More than a hundred spirits, when that they heard,
Stood in the foss to mark me through amaze
Forgetful of their pangs. "Thou, who perchance
Shalt shortly view the sun, this warning thou
Bear to Dolcino:5 bid him, if he wish not
Here soon to follow me, that with good store
Of food he arm him, lest imprisoning snows
Yield him a victim to Novara's power;
No easy conquest else:" with foot upraised
For stepping, spake Mohammed, on the ground
Then fix'd it to depart. Another shade,
Pierced in the throat, his nostrils mutilate
E'en from beneath the eyebrows, and one ear
Lopt off, who, with the rest, through wonder stood
Gazing, before the rest advanced, and bared
His wind-pipe, that without was all o'ersmear'd
With crimson stain. "O thou!" said he, "whom sin
Condemns not, and whom erst (unless too near
Resemblance to deceive me) I aloft

Have seen on Latian ground, call thou to mind
Piero of Medicina," if again

Returning, thou behold'st the pleasant land"

That from Vercelli slopes to Mercabo;

And there instruct the twain, whom Fano boasts

Her worthiest sons, Guido and Angelo,

That if 'tis given us here to scan aright
The future, they out of life's tenement

Shall be cast forth, and whelm'd under the waves

"Dolcino." In 1305, a friar, called Dolcino, who belonged to no regular order, contrived to raise in Novara, in Lombardy, a large company of the meaner sort of people, declaring himself to be a true apostle of Christ, and promulgating a community of property and of wives, with many other such heretical doctrines. He blamed the Pope, cardinals, and other prelates of the holy church, for not observing their duty, nor leading the angelic life, and affirmed that he ought to be pope. He was followed by more than three thousand men and women, who lived promiscuously on the mountains together, like beasts, and, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by depredation and rapine. This lasted for two years, till many, being struck with compunction at the dissolute life they led, his sect was much diminished; and, through fail

ure of food and the severity of the snows, he was taken by the people of Novara, and burnt, with Margarita, his companion, and many other men and women whom his errors had seduced.

6" Medicina." A place in the territory of Bologna. Piero fomented dissensions among the inhabitants of that city, and among the leaders of the neighboring States.

7" The pleasant land." Lombardy.

8" The twain.' Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano, two of the worthiest and most distinguished citizens of Fano, were invited by Malatestino da Rimini to an entertainment, on pretence that he had some important business to transact with them; and, according to instructions given by him, they were drowned in their passage near Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano.

Near to Cattolica, through perfidy

Of a fell tyrant. 'Twixt the Cyprian isle
And Balearic, ne'er hath Neptune seen

An injury so foul, by pirates done,

Or Argive crew of old. That one-eyed traitor
(Whose realm there is a spirit here were fain
His eye had still lack'd sight of) them shall bring
To conference with him, then so shape his end,
That they shall need not 'gainst Focara's wind
Offer up vow nor prayer." I answering thus:
Declare, as thou dost wish that I above

66

May carry tidings of thee, who is he,

In whom that sight doth wake such sad remembrance." Forthwith he laid his hand on the cheek-bone

Of one, his fellow-spirit, and his jaws

Expanding, cried: "Lo! this is he I wot of:
He speaks not for himself: the outcast this,

Who overwhelm'd the doubt in Cæsar's mind,10
Affirming that delay to men prepared

Was ever harmful." Oh! how terrified

Methought was Curio, from whose throat was cut
The tongue, which spake that hardy word. Then one,
Maim'd of each hand, uplifted in the gloom
The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots
Sullied his face, and cried: "Remember thee
Of Mosca 11 too; I who, alas! exclaim'd,
'The deed once done, there is an end' that proved
A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race."

I added: “Ay, and death to thine own tribe."
Whence, heaping woe on woe, he hurried off,
As one grief-stung to madness. But I there

"Focara's wind." Focara is a mountain, from which a wind blows that is peculiarly dangerous to the navigators of that coast.

10" The doubt in Cæsar's mind." Curio, whose speech (according to Lucan) determined Julius Cæsar to proceed when he had arrived at Rimini (the ancient Ariminum), and doubted whether he should prosecute the civil war.

11" Mosca.' Buondelmonte was engaged to marry a lady of the Amidei family, but broke his promise, and united himself to one of the Donati. This was so much resented by the former, that a meeting of themselves and

their kinsmen was held, to consider of the best means of revenging the insult. Mosca degli Uberti, or de' Lamberti, persuaded them to resolve on the assassination of Buondelmonte, exclaiming to them, "the thing once done, there is an end." This counsel and its effects were the source of many terrible calamities to the State of Florence. "This murder," says G. Villani, lib. v. cap. xxxviii., was the cause and beginning of the accursed Guelf and Ghibelline parties in Florence." It happened in 1215. See the " Paradise," Canto xvi. 139.

Still linger'd to behold the troop, and saw
Thing, such as I may fear without more proof
To tell of, but that conscience makes me firm,
The boon companion, who her strong breastplate
Buckles on him, that feels no guilt within,
And bids him on and fear not. Without doubt
I saw, and yet it seems to pass before me,
A headless trunk, that even as the rest
Of the sad flock paced onward. By the hair
It bore the sever'd member, lantern-wise
Pendent in hand, which look'd at us, and said,
"Woe's me!" The spirit lighted thus himself;
And two there were in one, and one in two.
How that may be, he knows who ordereth so.
When at the bridge's foot direct he stood,
His arm aloft he rear'd, thrusting the head
Full in our view, that nearer we might hear
The words, which thus it utter'd: "Now behold
This grievous torment, thou, who breathing go'st
To spy the dead: behold, if any else

Be terrible as this. And, that on earth
Thou mayst bear tidings of me, know that I
Am Bertrand,12 he of Born, who gave King John
The counsel mischievous. Father and son

I set at mutual war. For Absalom
And David more did not Ahitophel,
Spurring them on maliciously to strife.
For parting those so closely knit, my brain
Parted, alas! I carry from its source.
That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law
Of retribution fiercely works in me."

12" Bertrand." Bertrand de Born, Vicomte de Hautefort, near Perigueux in Guienne, who incited John to rebel

against his father, Henry II of Eng land. Bertrand holds a distinguished place among the Provençal poets.

CANTO XXIX

ARGUMENT.-Dante, at the desire of Virgil, proceeds onward to the bridge that crosses the tenth gulf, from whence he hears the cries of the alchemists and forgers, who are tormented therein; but not being able to discern anything on account of the darkness, they descend the rock, that bounds this, the last of the compartments in which the eighth circle is divided, and then behold the spirits who are afflicted by divers plagues and diseases. Two of them, namely, Grifolino of Arezzo, and Capocchio of Sienna, are introduced speaking.

O were mine eyes inebriate with the view

S°

66

Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds
Disfigured, that they long'd to stay and weep.
But Virgil roused me: What yet gazest on?
Wherefore doth fasten yet thy sight below
Among the maim'd and miserable shades?
Thou hast not shown in any chasm beside

This weakness. Know, if thou wouldst number them,
That two and twenty miles the valley winds
Its circuit, and already is the moon

Beneath our feet: the time permitted now

Is short; and more, not seen, remains to see."

"If thou," I straight replied, "hadst weigh'd the cause,
For which I look'd, thou hadst perchance excused
The tarrying still." My leader part pursued
His way, the while I follow'd, answering him,
And adding thus: "Within that cave I deem,
Whereon so fixedly I held my ken,

There is a spirit dwells, one of my blood,
Wailing the crime that costs him now so dear."

Then spake my master: "Let thy soul no more
Afflict itself for him. Direct elsewhere
Its thought, and leave him. At the bridge's foot
I mark'd how he did point with menacing look
At thee, and heard him by the others named
Geri of Bello.1 Thou so wholly then

1" Geri of Bello." A kinsman of the Poet's, who was murdered by one of the Sacchetti family. His being placed here, may be considered as a proof that Dante was more impartial in the allot

ment of his punishments than has generally been supposed. He was the son of Bello, who was brother to Bellincione, our Poet's grandfather.

Wert busied with his spirit, who once ruled
The towers of Hautefort, that thou lookedst not
That way, ere he was gone." "O guide beloved!
His violent death yet unavenged," said I,

"By any, who are partners in his shame,
Made him contemptuous; therefore, as I think,
He pass'd me speechless by; and, doing so,
Hath made me more compassionate his fate."
So we discoursed to where the rock first show'd
The other valley, had more light been there,
E'en to the lowest depth. Soon as we came
O'er the last cloister in the dismal rounds
Of Malebolge, and the brotherhood
Were to our view exposed, then many a dart
Of sore lament assail'd me, headed all
With points of thrilling pity, that I closed
Both ears against the volley with mine hands.
As were the torment, if each lazar-house
Of Valdichiana,2 in the sultry time
'Twixt July and September, with the isle
Sardinia and Maremma's pestilent fen,3
Had heap'd their maladies all in one foss
Together; such was here the torment: dire
The stench, as issuing streams from fester'd limbs.
We on the utmost shore of the long rock
Descended still to leftward. Then my sight
Was livelier to explore the depth, wherein
The minister of the most mighty Lord,
All-searching Justice, dooms to punishment
The forgers noted on her dread record.

More rueful was it not methinks to see
The nation in Ægina droop, what time
Each living thing, e'en to the little worm,
All fell, so full of malice was the air,

(And afterward, as bards of yore have told,

"Of Valdichiana." The valley through which passes the river Chiana, bounded by Arezzo, Cortona, Montepulciano, and Chiusi. In the heat of autumn it was formerly rendered unwholesome by the stagnation of the water, but has since been drained by the Emperor Leopold II. The Chiana

is mentioned as a remarkably sluggish
stream, in the Paradise, Canto xiii. 21.
3" Maremma's pestilent fen."
note to Canto xxv. v. 18.

See

"In Egina." He alludes to the fable of the ants changed into Myrmidons.-Ovid, "Met." lib. vii.