FOOTNOTES:
[392] Our descent: To the Seventh Circle.
[393] Adige: Different localities in the valley of the Adige have been fixed on as the scene of this landslip. The Lavini di Marco, about twenty miles south of Trent, seem best to answer to the description. They ‘consist of black blocks of stone and fragments of a landslip which, according to the Chronicle of Fulda, fell in the year 883 and overwhelmed the valley for four Italian miles’ (Gsell-Fels, Ober. Ital. i. 35).
[394] The Cretan Infamy: The Minotaur, the offspring of Pasiphaë; a half-bovine monster who inhabited the Cretan labyrinth, and to whom a human victim was offered once a year. He lies as guard upon the Seventh Circle—that of the violent (Inf. xi. 23, note)—and is set at the top of the rugged slope, itself the scene of a violent convulsion.
[395] Duke of Athens: Theseus, instructed by Ariadne, daughter of Pasiphaë and Minos, how to outwit the Minotaur, entered the labyrinth in the character of a victim, slew the monster, and then made his way out, guided by a thread he had unwound as he went in.
[396] The slippery waste: The word used here, scarco, means in modern Tuscan a place where earth or stones have been carelessly shot into a heap.
[397] The new weight: The slope had never before been trodden by mortal foot.
[398] The former time: When Virgil descended to evoke a shade from the Ninth Circle (Inf. ix. 22).
[399] Prey from Dis: The shades delivered from Limbo by Christ (Inf. iv. 53). The expression in the text is probably suggested by the words of the hymn Vexilla: Prædamque tulit Tartaris.
[400] To Chaos: The reference is to the theory of Empedocles, known to Dante through the refutation of it by Aristotle. The theory was one of periods of unity and division in nature, according as love or hatred prevailed.
[401] Another spot: See Inf. xxi. 112. The earthquake at the Crucifixion shook even Inferno to its base.
[402] The river of blood: Phlegethon, the ‘boiling river.’ Styx and Acheron have been already passed. Lethe, the fourth infernal river, is placed by Dante in Purgatory. The first round or circlet of the Seventh Circle is filled by Phlegethon.
[403] Centaurs: As this round is the abode of such as are guilty of violence against their neighbours, it is guarded by these brutal monsters, half-man and half-horse.
[404] Chiron: Called the most just of the Centaurs.
[405] Nessus: Slain by Hercules with a poisoned arrow. When dying he gave Dejanira his blood-stained shirt, telling her it would insure the faithfulness to her of any whom she loved. Hercules wore it and died of the venom; and thus Nessus avenged himself.
[406] The natures: The part of the Centaur where the equine body is joined on to the human neck and head.
[407] Other band: Of Centaurs.
[408] Alexander: It is not known whether Alexander the Great or a petty Thessalian tyrant is here meant. Dionysius: The cruel tyrant of Syracuse.
[409] Ezzelino: Or Azzolino of Romano, the greatest Lombard Ghibeline of his time. He was son-in-law of Frederick II., and was Imperial Vicar of the Trevisian Mark. Towards the close of Fredrick’s life, and for some years after, he exercised almost independent power in Vicenza, Padua, and Verona. Cruelty, erected into a system, was his chief instrument of government, and ‘in his dungeons men found something worse than death.’ For Italians, says Burckhardt, he was the most impressive political personage of the thirteenth century; and around his memory, as around Frederick’s, there gathered strange legends. He died in 1259, of a wound received in battle. When urged to confess his sins by the monk who came to shrive him, he declared that the only sin on his conscience was negligence in revenge. But this may be mythical, as may also be the long black hair between his eyebrows, which rose up stiff and terrible as his anger waxed.
[410] Obizzo: The second Marquis of Este of that name. He was lord of Ferrara. There seems little, if any, evidence extant of his being specially cruel. As a strong Guelf he took sides with Charles of Anjou against Manfred. He died in 1293, smothered, it was believed, by a son, here called a stepson for his unnatural conduct. But though Dante vouches for the truth of the rumour it seems to have been an invention.
[411] That bulicamë: The stream of boiling blood is probably named from the bulicamë, or hot spring, best known to Dante—that near Viterbo (see Inf. xiv. 79). And it may be that the mention of the bulicamë suggests the reference at line 119.
[412] In God’s house: Literally, ‘In the bosom of God.’ The shade is that of Guy, son of Simon of Montfort and Vicar in Tuscany of Charles of Anjou. In 1271 he stabbed, in the Cathedral of Viterbo, Henry, son of Richard of Cornwall and cousin of Edward I. of England. The motive of the murder was to revenge the death of his father, Simon, at Evesham. The body of the young prince was conveyed to England, and the heart was placed in a vase upon the tomb of the Confessor. The shade of Guy stands up to the chin in blood among the worst of the tyrants, and alone, because of the enormity of his crime.
[413] Here took we passage: Dante on Nessus’ back. Virgil has fallen behind to allow the Centaur to act as guide; and how he crosses the stream Dante does not see.
[414] Attila: King of the Huns, who invaded part of Italy in the fifth century; and who, according to the mistaken belief of Dante’s age, was the devastator of Florence.
[415] Pyrrhus: King of Epirus. Sextus: Son of Pompey; a great sea-captain who fought against the Triumvirs. The crime of the first, in Dante’s eyes, is that he fought with Rome; of the second, that he opposed Augustus.
[416] Rinier of Corneto: Who in Dante’s time disturbed the coast of the States of the Church by his robberies and violence.
[417] Rinier Pazzo: Of the great family of the Pazzi of Val d’Arno, was excommunicated in 1269 for robbing ecclesiastics.
CANTO XIII.
Ere Nessus landed on the other shore
We for our part within a forest[418] drew,
Which of no pathway any traces bore.
Not green the foliage, but of dusky hue;
Not smooth the boughs, but gnarled and twisted round;
For apples, poisonous thorns upon them grew.
No rougher brakes or matted worse are found
Where savage beasts betwixt Corneto[419] roam
And Cecina,[419] abhorring cultured ground.
The loathsome Harpies[420] nestle here at home,10
Who from the Strophades the Trojans chased
With dire predictions of a woe to come.
Great winged are they, but human necked and faced,
With feathered belly, and with claw for toe;
They shriek upon the bushes wild and waste.
‘Ere passing further, I would have thee know,’
The worthy Master thus began to say,
‘Thou’rt in the second round, nor hence shalt go
Till by the horrid sand thy footsteps stay.
Give then good heed, and things thou’lt recognise20
That of my words will prove[421] the verity.’
Wailings on every side I heard arise:
Of who might raise them I distinguished nought;
Whereon I halted, smitten with surprise.
I think he thought that haply ’twas my thought
The voices came from people ’mong the trees,
Who, to escape us, hiding-places sought;
Wherefore the Master said: ‘From one of these
Snap thou a twig, and thou shalt understand
How little with thy thought the fact agrees.’30
Thereon a little I stretched forth my hand
And plucked a tiny branch from a great thorn.
‘Why dost thou tear me?’ made the trunk demand.
When dark with blood it had begun to turn,
It cried a second time: ‘Why wound me thus?
Doth not a spark of pity in thee burn?
Though trees we be, once men were all of us;
Yet had our souls the souls of serpents been
Thy hand might well have proved more piteous.’
As when the fire hath seized a fagot green40
At one extremity, the other sighs,
And wind, escaping, hisses; so was seen,
At where the branch was broken, blood to rise
And words were mixed with it. I dropped the spray
And stood like one whom terror doth surprise.
The Sage replied: ‘Soul vexed with injury,
Had he been only able to give trust
To what he read narrated in my lay,[422]
His hand toward thee would never have been thrust.
’Tis hard for faith; and I, to make it plain,50
Urged him to trial, mourn it though I must.
But tell him who thou wast; so shall remain
This for amends to thee, thy fame shall blow
Afresh on earth, where he returns again.’
And then the trunk: ‘Thy sweet words charm me so,
I cannot dumb remain; nor count it hard
If I some pains upon my speech bestow.
For I am he[423] who held both keys in ward
Of Frederick’s heart, and turned them how I would,
And softly oped it, and as softly barred,60
Till scarce another in his counsel stood.
To my high office I such loyalty bore,
It cost me sleep and haleness of my blood.
The harlot[424] who removeth nevermore
From Cæsar’s house eyes ignorant of shame—
A common curse, of courts the special sore—
Set against me the minds of all aflame,
And these in turn Augustus set on fire,
Till my glad honours bitter woes became.
My soul, filled full with a disdainful ire,70
Thinking by means of death disdain to flee,
’Gainst my just self unjustly did conspire.
I swear even by the new roots of this tree
My fealty to my lord I never broke,
For worthy of all honour sure was he.
If one of you return ’mong living folk,
Let him restore my memory, overthrown
And suffering yet because of envy’s stroke.’
Still for a while the poet listened on,
Then said: ‘Now he is dumb, lose not the hour,80
But make request if more thou’dst have made known.’
And I replied: ‘Do thou inquire once more
Of what thou thinkest[425] I would gladly know;
I cannot ask; ruth wrings me to the core.’
On this he spake: ‘Even as the man shall do,
And liberally, what thou of him hast prayed,
Imprisoned spirit, do thou further show
How with these knots the spirits have been made
Incorporate; and, if thou canst, declare
If from such members e’er is loosed a shade.’90
Then from the trunk came vehement puffs of air;
Next, to these words converted was the wind:
‘My answer to you shall be short and clear.
When the fierce soul no longer is confined
In flesh, torn thence by action of its own,
To the Seventh Depth by Minos ’tis consigned.
No choice is made of where it shall be thrown
Within the wood; but where by chance ’tis flung
It germinates like seed of spelt that’s sown.
A forest tree it grows from sapling young;100
Eating its leaves, the Harpies cause it pain,
And open loopholes whence its sighs are wrung.
We for our vestments shall return again
Like others, but in them shall ne’er be clad:[426]
Men justly lose what from themselves they’ve ta’en.
Dragged hither by us, all throughout the sad
Forest our bodies shall be hung on high;
Each on the thorn of its destructive shade.’
While to the trunk we listening lingered nigh,
Thinking he might proceed to tell us more,110
A sudden uproar we were startled by
Like him who, that the huntsman and the boar
To where he stands are sweeping in the chase,
Knows by the crashing trees and brutish roar.
Upon our left we saw a couple race
Naked[427] and scratched; and they so quickly fled
The forest barriers burst before their face.
‘Speed to my rescue, death!’ the foremost pled.
The next, as wishing he could use more haste;
‘Not thus, O Lano,[428] thee thy legs bested120
When one at Toppo’s tournament thou wast.’
Then, haply wanting breath, aside he stepped,
Merged with a bush on which himself he cast.
Behind them through the forest onward swept
A pack of dogs, black, ravenous, and fleet,
Like greyhounds from their leashes newly slipped.
In him who crouched they made their teeth to meet,
And, having piecemeal all his members rent,
Haled them away enduring anguish great.
Grasping my hand, my Escort forward went130
And led me to the bush which, all in vain,
Through its ensanguined openings made lament.
‘James of St. Andrews,’[429] it we heard complain;
‘What profit hadst thou making me thy shield?
For thy bad life doth blame to me pertain?’
Then, halting there, this speech my Master held:
‘Who wast thou that through many wounds dost sigh,
Mingled with blood, words big with sorrow swelled?’
‘O souls that hither come,’ was his reply,
‘To witness shameful outrage by me borne,140
Whence all my leaves torn off around me lie,
Gather them to the root of this drear thorn.
My city[430] for the Baptist changed of yore
Her former patron; wherefore, in return,
He with his art will make her aye deplore;
And were it not some image doth remain
Of him where Arno’s crossed from shore to shore,
Those citizens who founded her again
On ashes left by Attila,[431] had spent
Their labour of a surety all in vain.150
In my own house[432] I up a gibbet went.’