Amid this cruel and most dismal store were running people naked and in terror, without hope of hole or heliotrope.[1] They had their hands tied behind with serpents, which fixed through the reins their tail and their head, and were knotted up in front.
[1] A precious stone, of green color, spotted with red, supposed to make its wearer invisible.
And lo! at one, who was on our side, darted a serpent that transfixed him there where the neck is knotted to the shoulders. Nor O nor I was ever so quickly written as he took fire and burned, and all ashes it behoved him to become in falling. And when upon the ground he lay thus destroyed, the dust drew together of itself, and into that same one instantly returned. Thus by the great sages it is affirmed that the Phoenix dies, and then is reborn when to her five hundredth year she draws nigh. Nor herb nor grain she feeds on in her life, but only on tears of incense and on balsam, and nard and myrrh are her last winding-sheet.
And as he who falls and knows not how, by force of demon that drags him to ground, or of other attack that seizeth the man; when he arises and around him gazes, all bewildered by the great anguish that he has suffered, and in looking sighs, such was that sinner after he had risen. Oh power of God! how just thou art that showerest down such blows for vengeance!
The Leader asked him then who he was; whereon he answered, “I rained from Tuscany short time ago into this fell gullet. Bestial life, and not human, pleased me, like a mule that I was. I am Vanni Fucci, beast, and Pistoia was my fitting den.” And I to my Leader, “Tell him not to budge, and ask what sin thrust him down here, for I have seen him a man of blood and rages.” And the sinner who heard dissembled not, but directed toward me his mind and his face, and was painted with dismal shame. Then he said, “More it grieves me, that thou hast caught me in the misery where thou seest me, than when I was taken from the other life. I cannot refuse that which thou demandest. I am put so far down because I was robber of the sacristy with the fair furnishings, and falsely hitherto has it been ascribed to another.[1] But that thou enjoy not this sight, if ever thou shalt be forth of these dark places, open thine ears to my announcement and hear.[2] Pistoia first strips itself of the Black, then Florence renovates her people and her customs. Mars draws a flame from Val di Magra wrapped in turbid clouds, and with impetuous and bitter storm shall it be opposed upon Campo Piceno, where it shall suddenly rend the mist, so that every White shall thereby be smitten. And this have I said because it must grieve thee.”
[1] Vanni Fucci robbed the rich sacristy of the Church of St. James, the cathedral of Pistoia. Suspicion of the crime fell upon others, who, though innocent, were put to torture and hung for it.
[2] The following verses refer under their dark imagery to the two parties, the Black and the White, introduced from Pistoia, by which Florence was divided in the early years of the fourteenth century, and to their fightings. The prophecy is dismal to Dante, because it was with the Whites, whose overthrow Vanni Fucci foretells, that his own fortunes were linked.
CANTO XXV.
Eighth Circle: seventh pit: fraudulent thieves.—Cacus.—Agnel Brunelleschi and others.
At the end of his words the thief raised his hands with both the figs,[1] crying, “Take that, God! for at thee I square them.” Thenceforth the serpents were my friends, for then one coiled around his neck, as if it said, “I will not that thou say more,” and another round his arms and bound them up anew, clinching itself so in front that he could not give a shake with them. Ah Pistoia! Pistoia! why dost thou not decree to make ashes of thyself, so that thou mayest last no longer, since in evil-doing thou surpassest thine own seed?[2] Through all the dark circles of Hell I saw no spirit against God so proud, not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls.[3] He fled away and spake no word more.