[756] The club: The commentators tell that the two young Sienese nobles above mentioned were members of a society formed for the purpose of living luxuriously together. Twelve of them contributed a fund of above two hundred thousand gold florins; they built a great palace and furnished it magnificently, and launched out into every other sort of extravagance with such assiduity that in a few months their capital was gone. As that amounted to more than a hundred thousand pounds of our money, equal in those days to a million or two, the story must be held to savour of romance. That Dante refers to a prodigal’s club that actually existed some time before he wrote we cannot doubt. But it seems uncertain, to say the least, whether the sonnets addressed by the Tuscan poet Folgore da Gemignano to a jovial crew in Siena can be taken as having been inspired by the club Dante speaks of. A translation of them is given by Mr. Rossetti in his Circle of Dante. (See Mr. Symonds’s Renaissance, vol. iv. page 54, note, for doubts as to the date of Folgore.)—Caccia d’ Ascian: Whose short and merry club life cost him his estates near Siena.
[757] The Abbagliato: Nothing is known, though a great deal is guessed, about this member of the club. It is enough to know that, having a scant supply of wit, he spent it freely.
[758] Capocchio: Some one whom Dante knew. Whether he was a Florentine or a Sienese is not ascertained, but from the strain of his mention of the Sienese we may guess Florentine. He was burned in Siena in 1293.—(Scartazzini.) They had studied together, says the Anonimo. Benvenuto tells of him that one Good Friday, while in a cloister, he painted on his nail with marvellous completeness a picture of the crucifixion. Dante came up, and was lost in wonder, when Capocchio suddenly licked his nail clean—which may be taken for what it is worth.
CANTO XXX.
Because of Semele[759] when Juno’s ire
Was fierce ’gainst all that were to Thebes allied,
As had been proved by many an instance dire;
So mad grew Athamas[760] that when he spied
His wife as she with children twain drew near,
Each hand by one encumbered, loud he cried:
‘Be now the nets outspread, that I may snare
Cubs with the lioness at yon strait ground!’
And stretching claws of all compassion bare
He on Learchus seized and swung him round,10
And shattered him upon a flinty stone;
Then she herself and the other burden drowned.
And when by fortune was all overthrown
The Trojans’ pride, inordinate before—
Monarch and kingdom equally undone—
Hecuba,[761] sad and captive, mourning o’er
Polyxena, when dolorous she beheld
The body of her darling Polydore
Upon the coast, out of her wits she yelled,
And spent herself in barking like a hound;20
So by her sorrow was her reason quelled.
But never yet was Trojan fury[762] found,
Nor that of Thebes, to sting so cruelly
Brute beasts, far less the human form to wound,
As two pale naked shades were stung, whom I
Saw biting run, like swine when they escape
Famished and eager from the empty sty.
Capocchio[763] coming up to, in his nape
One fixed his fangs, and hauling at him made
His belly on the stony pavement scrape.30
The Aretine[764] who stood, still trembling, said:
‘That imp is Gianni Schicchi,[765] and he goes
Rabid, thus trimming others.’ ‘O!’ I prayed,
‘So may the teeth of the other one of those
Not meet in thee, as, ere she pass from sight,
Thou freely shalt the name of her disclose.’
And he to me: ‘That is the ancient sprite
Of shameless Myrrha,[766] who let liking rise
For him who got her, past all bounds of right.
As, to transgress with him, she in disguise40
Came near to him deception to maintain;
So he, departing yonder from our eyes,
That he the Lady of the herd might gain,
Bequeathed his goods by formal testament
While he Buoso Donate’s[767] form did feign.’
And when the rabid couple from us went,
Who all this time by me were being eyed,
Upon the rest ill-starred I grew intent;
And, fashioned like a lute, I one espied,
Had he been only severed at the place50
Where at the groin men’s lower limbs divide.
The grievous dropsy, swol’n with humours base,
Which every part of true proportion strips
Till paunch grows out of keeping with the face,
Compelled him widely ope to hold his lips
Like one in fever who, by thirst possessed,
Has one drawn up while the other chinward slips.
‘O ye![768] who by no punishment distressed,
Nor know I why, are in this world of dool,’
He said; ‘a while let your attention rest60
On Master Adam[769] here of misery full.
Living, I all I wished enjoyed at will;
Now lust I for a drop of water cool.
The water-brooks that down each grassy hill
Of Casentino to the Arno fall
And with cool moisture all their courses fill—
Always, and not in vain, I see them all;
Because the vision of them dries me more
Than the disease ’neath which my face grows small.
For rigid justice, me chastising sore,70
Can in the place I sinned at motive find
To swell the sighs in which I now deplore.
There lies Romena, where of the money coined[770]
With the Baptist’s image I made counterfeit,
And therefore left my body burnt behind.
But could I see here Guido’s[771] wretched sprite,
Or Alexander’s, or their brother’s, I
For Fonte Branda[772] would not give the sight.
One is already here, unless they lie—
Mad souls with power to wander through the crowd—
What boots it me, whose limbs diseases tie?81
But were I yet so nimble that I could
Creep one poor inch a century, some while
Ago had I begun to take the road
Searching for him among this people vile;
And that although eleven miles[773] ’tis long,
And has a width of more than half a mile.
Because of them am I in such a throng;
For to forge florins I by them was led,
Which by three carats[774] of alloy were wrong,’90
‘Who are the wretches twain,’ I to him said,
‘Who smoke[775] like hand in winter-time fresh brought
From water, on thy right together spread?’
‘Here found I them, nor have they budged a jot,’
He said, ‘since I was hurled into this vale;
And, as I deem, eternally they’ll not.
One[776] with false charges Joseph did assail;
False Sinon,[777] Greek from Troy, is the other wight.
Burning with fever they this stink exhale.’
Then one of them, perchance o’ercome with spite100
Because he thus contemptuously was named,
Smote with his fist upon the belly tight.
It sounded like a drum; and then was aimed
A blow by Master Adam at his face
With arm no whit less hard, while he exclaimed:
‘What though I can no longer shift my place
Because my members by disease are weighed!
I have an arm still free for such a case.’
To which was answered: ‘When thou wast conveyed
Unto the fire ’twas not thus good at need,110
But even more so when the coiner’s trade
Was plied by thee.’ The swol’n one: ‘True indeed!
But thou didst not bear witness half so true
When Trojans[778] at thee for the truth did plead.’
‘If I spake falsely, thou didst oft renew
False coin,’ said Sinon; ‘one fault brought me here;
Thee more than any devil of the crew.’
‘Bethink thee of the horse, thou perjurer,’
He of the swol’n paunch answered; ‘and that by
All men ’tis known should anguish in thee stir.’120
‘Be thirst that cracks thy tongue thy penalty,
And putrid water,’ so the Greek replied,
‘Which ’fore thine eyes thy stomach moundeth high.’
The coiner then: ‘Thy mouth thou openest wide,
As thou art used, thy slanderous words to vent;
But if I thirst and humours plump my hide
Thy head throbs with the fire within thee pent.
To lap Narcissus’ mirror,[779] to implore
And urge thee on would need no argument.’
While I to hear them did attentive pore130
My Master said: ‘Thy fill of staring take!
To rouse my anger needs but little more.’
And when I heard that he in anger spake
Toward him I turned with such a shame inspired,
Recalled, it seems afresh on me to break.
And, as the man who dreams of hurt is fired
With wish that he might know his dream a dream,
And so what is, as ’twere not, is desired;
So I, struck dumb and filled with an extreme
Craving to find excuse, unwittingly140
The meanwhile made the apology supreme.
‘Less shame,’ my Master said, ‘would nullify
A greater fault, for greater guilt atone;
All sadness for it, therefore, lay thou by.
But bear in mind that thou art not alone,
If fortune hap again to bring thee near
Where people such debate are carrying on.
To things like these ’tis shame[780] to lend an ear.’
FOOTNOTES:
[759] Semele: The daughter of Cadmus, founder and king of Thebes, was beloved by Jupiter and therefore hated by Juno, who induced her to court destruction by urging the god to visit her, as he was used to come to Juno, in all his glory. And in other instances the goddess took revenge (Ovid, Metam. iv.).