante's father. He was guilty of encouraging dissension, say the commentators; which is to be clearly inferred from the place a.s.signed him in Inferno: but they do not agree as to how he met his death, nor do they mention the date of it. 'Not avenged till thirty years after,' says Landino; but does not say if this was after his death or the time at which Dante writes.

[740] _Hautefort_: Bertrand de Born's castle in Gascony.

[741] _My ruth_: Enlightened moralist though Dante is, he yet shows himself man of his age enough to be keenly alive to the extremest claims of kindred; and while he condemns the _vendetta_ by the words put into Virgil's mouth, he confesses to a feeling of meanness not to have practised it on behoof of a distant relative. There is a high art in this introduction of Geri del Bello. Had they conferred together Dante must have seemed either cruel or pusillanimous, reproaching or being reproached. As it is, all the poetry of the situation comes out the stronger that they do not meet face to face: the threatening finger, the questions hastily put to Geri by the astonished shades, and his disappearance under the dark vault when by the law of his punishment the sinner can no longer tarry.

[742] _With but clearer light_: They have crossed the rampart dividing the Ninth Bolgia from the Tenth, of which they would now command a view, were it not so dark.