FOOTNOTES:
[274] As I move again: In his swoon he has been conveyed from the Second Circle down to the Third.
[275] Cerberus: In the Greek mythology Cerberus is the watch-dog of the under world. By Dante he is converted into a demon, and with his three throats, canine voracity, and ugly inflamed bulk, is appropriately set to guard the entrance to the circle of the gluttonous and wine-bibbers.
[276] And oft, etc.: On entering the circle the shades are seized and torn by Cerberus; once over-nice in how they fed, they are now treated as if they were food for dogs. But their enduring pain is to be subjected to every kind of physical discomfort. Their senses of hearing, touch, and smell are assailed by the opposite of what they were most used to enjoy at their luxurious feasts.
[277] Great worm: Though human in a monstrous form, Cerberus is so called as being a disgusting brute.
[278] Semblances, etc.: ‘Emptiness which seems to be a person.’ To this conception of the shades as only seeming to have bodies, Dante has difficulty in remaining true. For instance, at line 101 they mix with the sleet to make a sludgy mass; and cannot therefore be impalpable.
[279] Ciacco at once perceives by the weight of Dante’s tread that he is a living man.
[280] Ciacco: The name or nickname of a Florentine wit, and, in his day, a great diner-out. Boccaccio, in his commentary, says that, though poor, Ciacco associated with men of birth and wealth, especially such as ate and drank delicately. In the Decameron, ix. 8, he is introduced as being on such terms with the great Corso Donati as to be able to propose himself to dinner with him. Clearly he was not a bad fellow, and his pitiful case, perhaps contrasted with the high spirits and jovial surroundings in which he was last met by Dante, almost, though not quite, win a tear from the stern pilgrim.
[281] The citizens, etc.: Dante eagerly confers on Florentine politics with the first Florentine he encounters in Inferno.
[282] After, etc.: In the following nine lines the party history of Florence for two years after the period of the poem (March 1300) is roughly indicated. The city was divided into two factions—the Whites, led by the great merchant Vieri dei Cerchi, and the Blacks, led by Corso Donati, a poor and turbulent noble. At the close of 1300 there was a bloody encounter between the more violent members of the two parties. In May 1301 the Blacks were banished. In the autumn of that year they returned in triumph to the city in the train of Charles of Valois, and got the Whites banished in April 1302, within three years, that is, of the poet’s talk with Ciacco. Dante himself was associated with the Whites, but not as a violent partisan; for though he was a strong politician no party quite answered his views. From the middle of June till the middle of August 1300 he was one of the Priors. In the course of 1301 he is believed to have gone on an embassy to Rome to persuade the Pope to abstain from meddling in Florentine affairs. He never entered Florence again, being condemned virtually to banishment in January 1302.
[283] The boorish party: la parte selvaggia. The Whites; but what is exactly meant by selvaggia is not clear. Literally it is ‘woodland,’ and some say it refers to the Cerchi having originally come from a well-wooded district; which is absurd. Nor, taking the word in its secondary meaning of savage, does it apply better to one party than another—not so well, perhaps, to the Whites as to the Blacks. Villani also terms the Cerchi salvatichi (viii. 39), and in a connection where it may mean rude, ill-mannered. I take it that Dante here indulges in a gibe at the party to which he once belonged, but which, ere he began the Comedy, he had quite broken with. In Parad. xvii. 62 he terms the members of it ‘wicked and stupid.’ The sneer in the text would come well enough from the witty and soft-living Ciacco.
[284] Holpen, etc.: Pope Boniface, already intriguing to gain the preponderance in Florence, which for a time he enjoyed, with the greedy and faithless Charles of Valois for his agent.
[285] Two just: Dante and another, unknown. He thus distinctly puts from himself any blame for the evil turn things had taken in Florence. How thoroughly he had broken with his party ere he wrote this is proved by his exclusion of the irresolute but respectable Vieri dei Cerchi from the number of the just men. He, in Dante’s judgment, was only too much listened to.—It will be borne in mind that, at the time assigned to the action of the Comedy, Dante was still resident in Florence.
[286] Tegghiaio: See Inf. xvi. 42. Farinata: Inf. x. 32.
[287] Rusticucci: Inf. xvi. 44. Mosca: Inf. xxviii. 106. Arrigo: Cannot be identified. All these distinguished Florentines we may assume to have been hospitable patrons of Ciacco’s.
[288] But when, etc.: In the Inferno many such prayers are addressed to Dante. The shades in Purgatory ask to have their friends on earth stirred to offer up petitions for their speedy purification and deliverance; but the only alleviation possible for the doomed spirits is to know that they are not yet forgotten up in the ‘sweet world.’ A double artistic purpose is served by representing them as feeling thus. It relieves the mind to think that in such misery there is any source of comfort at all. And by making them be still interested on their own account in the thoughts of men, the eager colloquies in which they engage with Dante on such unequal terms gain in verisimilitude.
[289] And list, etc.: The final sentence against them is to echo, in its results, through all eternity.
[290] The world to come: The life after doomsday.
[291] Thy Science: To Aristotle. In the Convito, iv. 16, he quotes ‘the Philosopher’ as teaching that ‘everything is then at its full perfection when it thoroughly fulfils its special functions.’
[292] Than now: Augustine says that ‘after the resurrection of the flesh the joys of the blessed and the sufferings of the wicked will be enhanced.’ And, according to Thomas Aquinas, ‘the soul, without the body, is wanting in the perfection designed for it by Nature.’
CANTO VII.
Pape[293] Satan! Pape Satan! Aleppe!
Plutus[294] began in accents rough and hard:
And that mild Sage, all-knowing, said to me,
For my encouragement: ‘Pay no regard
Unto thy fear; whatever power he sways
Thy passage down this cliff shall not be barred.’
Then turning round to that inflamèd face
He bade: ‘Accursed wolf,[295] at peace remain;
And, pent within thee, let thy fury blaze.
Down to the pit we journey not in vain:10
So rule they where by Michael in Heaven’s height
On the adulterous pride[296] was vengeance ta’en.’
Then as the bellied sails, by wind swelled tight,
Suddenly drag whenever snaps the mast;
Such, falling to the ground, the monster’s plight.
To the Fourth Cavern so we downward passed,
Winning new reaches of the doleful shore
Where all the vileness of the world is cast.
Justice of God! which pilest more and more
Pain as I saw, and travail manifold!20
Why will we sin, to be thus wasted sore?
As at Charybdis waves are forward rolled
To break on other billows midway met,
The people here a counterdance must hold.
A greater crowd than I had seen as yet,
With piercing yells advanced on either track,
Rolling great stones to which their chests were set.
They crashed together, and then each turned back
Upon the way he came, while shouts arise,
‘Why clutch it so?’ and ‘Why to hold it slack?’30
In the dark circle wheeled they on this wise
From either hand to the opposing part,
Where evermore they raised insulting cries.
Thither arrived, each, turning, made fresh start
Through the half circle[297] a new joust to run;
And I, stung almost to the very heart,
Said, ‘O my Master, wilt thou make it known
Who the folk are? Were these all clerks[298] who go
Before us on the left, with shaven crown?’
And he replied: ‘All of them squinted so40
In mental vision while in life they were,
They nothing spent by rule. And this they show,
And with their yelping voices make appear
When half-way round the circle they have sped,
And sins opposing them asunder tear.
Each wanting thatch of hair upon his head
Was once a clerk, or pope, or cardinal,
In whom abound the ripest growths of greed.’
And I: ‘O Master, surely among all
Of these I ought[299] some few to recognise,50
Who by such filthy sins were held in thrall.’
And he to me: ‘Vain thoughts within thee rise;
Their witless life, which made them vile, now mocks—
Dimming[300] their faces still—all searching eyes.
Eternally they meet with hostile shocks;
These rising from the tomb at last shall stand
With tight clenched fists, and those with ruined locks.[301]
Squandering or hoarding, they the happy land[302]
Have lost, and now are marshalled for this fray;
Which to describe doth no fine words demand.60
Know hence, my Son, how fleeting is the play
Of goods at the dispose of Fortune thrown,
And which mankind to such fierce strife betray.
Not all the gold which is beneath the moon
Could purchase peace, nor all that ever was,
To but one soul of these by toil undone.’
‘Master,’ I said, ‘tell thou, ere making pause,
Who Fortune is of whom thou speak’st askance,
Who holds all worldly riches in her claws.’[303]
‘O foolish creatures, lost in ignorance!’70
He answer made. ‘Now see that the reply
Thou store, which I concerning her advance.
He who in knowledge is exalted high,
Framing[304] all Heavens gave such as should them guide,
That so each part might shine to all; whereby
Is equal light diffused on every side:
And likewise to one guide and governor,
Of worldly splendours did control confide,
That she in turns should different peoples dower79
With this vain good; from blood should make it pass
To blood, in spite of human wit. Hence, power,
Some races failing,[305] other some amass,
According to her absolute decree
Which hidden lurks, like serpent in the grass.
Vain ’gainst her foresight yours must ever be.
She makes provision, judges, holds her reign,
As doth his power supreme each deity.
Her permutations can no truce sustain;
Necessity[306] compels her to be swift,
So swift they follow who their turn must gain.90
And this is she whom they so often[307] lift
Upon the cross, who ought to yield her praise;
And blame on her and scorn unjustly shift.
But she is blest nor hears what any says,
With other primal creatures turns her sphere,
Jocund and glad, rejoicing in her ways.
To greater woe now let us downward steer.
The stars[308] which rose when I began to guide
Are falling now, nor may we linger here.’
We crossed the circle to the other side,100
Arriving where a boiling fountain fell
Into a brooklet by its streams supplied.
In depth of hue the flood did perse[309] excel,
And we, with this dim stream to lead us on,
Descended by a pathway terrible.
A marsh which by the name of Styx is known,
Fed by this gloomy brook, lies at the base
Of threatening cliffs hewn out of cold grey stone.
And I, intent on study of the place,[310]
Saw people in that ditch, mud-smeared. In it110
All naked stood with anger-clouded face.
Nor with their fists alone each fiercely hit
The other, but with feet and chest and head,
And with their teeth to shreds each other bit.
‘Son, now behold,’ the worthy Master said,
‘The souls of those whom anger made a prize;
And, further, I would have thee certified
That ’neath the water people utter sighs,
And make the bubbles to the surface come;
As thou mayst see by casting round thine eyes.120
Fixed in the mud they say: “We lived in gloom[311]
In the sweet air made jocund by the day,
Nursing within us melancholy fume.
In this black mud we now our gloom display.”
This hymn with gurgling throats they strive to sound,
Which they in speech unbroken fail to say.’
And thus about the loathsome pool we wound
For a wide arc, between the dry and soft,
With eyes on those who gulp the filth, turned round.
At last we reached a tower that soared aloft.130