[2] The first division of this ninth and lowest circle of Hell.
[3] Mordred, the traitorous son of Arthur.
[4] From the crimes of Focaccia, a member of the great Cancellieri family of Pistoia, began the feud of the Black and the White factions, which long raged in Pistoia and in Florence.
[5] A Florentine who murdered his nephew for an inheritance.
[6] A murderer of one of his kinsmen, whose crime was surpassed by that of Carlino de’ Pazzi, who, in 1302, betrayed a band of the Florentine exiles who had taken refuge in a stronghold of his in Valdarno.
Then I saw a thousand faces made currish by the cold, whence shuddering comes to me, and will always come, at frozen pools.
And while we were going toward the centre[1] to which tends every weight, and I was trembling in the eternal shade, whether it was will or destiny, or fortune I know not, but, walking among the heads, I struck my foot hard in the face of one. Wailing he cried out to me, “Why dost thou trample me? If thou comest not to increase the vengeance of Mont’ Aperti, why dost thou molest me?” And I, “My Master, now wait here for me, so that I may free me from a doubt by means of this one, then thou shalt make me hasten as much as thou wilt.” The Leader stopped, and I said to that shade who was bitterly blaspheming still, “Who art thou that thus railest at another?” “Now thou, who art thou, that goest through the Antenora,”[2] he answered, “smiting the cheeks of others, so that if thou wert alive, it would be too much?” “Alive I am, and it may be dear to thee,” was my reply, “if thou demandest fame, that I should set thy name amid the other notes.” And he to me, “For the contrary do I long; take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble, for ill thou knowest to flatter on this plain.” Then I took him by the hair of the crown, and said, “It shall needs be that thou name thyself, or that not a hair remain upon thee here.” Whereon he to me, “Though thou strip me of hair, I will not tell thee who I am, nor will I show it to thee if a thousand times thou fallest on my head.”
[1] The centre of the earth.
[2] The second division of the ninth circle; so named after the Trojan who, though of good repute in Homer, was charged by a later tradition with having betrayed Troy.
I already had his hair twisted in my hand, and had pulled out more than one shock, he barking, with his eyes kept close down, when another cried out, “What ails thee, Bocca?[1] Is it not enough for thee to make music with thy jaws, but thou must bark? What devil has hold of thee?” “Now,” said I, “I would not have thee speak, accursed traitor, for to thy shame will I carry true news of thee.” “Begone,” he answered, “and relate what thou wilt, but be not silent, if from here within thou goest forth, of him who now had his tongue so ready. He weeps here the money of the French; I saw, thou canst say, him of Duera,[2] there where the sinners stand cooling. Shouldst thou be asked who else was there, thou hast at thy side that Beccheria[3] whose gorget Florence cut. Gianni del Soldanier[4] I think is farther on with Ganellon[5] and Tribaldello,[6] who opened Faenza when it was sleeping.”