I thus adjured him, "as thou solve this knot,
Which now involves my mind. If right I hear,
Ye seem to view beforehand that which time
Leads with him, of the present uninform'd."
"We view, as one who hath an evil sight,"
He answer'd, "plainly, objects far remote;
So much of his large splendour yet imparts
The Almighty Ruler: but when they approach,
Or actually exist, our intellect

Then wholly fails; nor of your human state,
Except what others bring us, know we aught.
Hence therefore mayst thou understand, that all
Our knowledge in that instant shall expire,
When on futurity the portals close."

Then conscious of my fault, and by remorse
Smitten, I added thus: "Now shalt thou say
To him there fallen, that his offspring still
Is to the living join'd; and bid him know,
That if from answer, silent, I abstain'd,
'Twas that my thought was occupied, intent
Upon that error, which thy help hath solved."
But now my master summoning me back
I heard, and with more eager haste besought
The spirit to inform me, who with him
Partook his lot. He answer thus return'd:
"More than a thousand with me here are laid.
Within is Frederick,3 second of that name,
And the Lord Cardinal; and of the rest

translating Milton's Italian verses. A good instance of the different meanings in which it is used is afforded in the following lines by Bernardo Capello :

E tu, che dolcemente i fiori e l' erba
Con lieve corso mormorando bagni,
Tranquillo fiume di vaghezza pieno;
Se'l cielo al mar si chiaro t' accompagni ;
Se punto di pietade in te si serba:

Le mie lagrime accogli entro al tuo seno.

Here the first "se" signifies "so," and the second "if."

1. We view.] "The departed spirits know things past and to come; yet are ignorant of things present. Agamemnon foretells what should happen unto Ulysses, yet ignorantly inquires what is become of his own son." Brown on Urne Burial, c. iv.

2 My fault.] Dante felt remorse for not having returned an immediate answer to the inquiry of Cavalcante, from which delay he was led to believe that his son Guido was no longer living,

3 Frederick.] The Emperor Frederick the Second, who died in 1250. See Notes to Canto xiii.

4 The Lord Cardinal.] Ottaviano Ubaldini, a Florentine, made cardinal in 1245, and deceased about 1273. On account of his great influence, he was generally known by the appellation of "the Cardinal." It is reported of him, that he declared, if there were any such thing as a human soul, he had lost his for the Ghibellini. "I know not," says Tiraboschi, "whether it is on sufficient

I speak not." He, this said, from sight withdrew.
But I my steps toward the ancient bard
Reverting, ruminated on the words

Betokening me such ill. Onward he moved,

And thus, in going, question'd: "Whence the amaze
That holds thy senses wrapt?" I satisfied
The inquiry, and the sage enjoin'd me straight:
"Let thy safe memory store what thou hast heard
To thee importing harm; and note thou this,"
With his raised finger bidding me take heed,
"When thou shalt stand before her gracious Leam,1
Whose bright eye all surveys, she of thy life
The future tenour will to thee unfold."

Forthwith he to the left hand turn'd his fect:
We left the wall, and towards the middle space
Went by a path that to a valley strikes,
Which e'en thus high exhaled its noisome steam.

CANTO XI.

Argument.

Dante arrives at the verge of a rocky precipice which encloses the seventh circle, where he sees the sepulchre of Anastasius the Heretic; behind the lid of which pausing a little, to make himself capable by degrees of enduring the fetid smell that steamed upward from the abyss, he is instructed by Virgil concerning the manner in which the three following circles are disposed, and what description of sinners is punished in each. He then inquires the reason why the carnal, the gluttonous, the avaricious and prodigal, the wrathful and gloomy, suffer not their punishments within the city of Dis. He next asks how the crime of usury is an offence against God; and at length the two Poets go towards the place from whence a passage leads down to the seventh circle.

UPON the utmost verge of a high bank,

By craggy rocks environ'd round, we came,

Where woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stow'd:
And here, to shun the horrible excess

grounds that Crescimbeni numbers among the poets of this age the Cardinal Uttaviano, or Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a Florentine, archdeacon and procurator of the church of Bologna, afterwards made Cardinal by Innocent IV. in 1245, and employed in the most important public affairs, wherein, however, he showed himself, more than became his character, a favourer of the Ghibellines. He died, not in the year 1272, as Ciaconio and other writers have reported, but at soonest after the July of 1273, at which time he was in Mugello with Pope Gregory X." Tiraboschi, Della Poes. It. Mr. Mathias's Edit. t. i. p. 140. 1 Her gracious beam.] Beatrice.

Of fetid exhalation upward cast

From the profound abyss, behind the lid

Of a great monument we stood retired,

Whereon this scroll I mark'd: "I have in charge
Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew

From the right path."-"Ere our descent, behoves
We make delay, that somewhat first the sense,
To the dire breath accustom'd, afterward
Regard it not." My master thus; to whom
Answering I spake: "Some compensation find,
That the time pass not wholly lost." He then:
"Lo! how my thoughts e'en to thy wishes tend.
My son within these rocks," he thus began,
"Åre three close circles in gradation placed,
As these which now thou leavest. Each one is full
Of spirits accurst; but that the sight alone
Hereafter may suffice thee, listen how
And for what cause in durance they abide.

66

"Of all malicious act abhorr'd in heaven,
The end is injury; and all such end
Either by force or fraud works other's woc.
But fraud, because of man peculiar evil,
To God is more displeasing; and beneath,
The fraudulent are therefore doom'd to endure
Severer pang. The violent occupy
All the first circle; and because, to force,
Three persons are obnoxious, in three rounds,
Each within other separate, is it framed.
To God, his neighbour, and himself, by man
Force may be offer'd; to himself I say,
And his possessions, as thou soon shalt hear
At full. Death, violent death, and painful wounds
Upon his neighbour he inflicts; and wastes,
By devastation, pillage, and the flames,

His substance. Slayers, and each one that smites
In malice, plunderers, and all robbers, hence

1 Pope Anastasius.] The commentators are not agreed concerning the person who is here mentioned as a follower of the heretical Photinus. By some he is supposed to have been Anastasius the Second; by others, the Fourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that our Poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., Emperor of the East. Fazio degli Uberti, like our author, makes him a pope:

Anastasio papa in quel tempo era,

Di Fotin vago a mal grado de sui. Dittamondo, lib. 2. cap. xiv.

2 My son.] The remainder of the present Canto may be considered as a syllabus of the whole of this part of the poem.

3 Either by force or fraud.] "Cum autem duobus modis, id est, aut vi, aut fraude fiat injuria... utrumque homini alienissimum; sed fraus odio digna majore." Cic. De Of. lib. 1. cap. xiii.

The torment undergo of the first round,
In different herds. Man can do violence
To himself and his own blessings and for this,
He, in the second round must aye deplore
With unavailing penitence his crime,
Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.
To God may force be offer'd, in the heart
Denying and blaspheming his high power,
And Nature with her kindly law contemning.
And thence the inmost round marks with its seal
Sodom, and Cahors, and all such as speak
Contemptuously of the Godhead in their hearts.
"Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting,
May be by man employ'd on one, whose trust
He wins, or on another who withholds
Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way
Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes.
Whence in the second circle have their nest,
Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries,
Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce
To lust, or set their honesty at pawn,

With such vile scum as these. The other way
Forgets both Nature's general love, and that
Which thereto added afterward gives birth
To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle,
Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis,
The traitor is eternally consumed."

I thus: "Instructor, clearly thy discourse
Proceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm
And its inhabitants with skill exact.

But tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool,
Whom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives,
Or who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet,
Wherefore within the city fire-illumed

Are not these punish'd, if God's wrath be on them?
And if it be not, wherefore in such guise

Are they condemn'd?" He answer thus return'd:
"Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind,
Not so accustom'd? or what other thoughts
Possess it? Dwell not in thy memory

1 And sorrows.] This fine moral, that not to enjoy our being is to be ungrateful to the Author of.it, is well expressed in Spenser, F. Q. b. 4. c. viii. st. 15.:

For he whose daies in wilful woe are worne,

The grace of his Creator doth despise,

That will not use his gifts for thankless nigardise.

2 Cahors ] A city of Cuienne, much frequented by usurers.

The words, wherein thy ethic page 1 describes
Three dispositions adverse to Heaven's will,
Incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness,
And how incontinence the least offends
God, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note
This judgment, and remember who they are,
Without these walls to vain repentance doom'd,
Thou shalt discern why they apart are placed
From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours
Justice divine on them its vengeance down."

"O sun! who healest all imperfect sight,
Thou so content'st me, when thou solvest my doubt,
That ignorance not less than knowledge charms.
Yet somewhat turn thee back," I in these words
Continued, "where thou said'st, that usury
Offends celestial Goodness; and this knot
Perplex'd unravel." He thus made reply:
"Philosophy, to an attentive ear,
Clearly points out, not in one part alone,
How imitative Nature takes her course
From the celestial mind, and from its art:
And where her laws 2 the Stagirite unfolds,
Not many leaves scann'd o'er, observing well
Thou shalt discover, that your art on her
Obsequious follows, as the learner treads
In his instructor's step; so that your art
Deserves the name of second in descent 3
From God. These two, if thou recall to mind
Creation's holy book, from the beginning
Were the right source of life and excellence

1 Thy ethic page.] He refers to Aristotle's Ethics: "Mirà di TaUTH REXTÍOY, ἄλλην ποιησαμένους ἀρχὴν ὅτι τῶν περὶ τὰ ἤθη φευκτῶν τρία ἐστὶν εἴδη, κακία, ἀκρασία, Ongiórns." Ethic. Nicomach. lib. 7. cap. i. "In the next place, entering on another division of the subject, let it be defined, that respecting morals there are three sorts of things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness." 2 Her laws.] Aristotle's Physics.—"H x μTau." Arist. 12. AKP. lib. 2. cap. ii. "Art imitates nature."-See the Coltivazione of Alamanni, lib. 1:

l'arte umana

Altro non è da dir ch' un dolce sprone,
Un correger soave, un pio sostegno,
Uno esperto imitar, comporre accorto
Un sollecito attar con studio e'ngegno

La cagion natural, l' effetto, e l' opra.

3 Second in descent.] Si che vostr' arte a Dio quasi è nipote.

So Frezzi:

Giustizia fu da cielo, e di Dio è figlia,

E ogni bona legge a Dio è nipote. Il Quadrir. lib. 4. cap. ii.

4 Creation's holy book.] Genesis, ii. 15: "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it." And, Genesis, iii. 19: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."