[1]Too close to leave a space for walking.
Accursed be thou, old she-wolf, who more than all the other beasts hast prey, because of thy hunger hollow without end! O Heaven! by whose revolution it seems that men believe conditions here below are transmuted, when will he come through whom she shall depart?[1] We were going on with slow and scanty steps, and I attentive to the shades whom I heard piteously lamenting and bewailing; and peradventure I heard in front of us one crying out, “Sweet Mary,” in his lament, even as a woman does who is in travail; and continuing, “So poor wast thou as may be seen by that inn where thou didst lay down thy holy burden.” And following this I heard, “O good Fabricius,[2] thou didst rather wish for virtue with poverty than to possess great riches with vice.” These words were so pleasing to me that I drew myself further on to have acquaintance with that spirit from whom they seemed to come. He was speaking furthermore of the largess which Nicholas[3] made to the damsels in order to conduct their youth to honor. “O soul that discoursest so well,” said I, “tell me who thou wast, and why thou alone renewest these worthy praises. Not without meed will be thy words, if I return to complete the short journey of that life which flies towards its end.” And he, “I will tell thee, not for comfort that I may expect from yonder,[4] but because such grace shineth on thee ere thou art dead. I was the root of the evil plant which so overshadows all the Christian land[5] that good fruit is rarely plucked therefrom. But if Douai, Lille, Ghent, and Bruges had power, soon would there be vengeance on it;[6] and I implore it from him who judges everything. Yonder I was called Hugh Capet: of me are born the Philips and the Louises, by whom of late times France is ruled. I was the son of a butcher of Paris.[7] When the ancient kings had all died out, save one, who had assumed the grey garb,[8] I found me with the bridle of the government of the realm fast in my hands, and with so much power recently acquired, and so full of friends, that to the widowed crown the head of my son was promoted, from whom the consecrated bones[9] of these began.
[1] The old she-wolf is avarice, the same who at the outset (Hell, Canto I.) had driven Dante back and made him lose hope of the height. The likeness of the two passages is striking.
[2] Caius Fabricius, the famous poor and incorruptible Roman consul, who refused the bribes of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. Dante extols his worth also in the Convito, iv. 5.
[3] St. Nicholas, Bishop of Mira, who, according to the legend, knowing that owing to the poverty of their father, three maidens were exposed to the risk of leading lives of dishonor, secretly, at night, threw into the window of their house money enough to provide each with a dowry.
[4] The earth.
[5] In 1300 the descendants of Hugh Capet were ruling France, Spain, and Naples.
[6] Phillip the Fair gained possession of Flanders, by force and fraud, in 1299; but in 1802 the French were driven out of the country, after a fatal defeat at Courtrai, here dimly prophesied.
[7] Dante here follows the incorrect popular tradition.
[8] Who had become a monk. The historical reference is obscure.