The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 22

FOOTNOTES:

[496] _The monster_: Geryon, a mythical king of Spain, converted here into the symbol of fraud, and set as the guardian demon of the Eighth Circle, where the fraudulent are punished. There is nothing in the mythology to justify this account of Geryon; and it seems that Dante has created a monster to serve his purpose. Boccaccio, in his _Genealogy of the G.o.ds_ (Lib. i.), repeats the description of Geryon given by 'Dante the Florentine, in his poem written in the Florentine tongue, one certainly of no little importance among poems;' and adds that Geryon reigned in the Balearic Isles, and was used to decoy travellers with his benignant countenance, caressing words, and every kind of friendly lure, and then to murder them when asleep.

[497] _Who pa.s.ses mountains, etc._: Neither art nor nature affords any defence against fraud.

[498] _The bank_: Not that which confines the brook but the inner limit of the Seventh Circle, from which the precipice sinks sheer into the Eighth, and to which the embankment by which the travellers have crossed the sand joins itself on. Virgil has beckoned Geryon to come to that part of the bank which adjoins the end of the causeway.

[499] _Knot and rounded s.h.i.+eld_: Emblems of subtle devices and subterfuges.

[500]_ Varied dye_: Denoting the various colours of deceit.

[501] _Arachne_: The Lydian weaver changed into a spider by Minerva. See _Purg._ xii. 43.

[502] _Gluttonous Germany_: The habits of the German men-at-arms in Italy, odious to the temperate Italians, explains this gibe.

[503] _The right_: This is the second and last time that, in their course through Inferno, they turn to the right. See _Inf._ ix. 132. The action may possibly have a symbolical meaning, and refer to the protection against fraud which is obtained by keeping to a righteous course. But here, in fact, they have no choice, for, traversing the Inferno as they do to the left hand, they came to the right bank of the stream which traverses the fiery sands, followed it, and now, when they would leave its edge, it is from the right embankment that they have to step down, and necessarily to the right hand.

[504] _A half score steps, etc._: Traversing the stone-built border which lies between the sand and the precipice. Had the brook flowed to the very edge of the Seventh Circle before tumbling down the rocky wall it is clear that they might have kept to the embankment until they were clear beyond the edge of the sand. We are therefore to figure to ourselves the water as plunging down at a point some yards, perhaps the width of the border, short of the true limit of the circle; and this is a touch of local truth, since waterfalls in time always wear out a funnel for themselves by eating back the precipice down which they tumble. It was into this funnel that Virgil flung the cord, and up it that Geryon was seen to ascend, as if by following up the course of the water he would find out who had made the signal. To keep to the narrow causeway where it ran on by the edge of this gulf would seem too full of risk.

[505] _Woful folk_: Usurers; those guilty of the unnatural sin of contemning the legitimate modes of human industry. They sit huddled up on the sand, close to its bound of solid masonry, from which Dante looks down on them. But that the usurers are not found only at the edge of the plain is evident from _Inf._ xiv. 19.

[506] _Could recognise, etc._: Though most of the group prove to be from Florence Dante recognises none of them; and this denotes that nothing so surely creates a second nature in a man, in a bad sense, as setting the heart on money. So in the Fourth Circle those who, being unable to spend moderately, are always thinking of how to keep or get money are represented as 'obscured from any recognition' (_Inf._ vii. 44).

[507] _A pregnant sow_: The azure lion on a golden field was the arms of the Gianfigliazzi, eminent usurers of Florence; the white goose on a red ground was the arms of the Ubriachi of Florence; the azure sow, of the Scrovegni of Padua.

[508] _Vitalian_: A rich Paduan n.o.ble, whose palace was near that of the Scrovegni.

[509] _Pink of Chivalry_: 'Sovereign Cavalier;' identified by his arms as Ser Giovanni Buiamonte, still alive in Florence in 1301, and if we are to judge from the text, the greatest usurer of all. A northern poet of the time would have sought his usurers in the Jewry of some town he knew, but Dante finds his among the n.o.bles of Padua and Florence. He ironically represents them as wearing purses ornamented with their coats of arms, perhaps to hint that they pursued their dishonourable trade under shelter of their n.o.ble names--their shop signs, as it were. The whole pa.s.sage may have been planned by Dante so as to afford him the opportunity of d.a.m.ning the still living Buiamonte without mentioning his name.

[510] _His tongue thrust out_: As if to say: We know well what sort of fine gentleman Buiamonte is.

[511] _By stairs like this_: The descent from one circle to another grows more difficult the further down they come. They appear to have found no special obstacle in the nature of the ground till they reached the bank sloping down to the Fifth Circle, the pathway down which is described as terrible (_Inf._ vii. 105). The descent into the Seventh Circle is made practicable, and nothing more (_Inf._ xii. I).

[512] _Heaven was fired_: As still appears in the Milky Way. In the _Convito_, ii. 15, Dante discusses the various explanations of what causes the brightness of that part of the heavens.

[513] _A terrific roar_: Of the water falling to the ground. On beginning the descent they had left the waterfall on the left hand, but Geryon, after fetching one or more great circles, pa.s.ses in front of it, and then they have it on the right. There is no further mention of the waters of Phlegethon till they are found frozen in Cocytus (_Inf._ x.x.xii. 23). Philalethes suggests that they flow under the Eighth Circle.

[514] _Lure_: An imitation bird used in training falcons. Dante describes the sulky, slow descent of a falcon which has either lost sight of its prey, or has failed to discover where the falconer has thrown the lure. Geryon has descended thus deliberately owing to the command of Virgil.

CANTO XVIII.

Of iron colour, and composed of stone, A place called Malebolge[515] is in h.e.l.l, Girt by a cliff of substance like its own.

In that malignant region yawns a well[516]

Right in the centre, ample and profound; Of which I duly will the structure tell.

The zone[517] that lies between them, then, is round-- Between the well and precipice hard and high; Into ten vales divided is the ground.

As is the figure offered to the eye, 10 Where numerous moats a castle's towers enclose That they the walls may better fortify; A like appearance was made here by those.

And as, again, from threshold of such place Many a drawbridge to the outworks goes; So ridges from the precipice's base Cutting athwart the moats and barriers run, Till at the well join the extremities.[518]

From Geryon's back when we were shaken down 'Twas here we stood, until the Poet's feet 20 Moved to the left, and I, behind, came on.

New torments on the right mine eyes did meet With new tormentors, novel woe on woe; With which the nearer Bolgia was replete.

Sinners, all naked, in the gulf below, This side the middle met us; while they strode On that side with us, but more swift did go.[519]

Even so the Romans, that the mighty crowd Across the bridge, the year of Jubilee, Might pa.s.s with ease, ordained a rule of road[520]-- 30 Facing the Castle, on that side should be The mult.i.tude which to St. Peter's hied; So to the Mount on this was pa.s.sage free.

On the grim rocky ground, on either side, I saw horned devils[521] armed with heavy whip Which on the sinners from behind they plied.

Ah, how they made the wretches nimbly skip At the first lashes; no one ever yet But sought from the second and the third to slip.

And as I onward went, mine eyes were set 40 On one of them; whereon I called in haste: 'This one already I have surely met!'

Therefore to know him, fixedly I gazed; And my kind Leader willingly delayed, While for a little I my course retraced.

On this the scourged one, thinking to evade My search, his visage bent without avail, For: 'Thou that gazest on the ground,' I said, 'If these thy features tell trustworthy tale, Venedico Caccianimico[522] thou! 50 But what has brought thee to such sharp regale?'[523]

And he, 'I tell it 'gainst my will, I trow, But thy clear accents[524] to the old world bear My memory, and make me all avow.

I was the man who Ghisola the fair To serve the Marquis' evil will led on, Whatever[525] the uncomely tale declare.

Of Bolognese here weeping not alone Am I; so full the place of them, to-day 'Tween Reno and Savena[526] are not known 60 So many tongues that _Sipa_ deftly say: And if of this thou'dst know the reason why, Think but how greedy were our hearts alway.'

To him thus speaking did a demon cry: 'Pander, begone!' and smote him with his thong; 'Here are no women for thy coin to buy.'

Then, with my Escort joined, I moved along.

Few steps we made until we there had come, Where from the bank a rib of rock was flung.

With ease enough up to its top we clomb, 70 And, turning on the ridge, bore to the right;[527]

And those eternal circles[528] parted from.

When we had reached where underneath the height A pa.s.sage opes, yielding the scourged a way, My Guide bade: 'Tarry, so to hold in sight Those other spirits born in evil day, Whose faces until now from thee have been Concealed, because with ours their progress lay.'

Then from the ancient bridge by us were seen The troop which toward us on that circuit sped, 80 Chased onward, likewise, by the scourges keen.

And my good Master, ere I asked him, said: 'That lordly one now coming hither, see, By whom, despite of pain, no tears are shed.

What mien he still retains of majesty!

'Tis Jason, who by courage and by guile The Colchians of the ram deprived. 'Twas he Who on his pa.s.sage by the Lemnian isle, Where all of womankind with daring hand Upon their males had wrought a murder vile, 90 With loving pledges and with speeches bland The tender-yeared Hypsipyle betrayed, Who had herself a fraud on others planned.

Forlorn he left her then, when pregnant made.

That is the crime condemns him to this pain; And for Medea[529] too is vengeance paid.

Who in his manner cheat compose his train.

Of the first moat sufficient now is known, And those who in its jaws engulfed remain.'

Already had we by the strait path gone 100 To where 'tis with the second bank dovetailed-- The b.u.t.tress whence a second arch is thrown.

Here heard we who in the next Bolgia wailed[530]

And puffed for breath; reverberations told They with their open palms themselves a.s.sailed.

The sides were crusted over with a mould Plastered upon them by foul mists that rise, And both with eyes and nose a contest hold.

The bottom is so deep, in vain our eyes Searched it till further up the bridge we went, 110 To where the arch o'erhangs what under lies.

Ascended there, our eyes we downward bent, And I saw people in such ordure drowned, A very cesspool 'twas of excrement.

And while I from above am searching round, One with a head so filth-smeared I picked out, I knew not if 'twas lay, or tonsure-crowned.

'Why then so eager,' asked he with a shout, 'To stare at me of all the filthy crew?'

And I to him: 'Because I scarce can doubt 120 That formerly thee dry of hair I knew, Alessio Interminei[531] the Lucchese; And therefore thee I chiefly hold in view.'

Smiting his head-piece, then, his words were these: "Twas flattery steeped me here; for, using such, My tongue itself enough could never please.'

'Now stretch thou somewhat forward, but not much,'

Thereon my Leader bade me, 'and thine eyes Slowly advance till they her features touch And the dishevelled baggage recognise, 130 Clawing her yonder with her nails unclean, Now standing up, now squatting on her thighs.

'Tis harlot Thais,[532] who, when she had been Asked by her lover, "Am I generous And worthy thanks?" said, "Greatly so, I ween."

Enough[533] of this place has been seen by us.'

FOOTNOTES:

[515] _Malebolge_: Or Evil Pits; literally, Evil Pockets.

[516] _A well_: The Ninth and lowest Circle, to be described in Canto x.x.xii., etc.