FOOTNOTES:
[248] The Second: The Second Circle of the Inferno, and the first of punishment. The lower the circle, the more rigorous the penalty endured in it. Here is punished carnal sin.
[249] Minos: Son of Jupiter and King of Crete, so severely just as to be made after death one of the judges of the under world. He is degraded by Dante, as many other noble persons of the old mythology are by him, into a demon. Unlike the fallen angels of Milton, Dante’s devils have no interest of their own. Their only function is to help in working out human destinies.
[250] Downward hurled: Each falls to his proper place without lingering by the way. All through Inferno there is an absence of direct Divine interposition. It is ruled, as it were, by a course of nature. The sinners, compelled by a fatal impulse, advance to hear their doom, just as they fall inevitably one by one into Charon’s boat. Minos by a sort of devilish instinct sentences each sinner to his appropriate punishment. In Inf. xxvii. 127 we find the words in which Minos utters his judgment. In Inf. xxi. 29 a devil bears the sinner to his own place.
[251] Why also, etc.: Like Charon. If Minos represents conscience, as some would have it, Dante is here again assailed by misgivings as to his enterprise, and is quieted by reason in the person of Virgil.
[252] Thus ’tis willed, etc.: These two lines are the same as those to Charon, Inf. iii. 95, 96.
[253] Precipitous extreme: Opinions vary as to what is meant by ruina. As Dante is certainly still on the outer edge of the Second Circle or terrace, and while standing there hears distinctly the words the spirits say when they reach the ruina, it most likely denotes the steep slope falling from the First to the Second Circle. The spirits, driven against the wall which hems them in, burst into sharp lamentations against their irremediable fate.
[254] I understood, etc.: From the nature of the punishment, which, like all the others invented by Dante, bears some relation to the sin to which it is assigned. They who on earth failed to exercise self-restraint are beaten hither and thither by every wind that blows; and, as once they were blinded by passion, so now they see nothing plainly in that dim and obscure place. That Dante should assign the least grievous punishment of all to this sin throws light upon his views of life. In his eyes it had more than any other the excuse of natural bent, and had least of malice. Here, it must be remarked, are no seducers. For them a lower depth is reserved (Inf. xviii. See also Purg. xxvii. 15).
[255] The cranes: ‘The cranes are a kind of bird that go in a troop, as cavaliers go to battle, following one another in single file. And one of them goes always in front as their gonfalonier, guiding and leading them with its voice’ (Brunetto Latini, Tesoro, v. 27).
[256] What folk are these: The general crowd of sinners guilty of unlawful love are described as being close packed like starlings. The other troop, who go in single file like cranes, are those regarding whom Dante specially inquires; and they prove to be the nobler sort of sinners—lovers with something tragic or pathetic in their fate.
[257] The next: Dido, perhaps not named by Virgil because to him she owed her fame. For love of Æneas she broke the vow of perpetual chastity made on the tomb of her husband.
[258] At the last, etc.: Achilles, when about to espouse Polyxena, and when off his guard, was slain.
[259] Paris ... and Tristram: Paris of Troy, and the Tristram of King Arthur’s Table.
[260] So light: Denoting the violence of the passion to which they had succumbed.
[261] If none: If no Superior Power.
[262] Doves: The motion of the tempest-driven shades is compared to the flight of birds—starlings, cranes, and doves. This last simile prepares us for the tenderness of Francesca’s tale.
[263] Dido: Has been already indicated, and is now named. This association of the two lovers with Virgil’s Dido is a further delicate touch to engage our sympathy; for her love, though illicit, was the infirmity of a noble heart.
[264] Living creature: ‘Animal.’ No shade, but an animated body.
[265] Thy peace: Peace from all the doubts that assail him, and which have compelled him to the journey: peace, it may be, from temptation to sin cognate to her own. Even in the gloom of Inferno her great goodheartedness is left her—a consolation, if not a grace.
[266] Your demand: By a refinement of courtesy, Francesca, though addressing only Dante, includes Virgil in her profession of willingness to tell all they care to hear. But as almost always, he remains silent. It is not for his good the journey is being made.
[267] Native city: Ravenna. The speaker is Francesca, daughter of Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna. About the year 1275 she was married to Gianciotto (Deformed John) Malatesta, son of the lord of Rimini; the marriage, like most of that time in the class to which she belonged, being one of political convenience. She allowed her affections to settle on Paolo, her husband’s handsome brother; and Gianciotto’s suspicions having been aroused, he surprised the lovers and slew them on the spot. This happened at Pesaro. The association of Francesca’s name with Rimini is merely accidental. The date of her death is not known. Dante can never have set eyes on Francesca; but at the battle of Campaldino in 1289, where he was present, a troop of cavaliers from Pistoia fought on the Florentine side under the command of her brother Bernardino; and in the following year, Dante being then twenty-five years of age, her father, Guido, was Podesta in Florence. The Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna, whom Dante had for his last and most generous patron, was grandson of that elder Guido, and nephew of Francesca.
[268] To have lost it so: A husband’s right and duty were too well defined in the prevalent social code for her to complain that Gianciotto avenged himself. What she does resent is that she was left no breathing-space for repentance and farewells.
[269] Which absolves, etc.: Which compels whoever is beloved to love in return. Here is the key to Dante’s comparatively lenient estimate of the guilt of Francesca’s sin. See line 39, and Inf. xi. 83. The Church allowed no distinctions with regard to the lost. Dante, for his own purposes, invents a scale of guilt; and in settling the degrees of it he is greatly influenced by human feeling—sometimes by private likes and dislikes. The vestibule of the caitiffs, e.g., is his own creation.
[270] Caïna: The Division of the Ninth and lowest Circle, assigned to those treacherous to their kindred (Inf. xxxii. 58). Her husband was still living in 1300.—May not the words of this line be spoken by Paolo? It is as a fratricide even more than as the slayer of his wife that Gianciotto is to find his place in Caïna. The words are more in keeping with the masculine than the feminine character. They certainly jar somewhat with the gentler censure of line 102. And, immediately after, Dante speaks of what the ‘souls’ have said.
[271] Thy teacher: Boethius, one of Dante’s favourite authors (Convito ii. 13), says in his De Consol. Phil., ‘The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.’ But, granting that Dante found the idea in Boethius, it is clearly Virgil that Francesca means. She sees that Dante’s guide is a shade, and gathers from his grave passionless aspect that he is one condemned for ever to look back with futile regret upon his happier past.
[272] Lancelot: King Arthur’s famous knight, who was too bashful to make his love for Queen Guinivere known to her. Galahad, holding the secret of both, persuaded the Queen to make the first declaration of love at a meeting he arranged for between them. Her smile, or laugh, as she ‘took Lancelot by the chin and kissed him,’ assured her lover of his conquest. The Arthurian Romances were the favourite reading of the Italian nobles of Dante’s time.
[273] Galahad: From the part played by Galahad, or Galeotto, in the tale of Lancelot, his name grew to be Italian for Pander. The book, says Francesca, was that which tells of Galahad; and the author of it proved a very Galahad to us. The early editions of the Decameron bear the second title of ‘The Prince Galeotto.’
CANTO VI.
When I regained my senses, which had fled
At my compassion for the kindred two,
Which for pure sorrow quite had turned my head,
New torments and a crowd of sufferers new
I see around me as I move again,[274]
Where’er I turn, where’er I bend my view.
In the Third Circle am I of the rain
Which, heavy, cold, eternal, big with woe,
Doth always of one kind and force remain.
Large hail and turbid water, mixed with snow,10
Keep pouring down athwart the murky air;
And from the ground they fall on, stenches grow.
The savage Cerberus,[275] a monster drear,
Howls from his threefold throat with canine cries
Above the people who are whelmèd there.
Oily and black his beard, and red his eyes,
His belly huge: claws from his fingers sprout.
The shades he flays, hooks, rends in cruel wise.
Beat by the rain these, dog-like, yelp and shout,
And shield themselves in turn with either side;20
And oft[276] the wretched sinners turn about.
When we by Cerberus, great worm,[277] were spied,
He oped his mouths and all his fangs he showed,
While not a limb did motionless abide.
My Leader having spread his hands abroad,
Filled both his fists with earth ta’en from the ground,
And down the ravening gullets flung the load.
Then, as sharp set with hunger barks the hound,
But is appeased when at his meat he gnaws,
And, worrying it, forgets all else around;30
So with those filthy faces there it was
Of the fiend Cerberus, who deafs the crowd
Of souls till they from hearing fain would pause.
We, travelling o’er the spirits who lay cowed
And sorely by the grievous showers harassed,
Upon their semblances[278] of bodies trod.
Prone on the ground the whole of them were cast,
Save one of them who sat upright with speed
When he beheld that near to him we passed.
‘O thou who art through this Inferno led,[279]40
Me if thou canst,’ he asked me, ‘recognise;
For ere I was dismantled thou wast made.’
And I to him: ‘Thy present tortured guise
Perchance hath blurred my memory of thy face,
Until it seems I ne’er on thee set eyes.
But tell me who thou art, within this place
So cruel set, exposed to such a pain,
Than which, if greater, none has more disgrace.’
And he: ‘Thy city, swelling with the bane
Of envy till the sack is running o’er,50
Me in the life serene did once contain.
As Ciacco[280] me your citizens named of yore;
And for the damning sin of gluttony
I, as thou seest, am beaten by this shower.
No solitary woful soul am I,
For all of these endure the selfsame doom
For the same fault.’ Here ended his reply.
I answered him, ‘O Ciacco, with such gloom
Thy misery weighs me, I to weep am prone;
But, if thou canst, declare to what shall come60
The citizens[281] of the divided town.
Holds it one just man? And declare the cause
Why ’tis of discord such a victim grown.’
Then he to me: ‘After[282] contentious pause
Blood will be spilt; the boorish party[283] then
Will chase the others forth with grievous loss.
The former it behoves to fall again
Within three suns, the others to ascend,
Holpen[284] by him whose wiles ere now are plain.
Long time, with heads held high, they’ll make to bend
The other party under burdens dire,71
Howe’er themselves in tears and rage they spend.
There are two just[285] men, at whom none inquire.
Envy, and pride, and avarice, even these
Are the three sparks have set all hearts on fire.’
With this the tearful sound he made to cease:
And I to him, ‘Yet would I have thee tell—
And of thy speech do thou the gift increase—
Tegghiaio[286] and Farinata, honourable,
James Rusticucci,[287] Mosca, Arrigo,80
With all the rest so studious to excel
In good; where are they? Help me this to know;
Great hunger for the news hath seizèd me;
Delights them Heaven, or tortures Hell below?’
He said: ‘Among the blackest souls they be;
Them to the bottom weighs another sin.
Shouldst thou so far descend, thou mayst them see.
But when[288] the sweet world thou again dost win,
I pray thee bring me among men to mind;
No more I tell, nor new reply begin.’90
Then his straightforward eyes askance declined;
He looked at me a moment ere his head
He bowed; then fell flat ’mong the other blind.
‘Henceforth he waketh not,’ my Leader said,
‘Till he shall hear the angel’s trumpet sound,
Ushering the hostile Judge. By every shade
Its dismal sepulchre shall then be found,
Its flesh and ancient form it shall resume,
And list[289] what echoes in eternal round.’
So passed we where the shades and rainy spume100
Made filthy mixture, with steps taken slow;
Touching a little on the world to come.[290]
Wherefore I said: ‘Master, shall torments grow
After the awful sentence hath been heard,
Or lesser prove and not so fiercely glow?’
‘Repair unto thy Science,’[291] was his word;
‘Which tells, as things approach a perfect state
To keener joy or suffering they are stirred.
Therefore although this people cursed by fate
Ne’er find perfection in its full extent,110
To it they then shall more approximate
Than now.’[292] Our course we round the circle bent,
Still holding speech, of which I nothing say,
Until we came where down the pathway went:
There found we Plutus, the great enemy.