The speech of one and the look of the other made me wishful to know their names, and I made request for it, mixed with prayers. Wherefore the spirit which first had spoken to me began again, “Thou wishest that I abase myself in doing that for thee which thou wilt not do for me; but since God wills that such great grace of His shine through in thee, I will not be chary to thee; therefore know that I am Guido del Duca. My blood was so inflamed with envy, that had I seen a man becoming joyful, thou wouldst have seen me overspread with livid hue. Of my sowing I reap this straw. O human race, why dost thou set thy heart there where is need of exclusion of companionship?
“This one is Rinier; this is the glory and the honor of the house of Calboli,[1] where no one since has made himself heir of his worth. And between the Po and the mountain,[2] and the sea[3] and the Reno,[4] not his blood alone has become stripped of the good required for truth and for delight; for within these limits the ground is so full of poisonous stocks, that slowly would they now die out through cultivation. Where is the good Lizio, and Arrigo Manardi, Pier Traversaro, and Guido di Carpigna? O men of Romagna turned to bastards! When in Bologna will a Fabbro take root again? When in Faenza a Bernardin di Fosco, the noble scion of a mean plant? Marvel not, Tuscan, if I weep, when I remember with Guido da Prata, Ugolin d’ Azzo who lived with us, Federico Tignoso and his company, the house of Traversara, and the Anastagi, (both the one race and the other is without heir), the ladies and the cavaliers, the toils and the pleasures for which love and courtesy inspired our will, there where hearts have become so wicked. O Brettinoro! why dost thou not flee away, since thy family hath gone, and many people, in order not to be guilty? Well doth Bagnacaval that gets no more sons; and ill doth Castrocaro, and worse Conio that takes most trouble to beget such counts. Well will the Pagani do when their Demon shall go from them;[6] yet not so that a pure report of them can ever remain. O Ugolin de’ Fantolin! thy name is secure, since one who, degenerating, can make it dark is no longer awaited. But go thy way, Tuscan, now; for now it pleases me far more to weep than to speak, so much hath our discourse wrung my mind.”
[1] A noble Guelph family of Forli.
[2] The Apennines.
[3] The Adriatic.
[4] Near Bologna.
[5] These and the others named afterwards were well-born, honorable, and courteous men in Romagna in the thirteenth century. What is known of them may be found in Benvenuto da Imola’s comment, and in that of Scartazzini.
[6] The Pagani were lords of Faenza and Imola (see Hell, Canto XXVII); the Demon was Mainardo, who died in 1302.
We knew that those dear souls heard us go; therefore by silence they made us confident of the road. After we had become alone by going on, a voice that seemed like lightning when it cleaves the air, came counter to us, saying, “Everyone that findeth me shall slay me,” [1] and fled like thunder which rolls away, if suddenly the cloud is rent. Soon as our hearing had a truce from it, lo! now another with so great a crash that it resembled thunderings in swift succession: “I am Aglauros who became a stone.”[2] And then to draw me close to the Poet, I backward and not forward took a step. Now was the air quiet on every side, and he said to me, “That was the hard curb[3] which ought to hold man within his bound; but ye take the bait, so that the hook of the old adversary draws you to him, and therefore little avails bridle or lure. Heaven calls you, and around you circles, displaying to you its eternal beauties, and your eye looks only on the ground; wherefore He who discerns everything scourges you.
[1] The words of Cain—Genesis, iv. 14.