33
He had hardly finished telling me his plan when I saw them coming with their wings wide open not too far off, and now they meant to get us!
36
My guide instinctively caught hold of me, like a mother waking to some warning sound, who sees the rising flames are getting close
39
and grabs her son and runs—she does not wait the short time it would take to put on something; she cares not for herself, only for him.
42
And over the edge, then down the stony bank he slid, on his back, along the sloping rock that walls the higher side of the next bolgia.
45
Water that turns a mill wheel never ran the narrow sluice at greater speed, not even at the point before it hits the paddle-blades,
48
than down that sloping border my guide slid, bearing me with him, clasping me to his chest as though I were his child, not his companion.
51
His feet had hardly touched rock bottom, when there they were, the ten of them, above us on the height; but now there was no need to fear:
54
High Providence that willed for them to be the ministers in charge of the fifth ditch also willed them powerless to leave their realm.
57
And now, down there, we found a painted people, slow-motioned: step by step, they walked their round in tears, and seeming wasted by fatigue.
60
All were wearing cloaks with hoods pulled low covering the eyes (the style was much the same as those the Benedictines wear at Cluny),
63
dazzling, gilded cloaks outside, but inside they were lined with lead, so heavy that the capes King Frederick used, compared to these, were straw.
66
O cloak of everlasting weariness! We turned again, as usual, to the left and moved with them, those souls lost in their mourning;
69
but with their weight that tired-out race of shades paced on so slowly that we found ourselves in new company with every step we took;
72
and so I asked my guide: “Please look around and see, as we keep walking, if you find someone whose name or deeds are known to me. ”
75
And one who overheard me speaking Tuscan cried out somewhere behind us: “Not so fast, you there, rushing ahead through this heavy air,
78
perhaps from me you can obtain an answer. ” At this my guide turned toward me saying, “Stop, and wait for him, then match your pace with his. ”
81
I paused and saw two shades with straining faces revealing their mind’s haste to join my side, but the weight they bore and the crowded road delayed them.
84
61-63. The vestments of the monks at Cluny were particularly famous for their fullness and elegance.
When they arrived, they looked at me sideways and for some time, without exchanging words; then they turned to one another and were saying:
87
“He seems alive, the way his throat is moving, and if both are dead, what privilege allows them to walk uncovered by the heavy cloak?”
90
Then they spoke to me: “O Tuscan who has come to visit the college of the sullen hypocrites, do not disdain to tell us who you are. ”
93
I answered them: “I was born and I grew up in the great city on the lovely Arno’s shore, and I have the body I have always had.
96
But who are you, distilling tears of grief, so many I see running down your cheeks? And what kind of pain is this that it can glitter?”
99
One of them answered: “The orange-gilded cloaks are thick with lead so heavy that it makes us, who are the scales it hangs on, creak as we walk.
102
Jovial Friars we were, both from Bologna. My name was Catalano, his, Loderingo, and both of us were chosen by your city,
105
that usually would choose one man alone, to keep the peace. Evidence of what we were may still be seen around Gardingo’s parts. ”
108
I began: “O Friars, all your wretchedness…” but said no more; I couldn’t, for I saw one crucified with three stakes on the ground.
111
103-108. The Order of the Cavalieri di Beata Santa Maria, or “Jovial Friars” (frati gaudenti) as they were called, was founded at Bologna in 1261 and was dedicated to the maintenance of peace between political factions and families, and to the defense of the weak and poor. However, because of its rather liberal rules, this high-principled organization gained the nickname of Jovial Friars—which, no doubt, impaired its serious function to some degree.
And when he saw me all his body writhed, and through his beard he heaved out sighs of pain; then Friar Catalano, who watched the scene,
114
remarked: “That impaled figure you see there advised the Pharisees it was expedient to sacrifice one man for all the people.
117
Naked he lies stretched out across the road, as you can see, and he must feel the load of every weight that steps on him to cross.
120
His father-in-law and the other council members, who were the seed of evil for all Jews, are racked the same way all along this ditch. ”
123
And I saw Virgil staring down amazed at this body stretching out in crucifixion, so vilely punished in the eternal exile.
126
Then he looked up and asked one of the friars: “Could you please tell us, if your rule permits: is there a passage-way on the right, somewhere,
129
by which the two of us may leave this place without summoning one of those black angels to come down here and raise us from this pit?”
132
He answered: “Closer than you might expect, a ridge jutting out from the base of the great circle extends, and bridges every hideous ditch
135
except this one, whose arch is totally smashed and crosses nowhere; but you can climb up its massive ruins that slope against this bank. ”
138
115-123. The “impaled figure” is Caiaphas, the high priest of the Jews, who maintained that it was better that one man (Jesus) die than for the Hebrew nation to be lost (John 11:49-50). Annas, Caiaphas’s father-in-law (121), delivered Jesus to him for judgment. For their act against God these men and the other evil counselors who judged Christ were the “seed of evil for all Jews” (122); in retaliation God caused Jerusalem to be destroyed and the Hebrew people dispersed to all parts of the world.
124-127. Virgil’s amazement at seeing the crucified Caiaphas is due to the fact that he was not there when Virgil first descended into Hell.
My guide stood there awhile, his head bent low, then said: “He told a lie about this business, that one who hooks the sinners over there. ”
141
And the friar: “Once, in Bologna, I heard discussed the devil’s many vices; one of them is that he tells lies and is father of all lies. ”
144
In haste, taking great strides, my guide walked off, his face revealing traces of his anger. I turned and left the heavy-weighted souls
147
to make my way behind those cherished footprints.
CANTO XXIV
AFTER AN ELABORATE simile describing Virgil’s anger and the return of his composure, the two begin the difficult, steep ascent up the rocks of the fallen bridge. The Pilgrim can barely make it to the top even with Virgil’s help, and after the climb he sits down to catch his breath; but his guide urges him on, and they make their way back to the bridge over the Seventh Bolgia. From the bridge confused sounds can be heard rising from the darkness below. Virgil agrees to take his pupil down to the edge of the eighth encircling bank, and once they are there, the scene reveals a terrible confusion of serpents, and Thieves madly running.
Suddenly a snake darts out and strikes a sinner’s neck, whereupon he flares up, turning into a he
ap of crumbling ashes; then the ashes gather together into the shape of a man. The metamorphosed sinner reveals himself to be Vanni Fucci, a Pistoiese condemned for stealing the treasure of the sacristy of the church of San Zeno at Pistoia. He makes a prophecy about the coming strife in Florence.
In the season of the newborn year, when the sun renews its rays beneath Aquarius and nights begin to last as long as days,
3
at the time the hoarfrost paints upon the ground the outward semblance of his snow-white sister (but the color from his brush soon fades away),
6
the peasant wakes, gets up, goes out and sees the fields all white. No fodder for his sheep! He smites his thighs in anger and goes back
9
into his shack and, pacing up and down, complains, poor wretch, not knowing what to do; once more he goes outdoors, and hope fills him
12
again when he sees the world has changed its face in so little time, and he picks up his crook and out to pasture drives his sheep to graze—
15
just so I felt myself lose heart to see my master’s face wearing a troubled look, and as quickly came the salve to heal my sore:
18
for when we reached the shattered heap of bridge, my leader turned to me with that sweet look of warmth I first saw at the mountain’s foot.
21
He opened up his arms (but not before he had carefully studied how the ruins lay and found some sort of plan) to pick me up.
24
Like one who works and thinks things out ahead, always ready for the next move he will make, so, while he raised me up toward one great rock,
27
he had already singled out another, saying, “Now get a grip on that rock there, but test it first to see it holds your weight. ”
30
It was no road for one who wore a cloak! Even though I had his help and he weighed nothing, we could hardly lift ourselves from crag to crag.
33
21. The reference to the mountain of Canto I reminds the reader of the entire journey.
31. Such as the Hypocrites of the previous bolgia.
And had it not been that the bank we climbed was lower than the one we had slid down— I cannot speak for him—but I for one
36
surely would have quit. But since the Evil Pits slope toward the yawning well that is the lowest, each valley is laid out in such a way
39
that one bank rises higher than the next. We somehow finally reached the point above where the last of all that rock was shaken loose.
42
My lungs were so pumped out of breath by the time I reached the top, I could not go on farther, and instantly I sat down where I was.
45
“Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth, ” the master said, “for sitting softly cushioned, or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame;
48
and without it man must waste his life away, leaving such traces of what he was on earth as smoke in wind and foam upon the water.
51
Stand up! Dominate this weariness of yours with the strength of soul that wins in every battle if it does not sink beneath the body’s weight.
54
Much steeper stairs than these we’ll have to climb; we have not seen enough of sinners yet! If you understand me, act, learn from my words. ”
57
At this I stood up straight and made it seem I had more breath than I began to breathe, and said: “Move on, for I am strong and ready. ”
60
We climbed and made our way along the bridge, which was jagged, tight and difficult to cross, and steep—far more than any we had climbed.
63
55. Virgil is referring to the ascent up Lucifer’s legs and beyond. (See Canto XXXIV, 82-84.)
Not to seem faint, I spoke while I was climbing; then came a voice from the depths of the next chasm, a voice unable to articulate.
66
I don’t know what it said, even though I stood at the very top of the arch that crosses there; to me it seemed whoever spoke, spoke running.
69
I was bending over, but no living eyes could penetrate the bottom of that darkness; therefore I said: “Master, why not go down
72
this bridge onto the next encircling bank, for I hear sounds I cannot understand, and I look down but cannot see a thing. ”
75
“No other answer, ” he replied, “I give you than doing what you ask, for a fit request is answered best in silence and in deed. ”
78
From the bridge’s height we came down to the point where it ends and joins the edge of the eighth bank, and then the bolgia opened up to me:
81
down there I saw a terrible confusion of serpents, all of such a monstrous kind the thought of them still makes my blood run cold.
84
Let all the sands of Libya boast no longer, for though she breeds chelydri and jaculi, phareans, cenchres, and head-tailed amphisbenes,
87
she never bred so great a plague of venom, not even if combined with Ethiopia or all the sands that lie by the Red Sea.
90
Within this cruel and bitterest abundance people ran terrified and naked, hopeless of finding hiding-holes or heliotrope.
93
85-90. Libya and the other lands near the Red Sea (Ethiopia and Arabia) were renowned for producing several types of dreadful reptiles.
93. According to folk tradition, heliotrope was believed to be a stone of many virtues. It could cure snakebites and make the man who carried it on his person invisible.
Their hands were tied behind their backs with serpents, which pushed their tails and heads around the loins and coiled themselves in knots around the front.
96
And then—at a sinner running by our bank a snake shot out and, striking, hit his mark: right where the neck attaches to the shoulder.
99
No o or i was ever quicker put by pen to paper than he flared up and burned, and turned into a heap of crumbled ash;
102
and then, these ashes scattered on the ground began to come together on their own and quickly take the form they had before:
105
precisely so, philosophers declare, the phoenix dies to be reborn again as she approaches her five-hundredth year;
108
alive, she does not feed on herbs or grain, but on teardrops of frankincense and balm, and wraps herself to die in nard and myrrh.
111
As a man in a fit will fall, not knowing why (perhaps some hidden demon pulls him down, or some oppilation chokes his vital spirits),
114
then, struggling to his feet, will look around, confused and overwhelmed by the great anguish he has suffered, moaning as he stares about—
117
so did this sinner when he finally rose. Oh, how harsh the power of the Lord can be, raining in its vengeance blows like these!
120
My guide asked him to tell us who he was, and he replied: “It’s not too long ago I rained from Tuscany to this fierce gullet.
123
I loved the bestial life more than the human, like the bastard that I was; I’m Vanni Fucci, the beast! Pistoia was my fitting den. ”
126
I told my guide: “Tell him not to run away; ask him what sin has driven him down here, for I knew him as a man of bloody rage. ”
129
The sinner heard and did not try to feign; directing straight at me his mind and face, he reddened with a look of ugly shame,
132
and said: “That you have caught me by surprise here in this wretched bolgia, makes me grieve more than the day I lost my other life.
135
Now I am forced to answer what you ask: I am stuck so far down here because of theft: I stole the treasure of the sacristy—
138
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br /> a crime falsely attributed to another. I don’t want you to rejoice at having seen me, if ever you escape from these dark pits,
141
so open your ears and hear my prophecy: Pistoia first shall be stripped of all its Blacks, and Florence then shall change its men and laws;
144
from Valdimagra Mars shall thrust a bolt of lightning wrapped in thick, foreboding clouds, then bolt and clouds will battle bitterly
147
in a violent storm above Piceno’s fields, where rapidly the bolt will burst the cloud, and no White will escape without his wounds.
150
And I have told you this so you will suffer!”
125-129. Vanni Fucci, the illegitimate son of Fuccio de’ Lazzari, was a militant leader of the Blacks in Pistoia. His notoriety “as a man of bloody rage” (129) was widespread; in fact, the Pilgrim is surprised to find him here and not immersed in the Phlegethon together with the other shades of the Violent (Canto XII).
CANTO XXV
THE WRATHFUL Vanni Fucci directs an obscene gesture to God, whereupon he is attacked by several snakes, which coil about him, tying him so tight that he cannot move a muscle. As soon as he flees, the centaur Cacus gallops by with a fire-breathing dragon on his back, and following close behind are three shades, concerned because they cannot find Cianfa — who soon appears as a snake and attacks Agnèl; the two merge into one hideous monster, which then steals off. Next, Guercio, in the form of a snake, strikes Buoso, and the two exchange shapes. Only Puccio Sciancato is left unchanged.
When he had finished saying this, the thief shaped his fists into figs and raised them high and cried: “Here, God, I’ve shaped them just for you!”
3
From then on all those snakes became my friends, for one of them at once coiled round his neck as if to say, “That’s all you’re going to say, ”
6
while another twisted round his arms in front; it tied itself into so tight a knot, between the two he could not move a muscle.
9
Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why not resolve to burn yourself to ashes, ending all, since you have done more evil than your founders?
12
Throughout the circles of this dark inferno I saw no shade so haughty toward his God, not even he who fell from Thebes’ high walls.