Page images
PDF
EPUB

Is shatter'd. By the ruin ye may mount:
For on the side it slants, and most the height
Rises below." With head bent down awhile
My leader stood; then spake: "He warn'd us ill,1
Who yonder hangs the sinners on his hook."
To whom the friar: "At Bologna erst
I many vices of the devil heard;

Among the rest was said, 'He is a liar,2
And the father of lies!"" When he had spoke,
My leader with large strides proceeded on,
Somewhat disturb'd with anger in his look.
I therefore left the spirits heavy laden,
And, following, his beloved footsteps mark'd.

CANTO XXIV.

Argument.

Under the escort of his faithful master, Dante, not without difficulty, makes his way out of the sixth gulf; and in the seventh, sees the robbers tormented by venomous and pestilent serpents. The soul of Vanni Fucci, who had pillaged the sacristy of Saint James in Pistoia, predicts some calamities that impended over that city, and over the Florentines.

In the year's early nonage,3 when the sun
Tempers his tresses in Aquarius' urn,
And now towards equal day the nights recede;
Whenas the rime upon the earth puts on
Her dazzling sister's image, but not long
Her milder sway endures; then riseth up
The village hind, whom fails his wintry store,5
And looking out beholds the plain around
All whiten'd; whence impatiently he smites
His thighs, and to his hut returning in,

1 He warn'd us ill.] He refers to the falsehood told him by the demon. Canto xxi. 108.

2 He is a liar.] "He is a liar and the father of it." John viii. 44. Dante had perhaps heard this text from one of the pulpits in Bologna.

3 In the year's early nonage.] "At the latter part of January, when the sun enters into Aquarius, and the equinox is drawing near, when the hoarfrosts in the morning often wear the appearance of snow, but are melted by the rising sun."

4 Her dazzling sister's image.] λιγνὺν μέλαιναν, ἀιόλην πυρὸς κάσιν.

Eschyl. Septem Contra Thebas, v. 490. Blomfield's edit.

κάσις

anλou Eúvougos, difía nós. Eschyl. Agamemnon, v. 478. Blomfield.

5 Whom fails his wintry store.] A cui la roba manca.

So in the Purgatorio, c. xiii. 61:

Così gli ciechi a cui la roba manca.

There paces to and fro, wailing his lot,

As a discomfited and helpless man;

Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope
Spring in his bosom, finding e'en thus soon

The world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook,
And forth to pasture drives his little flock:
So me my guide dishearten'd, when I saw
His troubled forehead; and so speedily
That ill was cured; for at the fallen bridge
Arriving, towards me with a look as sweet,
He turn'd him back, as that I first beheld
At the steep mountain's foot. Regarding well
The ruin, and some counsel first maintain'd
With his own thought, he open'd wide his arm
And took me up. As one, who, while he works,
Computes his labour's issue, that he seems
Still to foresee the effect; so lifting me
Up to the summit of one peak, he fix'd
His eye upon another. "Grapple that,"
Said he, "but first make proof, if it be such
As will sustain thee." For one capt with lead
This were no journey. Scarcely he, though light,
And I, though onward push'd from crag to crag,
Could mount. And if the precinct of this coast
Were not less ample than the last, for him
I know not, but my strength had surely fail'd.
But Malebolge all toward the mouth

Inclining of the nethermost abyss,

The site of every valley hence requires,

That one side upward slope, the other fall.

At length the point from whence the utmost stone

Juts down, we reach'd; soon as to that arrived,

So was the breath exhausted from my lungs,

I could no farther, but did seat me there.

"Now needs thy best of man ;" so spake my guide: "For not on downy plumes, nor under shade

1 From whence.] Mr. Carlyle notes the mistake in my former translation; and I have corrected it accordingly.

Not on downy plumes.]

Lettor, tu dei pensar che, senza ardire,

Senza affanno soffrir, l'uomo non puote

Fama acquistar, ne gran cose fornire.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, lib. 4. cap. iv.

Nessun mai per fuggir, o per riposo,
Venne in altezza fama ovver in gloria.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. 2. cap. ii.

Signor, non sotto l'ombra in piaggia molle

Tra fonti e fior, tra Ninfe e tra Sirene,

Ma in cima all'erto e faticoso colle

છે

Della virtù riposto è il nostro bene. Tasso, G. L. c. xvii. st. 61.

Of canopy reposing, fame is won;
Without which whosoe'er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth,
As smoke in air or foam upon the wave.
Thou therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness 1
By the mind's effort, in each struggle form'd
To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight
Of her corporeal frame to crush her down.
A longer ladder yet remains to scale.
From these to have escaped sufficeth not.
If well thou note me, profit by my words."

I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent
Than I in truth did feel me. "On," I cried,
"For I am stout and fearless." Up the rock
Our way we held, more rugged than before,
Narrower, and steeper far to climb. From talk
I ceased not, as we journey'd, so to seem
Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss
Did issue forth, for utterance suited ill.

Though on the arch that crosses there I stood,
What were the words I knew not, but who spake
Seem'd moved in anger. Down I stoop'd to look ;
But my quick eye might reach not to the depth
For shrouding darkness; wherefore thus I spake :
"To the next circle, teacher, bend thy steps,
And from the wall dismount we; for as hence
I hear and understand not, so I sec
Beneath, and nought discern."-" I answer not,"
Said he, "but by the deed. To fair request
Silent performance maketh best return."

We from the bridge's head descended, where
To the eighth mound it joins; and then, the chasm
Opening to view, I saw a crowd within

Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape

And hideous, that remembrance in my veins

Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands 3

Let Lybia vaunt no more: if Jaculus,

Pareas and Chelyder be her brood,

Cenchris and Amphisbæna, plagues so dire

Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she show'd,

1 Vanquish thy weariness.]

-Quin corpus onustum

Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat unâ,

Atque affigit humi divinæ particulam auræ. Hor. Sat. ii. lib. 2. 78.

2 Serpents.] Vidi locum horridum tenebrosum fœtoribus exhalantibus flammis crepitantibus serpentibus, draconibus

Visio, sec. 12.

3. Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars. lib. 9. 703.

repletum. Alberici

Not with all Ethiopia, and whate'er
Above the Erythræan sea is spawn'd.
Amid this dread exuberance of woe
Ran naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear,
Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope to charm. them out of view.

With serpents were their hands behind them bound,
Which through their reins infix'd the tail and head,
Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one

Near to our side, darted an adder up,

And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,
Transpierced him. Far more quickly than e'er pen
Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and changed
To ashes all, pour'd out upon the earth.
When there dissolved he lay, the dust again
Uproll'd spontaneous, and the self-same form
Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell,

The Arabian Phoenix,2 when five hundred years
Have well-nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith
Renascent blade nor herb throughout his life

Heliotrope.] Viridi colore est (gemma heliotropion) non ita acuto sed nubilo magis et represso, stellis puniceis superspersa. Causa nominis de effectu lapidis est et potestate. Dejecta in labris aeneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu, utraque aquâ splendorem aëris abjicit et avertit. Etiam illud posse dicitur, ut herbâ ejusdem nominis mixta et præcantationibus legitimis consecrata, eum, a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahat visibus obviorum. Solinus, c. xl. "A stone," says Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino, "which we lapidaries call heliotrope, of such extraordinary virtue, that the bearer of it is effectually concealed from the sight of all present." Decam. G. viii. N. 3. In Chiabrera's Ruggiero, Scaltrimento begs of Sofia, who is sending him on a perilous errand, to lend him the heliotrope :

-In mia man fida

L'elitropia, per cui possa involarmi

Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui. c. vi.

Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which

I may at will from others' eyes conceal me.

Compare Ariosto, Il Negromante, act iii. sc. 3; Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv.; and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17. Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, lib. 7., enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun :

Jaspis and helitropius.

2 The Arabian Phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. lib. 15.: Una est quæ reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales;

Assyrii Phoenica vocant. Nec fruge neque herbis

Sed thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.
Hæc ubi quinque sua complevit secula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis, tremulæve cacumine palmæ,
Unguibus et pando nidum sibi construit ore.
Qua simul ut casias, et nardi lenis aristas,
Quassaque cum fulvâ substravit cinnama myrrhâ,
Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.

See also Petrarch, Canzone: Qual piu, etc.

He tastes, but tears of frankincense 1 alone
And odorous amomum: swaths of nard

And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,
He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd
To earth, or through obstruction fettering up
In chains invisible the powers of man,
Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around,2
Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony

He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs;
So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.

Oh! how severe God's judgment, that deals out
Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was,
My teacher next inquired; and thus in few
He answer'd: "Vanni Fucci3 am I call'd,
Not long since rained down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleased, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoia found my worthy den."

I then to Virgil: "Bid him stir not hence;
And ask what crime did thrust him hither: once
A man I knew him, choleric and bloody."

The sinner heard and feign'd not, but towards me
His mind directing and his face, wherein
Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake :
"It grieves me more to have been caught by thee
In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than
When I was taken from the other life.

I have no power permitted to deny

What thou inquirest. I am doom'd thus low
To dwell, for that the sacristy by me
Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,

And with the guilt another falsely charged.
But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,
So as thou e'er shalt 'scape this darksome realm,
Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.
Reft of the Neri first Pistoia pines;

1 Tears of frankincense.] Incenso e mirra è quello onde si pasce. Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, in a gorgeous description of the Phoenix, lib. 2. cap. v.

2 Gazeth around.]

Su mi levai senza far più parole,

Cogli occhi intorno stupido mirando,
Si come l'Epilentico far suole.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. 2. cap. iii. 3 Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege; in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death.

4 Pistoia.] In May 1301, the Bianchi party of Pistoia, with the assistance and favour of the Bianchi, who ruled Florence, drove out the party of the Neri from the former place, destroying their houses, palaces, and farms." Giov. Villani, Hist. lib. 8. cap. xliv.

« PreviousContinue »