Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears

From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward dragged,

Of its excess did shape the nose; and swelled
Into due size protuberant the lips.

He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends

His sharpened visage, and draws down the ears
Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.
His tongue, continuous before and apt
For utterance, severs; and the other's fork
Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.
The soul, transformed into the brute, glides off,
Hissing along the vale, and after him
The other talking sputters; but soon turned
His new-grown shoulders on him, and in few
Thus to another spake: "Along this path
Crawling, as I have done, speed Buoso now!
So saw I fluctuate in successive change
The unsteady ballast of the seventh hold:
And here if aught my pen have swerved, events
So strange may be its warrant.
O'er mine eyes ·
Confusion hung, and on my thoughts amaze.

Yet scaped they not so covertly, but well

I marked Sciancato: he alone it was

Of the three first that came, who changed not: tho'
The other's fate, Gaville! still dost rue.

120

125

130

135

140

CANTO XXVI.

ARGUMENT.

Remounting by the steps, down which they had descended to the seventh gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors, each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses, the latter of whom relates the manner of his death.

FLORENCE, exult! for thou so mightily
Hast thriven, that o'er land and sea thy wings

131. Buoso is said by some to have belonged to the Donati family, by others to the Abati.

133. The Italian zavorra = a mixture of pebbles and sand used as ballast. It is applied here to the souls themselves (Blanc), or according to Philalethes, the place where they are.

138. Puccio Sciancato of the Galigai of Flor

ence.

140. Francesco Guercio Cavalcanti was killed at Gaville, near Florence; and in revenge of his L

death several inhabitants of that district were put to death.

The order of the above changes is as follows: First comes Buoso Donati (or Abati), Agnello Brunelleschi, and Puccio Sciancato. Cianfa Donati (in form of a six-footed serpent) melts with Agnello into a wonderful composite figure. Guercio Cavalcanti (in form of a small serpent) changes shape with Buoso. Puccio Sciancato alone remains unchanged.

1. These words, of course, are used ironically.

Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.
Among the plunderers, such the three I found
Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,
And no proud honor to thyself redounds.

But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,
Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long
Shalt feel what Prato (not to say the rest)
Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance
Were in good time, if it befell thee now.
Would so it were, since it must needs befall!
For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.
We from the depth departed; and my guide
Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late
We downward traced, and drew me up the steep.
Pursuing thus our solitary way

Among the crags and splinters of the rock,
Sped not our feet without the help of hands.

Then sorrow seized me, which e'en now revives,
As my thought turns again to what I saw,
And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb
The powers of nature in me, lest they run
Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good
My gentle star or something better gave me,
I envy not myself the precious boon.

As in that season, when the sun least veils
His face that lightens all, what time the fly
Gives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then,
Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees
Fire-flies innumerous spangling o'er the vale,
Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labor lies;
With flames so numberless throughout its space

4. Instead of three, the original has five; so also Longfellow, Norton, and Philalethes. I find no authority for Cary's reading. The five are (as we have seen in the preceding Canto), Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso, Sciancato, Cianfa Donati, and Guercio Cavalcanti. Dante's impartiality is shown in the fact that the Donati and Brunelleschi were Neri; the Abatiand Cavalcanti, Bianchi.

7. According to ancient belief dreams just
before the dawn are more likely to come true.
"Namque sub aurora jam dormitante lucerna,
Tempore quo cerni somnia vera solent."
Ovid, Heroid. xix. 195 ff.

Cf. Purg. ix. 14 ff.
9. The Poet prophesies the calamities which
were soon to befall his native city, and which,
he says, even her nearest neighbor, Prato,
would wish her. The calamities more partic-
ularly pointed at are said to be the fall of a

5

ΙΟ

15

20

25

30

wooden bridge over the Arno, in May, 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of Hell and the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagration, that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen hundred houses, many of them sumptuous buildings.

13. Since these evils must come, may they come quickly, since the older I grow, will it be harder for me to bear the misfortunes of my country.

22. I hold myself in check more than usual, having seen how those are punished who abuse their genius by giving evil counsel.

27. The summer solstice.
28. What time = night fall.
31. Cf. En. xi. 209,

"Certatim crebris conlucent ignibus agri."

Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth
Was to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs
The bears avenged, at its departure saw

Elijah's chariot, when the steeds erect

Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes, meanwhile,
Straining pursued them, till the flame alone,
Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenned:

E'en thus along the gulf moves every flame,
A sinner so enfolded close in each,
That none exhibits token of the theft.
Upon the bridge I forward bent to look,
And grasped a flinty mass, or else had fallen,
Though pushed not from the height.
How I did gaze attentive, thus began:

The guide, who marked

"Within these ardors are the spirits, each Swathed in confining fire.". "Master! thy word,"

I answered, "hath assured me; yet I deemed

Already of the truth, already wished

To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes

So parted at the summit, as it seemed

Ascending from that funeral pile where lay

The Theban brothers." He replied: “Within,
Ulysses there and Diomede endure

Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now
Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath.

35

40

45

50

55

These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore
The ambush of the horse, that opened wide
A portal for that goodly seed to pass,

Which sowed imperial Rome; nor less the guile
Lament they, whence, of her Achilles 'reft,
Deïdamia yet in death complains.

60

Pellitur, exundant diviso vertice flammæ,
Alternosque apices abruptâ luce coruscant.'
Statius, Theb. xii.
Cf. Lucan, Pharsalia, i. 145.

55. Ulysses and Diomedes are placed together by Dante in the same flame, because Virgil mentions them together in describing their frauds.

60. The ambush of the wooden horse, that caused Æneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman Empire.

61. Goodly seed = Æneas.

64. Daughter of Lycomedes, king of Sciros. Achilles was sent by his mother Tethys to the court of Lycomedes, in order to save him from the fate that awaited him at Troy. He fell in love with Deïdamia, but was induced by the arts of Ulysses and Diomedes to leave her and go to the Trojan wars.

And there is rued the stratagem that Troy
Of her Palladium spoiled.". "If they have power
Of utterance from within these sparks," said I,
"O master! think my prayer a thousand-fold
In repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe

To pause till here the horned flame arrive.
See, how toward it with desire I bend."

He thus: "Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,

And I accept it therefore; but do thou

65

70

Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;

For I divine thy wish; and they perchance,

75.

For they were Greeks, might shun discourse with thee."

When there the flame had come, where time and place
Seemed fitting to my guide, he thus began:

"O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!

If, living, I of you did merit aught,

Whate'er the measure were of that desert,

80

When in the world my lofty strain I poured,

Move ye not on, till one of you unfold

In what clime death o'ertook him self-destroyed."

Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn

85

Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire

That labors with the wind, then to and fro

Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,

Threw out its voice, and spake: "When I escaped

From Circe, who beyond a circling year

90

Had held me near Caieta by her charms,

To explore the world, and search the ways of life,

Man's evil and his virtue. Forth I sailed

Into the deep illimitable main,

With but one bark, and the small faithful band
That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,
Far as Morocco, either shore I saw,
And the Sardinian and each isle beside

65. Ulysses and Diomedes, disguised as beggars, stole the Palladium, on which depended the fate of Troy, from the temple of Minerva.

76. Allusion to the Greek contempt for barbarians.

80. I.e. by mentioning them in the Æneid. 83. The nature of the question shows it to be addressed to Ulysses.

85. The flame is called old, because Ulysses and Diomedes have been dead so many centuries.

100

91. When Æneas came to Italy, his nurse Cajeta died, and the place where she was buried received her name. The present form is Gaeta. The island of the sorceress Circe, who kept Ulysses with her for a year, is supposed by Dante to be in the neighborhood of the place. 93. Telemachus. 94. Laertes.

103. Each isle beside = Corsica, Sicily, the Balearic Isles.

Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age
Were I and my companions, when we came
To the strait pass, where Hercules ordained
The boundaries not to be o'erstepped by man.
The walls of Seville to my right I left,
On the other hand already Ceuta past.
"O brothers!' I began, who to the west
Through perils without number now have reached;
To this the short remaining watch, that yet
Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof
Of the unpeopled world, following the track

Of Phoebus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang :
Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes,
But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.'
With these few words I sharpened for the voyage
The mind of my associates, that I then
Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn
Our poop we turned, and for the witless flight
Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.
Each star of the other pole night now beheld,
And ours so low, that from the ocean floor
It rose not. Five times re-illumed, as oft
Vanished the light from underneath the moon,
Since the deep way we entered, when from far
Appeared a mountain dim, loftiest methought
Of all I e'er beheld. Joy seized us straight;

105

110

115

120

125

But soon to mourning changed. From the new land
A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side
Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirled her round
With all the wayes; the fourth time lifted up
The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:
And over us the booming billow closed."

130

135

106. Strait of Gibraltar.

109. Ceuta is a city of Africa on the Strait of Gibraltar.

114. According to ancient geographers the whole of the other hemisphere was covered with water.

120. Dawn
= the east.
125. Five months.

128. Most commentators take this to be Mount Purgatory. It has been suggested, however, that the fabulous magnetic mountain of the Middle Ages is meant.