The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 30

And he: 'Thy prayers are worthy to obtain 70 Exceeding praise; thou hast what thou dost seek: But see that thou from speech thy tongue refrain.

I know what thou wouldst have; leave me to speak, For they perchance would hear contemptuously Shouldst thou address them, seeing they were Greek.'[681]

Soon as the flame toward us had come so nigh That to my Leader time and place seemed met, I heard him thus adjure it to reply: 'O ye who twain within one fire are set, If what I did your guerdon meriteth, 80 If much or little ye are in my debt For the great verse I built while I had breath, By one of you be openly confessed Where, lost to men, at last he met with death.'

Of the ancient flame the more conspicuous crest Murmuring began to waver up and down Like flame that flickers, by the wind distressed.

At length by it was measured motion shown, Like tongue that moves in speech; and by the flame Was language uttered thus: 'When I had gone 90 From Circe[682] who a long year kept me tame Beside her, ere the near Gaeta had Received from aeneas that new name; No softness for my son, nor reverence sad For my old father, nor the love I owed Penelope with which to make her glad, Could quench the ardour that within me glowed A full experience of the world to gain-- Of human vice and worth. But I abroad Launched out upon the high and open main[683] 100 With but one bark and but the little band Which ne'er deserted me.[684] As far as Spain I saw the sea-sh.o.r.e upon either hand, And as Morocco; saw Sardinia's isle, And all of which those waters wash the strand.

I and my comrades were grown old the while And sluggish, ere we to the narrows came Where Hercules of old did landmarks pile For sign to men they should no further aim; And Seville lay behind me on the right, 110 As on the left lay Ceuta. Then to them I spake: "O Brothers, who through such a fight Of hundred thousand dangers West have won, In this short watch that ushers in the night Of all your senses, ere your day be done, Refuse not to obtain experience new Of worlds unpeopled, yonder, past the sun.

Consider whence the seed of life ye drew; Ye were not born to live like brutish herd, But righteousness and wisdom to ensue." 120 My comrades to such eagerness were stirred By this short speech the course to enter on, They had no longer brooked restraining word.

Turning our p.o.o.p to where the morning shone We of the oars made wings for our mad flight, Still tending left the further we had gone.

And of the other pole I saw at night Now all the stars; and 'neath the watery plain Our own familiar heavens were lost to sight.

Five times afresh had kindled, and again 130 The moon's face earthward was illumed no more, Since out we sailed upon the mighty main;[685]

Then we beheld a lofty mountain[686] soar, Dim in the distance; higher, as I thought, By far than any I had seen before.

We joyed; but with despair were soon distraught When burst a whirlwind from the new-found world And the forequarter of the vessel caught.

With all the waters thrice it round was swirled; At the fourth time the p.o.o.p, heaved upward, rose, 140 The prow, as pleased Another,[687] down was hurled; And then above us did the ocean close.'

FOOTNOTES:

[668] _Whence I ashamed, etc._: There is here a sudden change from irony to earnest. 'Five members of great Florentine families, eternally engaged among themselves in their shameful metamorphoses--nay, but it is too sad!'

[669] _Toward the morning, etc._: There was a widespread belief in the greater truthfulness of dreams dreamed as the night wears away. See _Purg._ ix. 13. The dream is Dante's foreboding of what is to happen to Florence. Of its truth he has no doubt, and the only question is how soon will it be answered by the fact. Soon, he says, if it is near to the morning that we dream true dreams--morning being the season of waking reality in which dreams are accomplished.

[670] _Even Prato_: A small neighbouring city, much under the influence of Florence, and somewhat oppressed by it. The commentators reckon up the disasters that afflicted Florence in the first years of the fourteenth century, between the date of Dante's journey and the time he wrote--fires, falls of bridges, and civil strife. But such misfortunes were too much in keeping with the usual course of Florentine history to move Dante thus deeply in the retrospect; and as he speaks here in his own person the 'soon' is more naturally counted from the time at which he writes than from the date a.s.signed by him to his pilgrimage. He is looking forward to the period when his own return in triumph to Florence was to be prepared by grievous national reverses; and, as a patriot, he feels that he cannot be wholly reconciled by his private advantage to the public misfortune. But it was all only a dream.

[671] _Some while ago_: See note, _Inf._ xxiv. 79.

[672] _'Mong splinters, etc._: They cross the wall or barrier between the Seventh and Eighth Bolgias. From _Inf._ xxiv. 63 we have learned that the rib of rock, on the line of which they are now proceeding, with its arches which overhang the various Bolgias, is rougher and worse to follow than that by which they began their pa.s.sage towards the centre of Malebolge.

[673] _Happy star_: See note, _Inf._ xv. 55. Dante seems to have been uncertain what credence to give to the claims of astrology. In a pa.s.sage of the _Purgatorio_ (xvi. 67) he tries to establish that whatever influence the stars may possess over us we can never, except with our own consent, be influenced by them to evil.--His sorrow here, as elsewhere, is not wholly a feeling of pity for the suffering shades, but is largely mingled with misgivings for himself. The punishment of those to whose sins he feels no inclination he always beholds with equanimity.

Here, as he looks down upon the false counsellors and considers what temptations there are to misapply intellectual gifts, he is smitten with dread lest his lot should one day be cast in that dismal valley and he find cause to regret that the talent of genius was ever committed to him. The memory even of what he saw makes him recollect himself and resolve to be wary. Then, as if to justify the claim to superior powers thus clearly implied, there comes a pa.s.sage which in the original is of uncommon beauty.

[674] _Field and vineyard_: These lines, redolent of the sweet Tuscan midsummer gloaming, give us amid the horrors of Malebolge something like the breath of fresh air the peasant lingers to enjoy. It may be noted that in Italy the village is often found perched above the more fertile land, on a site originally chosen with a view to security from attack.

So that here the peasant is at home from his labour.

[675] _And yet a sinner, etc._: The false counsellors who for selfish ends hid their true minds and misused their intellectual light to lead others astray are for ever hidden each in his own wandering flame.

[676] _Eteocles_: Son of Oedipus and twin brother of Polynices. The brothers slew one another, and were placed on the same funeral pile, the flame of which clove into two as if to image the discord that had existed between them (_Theb._ xii.).

[677] _And Diomedes_: The two are a.s.sociated in deeds of blood and guile at the siege of Troy.

[678] _The Romans' n.o.ble seed_: The trick of the wooden horse led to the capture of Troy, and that led aeneas to wander forth on the adventures that ended in the settlement of the Trojans in Italy.

[679] _Dedamia_: That Achilles might be kept from joining the Greek expedition to Troy he was sent by his mother to the court of Lycomedes, father of Dedamia. Ulysses lured him away from his hiding-place and from Dedamia, whom he had made a mother.

[680] _The Palladium_: The Trojan sacred image of Pallas, stolen by Ulysses and Diomed (_aen._ ii.). Ulysses is here upon his own ground.

[681] _They were Greek_: Some find here an allusion to Dante's ignorance of the Greek language and literature. But Virgil addresses them in the Lombard dialect of Italian (_Inf._ xxvii. 21). He acts as spokesman because those ancient Greeks were all so haughty that to a common modern mortal they would have nothing to say. He, as the author of the _aeneid_, has a special claim on their good-nature. It is but seldom that the shades are told who Virgil is, and never directly. Here Ulysses may infer it from the mention of the 'lofty verse.'

[682] _From Circe_: It is Ulysses that speaks.

[683] _The open main_: The Mediterranean as distinguished from the aegean.

[684] _Which ne'er deserted me_: There seems no reason for supposing, with Philalethes, that Ulysses is here represented as sailing on his last voyage from the island of Circe and not from Ithaca. Ulysses, on the contrary, represents himself as breaking away afresh from all the ties of home. According to Homer, Ulysses had lost all his companions ere he returned to Ithaca; and in the _Odyssey_ Tiresias prophesies to him that his last wanderings are to be inland. But any acquaintance that Dante had with Homer can only have been vague and fragmentary. He may have founded his narrative of how Ulysses ended his days upon some floating legend; or, eager to fill up what he took to be a blank in the world of imagination, he may have drawn wholly on his own creative power. In any case it is his Ulysses who, through the version of him given by a living poet, is most familiar to the English reader.

[685] _The mighty main_: The Atlantic Ocean. They bear to the left as they sail, till their course is due south, and crossing the Equator, they find themselves under the strange skies of the southern hemisphere.

For months they have seen no land.

[686] _A lofty mountain_: This is the Mountain of Purgatory, according to Dante's geography antipodal to Jerusalem, and the only land in the southern hemisphere.

[687] _As pleased Another_: Ulysses is proudly resigned to the failure of his enterprise, 'for he was Greek.'

CANTO XXVII.

Now, having first erect and silent grown (For it would say no more), from us the flame, The Poet sweet consenting,[688] had moved on; And then our eyes were turned to one that came[689]

Behind it on the way, by sounds that burst Out of its crest in a confused stream.

As the Sicilian bull,[690] which bellowed first With his lamenting--and it was but right-- Who had prepared it with his tools accurst,[691]

Roared with the howlings of the tortured wight, 10 So that although constructed all of bra.s.s Yet seemed it pierced with anguish to the height; So, wanting road and vent by which to pa.s.s Up through the flame, into the flame's own speech The woeful language all converted was.

But when the words at length contrived to reach The top, while hither thither shook the crest As moved the tongue[692] at utterance of each, We heard: 'Oh thou, to whom are now addressed My words, who spakest now in Lombard phrase: 20 "Depart;[693] of thee I nothing more request."

Though I be late arrived, yet of thy grace Let it not irk thee here a while to stay: It irks not me, yet, as thou seest, I blaze.

If lately to this world devoid of day From that sweet Latian land thou art come down Whence all my guilt I bring, declare and say Has now Romagna peace? because my own Native abode was in the mountain land 'Tween springs[694] of Tiber and Urbino town.' 30 While I intent and bending low did stand, My Leader, as he touched me on the side, 'Speak thou, for he is Latian,' gave command.

Whereon without delay I thus replied-- Because already[695] was my speech prepared: 'Soul, that down there dost in concealment 'bide, In thy Romagna[696] wars have never spared And spare not now in tyrants' hearts to rage; But when I left it there was none declared.

No change has fallen Ravenna[697] for an age. 40 There, covering Cervia too with outspread wing, Polenta's Eagle guards his heritage.

Over the city[698] which long suffering Endured, and Frenchmen slain on Frenchmen rolled, The Green Paws[699] once again protection fling.

The Mastiffs of Verrucchio,[700] young and old, Who to Montagna[701] brought such evil cheer, Still clinch their fangs where they were wont to hold.

Cities,[702] Lamone and Santerno near, The Lion couched in white are governed by 50 Which changes party with the changing year.

And that to which the Savio[703] wanders nigh As it is set 'twixt mountain and champaign Lives now in freedom now 'neath tyranny.

But who thou art I to be told am fain: Be not more stubborn than we others found, As thou on earth ill.u.s.trious wouldst remain.'

When first the fire a little while had moaned After its manner, next the pointed crest Waved to and fro; then in this sense breathed sound: 'If I believed my answer were addressed 61 To one that earthward shall his course retrace, This flame should forthwith altogether rest.

But since[704] none ever yet out of this place Returned alive, if all be true I hear, I yield thee answer fearless of disgrace.

I was a warrior, then a Cordelier;[705]

Thinking thus girt to purge away my stain: And sure my hope had met with answer clear Had not the High Priest[706]--ill with him remain! 70 Plunged me anew into my former sin: And why and how, I would to thee make plain.

While I the frame of bones and flesh was in My mother gave me, all the deeds I wrought Were fox-like and in no wise leonine.

Of every wile and hidden way I caught The secret trick, and used them with such sleight That all the world with fame of it was fraught.

When I perceived I had attained quite The time of life when it behoves each one 80 To furl his sails and coil his cordage tight, Sorrowing for deeds I had with pleasure done, Contrite and shriven, I religious grew.

Ah, wretched me! and well it was begun But for the Chieftain of the Pharisees new,[707]

Then waging war hard by the Lateran, And not with Saracen nor yet with Jew; For Christian[708] were his enemies every man, And none had at the siege of Acre been Or trafficked in the Empire of Soldan. 90 His lofty office he held cheap, and e'en His Sacred Orders and the cord I wore, Which used[709] to make the wearers of it lean.

As from Soracte[710] Constantine of yore Sylvester called to cure his leprosy, I as a leech was called this man before To cure him of his fever which ran high; My counsel he required, but I stood dumb, For drunken all his words appeared to be.

He said; "For fear be in thy heart no room; 100 Beforehand I absolve thee, but declare How Palestrina I may overcome.

Heaven I unlock, as thou art well aware, And close at will; because the keys are twin My predecessor[711] was averse to bear."

Then did his weighty reasoning on me win Till to be silent seemed the worst of all; And, "Father," I replied, "since from this sin Thou dost absolve me into which I fall-- The scant performance[712] of a promise wide 110 Will yield thee triumph in thy lofty stall."

Francis came for me soon as e'er I died; But one of the black Cherubim was there And "Take him not, nor rob me of him" cried, "For him of right among my thralls I bear Because he offered counsel fraudulent; Since when I've had him firmly by the hair.

None is absolved unless he first repent; Nor can repentance house with purpose ill, For this the contradiction doth prevent." 120 Ah, wretched me! How did I shrinking thrill When clutching me he sneered: "Perhaps of old Thou didst not think[713] I had in logic skill."

He carried me to Minos:[714] Minos rolled His tail eight times round his hard back; in ire Biting it fiercely, ere of me he told: "Among the sinners of the shrouding fire!"

Therefore am I, where thou beholdest, lost; And, sore at heart, go clothed in such attire.'

What he would say thus ended by the ghost, 130 Away from us the moaning flame did glide While to and fro its pointed horn was tossed.

But we pa.s.sed further on, I and my Guide, Along the cliff to where the arch is set O'er the next moat, where paying they reside, As schismatics who whelmed themselves in debt.