From one side and the other, with loud voice, They to the opposite point on either hand, 330 Both turned them round, and through the middle space 35 I, stung with grief, thus spake: "O say, my guide! What race is this? Were these, whose heads are shorn, On our left hand, all separate to the church?" He straight replied: "In their first life, these all 40 In mind were so distorted, that they made, 45 I then: "Mid such as these some needs must be, 50 Of these foul sins were stained." He answering thus : 55 60 Now mayest thou see, my son! how brief, how vain, 30. The miser despises the wasteful, who have a similar contempt for the avaricious. Hence these recriminations. 38. Alluding to the tonsure. According to Dante it was the lust of temporal power and wealth on the part of the Pope and the clergy that was the cause of the unhappy condition of Italy and the church. See 48. Ariosto, having personified Avarice as a Hell, xix. 94 ff. and Par. xxvii. 36 ff. strange and hideous monster, says of her "Peggio facea nella Romana corte; Che v'avea uccisi Cardinali e Papi." Orl. Fur. xxvi. 32. "Worse did she in the court of Rome, for there She had slain Popes and Cardinals.” 57. The clenched grasp is emblematic of avariciousness as the close-shaven locks are of wastefulness. The latter expression is not to be confused with the tonsure referred to in line 38. 64. By means of the obsolete word coil = Not all the gold that is beneath the moon, From race to race, from one to other's blood, The other powers divine. Her changes know 90 She is made swift, so frequent come who claim noise, tumult, confusion, - Cary translates the original si rabbuffa = fight, come to blows. 74. God created the nine heavens and appointed the various orders of the celestial hierarchy to rule over them, and to control their movements and influence. Cf. Convito, ii. 5 and 6; Par. viii. 38 ff.; xxviii. 112 ff. 80. Fortune. 95 100 105 101. When Dante began his journey it was night (Hell, ii. 1); the stars which were then rising from the horizon are now falling from the zenith; hence it is past midnight, and the second day of the action of the poem has begun. Than sablest grain: and we in company Of the inky waters, journeying by their side, The dismal stream, when it hath reached the foot Betokening rage. They with their hands alone The good instructor spake: "Now seest thou, son! 110. "Cocyti stagna alta vides, Stygiamque wrath within their hearts, in contradistinction paludem." to the violently angry. En. i. 326. 121. According to the ancient commentators the slothful in well-doing. Philalethes thinks they are the sullen who nurse a hidden fire of 131. "Fra la ripa secca e il mezzo." The meaning of the last word here is "slough (from Latin mites ?). Cary confuses it with mezzo, middle, - and translates it by the obsolete word, core = centre. CANTO VIII. ARGUMENT. A signal having been made from the tower, Phlegyas, the ferryman of the lake, speedily crosses it, and conveys Virgil and Dante to the other side. On their passage, they meet with Filippo Argenti, whose fury and torment are described. They then arrive at the city of Dis, the entrance whereto is denied, and the portals closed against them by many Demons. My theme pursuing, I relate, that ere We reached the lofty turret's base, our eyes "There on the filthy waters," he replied, Never was arrow from the cord dismissed, Of one that ferried it, who cried aloud: "Art thou arrived, fell spirit?"—"Phlegyas, Phlegyas, "No longer shalt thou have us, but while o'er In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepped 5 IO 15 20 25 he set fire to the temple of that deity, by whose vengeance he was cast into Tartarus. See Virg. Æn. vi. 618. 29. Because Dante, being alive, weighed the boat down more than the spirits. The fact that the Poet is in the body is never left from sight throughout the poem, and constant reference is made to it by Virgil, by Dante himself, or by the spirits, who are filled with wonder at the strange fact. While we our course o'er the dead channel held, But who art thou, that art become so foul?" "One, as thou seest, who mourn : "he straight replied. my teacher sage Aware, thrusting him back: "Away! down there Thou wast conceived. He in the world was one Here is his shadow furious. There above, 30 35 40 45 50 I then: "Master! him fain would I behold Whelmed in these dregs, before we quit the lake." 31. Filippo Argenti, mentioned by name in line 59. Boccaccio tells us, "he was a man remarkable for the large proportions and extraordinary vigor of his bodily frame, and the extreme waywardness and irascibility of his temper." Decam. ix. 8. 32. I.e. the hour of death. 65 70 the sufferings of Filippo Argenti may perhaps be found in the fact that the latter belonged to the family of the Adimari, enemies of the Bianchi, and of the Poet. Cf. Par. xvi. 113 ff. 66. The city of Dis, defended by moats, walls, and towers, forms the sixth circle of Hell, that of the Heresiarchs. Here is the entrance to the 58. An explanation of Dante's fierce joy in lower Hell, where still blacker sins are punished. |