FOOTNOTES:
[293] Pape, etc.: These words have exercised the ingenuity of many scholars, who on the whole lean to the opinion that they contain an appeal to Satan against the invasion of his domain. Virgil seems to have understood them, but the text leaves it doubtful whether Dante himself did. Later on, but there with an obvious purpose, we find a line of pure gibberish (Inf. xxxi. 67).
[294] Plutus: The god of riches; degraded here into a demon. He guards the Fourth Circle, which is that of the misers and spendthrifts.
[295] Wolf: Frequently used by Dante as symbolical of greed.
[296] Pride: Which in its way was a kind of greed—that of dominion. Similarly, the avarice represented by the wolf of Canto i. was seen to be the lust of aggrandisement. Virgil here answers Plutus’s (supposed) appeal to Satan by referring to the higher Power, under whose protection he and his companion come.
[297] The half circle: This Fourth Circle is divided half-way round between the misers and spendthrifts, and the two bands at set periods clash against one another in their vain effort to pass into the section belonging to the opposite party. Their condition is emblematical of their sins while in life. They were one-sided in their use of wealth; so here they can never complete the circle. The monotony of their employment and of their cries represents their subjection to one idea, and, as in life, so now, their displeasure is excited by nothing so much as by coming into contact with the failing opposite to their own. Yet they are set in the same circle because the sin of both arose from inordinate desire of wealth, the miser craving it to hoard, and the spendthrift to spend. In Purgatory also they are placed together (see Purg. xxii. 40). So, on Dante’s scheme, liberality is allied to and dependent on a wise and reasonable frugality.—There is no hint of the enormous length of the course run by these shades. Far lower down, when the circles of the Inferno have greatly narrowed, the circuit is twenty-two miles (Inf. xxix. 9).
[298] Clerks: Churchmen. The tonsure is the sign that a man is of ecclesiastical condition. Many took the tonsure who never became priests.
[299] I ought, etc.: Dante is astonished that he can pick out no greedy priest or friar of his acquaintance, when he had known so many.
[300] Dimming, etc.: Their original disposition is by this time smothered by the predominance of greed. Dante treats these sinners with a special contemptuous bitterness. Scores of times since he became dependent on the generosity of others he must have watched how at a bare hint the faces of miser and spendthrift fell, while their eyes travelled vaguely beyond him, and their voices grew cold.
[301] Ruined locks: ‘A spendthrift will spend his very hair,’ says an Italian proverb.
[302] The happy land: Heaven.
[303] Her claws: Dante speaks of Fortune as if she were a brutal and somewhat malicious power. In Virgil’s answer there is a refutation of the opinion of Fortune given by Dante himself, in the Convito (iv. 11). After describing three ways in which the goods of Fortune come to men he says: ‘In each of these three ways her injustice is manifest.’ This part of the Convito Fraticelli seems almost to prove was written in 1297.
[304] Framing, etc.: According to the scholastic theory of the world, each of the nine heavens was directed in its motion by intelligences, called angels by the vulgar, and by the heathen, gods (Convito ii. 5). As these spheres and the influences they exercise on human affairs are under the guidance of divinely-appointed ministers, so, Virgil says, is the distribution of worldly wealth ruled by Providence through Fortune.
[305] Some races failing: It was long believed, nor is the belief quite obsolete, that one community can gain only at the expense of another. Sir Thomas Browne says: ‘All cannot be happy at once; for because the glory of one state depends upon the ruin of another, there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatness, and all must obey the swing of that wheel, not moved by intelligences, but by the hand of God, whereby all states arise to their zeniths and vertical points according to their predestinated periods.’—Rel. Med. i. 17.
[306] Necessity, etc.: Suggested, perhaps, by Horace’s Te semper anteit sæva necessitas (Od. i. 35). The question of how men can be free in the face of necessity, here associated with Fortune, more than once emerges in the Comedy. Dante’s belief on the subject was substantially that of his favourite author Boethius, who holds that ultimately ‘it is Providence that turns the wheel of all things;’ and who says, that ‘if you spread your sails to the wind you will be carried, not where you would, but whither you are driven by the gale: if you choose to commit yourself to Fortune, you must endure the manners of your mistress.’
[307] Whom they so often, etc.: Treat with contumely.
[308] The stars, etc.: It is now past midnight, and towards the morning of Saturday, the 26th of March 1300. Only a few hours have been employed as yet upon the journey.
[309] Perse: ‘Perse is a colour between purple and black, but the black predominates’ (Conv. iv. 20). The hue of the waters of Styx agrees with the gloomy temper of the sinners plunged in them.
[310] The place: They are now in the Fifth Circle, where the wrathful are punished.
[311] In gloom: These submerged spirits are, according to the older commentators, the slothful—those guilty of the sin of slackness in the pursuit of good, as, e.g. neglect of the means of grace. This is, theologically speaking, the sin directly opposed to the active grace of charity. By more modern critics it has been ingeniously sought to find in this circle a place not only for the slothful but for the proud and envious as well. To each of these classes of sinners—such of them as have repented in this life—a terrace of Purgatory is assigned, and at first sight it does seem natural to expect that the impenitent among them should be found in Inferno. But, while in Purgatory souls purge themselves of every kind of mortal sin, Inferno, as Dante conceived of it, contains only such sinners as have been guilty of wicked acts. Drift and bent of heart and mind are taken no account of. The evil seed must have borne a harvest, and the guilt of every victim of Justice must be plain and open. Now, pride and envy are sins indeed, but sins that a man may keep to himself. If they have betrayed the subject of them into the commission of crimes, in those crimes they are punished lower down, as is indicated at xii. 49. And so we find that Lucifer is condemned as a traitor, though his treachery sprang from envy: the greater guilt includes the less. For sluggishness in the pursuit of good the vestibule of the caitiffs seems the appropriate place.—There are two kinds of wrath. One is vehement, and declares itself in violent acts; the other does not blaze out, but is grudging and adverse to all social good—the wrath that is nursed. One as much as the other affects behaviour. So in this circle, as in the preceding, we have represented the two excesses of one sin.—Dante’s theory of sins is ably treated of in Witte’s Dante-Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 121.
CANTO VIII.
I say, continuing,[312] that long before
To its foundations we approachèd nigh
Our eyes went travelling to the top of the tower;
For, hung out there, two flames[313] we could espy.
Then at such distance, scarce our eyesight made
It clearly out, another gave reply.
And, to the Sea of Knowledge turned, I said:
‘What meaneth this? and what reply would yield
That other light, and who have it displayed?’
‘Thou shouldst upon the impure watery field,’10
He said, ‘already what approaches know,
But that the fen-fog holds it still concealed.’
Never was arrow yet from sharp-drawn bow
Urged through the air upon a swifter flight
Than what I saw a tiny vessel show,
Across the water shooting into sight;
A single pilot served it for a crew,
Who shouted: ‘Art thou come, thou guilty sprite?’[314]
‘O Phlegyas, Phlegyas,[315] this thy loud halloo!
For once,’ my Lord said, ‘idle is and vain.20
Thou hast us only till the mud we’re through.’
And, as one cheated inly smarts with pain
When the deceit wrought on him is betrayed,
His gathering ire could Phlegyas scarce contain.
Into the bark my Leader stepped, and made
Me take my place beside him; nor a jot,
Till I had entered, was it downward weighed.
Soon as my Guide and I were in the boat,
To cleave the flood began the ancient prow,
Deeper[316] than ’tis with others wont to float.30
Then, as the stagnant ditch we glided through,
One smeared with filth in front of me arose
And said: ‘Thus coming ere thy period,[317] who
Art thou?’ And I: ‘As one who forthwith goes
I come; but thou defiled, how name they thee?’
‘I am but one who weeps,’[318] he said. ‘With woes,’
I answered him, ‘with tears and misery,
Accursèd soul, remain; for thou art known
Unto me now, all filthy though thou be.’
Then both his hands were on the vessel thrown;40
But him my wary Master backward heaved,
Saying: ‘Do thou ’mong the other dogs be gone!’
Then to my neck with both his arms he cleaved,
And kissed my face, and, ‘Soul disdainful,’[319] said,
‘O blessed she in whom thou wast conceived!
He in the world great haughtiness displayed.
No deeds of worth his memory adorn;
And therefore rages here his sinful shade.
And many are there by whom crowns are worn
On earth, shall wallow here like swine in mire,50
Leaving behind them names o’erwhelmed[320] in scorn.’
And I: ‘O Master, I have great desire
To see him well soused in this filthy tide,
Ere from the lake we finally retire.’
And he: ‘Or ever shall have been descried
The shore by thee, thy longing shall be met;
For such a wish were justly gratified.’
A little after in such fierce onset
The miry people down upon him bore,
I praise and bless God for it even yet.60
‘Philip Argenti![321] at him!’ was the roar;
And then that furious spirit Florentine
Turned with his teeth upon himself and tore.
Here was he left, nor wins more words of mine.
Now in my ears a lamentation rung,
Whence I to search what lies ahead begin.
And the good Master told me: ‘Son, ere long
We to the city called of Dis[322] draw near,
Where in great armies cruel burghers[323] throng.’
And I: ‘Already, Master, I appear70
Mosques[324] in the valley to distinguish well,
Vermilion, as if they from furnace were
Fresh come.’ And he: ‘Fires everlasting dwell
Within them, whence appear they glowing hot,
As thou discernest in this lower hell.’
We to the moat profound at length were brought,
Which girds that city all disconsolate;
The walls around it seemed of iron wrought.
Not without fetching first a compass great,
We came to where with angry cry at last:80
‘Get out,’ the boatman yelled; ‘behold the gate!’[325]
More than a thousand, who from Heaven[326] were cast,
I saw above the gates, who furiously
Demanded: ‘Who, ere death on him has passed,
Holds through the region of the dead his way?’
And my wise Master made to them a sign
That he had something secretly to say.
Then ceased they somewhat from their great disdain,
And said: ‘Come thou, but let that one be gone
Who thus presumptuous enters on this reign.90
Let him retrace his madcap way alone,
If he but can; thou meanwhile lingering here,
Through such dark regions who hast led him down.’
Judge, reader, if I was not filled with fear,
Hearing the words of this accursèd threat;
For of return my hopes extinguished were.
‘Beloved Guide, who more than seven times[327] set
Me in security, and safely brought
Through frightful dangers in my progress met,
Leave me not thus undone;’ I him besought:100
‘If further progress be to us denied,
Let us retreat together, tarrying not.’
The Lord who led me thither then replied:
‘Fear not: by One so great has been assigned
Our passage, vainly were all hindrance tried.
Await me here, and let thy fainting mind
Be comforted and with good hope be fed,
Not to be left in this low world behind.’
Thus goes he, thus am I abandonèd
By my sweet Father. I in doubt remain,110
With Yes and No[328] contending in my head.
I could not hear what speech he did maintain,
But no long time conferred he in that place,
Till, to be first, all inward raced again.
And then the gates were closed in my Lord’s face
By these our enemies; outside stood he;
Then backward turned to me with lingering pace,
With downcast eyes, and all the bravery
Stripped from his brows; and he exclaimed with sighs;
‘Who dare[329] deny the doleful seats to me!’120
And then he said: ‘Although my wrath arise,
Fear not, for I to victory will pursue,
Howe’er within they plot, the enterprise.
This arrogance of theirs is nothing new;
They showed it[330] once at a less secret door
Which stands unbolted since. Thou didst it view,
And saw the dark-writ legend which it bore.
Thence, even now, is one who hastens down
Through all the circles, guideless, to this shore,
And he shall win us entrance to the town.’130