The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 37

[832] _The Archbishop Roger_: Ruggieri, of the Tuscan family of the Ubaldini, to which the Cardinal of _Inf._ x. 120 also belonged. Towards the end of his life he was summoned to Rome to give an account of his evil deeds, and on his refusal to go was declared a rebel to the Church.

Ugolino was a traitor to his country; Roger, having entered into some sort of alliance with Ugolino, was a traitor to him. This has led some to suppose that while Ugolino is in Antenora he is so close to the edge of it as to be able to reach the head of Roger, who, as a traitor to his friend, is fixed in Ptolomaea. Against this view is the fact that they are described as being in the same hole (x.x.xii. 125), and also that in Ptolomaea the shades are set with head thrown back, and with only the face appearing above the ice, while Ugo is described as biting his foe at where the skull joins the nape. From line 91 it is clear that Ptolomaea lay further on than where Roger is. Like Ugo he is therefore here as a traitor to his country.

[833] _Were waste, etc._: For Dante knows it already, all Tuscany being familiar with the story of Ugo's fate.

[834] _Whose epithet of Famine_: It was called the Tower of Famine. Its site is now built over. Buti, the old Pisan commentator of Dante, says it was called the Mew because the eagles of the Republic were kept in it at moulting-time. But this may have been an after-thought to give local truth to Dante's verse, which it does at the expense of the poetry.

[835] _Many moons_: The imprisonment having already lasted for eight months.

[836] _The height, etc._: Lucca is about twelve miles from Pisa, Mount Giuliano rising between them.

[837] _Lanfranchi, etc._: In the dream, these, the chief Ghibeline families of Pisa, are the huntsmen, Roger being master of the hunt, and the populace the hounds. Ugo and his sons and grandsons are the wolf and wolf-cubs. In Ugo's dream of himself as a wolf there may be an allusion to his having engaged in the Guelf interest.

[838] _My sons_: According to Dante, taken literally, four of Ugo were imprisoned with him. It would have hampered him to explain that two were grandsons--Anselmuccio and Nino, called the Brigata at line 89, grandsons by their mother of King Enzo, natural son of Frederick II.--the sons being Gaddo and Uguccione, the latter Ugo's youngest son.

[839] _Each was fearful, etc._: All the sons had been troubled by dreams of famine. Had their rations been already reduced?

[840] _The under gate, etc._: The word translated _made fast_ (_chiavare_) may signify either to nail up or to lock. The commentators and chroniclers differ as to whether the door was locked, nailed, or built up. I would suggest that the lower part of the tower was occupied by a guard, and that the captives had not been used to hear the main door locked. Now, when they hear the great key creaking in the lock, they know that the tower is deserted.

[841] _The four faces, etc._: Despairing like his own, or possibly that, wasted by famine, the faces of the young men had become liker than ever to Ugo's own time-worn face.

[842] _Famine, etc._: This line, quite without reason, has been held to mean that Ugo was driven by hunger to eat the flesh of his children. The meaning is, that poignant though his grief was it did not shorten his sufferings from famine.

[843] _Where the Si, etc._: Italy, _Si_ being the Italian for _Yes_.

In his _De Vulg. El._, i. 8, Dante distinguishes the Latin languages--French, Italian, etc.--by their words of affirmation, and so terms Italian the language of _Si_. But Tuscany may here be meant, where, as a Tuscan commentator says, the _Si_ is more sweetly p.r.o.nounced than in any other part of Italy. In Canto xviii. 61 the Bolognese are distinguished as the people who say _Sipa_. If Pisa be taken as being specially the opprobrium of Tuscany the outburst against Genoa at the close of the Canto gains in distinctness and force.

[844] _Gorgona and Capraia_: Islands not far from the mouth of the Arno.

[845] _That he betrayed, etc._: Dante seems here to throw doubt on the charge. At the height of her power Pisa was possessed of many hundreds of fortified stations in Italy and scattered over the Mediterranean coasts. The charge was one easy to make and difficult to refute. It seems hard on Ugo that he should get the benefit of the doubt only after he has been, for poetical ends, buried raging in Cocytus.

[846] _Modern Thebes_: As Thebes was to the race of Cadmus, so was Pisa to that of Ugolino.

[847] _Another crew_: They are in Ptolomaea, the third division of the circle, and that a.s.signed to those treacherous to their friends, allies, or guests. Here only the faces of the shades are free of the ice.

[848] _Is any vapour_: Has the sun, so low down as this, any influence upon the temperature, producing vapours and wind? In Dante's time wind was believed to be the exhalation of a vapour.

[849] _To the bottom, etc._: Dante is going there in any case, and his promise is nothing but a quibble.

[850] _Friar Alberic_: Alberigo of the Manfredi, a gentleman of Faenza, who late in life became one of the Merry Friars. See _Inf._ xxiii. 103.

In the course of a dispute with his relative Manfred he got a hearty box on the ear from him. Feigning to have forgiven the insult he invited Manfred with a youthful son to dinner in his house, having first arranged that when they had finished their meat, and he called for fruit, armed men should fall on his guests. 'The fruit of Friar Alberigo' pa.s.sed into a proverb. Here he is repaid with a date for a fig--gets more than he bargained for.

[851] _Ptolomaea_: This division is named from the Hebrew Ptolemy, who slew his relatives at a banquet, they being then his guests (1 Maccab.

xvi.).

[852] _Atropos_: The Fate who cuts the thread of life and sets the soul free from the body.

[853] _Branca d'Oria_: A Genoese n.o.ble who in 1275 slew his father-in-law Michael Zanche (_Inf._ xxii. 88) while the victim sat at table as his invited guest.--This mention of Branca is of some value in helping to ascertain when the _Inferno_ was finished. He was in imprisonment and exile for some time before and up to 1310. In 1311 he was one of the citizens of Genoa heartiest in welcoming the Emperor Henry to their city. Impartial as Dante was, we can scarcely think that he would have loaded with infamy one who had done what he could to help the success of Henry, on whom all Dante's hopes were long set, and by their reception of whom on his descent into Italy he continued to judge his fellow-countrymen. There is considerable reason to believe that the _Inferno_ was published in 1309; this introduction of Branca helps to prove that at least it was published before 1311. If this was so, then Branca d'Oria lived long enough to read or hear that for thirty-five years his soul had been in h.e.l.l.--It is significant of the detestation in which Dante held any breach of hospitality, that it is as a treacherous host and not as a treacherous kinsman that Branca is punished--in Ptolomaea and not in Cana. Cast as the poet was on the hospitality of the world, any disloyalty to its obligations came home to him. For such disloyalty he has invented one of the most appalling of the fierce retributions with the vision of which he satisfied his craving for vengeance upon prosperous sin.--It may be that the idea of this demon-possession of the traitor is taken from the words, 'and after the sop Satan entered into Judas.'

[854] _Of his kinsmen one_: A cousin or nephew of Branca was engaged with him in the murder of Michael Zanche. The vengeance came on them so speedily that their souls were plunged in Ptolomaea ere Zanche breathed his last.

[855] _To yield him none_: Alberigo being so unworthy of courtesy. See note on 117. But another interpretation of the words has been suggested which saves Dante from the charge of cruelty and mean quibbling; namely, that he did not clear the ice from the sinner's eyes because then he would have been seen to be a living man--one who could take back to the world the awful news that Alberigo's body was the dwelling-place of a devil.

[856] _Ah, Genoese, etc._: The Genoese, indeed, held no good character.

One of their annalists, under the date of 1293, describes the city as suffering from all kinds of crime.

[857] _Romagna's blackest soul_: Friar Alberigo.

CANTO x.x.xIV.

'_Vexilla_[858] _Regis prodeunt Inferni_ Towards where we are; seek then with vision keen,'

My Master bade, 'if trace of him thou spy.'

As, when the exhalations dense have been, Or when our hemisphere grows dark with night, A windmill from afar is sometimes seen, I seemed to catch of such a structure sight; And then to 'scape the blast did backward draw Behind my Guide--sole shelter in my plight.

Now was I where[859] (I versify with awe) 10 The shades were wholly covered, and did show Visible as in gla.s.s are bits of straw.

Some stood[860] upright and some were lying low, Some with head topmost, others with their feet; And some with face to feet bent like a bow.

But we kept going on till it seemed meet Unto my Master that I should behold The creature once[861] of countenance so sweet.

He stepped aside and stopped me as he told: 'Lo, Dis! And lo, we are arrived at last 20 Where thou must nerve thee and must make thee bold,'

How I hereon stood shivering and aghast, Demand not, Reader; this I cannot write; So much the fact all reach of words surpa.s.sed.

I was not dead, yet living was not quite: Think for thyself, if gifted with the power, What, life and death denied me, was my plight.

Of that tormented realm the Emperor Out of the ice stood free to middle breast; And me a giant less would overtower 30 Than would his arm a giant. By such test Judge then what bulk the whole of him must show,[862]

Of true proportion with such limb possessed.

If he was fair of old as hideous now, And yet his brows against his Maker raised, Meetly from him doth all affliction flow.

O how it made me horribly amazed When on his head I saw three faces[863] grew!

The one vermilion which straight forward gazed; And joining on to it were other two, 40 One rising up from either shoulder-bone, Till to a junction on the crest they drew.

'Twixt white and yellow seemed the right-hand one; The left resembled them whose country lies Where valleywards the floods of Nile flow down.

Beneath each face two mighty wings did rise, Such as this bird tremendous might demand: Sails of sea-ships ne'er saw I of such size.

Not feathered were they, but in style were planned Like a bat's wing:[864] by them a threefold breeze-- 50 For still he flapped them--evermore was fanned, And through its depths Cocytus caused to freeze.

Down three chins tears for ever made descent From his six eyes; and red foam mixed with these.

In every mouth there was a sinner rent By teeth that shred him as a heckle[865] would; Thus three at once compelled he to lament.

To the one in front 'twas little to be chewed Compared with being clawed and clawed again, Till his back-bone of skin was sometimes nude.[866] 60 'The soul up yonder in the greater pain Is Judas 'Scariot, with his head among The teeth,' my Master said, 'while outward strain His legs. Of the two whose heads are downward hung, Brutus is from the black jowl pendulous: See how he writhes, yet never wags his tongue.

The other, great of thew, is Ca.s.sius:[867]

But night is rising[868] and we must be gone; For everything hath now been seen by us.'

Then, as he bade, I to his neck held on 70 While he the time and place of vantage chose; And when the wings enough were open thrown He grasped the s.h.a.ggy ribs and clutched them close, And so from tuft to tuft he downward went Between the tangled hair and crust which froze.

We to the bulging haunch had made descent, To where the hip-joint lies in it; and then My Guide, with painful twist and violent, Turned round his head to where his feet had been, And like a climber closely clutched the hair: 80 I thought to h.e.l.l[869] that we returned again.

'Hold fast to me; it needs by such a stair,'

Panting, my Leader said, like man foredone, 'That we from all that wretchedness repair.'

Right through a hole in a rock when he had won, The edge of it he gave me for a seat And deftly then to join me clambered on.

I raised mine eyes, expecting they would meet With Lucifer as I beheld him last, But saw instead his upturned legs[870] and feet. 90 If in perplexity I then was cast, Let ignorant people think who do not see What point[871] it was that I had lately pa.s.sed.

'Rise to thy feet,' my Master said to me; 'The way is long and rugged the ascent, And at mid tierce[872] the sun must almost be.'

'Twas not as if on palace floors we went: A dungeon fresh from nature's hand was this; Rough underfoot, and of light indigent.

'Or ever I escape from the abyss, 100 O Master,' said I, standing now upright, 'Correct in few words where I think amiss.

Where lies the ice? How hold we him in sight Set upside down? The sun, how had it skill In so short while to pa.s.s to morn from night?'[873]

And he: 'In fancy thou art standing, still, On yon side of the centre, where I caught The vile worm's hair which through the world doth drill.

There wast thou while our downward course I wrought; But when I turned, the centre was pa.s.sed by 110 Which by all weights from every point is sought.

And now thou standest 'neath the other sky, Opposed to that which vaults the great dry ground And 'neath whose summit[874] there did whilom die The Man[875] whose birth and life were sinless found.

Thy feet are firm upon the little sphere, On this side answering to Judecca's round.

'Tis evening yonder when 'tis morning here; And he whose tufts our ladder rungs supplied.