Studies in the Poetry of Italy Part 4

"Far as the luminous beacon on we pa.s.sed, Speaking of matters, then befitting well To speak, now fitter left untold. At foot Of a magnificent castle we arrived, Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round Defended by a pleasant stream. O'er this As o'er dry land we pa.s.sed. Next, through seven gates, I with those sages entered, and we came Into a mead with lively verdure fresh.

"There dwelt a race, who slow their eyes around Majestically moved, and in their port Bore eminent authority: they spake Seldom, but all their words were tuneful sweet.

"We to one side retired, into a place Open and bright and lofty, whence each one Stood manifest to view. Incontinent, There on the green enamel of the plain Were shown me the great spirits, by whose sight I am exalted in my own esteem."

Leaving this beautiful oasis in the infernal desert, the poets enter the second circle, where h.e.l.l may be said really to begin. Here Dante sees the monster Minos, the judge of the infernal regions, who a.s.signs to each soul its proper circle, indicating the number thereof by winding his tail about his body a corresponding number of times. In circle two are the souls of the licentious, blown about forever by a violent wind.

Among them Dante recognizes the famous lovers of antiquity, Dido, Helen, Cleopatra. His attention is especially attracted toward two spirits, who, locked closely in each other's arms, are blown hither and thither like chaff before the wind. Calling upon them to tell him who they are, he hears the pathetic story of Francesca da Rimini, perhaps the most famous and beautiful pa.s.sage in all poetry:

"When I had heard my sage instructor name Those dames and knights of antique days, o'erpowered By pity, well-nigh in amaze my mind Was lost; and I began: 'Bard! willingly I would address those two together coming, Which seem so light before the wind.' He thus: 'Note thou, when nearer they to us approach.

Then by that love which carries them along, Entreat; and they will come.' Soon as the wind Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech: 'O wearied spirits! come, and hold discourse With us, if by none else restrained.' As doves By fond desire invited, on wide wings And firm, to their sweet nest returning home, Cleave the air, wafted by their will along; Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks, They, through the ill air speeding: with such force My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.

"'O gracious creature and benign! who go'st Visiting, through this element obscure, Us, who the world with b.l.o.o.d.y stain imbrued; If, for a friend, the King of all, we owned, Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise, Since thou hast pity on our evil plight.

Of whatso'er to hear or to discourse It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind, As now, is mute. The land, that gave me birth, Is situate on the coast, where Po descends To rest in ocean[8] with his sequent streams.

"'Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt[9], Entangled him by that fair form, from me Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still: Love, that denial takes from none beloved, Caught me with pleasing him so pa.s.sing well, That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not.

Love brought us to one death: Cana[10] waits The soul, who spilt our life.' Such were their words; At hearing which, downward I bent my looks, And held them there so long, that the bard cried: 'What art thou pondering?' I in answer thus: 'Alas! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire Must they at length to that ill pa.s.s have reached!'

"Then turning, I to them my speech addressed, And thus began: 'Francesca! your sad fate Even to tears my grief and pity moves.

But tell me; in the time of your sweet sighs, By what and how Love granted, that ye knew Your yet uncertain wishes?' She replied: 'No greater grief than to remember days Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens Thy learn'd instructor yet so eagerly If thou art bent to know the primal root, From whence our love gat being, I will do As one who weeps and tells his tale. One day For our delight we read of Launcelot, How him love thralled. Alone we were, and no Suspicion near us. Oft times by that reading Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue Fled from our altered cheek. But at one point Alone we fell. When of that smile we read, The wished for smile so rapturously kissed By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er From me shall separate, at once my lips All trembling kissed. The book and writer both Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day We read no more.' While thus one spirit spake, The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck I, through compa.s.sion fainting, seemed not far From death, and like a corse fell to the ground."

Pa.s.sing rapidly over circle three, in which the gluttons lie in mire under a pelting storm of hail, snow, and rain, torn to pieces by the three-throated Cerberus; and circle four, where misers and spendthrifts roll great weights against each other and upbraid each the other with his besetting sin; we come to circle five, where in the dark and dismal waters of the Styx the wrathful and the melancholy are plunged. It is singular that Dante makes low spirits or mental depression as much a sin as violence and lack of self-control:

"The good instructor spake: 'Now seest thou, son!

The souls of those, whom anger overcame.

This, too, for certain know, that underneath The water dwells a mult.i.tude, whose sighs Into these bubbles make the surface heave,-- As thine eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turn.

Fixed in the slime, they say: "Sad once were we, In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun, Carrying a foul and lazy mist within: Now in these murky settlings are we sad."

Such dolorous strain they gurgle in their throats, But word distinct can utter none.'"

As they stand at the foot of a dark tower, a light flashes from its top and another light, far off above the waters, sends back an answer through the murky air. Dante, full of curiosity, turns to Vergil for explanation:

"'There on the filthy waters,' he replied, 'E'en now what next awaits us mayst thou see, If the marsh-gendered fog conceal it not.'

"Never was arrow from the cord dismissed, That ran its way so nimbly through the air, As a small bark, that through the waves I spied Toward us coming, under the sole sway Of one that ferried it, who cried aloud: 'Art thou arrived, fell spirit?'--'Phlegyas, Phlegyas, This time thou criest in vain,' my lord replied; 'No longer shalt thou have us, but while o'er The slimy pool we pa.s.s.' As one who hears Of some great wrong he hath sustained, whereat Inly he pines: So Phlegyas inly pined In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepped Into the skiff, and bade me enter next, Close at his side; nor, till my entrance, seemed The vessel freighted. Soon as both embarked, Cutting the waves, goes on the ancient prow, More deeply than with others it is wont."

Thus they cross the Styx, and soon approach the other sh.o.r.e, where luridly picturesque in the ink-black atmosphere rise the red-hot walls and towers of the city of Dis:

"And thus the good instructor: 'Now, my son Draws near the city, that of Dis[11] is named, With its grave denizens, a mighty throng.'

"I thus: 'The minarets already, sir!

There, certes, in the valley I descry, Gleaming vermilion, as if they from fire Had issued.' He replied: 'Eternal fire, That inward burns shows them with ruddy flame Illumed; as in this nether h.e.l.l thou seest.'

"We came within the fosses deep, that moat This region comfortless. The walls appeared As they were framed of iron. We had made Wide circuit, ere a place we reached, where loud The mariner cried vehement: 'Go forth: The entrance is here.' Upon the gates I spied More than a thousand, who of old from heaven Were shower'd. With ireful gestures, 'Who is this,'

They cried, 'that, without death first felt, goes through The regions of the dead?' My sapient guide Made sign that he for secret parley wished; Whereat their angry scorn abating, thus They spake: 'Come thou alone; and let him go, Who hath so hardily entered this realm.

Alone return he by his witless way; If well he know it, let him prove. For thee, Here shalt thou tarry, who through clime so dark Hast been his escort.' Now bethink thee, reader!

What cheer was mine at sound of those curst words.

I did believe I never should return."

While not only Dante but Vergil himself stand in dismay before the closed gates of the city, and the threatening devils on the walls, they hear a roar like that of a mighty wind, and behold! over the waters of the Styx a celestial messenger comes dry-shod, puts to flight the recalcitrant devils, and opening the gates with a touch of his wand, departs without having uttered a word.

Entering the city, Dante sees a vast cemetery covered with tombs, whence issue flames, and in which are shut up the souls of those who denied the immortality of the soul. Here occurs the celebrated scene between Dante and Farinata degli Uberti, who alone, after the battle of Montaperti, in 1260 (when the victorious Ghibellines seriously contemplated razing Florence to the ground), opposed the motion, and thus saved his native city from destruction. Here also Dante sees the father of his friend, Guido Cavalcanti.

In the center of the cemetery yawns a tremendous abyss, which leads to the lower regions of h.e.l.l. Before they descend this, however, Vergil explains to Dante the various kinds of sins which are punished in h.e.l.l. Those he has seen hitherto (gluttony, licentiousness, avarice, wrath, and melancholy) all belong to the category of incontinence; those which are to come are due to malice, and harm not only oneself but others. The sixth circle, that of the heretics, in which they now are, forms a transition between the above two general divisions. In circle seven, the next one below them, are punished the violent, subdivided into three cla.s.ses: 1, those who were violent against their fellow-men,--tyrants, murderers, and robbers; 2, those who were violent against themselves,--suicides and gamblers; 3, those who were violent against G.o.d, nature, and art,--blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. In circles eight and nine are the fraudulent and traitors, the various cla.s.ses of which are given later.

After this explanation, the two poets descend the rocky cliff, and find at the bottom a blood-red river, where, guarded by centaurs, are plunged the souls of murderers and robbers, in various depths according to the heinousness of their cruelty and crimes. Crossing this stream they come to a dark and gloomy wood, composed of trees gnarled and twisted into all sorts of fantastic shapes, grimly recalling the contortions of a human body in pain, and covered with poisonous thorns. On the branches sit hideous harpies, half woman, half bird. Each of these trees contains the soul of a suicide. Dante, breaking off a small branch, is horrified to see human blood slowly ooze from the break, and a hissing noise like escaping steam, which resolves itself finally into words. From these he learns that the soul contained in this tree is that of Pier delle Vigne, prime minister of Frederick II., who tells his sad and pathetic story, how he became the victim of slander and court intrigue, and how, being unjustly imprisoned by his master, he committed suicide.

Beyond this gruesome forest the wanderers come out upon a vast sandy desert, utterly treeless, where they see many wretched souls, some lying supine, some crouching down in a sitting posture, some walking incessantly about, all, however, forever trying, but in vain, to ward off from their naked bodies countless flakes of flame which fall slowly and steadily like snow

"On Alpine summits, when the wind is hushed."

Here are punished the blasphemers, violent against G.o.d; usurers, violent against art; and sodomites, violent against nature. Among the latter Dante recognizes and converses with his old friend, Brunetto Latini, who prophesies to him his future fame and his exile from Florence:

"'If thou,' he answer'd, 'follow but thy star, Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven; Unless in fairer days my judgment erred.

And if my fate so early had not chanced, Seeing the heavens thus bounteous to thee, I Had gladly given thee comfort in thy work.

But that ungrateful and malignant race, Who in old times came down from Fiesole,[12]

Ay and still smack of their rough mountain-flint, Will for thy good deeds show thee enmity.'"

To which the poet answers with n.o.ble courage:

"This only would I have thee clearly note: That, so my conscience have no plea against me, Do Fortune as she list, I stand prepared, Not new or strange such earnest to my ear.

Speed Fortune then her wheel, as likes her best; The clown his mattock; all things have their course."

The poets then descend the tremendous cliff leading to circle eight, on the back of Geryon, a fantastic monster, with face of a good man, but body of a beast, many-colored and covered over with complicated figures, being a symbol of the fraud punished in the next circle. This is subdivided into ten concentric rings, or ditches, with the floor gradually descending to a well in the center, thus resembling the circular rows of seats in an amphitheater, converging to the arena. In these ten _malebolge_, as Dante calls them--_i. e._, evil pits--are ten different kinds of fraudulent, panderers, flatterers, those guilty of simony, false prophets, magicians, thieves, barterers (those who sell public offices), evil counselors, schismatics, and hypocrites, all punished with diabolic ingenuity, hewn asunder by the sword, boiled in lakes of burning pitch, bitten by poisonous snakes, wasted by dire and hideous disease. As an example of the horrors seen in these evil pits we give one vivid picture, that of the famous Troubadour Bertrand de Born, who, having incited the young son of Henry II., of England, to rebel against his father, is punished in h.e.l.l by having his head cut off and carrying it in his hand:

"But I there Still lingered to behold the troop, and saw Thing, such as I may fear without more proof To tell of, but that conscience makes me firm, The boon companion, who her strong breastplate Buckles on him, that feels no guilt within, And bids him on and fear not. Without doubt I saw, and yet it seems to pa.s.s before me, A headless trunk, that even as the rest Of the sad flock paced onward. By the hair It bore the severed member, lantern-wise Pendent in hand, which look'd at us and said, 'Woe's me!' The spirit lighted thus himself; And two there were in one, and one in two.

How that may be, he knows who ordereth so.

"When at the bridge's foot direct he stood, His arm aloft he reared, thrusting the head Full in our view, that nearer we might hear The words, which thus it utter'd: 'Now behold This grievous torment, thou, who breathing go'st To spy the dead: behold, if any else Be terrible as this. And, that on earth Thou mayst bear tidings of me, know that I Am Bertrand, he of Born, who gave King John The counsel mischievous. Father and son I set at mutual war. For Absalom And David more did not Ahitophel, Spurring them on maliciously to strife.

For parting those so closely knit, my brain Parted, alas! I carry from its source, That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law Of retribution fiercely works in me.'"

In the eighth pit are the souls of evil counselors, so completely swathed in flames that their forms cannot be seen. Dante's attention is especially attracted to one of these moving flames, with a double-tipped point, which proves to contain the souls of Diomede and Ulysses, who, as they were together in fraud, are now inseparable in punishment. The story of his last voyage and final shipwreck, told by Ulysses, how in his old age, weary of the monotony of home life and longing to know the secret of the great Western ocean, he set sail with his old companions, is full of imaginative grandeur:

"Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn 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 Had held me near Caieta by her charms, Ere thus aeneas yet had named the sh.o.r.e; Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence Of my old father, nor return of love, That should have crowned Penelope with joy, Could overcome in me the zeal I had 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 Marocco, either sh.o.r.e I saw, And the Sardinian and each isle beside Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age Were I and my companions, when we came To the strait pa.s.s, where Hercules ordain'd The boundaries not to be o'erstepp'd 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 a.s.sociates, that I then Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn Our p.o.o.p 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 Vanish'd the light from underneath the moon, Since the deep way we entered, when from far Appear'd a mountain dim, loftiest methought Of all I e'er beheld. Joy seized us straight; But soon to mourning changed. From the new land A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl'd her round With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up The p.o.o.p, and sank the prow: so fate decreed: And over us the booming billow closed."

In the center of the amphitheater of Malebolge is a deep and vast well, guarded by giants, one of whom takes the poets in his arms and deposits them at the bottom. Here they find the ninth and last circle, where in four divisions the traitors against relatives, friends, country, and benefactors, are fixed like flies in amber in a solid lake of ice, swept by bitter, cold winds. Among the traitors to their country Dante sees one man who is gnawing in relentless rage at the head of another fixed in the ice in front of him. Inquiring the cause of this terrible cruelty, Dante hears the following story, couched in language which Goethe has declared to be without an equal in all poetry:

"His jaws uplifting from their fell repast, That sinner wiped them on the hairs o' the head, Which he behind had mangled, then began: 'Thy will obeying, I call up afresh Sorrow past cure; which, but to think of, wrings My heart, or ere I tell on 't. But if words, That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear Fruit of eternal infamy to him, The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be I know not, nor how here below art come: But Florentine thou seemest of a truth, When I do hear thee. Know, I was on earth Count Ugolino, and the Archbishop he Ruggieri. Why I neighbor him so close, Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts In him my trust reposing, I was ta'en And after murdered, need is not I tell.

What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is, How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear, And know if he have wrong'd me. A small grate Within that mew, which for my sake the name Of famine bears, where others yet must pine, Already through its opening several moons Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep That from the future tore the curtain off.

This one, methought, as master of the sport, Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf, and his whelps, Unto the mountain which forbids the sight Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.

After short course the father and the sons Seemed tired and lagging, and methought I saw The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke, Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold; And if not now, why use thy tears to flow?

Now had they wakened; and the hour drew near When they were wont to bring us food; the mind Of each misgave him through his dream, and I Heard, at its outlet underneath locked up The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word, I look'd upon the visage of my sons.

I wept not: so all stone I felt within.

They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried, "Thou lookest so! Father what ails thee?" Yet I shed no tear, nor answered all that day Nor the next night, until another sun Came out upon the world. When a faint beam Had to our doleful prison made its way, And in four countenances I descried The image of my own, on either hand Through agony I bit; and they, who thought I did it through desire of feeding, rose O' the sudden, and cried, "Father, we should grieve Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest These weeds of miserable flesh we wear; And do thou strip them off from us again."

Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down My spirit in stillness. That day and the next We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth!

Why open'dst not upon us? When we came To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet Outstretched did fling him, crying, "Hast no help For me, my father!" There he died; and e'en Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth: Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope Over them all, and for three days aloud Called on them who were dead. Then, fasting got The mastery of grief.' Thus having spoke, Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth He fasten'd like a mastiff's 'gainst the bone, Firm and unyielding. Oh, thou Pisa! shame Of all the people, who their dwelling make In that fair region, where the Italian voice Is heard; since that thy neighbors are so slack To punish, from their deep foundations rise Capraia and Gorgona,[13] and dam up The mouth of Arno; that each soul in thee May perish in the waters. What if fame Reported that thy castles were betrayed By Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou To stretch his children on the rack. For them, Brigata, Uguccione, and the pair Of gentle ones, of whom my song hath told, Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make Uncapable of guilt. Onward we pa.s.sed, Where others, skarfed in rugged folds of ice.

Not on their feet were turned, but each reversed."

Arriving at the very bottom of h.e.l.l, the poets see the body of Lucifer fixed in the center thereof (which is at the same time the center of earth and of the universe), with its upper part projecting into the freezing air. This monstrous figure, as hideous now as it had been beautiful before his revolt against G.o.d, has three pairs of wings and three heads, in the mouths of which he tears to pieces the three arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus, and Ca.s.sius.

The wanderers climb along the hairy sides of Lucifer and finally reach a cavity which corresponds to the lowest part of h.e.l.l, and up into which are thrust the legs of the monster. They have thus pa.s.sed the center of earth and are now in the other or southern hemisphere. Making their way upward along the course of a stream they finally come out into the open air, where the mount of purgatory rises sheer up from the surface of the great southern sea.

The first cantos of Purgatory are of wonderful beauty, and their loveliness is heightened by contrast, coming as it does after the darkness, filth, and horrors of h.e.l.l. Issuing from the subterranean pa.s.sage just before sunrise, the poets see before them a vast expanse of sea, lighted up by the soft rays of Venus, the morning star, and gradually becoming brighter as the dawn advances:

"Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, that was spread O'er the serene aspect of the pure air, High up as the first circle, to mine eyes Unwonted joy renew'd, soon as I 'scaped Forth from the atmosphere of deadly gloom, That had mine eyes and bosom fill'd with grief.

The radiant planet, that to love invites, Made all the Orient laugh, and veiled beneath The Pisces' light, that in his escort came.

"To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind On the other pole attentive, where I saw Four stars ne'er seen before save by the ken Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays Seemed joyous. O thou northern site! bereft Indeed, and widowed, since of these deprived."