35

Who of the fiends was nearest, grappling seized
His clotted locks, and dragged him sprawling up,
That he appeared to me an otter. Each

Already by their names I knew, so well
When they were chosen I observed, and marked
How one the other called. "O Rubicant!

See that his hide thou with thy talons flay,"

Shouted together all the cursed crew.

Then I: Inform thee, Master! if thou may,
What wretched soul is this, on whom their hands

40

His foes have laid." My leader to his side

45

Approached, and whence he came inquired; to whom

Was answered thus: "Born in Navarre's domain,
My mother placed me in a lord's retinue;
For she had borne me to a losel vile,
A spendthrift of his substance and himself.
The good king Thibault after that I served:
To peculating here my thoughts were turned,
Whereof I give account in this dire heat."

Straight Ciriatto, from whose mouth a tusk
Issued on either side, as from a boar,
Ripped him with one of these. 'Twixt evil claws
The mouse had fallen: but Barbariccia cried,
Seizing him with both arms: "Stand thou apart
While I do fix him on my prong transpierced."
Then added, turning to my guide his face,
"Inquire of him, if more thou wish to learn,
Ere he again be rent." My leader thus:
"Then tell us of the partners in thy guilt;
Knowest thou any sprung of Latian land
Under the tar?" "I parted," he replied,

50

55

60

65

"But now from one, who sojourned not far thence;
So were I under shelter now with him,

Nor hook nor talon then should scare me more."
"Too long we suffer," Libicocco cried;

Then, darting forth a prong, seized on his arm,
And mangled bore away the sinewy part.
Him Draghinazzo by his thighs beneath

70

Would next have caught; whence angrily their chief,
Turning on all sides round, with threatening brow
Restrained them. When their strife a little ceased,

47. The name of this thief is said to have been Ciampolo.

51. Thibault II., Count of Champagne, succeeded his father Thibault I. as King of Navarre in 1253. He accompanied his father-in-law Louis IX. to Tunis, and on his return died in Sicily in 1270. He is mentioned by Dante as a poet in De Vulg. Eloq.

64. I.e. any Italians.

75

66. This refers to Friar Gomita (see line 80), who was from Sardinia, in the neighborhood of Italy.

73. The chief is Barbariccia, head of the ten sent to escort Virgil and Dante. See Canto xxi. 118.

Of him, who yet was gazing on his wound,
My teacher thus without delay inquired:
"Who was the spirit, from whom by evil hap

Parting, as thou hast told, thou camest to shore?"
"It was the friar Gomita," he rejoined,

80

"He of Gallura, vessel of all guile,

Who had his master's enemies in hand,

66

Their captain then to Farfarello turning,
Who rolled his moony eyes in act to strike,
Rebuked him thus: "Off, cursed bird! avaunt!"
"If ye desire to see or hear," he thus
Quaking with dread resumed, or Tuscan spirits
Or Lombard, I will cause them to appear.
Meantime let these ill talons bate their fury,
So that no vengeance they may fear from them,
And I, remaining in this self-same place,
Will, for myself but one, make seven appear,
When my shrill whistle shall be heard for so
Our custom is to call each other up."

Cagnazzo at that word deriding grinned,

Then wagged the head and spake: "Hear his device,
Mischievous as he is, to plunge him down."
Whereto he thus, who failed not in rich store

Of nice-wove toils: "Mischief, forsooth, extreme!
Meant only to procure myself more woe."
No longer Alichino then refrained,
But thus, the rest gainsaying, him bespake :
"If thou do cast thee down, I not on foot

90

Will chase thee, but above the pitch will beat
My plumes. Quit we the vantage ground, and let
The bank be as a shield; that we may see,
If singly thou prevail against us all."

Now, reader, of new sport expect to hear.
They each one turned his eyes to the other shore,
He first, who was the hardest to persuade.
The spirit of Navarre chose well his time,
Planted his feet on land, and at one leap
Escaping, disappointed their resolve.

Them quick resentment stung, but him the most
Who was the cause of failure: in pursuit
He therefore sped, exclaiming, "Thou art caught."
But little it availed; terror outstripped

115

120

125

His following flight; the other plunged beneath,
And he with upward pinion raised his breast:
E'en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives
The falcon near, dives instant down, while he
Enraged and spent retires. That mockery
In Calcabrina fury stirred, who flew
After him, with desire of strife inflamed;
And, for the barterer had 'scaped, so turned

130

135

His talons on his comrade. Ö'er the dike

In grapple close they joined; but the other proved

A goshawk able to rend well his foe;

And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat
Was umpire soon between them; but in vain
To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued
Their pennons.
Barbariccia, as the rest,

140

That chance lamenting, four in flight despatched
From the other coast, with all their weapons armed.
They, to their post on each side speedily
Descending, stretched their hooks toward the fiends,
Who floundered, inly burning from their scars:
And we departing left them to that broil.

120. Cagnazzo, who saw through Gomita's device. See lines 105-107. Philalethes says

145

Calcabrina is meant, who later had the fight with Alichino. See lines 133 ff.

124. Alichino. See lines 111 ff.

CANTO XXIII.

ARGUMENT.

The enraged Demons pursue Dante, but he is preserved from them by Virgil. On reaching the sixth gulf, he beholds the punishment of the hypocrites; which is, to pace continually round the gulf under the pressure of caps and hoods, that are gilt on the outside, but leaden within. He is addressed by two of these, Catalano and Loderingo, knights of Saint Mary, otherwise called Joyous Friars of Bologna. Caïaphas is seen fixed to a cross on the ground, and lies so stretched along the way, that all tread on him in passing.

IN silence and in solitude we went,

One first, the other following his steps,
As minor friars journeying on their road.

The present fray had turned my thoughts to muse
Upon old Æsop's fable, where he told

What fate unto the mouse and frog befell;

For language hath not sounds more like in sense,
Than are these chances, if the origin

And end of each be heedfully compared.

And as one thought bursts from another forth,
So afterward from that another sprang,

Which added doubly to my former fear.

For thus I reasoned: "These through us have been

So foiled, with loss and mockery so complete,

As needs must sting them sore. If anger then
Be to their evil will conjoined, more fell
They shall pursue us, than the savage hound
Snatches the leveret panting 'twixt his jaws."
Already I perceived my hair stand all
On end with terror, and looked eager back.
"Teacher," I thus began, "if speedily
Thyself and me thou hide not, much I dread
Those evil talons. Even now behind
They urge us: quick imagination works
So forcibly, that I already feel them."

He answered: "Were I formed of leaded glass,

3. Franciscan friars; called also Minorites. 5. This fable is not in Æsop. It runs as follows: A frog offered to carry a mouse over a marsh, intending to drown him. Both, however, were caught and devoured by a kite.

5

ΙΟ

15

20

25

lates, "for now and this instant are not more alike."

The thought in the whole passage is as follows: Words of different form but of the same meaning are not more like each other than the fable of Æsop resembled the scene I had just witnessed.

7. This is a very free translation of the origi- Alichino thought to catch Friar Gomita; Calcanal,

"Chè più non si pareggia mo ed issa," in which the words mo and issa (belonging to the dialects of Lombardy and Romagna) mean the same thing," now." Professor Norton trans

brina tried to catch the former, and both fell into the pitch.

26. Mirror, which Dante in Convito, iii. 9, calls "glass backed with lead." The reflection from ordinary glass is referred to in Par. iii. 9.

I should not sooner draw unto myself

Thy outward image, than I now imprint

That from within. This moment came thy thoughts
Presented before mine, with similar act
And countenance similar, so that from both
I one design have framed. If the right coast
Incline so much, that we may thence descend
Into the other chasm, we shall escape
Secure from this imagined pursuit."

He had not spoke his purpose to the end,
When I from far beheld them with spread wings
Approach to take us. Suddenly my guide
Caught me, even as a mother that from sleep
Is by the noise aroused, and near her sees

30

35

40

The climbing fires, who snatches up her babe
And flies ne'er pausing, careful more of him
Than of herself, that but a single vest

Clings round her limbs. Down from the jutting beach

Supine he cast him to that pendent rock,

45

Which closes on one part the other chasm.

Never ran water with such hurrying pace
Adown the tube to turn a land-mill's wheel,
When nearest it approaches to the spokes,
As then along that edge my master ran,
Carrying me in his bosom, as a child,
Not a companion. Scarcely had his feet
Reached to the lowest of the bed beneath,
When over us the steep they reached: but fear
In him was none; for that high Providence,
Which placed them ministers of the fifth foss,
Power of departing thence took from them all.

There in the depth we saw a painted tribe,
Who paced with tardy steps around, and wept,
Faint in appearance and o'ercome with toil.
Caps had they on, with hoods, that fell low down
Before their eyes, in fashion like to those
Worn by the monks in Cologne.
Was overlaid with gold, dazzling to view,
But leaden all within, and of such weight,
That Frederick's compared to these were straw.

28. "I know thy thoughts as plainly as a mirror reflects outward images."

30. "I had the same thoughts," i.e. fear of

the demons, and desire to escape.

Their outside

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55

60

65

are covered with gilded mantles. Cf. the expression "whited sepulchres," Matt. xxiii. 27.

63. They are said to have worn their cowls unusually large. Philalethes accepts and trans

49. Spokes = pale = paddles, falling on which lates Clugny, as it seems to him probable that

the water causes the wheel to turn.

57. God, who placed the Demons in the different circles, did not allow them to pass from one to the other.

Dante had the famous Benedictine monastery in mind; so also Professor Norton. Longfellow has Cologne.

66. The Emperor Frederick II. is said to

58. The hypocrites. As will be seen later, they have punished those who were guilty of high