That iron for no craft there hotter needs. I thus: "Master! say who are these, interred 120 125 Dante, having obtained permission from his guide, holds discourse with Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcanti, who lie in their fiery tombs that are yet open, and not to be closed up till after the last judgment. Farinata predicts the Poet's exile from Florence; and shows him that the condemned have knowledge of future things, but are ignorant of what is at present passing, unless it be revealed by some new-comer from earth. Now by a secret pathway we proceed, In circuit lead'st me, even as thou will'st; O'er them keeps watch." He thus in answer spake : 5 ΙΟ 15 into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land." Joel iii. 2. Who with the body make the spirit die. "O Tuscan! thou, who through the city of fire To be that noble land, with which perchance Forth issued from a vault, whereat, in fear, I somewhat closer to my leader's side Approaching, he thus spake: "What dost thou? Turn: Uplifted from his girdle upwards, all Exposed, behold him." On his face was mine 20 25 330 Already fixed: his breast and forehead there 35 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, 40 Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood Addressed me: 66 Say what ancestors were thine." I, willing to obey him, straight revealed The whole, nor kept back aught: whence he, his brow From whence I sprang: twice, therefore, I abroad 16. Who deny the immortality of the soul. 19. Dante, in Canto vi. 79, had asked about Farinata, and Ciacco had said that he would find him below. Virgil now divines the Poet's unexpressed desire to see and talk with the great Florentine warrior. 22. Cf. Hell, iii. 71–76. 45 50 ance of Manfred, king of the Two Sicilies. He alone saved Florence, when his own party proposed to raze it to the ground. 47. First in 1248, and secondly in 1260, after the battle of Montaperti. 49. Dante retorts that his ancestors returned on each of these occasions (the first time in 1251, 25. The spirit noticed from Dante's accent after the defeat of the Ghibellines at Figline, and that he was a native of Florence. 32. Farinata degli Uberti was a leader of the Ghibelline faction at Florence in the thirteenth century. Having been exiled from Florence, he recovered the city in 1260, with the assist G again in 1266, after the death of Manfred). He adds, not very courteously, that Farinata's party had not learned the art of returning. 52. The spirit of Cavalcante Cavalcanti, father of Dante's friend, Guido. Leaning, methought, upon its knees upraised. If there were other with me; but perceiving 55 Thus spake: "If thou through this blind prison go'st, 60 Where is my son? and wherefore not with thee?" Exclaimed, up starting, "How! said'st thou, he had? The blessed daylight?" Then, of some delay 65 Supine, nor after forth appeared he more. 70 Meanwhile the other, great of soul, near whom I yet was stationed, changed not countenance stern, Nor moved the neck, nor bent his ribbed side. "They in this art," he cried, "small skill have shown; 75 That doth torment me more e'en than this bed. But not yet fifty times shall be relumed "The slaughter and great havoc," I replied, 59. 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 friendship is related. From the character given of him by contemporary writers, his temper was well formed to assimilate with that of our Poet. "He was," according to G. Villani, viii. 41, 66 of a philosophical and elegant mind, if he had not been too delicate and fastidious." And Dino Compagni terms him " a young and noble knight, brave and courteous, but of a lofty scornful spirit, much addicted to solitude and study." He died, either in exile at Serrazana, or soon after his return to Florence, December, 1300, during the spring of which year the action of this poem is supposed to be passing. 75. I.e. the art of returning to Florence. 77. Not fifty months shall be passed, before thou shalt learn by woeful experience the difficulty of returning from banishment to thy native city." 78. Proserpina, or the moon. Farinata is speaking in March, 1300; Dante was banished January, 1302. Hence the reference is not to the Poet's exile, but to his vain efforts to get back to Florence. 85. By means of Farinata degli Uberti the Guelphs were conquered by the army of King Manfred, near the river Arbia, with so great a Such orisons ascend." Sighing he shook "So may thy lineage find at last repose," Then wholly fails; nor of your human state, Then conscious of my fault, and by remorse But now my master summoning me back slaughter that those who escaped from that defeat took refuge, not in Florence, which city they considered as lost to them, but in Lucca. 86. 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. 90. Guido Novello assembled a council of the Ghibellines at Empoli; where it was agreed by all, that, in order to maintain the ascendency of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, it was necessary to destroy Florence, which could serve only (the people of that city being Guelphs) to enable the party attached to the church to recover its strength. This cruel sentence, passed 90 95 100 105 IIO 115 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, and encountered so many dangers, with no other view than that of being able to pass his days in his own country. 96. Ciacco and Farinata had predicted the future to Dante; yet Cavalcanti did not seem to know whether his son were alive or not. The Poet cannot understand this apparent contradiction. 107. At the Last Judgment. 108. 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. "More than a thousand with me here are laid. 120 I speak not." He, this said, from sight withdrew. Betokening me such ill. Onward he moved, 125 And thus, in going, questioned: "Whence the amaze 130 Forthwith he to the left hand turned his feet: 135 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 environed round, we came, Where woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stowed: 120. The Emperor Frederick II., who died in 1250. 121. 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 5 were any such thing as a human soul, he had lost his for the Ghibellines. 125. The "ill" is the prophecy of exile made by Farinata, in lines 77 ff. 132. Virgil is symbol of Human Wisdom, and his knowledge is limited; Beatrice sees all things in God, and can explain Dante's exile fully. |