Here, please thee, stay awhile. Thy utterance
Declares the place of thy nativity

To be that noble land, with which perchance

I too severely dealt." Sudden that sound
Forth issued from a vault, whereat, in fear,
I somewhat closer to my leader's side

Approaching, he thus spake: "What dost thou? Turn:
Lo! Farinata there, who hath himself
Uplifted from his girdle upwards, all
Exposed, behold him." On his face was mine
Already fix'd: his breast and forehead there
Erecting, seem'd as in high scorn he held
E'en Hell. Between the sepulchres, to him

66

My guide thrust me, with fearless hands and prompt;
This warning added: See thy words be clear."
He, soon as there I stood at the tomb's foot,
Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood

66

Address'd me: Say what ancestors were thine."
I, willing to obey him, straight reveal'd

The whole, nor kept back aught: whence he, his brow
Somewhat uplifting, cried: "Fiercely were they
Adverse to me, my party, and the blood

4

From whence I sprang: twice, therefore, I abroad
Scatter'd them." Though driven out, yet they each

time

66

From all parts," answer'd I, "return'd; an art
Which yours have shown they are not skill'd to learn."
Then, peering forth from the unclosed jaw,
Rose from his side a shade, high as the chin,
Leaning, methought, upon its knees upraised.
It look'd around, as eager to explore

If there were other with me; but perceiving
That fond imagination quench'd, with tears

"Farinata." Farinata degli Uberti, a noble Florentine, was the leader of the Ghibelline faction, when they obtained a signal victory over the Guelfi at Montaperto, near the river Arbia. Macchiavelli calls him 66 a man of exalted soul, and great military talents."-" Hist. of Flor." b. ii. His grandson, Bonifacio, commonly called Fazio degli Uberti,

wrote a poem, entitled the " Dittamonodo," in imitation of Dante.

4" Twice." The first time in 1248, when they were driven out by Frederick the Second. See G. Villani, lib. vi. c. xxxiv.; and the second time in 1260. See note to v. 83.

5" A shade." The spirit of Cavalcante Cavalcanti, a noble Florentine, of the Guelf party.

Thus spake: "If thou through this blind prison go'st,
Led by thy lofty genius and profound,

Where is my son?" and wherefore not with thee?"
I straight replied: "Not of myself I come;

By him, who there expects me, through this clime
Conducted, whom perchance Guido thy son

Had in contempt." 997

Already had his words

And mode of punishment read me his name,

Whence I so fully answer'd. He at once

Exclaim'd, up starting, "How! said'st thou, he had?
No longer lives he? Strikes not on his eye
The blessed daylight?" Then, of some delay
I made ere my reply, aware, down fell
Supine, nor after forth appear'd he more.

Meanwhile the other, great of soul, near whom
I yet was station'd, changed not countenance stern,
Nor moved the neck, nor bent his ribbed side.
"And if," continuing the first discourse,

"They in this art," he cried, "small skill have shown;
That doth torment me more e'en than this bed.

8

But not yet fifty times shall be relumed

Her aspect, who reigns here queen of this realm,
Ere thou shalt know the full weight of that art.
So to the pleasant world mayst thou return,
As thou shalt tell me why, in all their laws,
Against my kin this people is so fell."
"The slaughter 10 and great havoc," I replied,

"My son." Guido, the son of
Cavalcante Cavalcanti; "he whom
I call the first of my friends," says
Dante in his "Vita Nuova where
the commencement of their friend-
ship is related. From the charac-
ter given of him by contemporary
writers, his temper was well formed
to assimilate with that of our Poet.
"He was, ""
according to G. Vil-
lani, lib. viii. c. xli., of a philo-
sophical and elegant mind, if he
had not been too delicate and fas-
tidious."

7

66

Guido they soon Had in contempt." Guido Cavalcanti, being more given to philosophy than poetry, was perhaps no great admirer of Virgil. "Not yet fifty times."

"Not

fifty months shall be passed, before thou shalt learn, by woful experience, the difficulty of returning from banishment to thy native city.'

"Queen of this realm." The moon, one of whose titles in heathen mythology was Proserpine, queen of the shades below.

10" The slaughter." "By means of Farinata degli Uberti, the Guelfi were conquered by the army of King Manfredi, near the river Arbia, with so great a slaughter, that those who escaped from that defeat took refuge, not in Florence, which city they considered as lost to them, but in Lucca."-Macchiavelli, "Hist. of Flor." b. ii. and G. Villani, lib. vi. c. lxxx. and lxxxi.

"That color'd Arbia's flood with crimson stain-
To these impute, that in our hallow'd dome
Such orisons" ascend." Sighing he shook
The head, then thus resumed: "In that affray
I stood not singly, nor, without just cause,
Assuredly, should with the rest have stirr'd;
But singly there I stood," when, by consent
Of all, Florence had to the ground been razed,
The one who openly forbade the deed."

66

"So may thy lineage find at last repose,"
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."

66

We view, as one who hath an evil sight,"
He answer'd, "plainly, objects far remote;
So much of his large splendor 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,13 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,

11" Such orisons." This appears to allude to certain prayers which were offered up in the churches of Florence, for deliverance from the hostile attempts of the Uberti; or, it may be that the public councils being held in churches, the speeches delivered in them against the Uberti are termed " orisons," or prayers.

12" Singly there I stood.' Guido Novello assembled a council of the Ghibellini at Empoli; where it was agreed by all, that, in order to maintain the ascendancy of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, it was necessary to destroy Florence, which could serve only (the people of that city being Guelfi) to enable the par

ty attached to the church to recover its strength. This cruel sentence, passed upon so noble a city, met with no opposition from any of its citizens or friends, except Farinata degli Uberti, who openly and without reserve forbade the measure; affirming, that he had endured so many hardships, with no other view than that of being able to pass his days in his own country. Macchiavelli, "Hist. of Flor." b. ii.

13" 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.

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," second of that name,

15

And the Lord Cardinal, and of the rest

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:

66

"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 beam,1o
Whose bright eye all surveys, she of thy life
The future tenor will to thee unfold."

Forthwith he to the left hand turn'd his feet:
We left the wall, and toward the middle space
Went by a path that to a valley strikes,

Which e'en thus high exhaled its noisome steam.

14" Frederick." The Emperor Frederick II., who died in 1250. See notes to Canto xiii.

15" The Lord Cardinal." Ottaviano Ubaldini, a Florentine, made cardinal in 1245, and deceased about 1273. On account of his great in

fluence, 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.

16"Her gracious beam." Beatrice.

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 toward the place from whence a passage leads down to the seventh circle.

U

PON 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

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,1 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,
"Are 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.
"Of all malicious act abhorr'd in Heaven,
The end is injury; and all such end

By some supposed to have been Anastasius II.; by others, the
fourth of that name.