As circling all the plain; for so my guide At seeing us descend they each one stood; 55 Condemned, who down this steep have journeyed. Speak 60 To whom my guide: "Our answer shall be made And wrought himself revenge for his own fate. From out the blood, more than his guilt allows. Are not so wont." My trusty guide, who now 80 Stood near his breast, where the two natures join, One of thy band, whom we may trust secure. Is not a spirit that may walk the air." Then on his right breast turning, Chiron thus 95 To Nessus spake: "Return, and be their guide. And if ye chance to cross another troop, Command them keep aloof." Onward we moved, 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 Of woe wrought for fair Sicily. That brow, 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 The Centaur paused, near some, who at the throat A spirit by itself apart retired, Exclaimed: "He in God's bosom smote the heart, 106. It is doubtful whether Alexander the Great is here meant, or Alexander tyrant of Pheræ in Thessaly. 115 120 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, Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there The boughs and tapering, but with knares deformed 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 Here the brute Harpies make their nest, the same Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen 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." 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, 35 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 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 40 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, "That pleasant word of thine," the trunk replied, A little longer, in the snare detained, Count it not grievous. I it was, who held 60 Both keys to Frederick's heart, and turned the wards, 65 Opening and shutting, with a skill so sweet, ing, that the groans came from the plants, I would not have told him to break off the branch." 66 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 70 75 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. |