The Divine Comedy Volume I Part 13

[5] St. Francis came for his soul, as that of one of the brethren of his Order.

We pa.s.sed onward, I and my Leader, along the crag, far as upon the next arch that covers the ditch in which the fee is paid by those who, sowing discord, win their burden.

CANTO XXVIII. Eighth Circle: ninth pit: sowers of discord and schism.--Mahomet and Ali.--Fra Dolcino.--Pier da Medicina.

-Curio.--Mosca.--Bertrau de Born.

Who, even with words unfettered,[1] could ever tell in full of the blood and of the wounds that I now saw, though many times narrating? Every tongue a.s.suredly would come short, by reason of our speech and our memory that have small capacity to comprise so much.

[1] In prose.

If all the people were again a.s.sembled, that of old upon the fateful land of Apulia lamented for their blood shed by the Trojans,[1] and in the long war that made such high spoil of the rings,[2] as Livy writes, who erreth not; with those that, by resisting Robert Guiscard,[3] felt the pain of blows, and the rest whose bones are still heaped up at Ceperano,[4] where every Apullan was false, and there by Tagliacozzo,[5] where without arms the old Alardo conquered,--and one should show his limb pierced through, and one his lopped off, it would be nothing to equal the grisly mode of the ninth pit.

[1] The Romans, descendants of the Trojans.

[2] The spoils of the battle of Canon, in the second Punic War.

[3] The Norman conqueror and Duke of Apulia. He died in 1085.

[4] Where, in 1266, the leaders of the army of Manfred, King of Apulia and Sicily, treacherously went over to Charles of Anjou.

[5] Here, in 1265, Conradin, the nephew of Manfred, was defeated and taken prisoner. The victory was won by a stratagem devised by Count Erard de Valery.

Truly cask, by losing mid-board or cross-piece, is not so split open as one I saw cleft from the chin to where the wind is broken: between his legs were hanging his entrails, his inner parts were visible, and the dismal sack that makes ordure of what is swallowed. Whilst all on seeing him I fix myself, he looked at me, and with his hands opened his breast, saying, "Now see how I rend myself, see how mangled is Mahomet. Ali [1] goeth before me weeping, cleft in the face from chin to forelock; and all the others whom thou seest here were, when living, sowers of scandal and of schism, and therefore are they so cleft. A devil is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the doleful road, because the wounds are closed up ere one pa.s.ses again before him. But thou, who art thou, that musest on the crag, perchance to delay going to the punishment that is adjudged on thine own accusations?" [2] "Nor death hath reached him yet,"

replied my Master, "nor doth sin lead him to torment him; but, in order to give him full experience, it behoves me, who am dead, to lead him through h.e.l.l down here, from circle to circle; and this is true as that I speak to thee."

[1] Cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet, and himself the head of a schism.

[1] When the soul appears before Minos, every sin is confessed.

See Canto V.

More than a hundred there were that, when they heard him, stopped in the ditch to look at me, forgetting the torment in their wonder. "Now, say to Fra Dolcino,[1] then, thou who perchance shalt shortly see the sun, if he wish not soon to follow me here, so to arm himself with supplies that stress of snow bring not the victory to the Novarese, which otherwise to gain would not be easy":--after he had lifted one foot to go on Mahomet said to me these words, then on the ground he stretched it to depart.

[1] A noted heretic and reformer, who for two years maintained himself in Lombardy against the forces of the Pope, but finally, being reduced by famine in time of snow, in 1807, was taken captive and burnt at Novara.

Another who had his throat pierced and his nose cut off up under his brows, and had but one ear only, having stopped to look in wonder with the rest, before the rest opened his gullet, which outwardly was all crimson, and said, "O thou whom sin condemns not, and whom of old I saw above in the Latian land, if too great resemblance deceive me not, remember Pier da Medicina [1] if ever thou return to see the sweet plain that from Vercelli slopes to Marcabb, and make known to the two best of Fano, to Messer Guido and likewise to Angiolello,[2] that, if foresight here be not vain, they will be cast forth from their vessel and drowned near to the Cattolica, by treachery of a fell tyrant. Between the islands of Cyprus and Majorca Neptune never saw so great a crime, not of the pirates, nor of the Argolic people. That traitor who sees only with one eye, and holds the city from sight of which one who is here with me would fain have fasted,[3] will make them come to parley with him; then will act so that against the wind of Focara[4] they will not need or vow or prayer." And I to him, "Show to me and declare, if thou wishest that I carry up news of thee, who is he of the bitter sight?"[5] Then he put his hand on the jaw of one of his companions, and opened the mouth of him, crying, "This is he, and he speaks not; this outcast stifled the doubt in Caesar, by affirming that the man prepared always suffered harm from delay." Oh, how dismayed, with his tongue slit in his gorge, seemed to me Curio,[6] who in speech had been so hardy!

[1] Medicina is a town in the Bolognese district. Piero was a fosterer of discord.

[2] Guido del Ca.s.sero and Angiolello da Cagnano, treacherously drowned by order of the one-eyed Malatestino, lord of Rimini.

[3] The city of Rimini, which Curio would wish never to have seen.

[4] A high foreland near the Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano, whence often fell dangerous squalls.

[5] He to whom the sight of Rimini had been bitter.

[6] Curio the Tribune, banished from Rome, fled to Caesar delaying to cross the Rubicon, and urged him on, with the argument, according to Lucan, "Tolle moras, semper nocuit differre paratis." Phars. i. 281.

And one who had both hands lopped off, lifting the stumps through the murky air so that the blood made his face foul, cried out, "Thou shalt remember Mosca,[1] too, who said, alas! 'Thing done has an end,' which was the seed of ill for the Tuscan people."

And I added thereto, "And death to thine own race." Whereat he, acc.u.mulating woe on woe, went away like a person sad and distracted.

[1] In 1215 one of the Buondelmonti, plighted to a maiden of the Amidei, broke faith, and engaged himself to a damsel of the Donati. The family of the girl who had been thus slighted took counsel how to avenge the affront, and Mosca de' Lamberti gave the ill advice to murder the young Buondelmonte. The murder was the beginning of long woe to Florence, and of the division of her people into Guelphs and Ghibellines.

But I remained to look at the crowd, and I saw a thing that I should be afraid, without more proof, only to tell, were it not that conscience rea.s.sures me, the good companion that emboldens man under the hauberk of feeling himself pure. I saw in truth, and still I seem to see it, a trunk without a head going along even as the others of the dismal flock were going. And it was holding the cut-off head by its hair, dangling in hand like a lantern. And it gazed on us, and said, "O me!" Of itself it was making for itself a lamp; and they were two in one, and one in two. How it can be He knows who so ordains. When it was right at the foot of the bridge, it lifted its arm high with the whole head, in order to approach its words to us, which were, "Now see the dire punishment, thou that, breathing, goest seeing the dead: see thou if any other is great as this! And that thou mayest carry news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born,[1] he that gave to the young king the ill encouragements. I made father and son rebellious to each other. Ahithophel did not more with Absalom and with David by his wicked goadings. Because I divided persons so united, I bear my brain, alas! divided from its source which is in this trunk. Thus retaliation is observed in me."

[1] The famous troubadour who incited the young Prince Henry to rebellion against his father, Henry II. of England. The prince died in 1183.

CANTO XXIX. Eighth Circle ninth pit.--Geri del Bello.--Tenth pit: falsifiers of all sorts.--Griffolino of Arezzo.--Capocchio.

The many people and the diverse wounds had so inebriated mine eyes that they were fain to stay for weeping. But Virgil said to me, "What art thou still watching? why is thy sight still fixed down there among the dismal mutilated shades? Thou hast not done so at the other pits; consider if thou thinkest to count them, that the valley circles two and twenty miles; and already the moon is beneath our feet; the time is little now that is conceded to us, and other things are to be seen than thou seest." "If thou hadst," replied I thereupon, "attended to the reason why I was looking perhaps thou wouldst have permitted me yet to stay."

Meanwhile my Leader went on, and I behind him went, already waking reply, and adding, "Within that cavern where I just now was holding my eyes so fixedly, I think that a spirit of my own blood weeps the sin that down there costs so dear." Then said the Master, "Let not thy thought henceforth reflect on him; attend to other thing, and let him there remain, for I saw him at the foot of the little bridge pointing at thee, and threatening fiercely with his finger, and I heard him called Geri del Bello.[1] Thou wert then so completely engaged on him who of old held Hautefort[2] that thou didst not look that way till he had departed." "O my Leader," said I, "the violent death which is not yet avenged for him by any who is sharer in the shame made him indignant, wherefore, as I deem, he went on without speaking to me, and thereby has he made me pity him the more."

[1] A cousin or uncle of Dante's father, of whom little is known but what may be inferred from Dante's words and from the place he a.s.signs him in h.e.l.l.

[2] Bertran de Born, lord of Hautefort.

Thus we spake far as the place on the crag which first shows the next valley, if more light were there, quite to the bottom. When we were above the last cloister of Malebolge so that its lay brothers could appear to our sight, divers lamentations pierced me, that had their arrows barbed with pity; wherefore I covered my ears with my hands.

Such pain as there would be if, between July and September, from the hospitals of Valdichiana and of Maremma and of Sardinia[1]

the sick should all be in one ditch together, such was there here; and such stench came forth therefrom, as is wont to come from putrescent limbs. We descended upon the last bank of the long crag, ever to the left hand, and then my sight became more vivid down toward the bottom, where the ministress of the High Lord--infallible Justice--punishes the falsifiers whom on earth she registers.

[1] Unhealthy regions, noted for the prevalence of malarial fevers in summer.

I do not think it was a greater sorrow to see the whole people in Egina sick, when the air was so full of pestilence that the animals, even to the little worm, all fell dead (and afterwards the ancient people, according as the poets hold for sure, were restored by seed of ants), than it was to see the spirits languis.h.i.+ng in different heaps through that dark valley. This one over the belly, and that over the shoulders of another was lying, and this one, crawling, was s.h.i.+fting himself along the dismal path. Step by step we went without speech, looking at and listening to the sick, who could not lift their persons.

I saw two seated leaning on each other, as pan is leaned against pan to warm, spotted from head to foot with scabs; and never did I see currycomb plied by a boy for whom his lord is waiting nor by one who keeps awake unwillingly, as each often plied the bite of his nails upon himself, because of the great rage of his itching which has no other relief. And the nails dragged down the scab, even as a knife the scales of bream or of other fish that may have them larger.

"O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thyself," began my Leader unto one of them, "and who sometimes makest pincers of them, tell me if any Latian[1] is among those who are here within: so may thy nails suffice thee eternally for this work."

"Latians are we whom here thou seest so defaced, both of us,"

replied one weeping, "but thou, who art thou that hast asked of us?" And the Leader said, "I am one that descends with this living man down from ledge to ledge, and I intend to show h.e.l.l to him." Then their mutual support was broken; and trembling each turned to me, together with others that heard him by rebound. The good Master inclined himself wholly toward me, saying, "Say to them what thou wilt;" and I began, since he was willing, "So may memory of you not steal away in the first world from human minds, but may it live under many suns, tell me who ye are, and of what race; let not your disfiguring and loathsome punishment fright you from disclosing yourselves unto me." "I was from Arezzo,"

replied one of them,[2] "and Albero of Siena had me put in the fire; but that for which I died brings me not here. True it is that I said to him, speaking in jest, I knew how to raise myself through the air in flight, and he, who had vain desire and little wit, wished that I should show him the art, and only because I did not make him Daedalus, made me be burned by one[3] that held him as a son; but to the last pit of the ten, for the alchemy that I practiced in the world, Minos, to whom it is not allowed to err, condemned me." And I said to the Poet, "Now was ever people so vain as the Sienese? surely not so the French by much."

Whereon the other leprous one, who heard me, replied to my words, "Except[4] Stricca who knew how to make moderate expenditure, and Niccolo, who first invented the costly custom of the clove[5] in the garden where such seed takes root; and except the brigade in which Caccia of Asciano wasted his vineyard and his great wood, and the Abbagliato showed his wit. But that thou mayest know who thus seconds thee against the Sienese, so sharpen thine eye toward me that my face may answer well to thee, so shalt thou see that I am the shade of Capocchio, who falsified the metals by alchemy; and thou shouldst recollect, if I descry thee aright, how I was a good ape of nature."

[1] Italian.