The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 6

[1] This stooping is the symbol of Dante's consciousness of pride as his own besetting sin.

[2] Oderisi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna were both eminent in the art called miniare in Italian, enluminer in French.

[3] Ages in which no progress is made.

[4] The first Guido is doubtless Guido Guinicelli, whom Dante calls (see Canto XXVI.) his master; the other probably Dante's friend, Guido Cavalcanti.

[5] Dante's words are pappo and dindi, childish terms for "bread"

and "money."

[6] The mad Florentine people were utterly cast down in 1260, at the battle of Montaperti.

[7] The sun.

[8] Provinzano Salvani was one of the chief supporters of the Ghibelline cause in Tuscany. He was a man of great qualities and capacity, but proud and presumptuous. Defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Colle, in 1269, he was beheaded.

[9] The Campo of Siena is her chief public square and marketplace, set round with palaces. The friend of Provinzano is said by the old commentators to have fought for Conradin against Charles of Anjou, and, being taken captive, to have been condemned to death. His ransom was fixed at ten thousand florins.

Provinzano, not being able to pay this sum from his own means, took his seat in the Campo and humiliated himself to beg of the pa.s.sers-by.

[10] The meaning of the dark words seems to be: Exile and poverty will compel thee to beg, and begging to tremble in every vein.

[11] This deed of humility and charity released him from the necessity of tarrying outside the gate of Purgatory.

CANTO XII. First Ledge: the Proud.--Examples of the punishment of Pride graven on the pavement.--Meeting with an Angel who removes one of the P's.--Ascent to the Second Ledge.

Side by side, like oxen who go yoked, I went on with that burdened spirit so long as the sweet Pedagogue allowed it; but when he said, "Leave him, and come on, for here it is well that, both with sail and oars, each as much as he can should urge his bark," I straitened up my body again, as is required for walking, although my thoughts remained both bowed down and abated.

I was moving on, and following willingly the steps of my Master, and both now were showing how light we were, when he said to me, "Turn thine eyes downward; it will be well for thee, in order to solace the way, to look upon the bed of thy footprints." As above the buried, so that there may be memory of them, their tombs in earth bear inscribed that which they were before,--whence oftentimes is weeping for them there, through the p.r.i.c.king of remembrance, which only to the pious gives the spur,--so saw I figured there, but of better semblance in respect of skill, all that for pathway juts out from the mountain.

I saw him who was created more n.o.ble than any other creature,[1]

down from heaven with lightning flash descending, at one side.

[1] Lucifer.

I saw Briareus[1] transfixed by the celestial bolt, lying at the other side, heavy upon the earth in mortal chill. I saw Thymbraeus,[2] I saw Pallas and Mars, still armed, around their father, gazing at the scattered limbs of the giants.

[1] Examples from cla.s.sic and biblical mythology alternate.

[2] Apollo, so called from his temple at Thymbra, not far from Troy, where Achilles is said to have slain Paris. Virgil (Georgics, iv. 323) uses this epithet.

I saw Nimrod at the foot of his great toil, as if bewildered, and gazing at the people who in s.h.i.+nar had with him been proud.

O Niobe! with what grieving eyes did I see thee portrayed upon the road between thy seven and seven children slain!

O Saul! how on thine own sword here didst thou appear dead on Gilboa, that after felt not rain or dew![1]

[1] I Samuel, x.x.xi. 4, and 2 Samuel, i. 24.

O mad Arachne,[1] so I saw thee already half spider, wretched on the shreds of the work that to thy harm by thee was made!

[1] Changed to a spider by Athena, whom she had challenged to a trial of skill at the loom.

O Rehoboam! here thine image seems not now to threaten, but full of fear, a chariot bears it away before any one pursues it.[1]

[1] 1 Kings, xii. 13-18.

The hard pavement showed also how Alcmaeon made the ill-fated ornament seem costly to his mother.[1]

[1] Amphiaraus, the soothsayer, foreseeing his own death if he went to the Theban war, hid himself to avoid being forced to go.

His wife, Eriphyle, bribed by a golden necklace, betrayed his hiding-place, and was killed by her son Alcmaeon, for thus bringing about his father's death.

It showed how his sons threw themselves upon Sennacherib within the temple, and how they left him there dead.[1]

[1] 2 Kings, xix. 37.

It showed the ruin and the cruel slaughter that Tomyris wrought, when she said to Cyrus, "For blood thou hast thirsted, and with blood I fill thee."

[1] Herodotus (i. 214) tells how Tomyris, Queen of the Ma.s.sagetae, having defeated and slain Cyrus, filled a skin full of human blood, and plunged his head in it with words such as Dante reports, and which he derived from Orosius, Histor. ii. 7.

It showed how the a.s.syrians fled in rout after Holofernes was killed, and also the remainder of the punishment.[1]

[1] Judith, xv. 1.

I saw Troy in ashes, and in caverns. O Ilion! how cast down and abject the image which is there discerned showed thee!

What master has there been of pencil or of style that could draw the shadows and the lines which there would make every subtile genius wonder? Dead the dead, and the living seemed alive. He who saw the truth saw not better than I all that I trod on while I went bent down.--Now be ye proud, and go with haughty look, ye sons of Eve, and bend not down your face so that ye may see your evil path!

More of the mountain had now been circled by us, and of the sun's course far more spent, than my mind, not disengaged, was aware, when he, who always in advance attent was going on, began, "Lift up thy head; there is no more time for going thus abstracted. See there an Angel, who is hastening to come toward us: see how from the service of the day the sixth hand-maiden returns.[1] With reverence adorn thine acts and thy face so that he may delight to direct us upward. Think that this day never dawns again."

[1] The sixth hour of the day is coming to its end, near noon.

I was well used to his admonition ever to lose no time, so that on that theme he could not speak to me obscurely.

To us came the beautiful creature, clothed in white, and in his face such as seems the tremulous morning star. Its arms it opened, and then it opened its wings; it said, "Come: here at hand are the steps, and easily henceforth one ascends. To this invitation very few come. O human race, born to fly upward, why before a little wind dost thou so fall?"

He led us to where the rock was cut; here he struck his wings across my forehead,[1] then promised me secure progress.