As circling all the plain; for so my guide
Had told. Between it and the ramparts base,
On trail ran Centaurs, with keen arrows armed,
As to the chase they on the earth were wont.

At seeing us descend they each one stood;
And issuing from the troop, three sped with bows
And missile weapons chosen first; of whom
One cried from far: "Say, to what pain ye come

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Condemned, who down this steep have journeyed. Speak
From whence ye stand, or else the bow I draw."

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To whom my guide: "Our answer shall be made
To Chiron, there, when nearer him we come.
Ill was thy mind, thus ever quick and rash."
Then me he touched, and spake: "Nessus is this,
Who for the fair Deïanira died,

And wrought himself revenge for his own fate.
He in the midst, that on his breast looks down,
Is the great Chiron who Achilles nursed;
That other, Pholus, prone to wrath." Around
The foss these go by thousands, aiming shafts
At whatsoever spirit dares emerge

From out the blood, more than his guilt allows.
We to those beasts, that rapid strode along,
Drew near; when Chiron took an arrow forth,
And with the notch pushed back his shaggy beard
To the cheek-bone, then, his great mouth to view
Exposing, to his fellows thus exclaimed:
"Are ye aware, that he who comes behind
Moves what he touches? The feet of the dead

Are not so wont." My trusty guide, who now

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Stood near his breast, where the two natures join,

One of thy band, whom we may trust secure.
Who to the ford may lead us, and convey
Across, him mounted on his back; for he

Is not a spirit that may walk the air."

Then on his right breast turning, Chiron thus

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To Nessus spake: "Return, and be their guide.

And if ye chance to cross another troop,

Command them keep aloof." Onward we moved,
The faithful escort by our side, along

The border of the crimson-seething flood,

Whence, from those steeped within, loud shrieks arose.

Some there I marked, as high as to their brow
Immersed, of whom the mighty Centaur thus:
"These are the souls of tyrants, who were given
To blood and rapine. Here they wail aloud
Their merciless wrongs. Here Alexander dwells,
And Dionysius fell, who many a year

Of woe wrought for fair Sicily. That brow,
Whereon the hair so jetty clustering hangs,
Is Ezzolino; that with flaxen locks
Obizzo of Este, in the world destroyed

By his foul step-son." To the bard revered

I turned me round, and thus he spake: "Let him

Be to thee now first leader, me but next
To him in rank." Then further on a space

The Centaur paused, near some, who at the throat
Were extant from the wave; and, showing us

A spirit by itself apart retired,

Exclaimed: "He in God's bosom smote the heart,
Which yet is honored on the bank of Thames."
A race I next espied who held the head,
And even all the bust, above the stream.
'Midst these I many a face remembered well.

106. It is doubtful whether Alexander the Great is here meant, or Alexander tyrant of Pheræ in Thessaly.

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120

and son to the aforesaid king of Almaine, (Richard, brother of Henry III. of England) as he returned from Affrike, where he had been

107. Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, born with Prince Edward, was slain at Viterbo in 430 B.C., died in Syracuse, 367.

110. Ezzolino, or Eccelino da Romano, born at Onara, near Treviso, 1194, died 1259, a celebrated Ghibelline leader, famous for his cruelty. Cf. Par. ix. His atrocities form the subject of a Latin tragedy, called Eccerinis, by Albertino Mussato, of Padua, a contemporary of Dante.

111. Marquis of Ferrara and the Marca d'Ancona, a cruel and rapacious Guelph. After twenty-eight years of tyranny, he died

in 1293.

112. In reality it was his own son.

119. "Henrie, the brother of this Edmund,

Italy (whither he was come about business which he had to do with the Pope) by the hand of Guy de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the same Simon's death. The murther was committed afore the high altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service" A.D. 1272. Holinshed's Chron. 275. See also Giov. Villani, vii. 39, where it is said "that the heart of Henry was put into a golden cup, and placed on a pillar at London bridge over the river Thames, for a memorial to the English of the said outrage."

Still in the seventh circle, Dante enters its second compartment, which contains both those who have done violence on their own persons and those who have violently consumed their goods; the first changed into rough and knotted trees whereon the Harpies build their nests, the latter chased and torn by black female mastiffs. Among the former, Piero delle Vigne is one who tells him the cause of his having committed suicide, and moreover in what manner the souls are transformed into those trunks. Of the latter crew, he recognizes Lano, a Siennese, and Giacomo, a Paduan and lastly, a Florentine, who had hung himself from his own roof, speaks to him of the calamities of his countrymen.

ERE Nessus yet had reached the other bank,
We entered on a forest, where no track

Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there
The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light

The boughs and tapering, but with knares deformed
And matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns
Instead, with venom filled.

134. King of the Huns, ascended the throne in 433; surnamed the "Scourge of God" by mediæval writers, on account of his cruelty and the wide-spread destruction wrought by

his arms.

135. Sextus, either the son of Tarquin the Proud, or of Pompey the Great, and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus.

Less sharp than these,

redations the public ways in Italy were infested. The latter was of the noble family of Pazzi in Florence.

2. "Inde in aliam vallem nimis terribiliorem deveni plenam subtilissimis arboribus in modum hastarum sexaginta brachiorum longitudinem habentibus, quarum omnium capita, ac si sudes acutissima erant, et spinosa." Alberici Visio,

138. Two noted marauders, by whose dep- § 4.

Less intricate the brakes, wherein abide
Those animals, that hate the cultured fields
Betwixt Corneto and Cecina's stream.

Here the brute Harpies make their nest, the same
Who from the Strophades the Trojan band
Drove with dire boding of their future woe.
Broad are their pennons of the human form

Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen
The feet, and the huge belly fledge with wings.
These sit and wail on the drear mystic wood.
The kind instructor in these words began :
"Ere further thou proceed, know thou art now
I' th' second round, and shalt be, till thou come
Upon the horrid sand: look therefore well
Around thee, and such things thou shalt behold,
As would my speech discredit." On all sides
I heard sad plainings breathe, and none could see
From whom they might have issued. In amaze
Fast bound I stood. He, as it seemed, believed
That I had thought so many voices came
From some amid those thickets close concealed,

ΙΟ

15

20

25

And thus his speech resumed: "If thou lop off

A single twig from one of those ill plants,

30

The thought thou hast conceived shall vanish quite."
Thereat a little stretching forth my hand,

From a great wilding gathered I a branch,

And straight the trunk exclaimed: "Why pluck'st thou me?"

Then, as the dark blood trickled down its side,

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These words it added: "Wherefore tear'st me thus?

Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast?

Men once were we, that now are rooted here.

Thy hand might well have spared us, had we been
The souls of serpents." As a brand yet green,
That burning at one end from the other sends
A groaning sound, and hisses with the wind
That forces out its way, so burst at once
Forth from the broken splinter words and blood.
I, letting fall the bough, remained as one
Assailed by terror; and the sage replied:
"If he, O injured spirit! could have believed

10. A wild and woody tract of country, abounding in deer, goats, and wild boars. Cecina is a river not far to the south of Leghorn; Corneto, a small city on the same coast, in the patrimony of the church.

11. Winged monsters, having the face and body of a woman and the wings of a bird of prey. They served as ministers of divine vengeance, and defiled everything they touched. When Æneas and his companions had landed

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45

on the Strophades, Celano, one of the Harpies, announced that the Trojans would be compelled by hunger to devour their tables (Æn. iii. 210 ff.). The prophecy came true later, when the Trojans ate up the bread which they had used as plates.

21. The horrid sand = the third round of the seventh circle, that of the violent against God, Nature, and Art. See Canto xiv. 13-15.

47. "If he could have believed, without see

What he hath seen but in my verse described,
He never against thee had stretched his hand.
But I, because the thing surpassed belief,
Prompted him to this deed, which even now
Myself I rue. But tell me, who thou wast;
That, for this wrong to do thee some amends,
In the upper world (for thither to return
Is granted him) thy fame he may revive."

"That pleasant word of thine," the trunk replied,
"Hath so inveigled me, that I from speech
Cannot refrain, wherein if I indulge

A little longer, in the snare detained,

Count it not grievous. I it was, who held

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Both keys to Frederick's heart, and turned the wards,

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Opening and shutting, with a skill so sweet,
That besides me, into his inmost breast
Scarce any other could admittance find.
The faith I bore to my high charge was such,
It cost me the life-blood that warmed my veins.
The harlot, who ne'er turned her gloating eyes
From Cæsar's household, common vice and pest
Of courts, 'gainst me inflamed the minds of all;
And to Augustus they so spread the flames,
That my glad honors changed to bitter woes.
My soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought
Refuge in death from scorn, and I became,
Just as I was, unjust toward myself.
By the new roots, which fix this stem, I swear,
That never faith I broke to my liege lord,
Who merited such honor; and of you,

ing, that the groans came from the plants, I would not have told him to break off the branch."

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56. Since you have inveigled me to speak by holding forth so gratifying an expectation, let it not displease you if I am as it were detained in the snare you have spread for me, so as to be somewhat prolix in my answer."

60. Pier delle Vigne, a native of Capua, who from a low condition raised himself by his eloquence and legal knowledge to the office of Chancellor to the Emperor Frederick II., whose confidence in him was such that his influence in the empire became unbounded. The courtiers, envious of his exalted situation, contrived, by means of forged letters, to make Frederick believe that he held a secret and traitorous intercourse with the Pope, who was then at enmity with the Emperor. In consequence of this supposed crime, he was cruelly condemned, by his too credulous sovereign, to lose his eyes; and

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being driven to despair by his unmerited calamity and disgrace, he put an end to his life by dashing out his brains against the walls of a church, in the year 1249. Both Frederick and Pier delle Vigne composed verses in the Sicilian dialect, which are now extant.

67. Envy. Chaucer alludes to this, in the Prologue to the Legende of Good Women: — "Envie is lavender to the court alway, For she ne parteth neither night ne day Out of the house of Cesar: thus saith Dant." 70. Augustus is used here as a title, and refers to Emperor Frederick.