FOOTNOTES:
[352] Virtue: Virgil is here addressed by a new title, which, with the words of deep respect that follow, marks the full restoration of Dante’s confidence in him as his guide.
[353] Nor is there, etc.: The gate was found to be strictly guarded, but not so are the tombs.
[354] Jehoshaphat: ‘I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat’ (Joel iii. 2).
[355] Epicurus: The unbelief in a future life, or rather the indifference to everything but the calls of ambition and worldly pleasure, common among the nobles of Dante’s age and that preceding it, went by the name of Epicureanism. It is the most radical of heresies, because adverse to the first principles of all religions. Dante, in his treatment of heresy, dwells more on what affects conduct as does the denial of the Divine government—than on intellectual divergence from orthodox belief.
[356] As well as, etc.: The question is: ‘May they be seen?’ The wish is a desire to speak with them.
[357] Nor only now, etc.: Virgil has on previous occasions imposed silence on Dante, as, for instance, at Inf. iii. 51.
[358] Be pleased, etc.: From one of the sepulchres, to be imagined as a huge sarcophagus, come words similar to the Siste Viator! common on Roman tombs.
[359] Farinata: Of the great Florentine family of the Uberti, and, in the generation before Dante, leader of the Ghibeline or Imperialist party in Florence. His memory long survived among his fellow-townsmen as that of the typical noble, rough-mannered, unscrupulous, and arrogant; but yet, for one good action that he did, he at the same time ranked in the popular estimation as a patriot and a hero. Boccaccio, misled perhaps by the mention of Epicurus, says that he loved rich and delicate fare. It is because all his thoughts were worldly that he is condemned to the city of unbelief. Dante has already (Inf. vi. 79) inquired regarding his fate. He died in 1264.
[360] His brows: When Dante tells he is of the Alighieri, a Guelf family, Farinata shows some slight displeasure. Or, as a modern Florentine critic interprets the gesture, he has to think a moment before he can remember on which side the Alighieri ranged themselves—they being of the small gentry, while he was a great noble, But this gloss requires Dante to have been more free from pride of family than he really was.
[361] Twice disperse: The Alighieri shared in the exile of the Guelfs in 1248 and 1260.
[362] You: See also line 95. Dante never uses the plural form to a single person except when desirous of showing social as distinguished from, or over and above, moral respect.
[363] Guido: Farinata’s companion in the tomb is Cavalcante Cavalcanti, who, although a Guelf, was tainted with the more specially Ghibeline error of Epicureanism. When in order to allay party rancour some of the Guelf and Ghibeline families were forced to intermarry, his son Guido took a daughter of Farinata’s to wife. This was in 1267, so that Guido was much older than Dante. Yet they were very intimate, and, intellectually, had much in common. With him Dante exchanged poems of occasion, and he terms him more than once in the Vita Nuova his chief friend. The disdain of Virgil need not mean more than is on the surface. Guido died in 1301. He is the hero of the Decameron, vi. 9.
[364] The Lady: Proserpine; i.e. the moon. Ere fifty months from March 1300 were past, Dante was to see the failure of more than one attempt made by the exiles, of whom he was one, to gain entrance to Florence. The great attempt was in the beginning of 1304.
[365] Ruth for my race: When the Ghibeline power was finally broken in Florence the Uberti were always specially excluded from any amnesty. There is mention of the political execution of at least one descendant of Farinata’s. His son when being led to the scaffold said, ‘So we pay our fathers’ debts!’—It has been so long common to describe Dante as a Ghibeline, though no careful writer does it now, that it may be worth while here to remark that Ghibelinism, as Farinata understood it, was practically extinct in Florence ere Dante entered political life.
[366] The Arbia: At Montaperti, on the Arbia, a few miles from Siena, was fought in 1260 a great battle between the Guelf Florence and her allies on the one hand, and on the other the Ghibelines of Florence, then in exile, under Farinata; the Sienese and Tuscan Ghibelines in general; and some hundreds of men-at-arms lent by Manfred. Notwithstanding the gallant behaviour of the Florentine burghers, the Guelf defeat was overwhelming, and not only did the Arbia run red with Florentine blood—in a figure—but the battle of Montaperti ruined for a time the cause of popular liberty and general improvement in Florence.
[367] Our fane: The Parliament of the people used to meet in Santa Reparata, the cathedral; and it is possible that the maintenance of the Uberti disabilities was there more than once confirmed by the general body of the citizens. The use of the word is in any case accounted for by the frequency of political conferences in churches. And the temple having been introduced, edicts are converted into ‘prayers.’
[368] ’Twas I, etc.: Some little time after the victory of Montaperti there was a great Ghibeline gathering from various cities at Empoli, when it was proposed, with general approval, to level Florence with the ground in revenge for the obstinate Guelfism of the population. Farinata roughly declared that as long as he lived and had a sword he would defend his native place, and in the face of this protest the resolution was departed from. It is difficult to understand how of all the Florentine nobles, whose wealth consisted largely in house property, Farinata should have stood alone in protesting against the ruin of the city. But so it seems to have been; and in this great passage Farinata is repaid for his service, in despite of Inferno.
[369] Other laws: Ciacco, in Canto vi., prophesied what was to happen in Florence, and Farinata has just told him that four years later than now he will have failed in an attempt to return from exile: yet Farinata does not know if his family is still being persecuted, and Cavalcanti fears that his son Guido is already numbered with the dead. Farinata replies that like the longsighted the shades can only see what is some distance off, and are ignorant of what is going on, or about to happen; which seems to imply that they forget what they once foresaw. Guido was to die within a few months, and the event was too close at hand to come within the range of his father’s vision.
[370] The Second Frederick: The Emperor of that name who reigned from 1220 to 1250, and waged a life-long war with the Popes for supremacy in Italy. It is not however for his enmity with Rome that he is placed in the Sixth Circle, but for his Epicureanism—as Dante understood it. From his Sicilian court a spirit of free inquiry spread through the Peninsula. With men of the stamp of Farinata it would be converted into a crude materialism.
[371] The Cardinal: Ottaviano, of the powerful Tuscan family of the Ubaldini, a man of great political activity, and known in Tuscany as ‘The Cardinal.’ His sympathies were not with the Roman Court. The news of Montaperti filled him with delight, and later, when the Tuscan Ghibelines refused him money he had asked for, he burst out with ‘And yet I have lost my soul for the Ghibelines—if I have a soul.’ He died not earlier than 1273. After these illustrious names Farinata scorns to mention meaner ones.
[372] Ominous words: Those in which Farinata foretold Dante’s exile.
[373] The stages, etc.: It is Cacciaguida, his ancestor, who in Paradise instructs Dante in what his future life is to be—one of poverty and exile (Parad. xvii.). This is, however, done at the request of Beatrice.
[374] To the middle: Turning to the left they cut across the circle till they reach the inner boundary of the city of tombs. Here there is no wall.
CANTO XI.
We at the margin of a lofty steep
Made of great shattered stones in circle bent,
Arrived where worser torments crowd the deep.
So horrible a stench and violent
Was upward wafted from the vast abyss,[375]
Behind the cover we for shelter went
Of a great tomb where I saw written this:
‘Pope Anastasius[376] is within me thrust,
Whom the straight way Photinus made to miss.’
‘Now on our course a while we linger must,’10
The Master said, ‘be but our sense resigned
A little to it, and the filthy gust
We shall not heed.’ Then I: ‘Do thou but find
Some compensation lest our time should run
Wasted.’ And he: ‘Behold, ’twas in my mind.
Girt by the rocks before us, O my son,
Lie three small circles,’[377] he began to tell,
‘Graded like those with which thou now hast done,
All of them filled with spirits miserable.
That sight[378] of them may thee henceforth suffice.20
Hear how and wherefore in these groups they dwell.
Whate’er in Heaven’s abhorred as wickedness
Has injury[379] for its end; in others’ bane
By fraud resulting or in violent wise.
Since fraud to man alone[380] doth appertain,
God hates it most; and hence the fraudulent band,
Set lowest down, endure a fiercer pain.
Of the violent is the circle next at hand
To us; and since three ways is violence shown,
’Tis in three several circuits built and planned.30
To God, ourselves, or neighbours may be done
Violence, or on the things by them possessed;
As reasoning clear shall unto thee make known.
Our neighbour may by violence be distressed
With grievous wounds, or slain; his goods and lands
By havoc, fire, and plunder be oppressed.
Hence those who wound and slay with violent hands,
Robbers, and spoilers, in the nearest round
Are all tormented in their various bands.
Violent against himself may man be found,40
And ’gainst his goods; therefore without avail
They in the next are in repentance drowned
Who on themselves loss of your world entail,
Who gamble[381] and their substance madly spend,
And who when called to joy lament and wail.
And even to God may violence extend
By heart denial and by blasphemy,
Scorning what nature doth in bounty lend.
Sodom and Cahors[382] hence are doomed to lie
Within the narrowest circlet surely sealed;50
And such as God within their hearts defy.
Fraud,[383] ’gainst whose bite no conscience findeth shield,
A man may use with one who in him lays
Trust, or with those who no such credence yield.
Beneath this latter kind of it decays
The bond of love which out of nature grew;
Hence, in the second circle[384] herd the race
To feigning given and flattery, who pursue
Magic, false coining, theft, and simony,
Pimps, barrators, and suchlike residue.60
The other form of fraud makes nullity
Of natural bonds; and, what is more than those,
The special trust whence men on men rely.
Hence in the place whereon all things repose,
The narrowest circle and the seat of Dis,[385]
Each traitor’s gulfed in everlasting woes.’
‘Thy explanation, Master, as to this
Is clear,’ I said, ‘and thou hast plainly told
Who are the people stowed in the abyss.
But tell why those the muddy marshes hold,70
The tempest-driven, those beaten by the rain,
And such as, meeting, virulently scold,
Are not within the crimson city ta’en
For punishment, if hateful unto God;
And, if not hateful, wherefore doomed to pain?’
And he to me: ‘Why wander thus abroad,
More than is wont, thy wits? or how engrossed
Is now thy mind, and on what things bestowed?
Hast thou the memory of the passage lost
In which thy Ethics[386] for their subject treat80
Of the three moods by Heaven abhorred the most—
Malice and bestiality complete;
And how, compared with these, incontinence
Offends God less, and lesser blame doth meet?
If of this doctrine thou extract the sense,
And call to memory what people are
Above, outside, in endless penitence,
Why from these guilty they are sundered far
Thou shalt discern, and why on them alight
The strokes of justice in less angry war.’90
‘O Sun that clearest every troubled sight,
So charmed am I by thy resolving speech,
Doubt yields me joy no less than knowing right.
Therefore, I pray, a little backward reach,’
I asked, ‘to where thou say’st that usury
Sins ’gainst God’s bounty; and this mystery teach.’
He said: ‘Who gives ear to Philosophy
Is taught by her, nor in one place alone,
What nature in her course is governed by,
Even Mind Divine, and art which thence hath grown;100
And if thy Physics[387] thou wilt search within,
Thou’lt find ere many leaves are open thrown,
This art by yours, far as your art can win,
Is followed close—the teacher by the taught;
As grandchild then to God your art is kin.
And from these two—do thou recall to thought
How Genesis[388] begins—should come supplies
Of food for man, and other wealth be sought.
And, since another plan the usurer plies,
Nature and nature’s child have his disdain;[389]110
Because on other ground his hope relies.
But come,[390] for to advance I now am fain:
The Fishes[391] over the horizon line
Quiver; o’er Caurus now stands all the Wain;
And further yonder does the cliff decline.’