Betwixt the Reno and Savena's stream,
To answer Sipa in their country's phrase.
And if of that securer proof thou need,
Remember but our craving thirst for gold."

Him speaking thus, a demon with his thong
Struck and exclaimed, "Away, corrupter! here
Women are none for sale." Forthwith I joined
My escort, and few paces thence we came
To where a rock forth issued from the bank.
That easily ascended, to the right

65

70

Upon its splinter turning, we depart

From those eternal barriers. When arrived

Where, underneath, the gaping arch lets pass

The scourged souls: "Pause here," the teacher said,
"And let these others miserable now

75

Strike on thy ken; faces not yet beheld,

For that together they with us have walked."

From the old bridge we eyed the pack, who came
From the other side toward us, like the rest,
Excoriate from the lash. My gentle guide,
By me unquestioned, thus his speech resumed:
"Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends,
And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear.
How yet the regal aspect he retains!
Jason is he, whose skill and prowess won
The ram from Colchis. To the Lemnian isle
His passage thither led him, when those bold
And pitiless women had slain all their males.
There he with tokens and fair witching words
Hypsipyle beguiled, a virgin young,
Who first had all the rest herself beguiled.
Impregnated, he left her there forlorn.
Such is the guilt condemns him to this pain.
Here too Medea's injuries are avenged.

All bear him company, who like deceit

To his have practised. And thus much to know
Of the first vale suffice thee, and of those

Whom its keen torments urge." Now had we come
Where, crossing the next pier, the straitened path

61. He denotes Bologna by its situation between the rivers Savena to the east, and Reno to the west of that city; and by a peculiarity of dialect, the use of the affirmative sipa instead either of si, or, as Monti will have it, of sia. The meaning is, that there are more Bolognese in the pit than are alive to-day.

75. The seducers; those we have hitherto seen are panders.

85. Born at Iolcus, son of Æson, and brought up by Chiron. His greatest exploit was the

expedition to Colchis, with the other argonauts, to obtain the golden fleece. This he secured with the aid of Medea, daughter of Eetes, king of Colchis, whom he finally deserted.

90. Daughter of Thoas, king of Lemnos. She saved her father's life when the women of Lemnos, induced by Venus, murdered all the males. When Jason landed at the island, he won her love, but afterwards forsook her, in order to continue his journey to Colchis.

Bestrides its shoulders to another arch.

Hence, in the second chasm we heard the ghosts,
Who gibber in low melancholy sounds,

With wide-stretched nostrils snort, and on themselves
Smite with their palms. Upon the banks a scurf,
From the foul steam condensed, encrusting hung,
That held sharp combat with the sight and smell.
So hollow is the depth, that from no part,
Save on the summit of the rocky span,
Could I distinguish aught. Thus far we came ;
And thence I saw, within the foss below,
A crowd immersed in ordure, that appeared
Draff of the human body. There beneath
Searching with eye inquisitive, I marked

One with his head so grimed, 't were hard to deem
If he were clerk or layman. Loud he cried:
"Why greedily thus bendest more on me,
Than on these other filthy ones, thy ken?"
"Because, if true my memory," I replied,
"I heretofore have seen thee with dry locks,
And thou Alessio art, of Lucca sprung.
Therefore than all the rest I scan thee more."
Then beating on his brain, these words he spake :
"Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk,
Wherewith I ne'er enough could glut my tongue."
My leader thus: "A little further stretch

Thy face, that thou the visage well mayst note
Of that besotted, sluttish courtezan,
Who there doth rend her with defiled nails,
Now crouching down, now risen on her feet.
Thaïs is this, the harlot, whose false lip
Answered her doting paramour that asked,
'Thankest me much!". -'Say rather, wondrously,'
And, seeing this, here satiate be our view."

101. The second pit, that of the flatterers. 115. I.e. whether he had the tonsure or not. 120. Of an ancient and considerable family, called the Interminei. Benvenuto da Imola says of him," omnes unguebat, omnes lingebat, etiam vilissimos et mercenarios famulos."

130. He alludes to that passage in the Eunu

chus of Terence, where Thraso asks if Thaïs
was obliged to him for the present he had sent
her; and Gnatho replies, that she had expressed
her obligation in the most forcible terms.
T."
Magnas vero agere gratias Thaïs mihi?
G. Ingentes."
Eun. iii. 1

CANTO XIX.

ARGUMENT.

They come to the third gulf, wherein are punished those who have been guilty of simony. These are fixed with the head downwards in certain apertures, so that no more of them than the legs appears without, and on the soles of their feet are seen burning flames. Dante is taken down by his guide into the bottom of the gulf; and there finds Pope Nicholas the Fifth, whose evil deeds, together with those of other pontiffs, are bitterly reprehended. Virgil then carries him up again to the arch, which affords them a passage over the following gulf.

WOE to thee, Simon Magus! woe to you,

His wretched followers! who the things of God,
Which should be wedded unto goodness, them,
Rapacious as ye are, do prostitute
For gold and silver in adultery.

Now must the trumpet sound for you, since yours
Is the third chasm. Upon the following vault
We now had mounted, where the rock impends
Directly o'er the centre of the foss.

Wisdom Supreme! how wonderful the art,
Which thou dost manifest in heaven, in earth,
And in the evil world, how just a meed
Allotting by thy virtue unto all.

I saw the livid stone, throughout the sides
And in its bottom full of apertures,

All equal in their width, and circular each.
Nor ample less nor larger they appeared

Than, in Saint John's fair dome of me beloved,
Those framed to hold the pure baptismal streams,
One of the which I brake, some few years past,

To save a whelming infant: and be this
A seal to undeceive whoever doubts

5

ΙΟ

15

20

The motive of my deed. From out the mouth
Of every one emerged a sinner's feet,

And of the legs high upward as the calf.
The rest beneath was hid. On either foot

25

The soles were burning; whence the flexile joints
Glanced with such violent motion, as had snapt
Asunder cords or twisted withs. As flame,
Feeding on unctuous matter, glides along

1. See Acts viii. 9 ff. From him comes the name of simony, the crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment, the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for money or reward.

30

18. The apertures in the rock were of the same dimensions as the fonts of St. John the Baptist at Florence, one of which Dante says, he had broken to rescue a child that was playing near and fell in. He intimates, that the motive of

6. "It is now time for me to describe your his breaking the font had been maliciously sin and its punishment."

represented by his enemies.

The surface, scarcely touching where it moves;
So here, from heel to point, glided the flames.
"Master! say who is he, than all the rest
Glancing in fiercer agony, on whom
A ruddier flame doth prey?" I thus inquired.
"If thou be willing," he replied, “that I
Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,
He of himself shall tell thee, and his wrongs."

I then: "As pleases thee, to me is best.
Thou art my lord; and know'st that ne'er I quit
Thy will: what silence hides, that knowest thou."
Thereat on the fourth pier we came, we turned,
And on our left descended to the depth,
A narrow strait, and perforated close.
Nor from his side my leader set me down,
Till to his orifice he brought, whose limb
Quivering expressed his pang.

"Whoe'er thou art,

Sad spirit! thus reversed, and as a stake
Driven in the soil," I in these words began;
"If thou be able, utter forth thy voice."

There stood I like the friar, that dost shrive

A wretch for murder doomed, who, e'en when fixed,
Calleth him back, whence death awhile delays.
He shouted: "Ha! already standest there?
Already standest there, O Boniface!
By many a year the writing played me false.
So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,
For which thou fearedst not in guile to take
The lovely lady, and then mangle her?"

I felt as those who, piercing not the drift
Of answer made them, stand as if exposed
In mockery, nor know what to reply ;
When Virgil thus admonished: "Tell him quick.
'I am not he, not he whom thou believest.""
And I, as was enjoined me, straight replied.
That heard, the spirit all did wrench his feet,
And, sighing, next in woeful accent spake :
"What then of me requirest? If to know
So much imports thee, who I am, that thou

37. The general slope of the eighth circle is toward the central abyss. Hence the bank of each pit, which is nearest the centre, is lower than the other.

51. Allusion to the terrible punishment for murder in the Middle Ages, by being buried alive, head downward. The municipal statute of Florence reads, "Assassinus trahatur ad caudam muli seu asini usque ad locum justitiæ et ibidem plantetur capite desorum, ita quod moriatur."

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

55. The spirit mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII., who was then alive; and who, he did not expect, would have arrived so soon.

The "writing" spoken of is the book of the future, in which the damned may read, although the present is unknown to them. See Hell, x. 99 ff. Boniface died Oct. 12, 1303.

58. "Thou didst presume to arrive by fraudulent means at the papal power, and afterwards to abuse it." 59. Lady the church.

I questioned. But already longer time

Hath past, since my soles kindled, and I thus
Upturned have stood, than is his doom to stand
Planted with fiery feet. For after him,
One yet of deeds more ugly shall arrive,
From forth the west, a shepherd without law,
Fated to cover both his form and mine.
He a new Jason shall be called, of whom
In Maccabees we read; and favor such
As to that priest his king indulgent showed,
Shall be of France's monarch shown to him."
I know not if I here too far presumed,
But in this strain I answered: "Tell me now
What treasures from Saint Peter at the first
Our Lord demanded, when he put the keys
Into his charge? Surely he asked no more
But Follow me!' Nor Peter, nor the rest,
Or gold or silver of Matthias took,
When lots were cast upon the forfeit place
Of the condemned soul. Abide thou then;
Thy punishment of right is merited :
And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin,
Which against Charles thy hardihood inspired.

money.

74. Having
79. Boniface VIII.

81. "Boniface will not stand here as long as I have stood, for the one who is to follow him will not be so long coming as he has been." Nicholas has been here twenty years (died in 1280). In 1303 Boniface died and took the place of Nicholas, thrusting him down below. Clement V., who in his turn follows Boniface, died April 20, 1314. Hence Boniface had to wait only about ten years.

80

85

90

95

100

86. Bertrand de Got, archbishop of Bordeaux, who succeeded to the pontificate in 1305, and assumed the title of Clement V. He transferred the holy see to Avignon, and was the slave of Philip le Bel of France.

He

88. Son of Simon the High Priest. bought his high priesthood from King Antiochus. See 2 Maccabees iv.

90. As Antiochus favored Jason, so Philip le Bel favored the election of Clement V. 95. Matt. xvi. 19.

98. Matthias, elected apostle in place of Judas. Acts i. 15-26.

103. Charles of Anjou. Nicholas was charged with being bribed to consent to the conspiracy

This passage proves that this part of Dante's to drive Charles from Sicily. poem was written after 1314.