CANTO XVI.

CANTO XVI.Now could I hear the water as it fellTo the next circle[479]with a murmuring soundLike what is heard from swarming hives to swell;When three shades all together with a boundBurst from a troop met by us pressing on’Neath rain of that sharp torment. O’er the groundToward us approaching, they exclaimed each one:‘Halt thou, whom from thy garb[480]we judge to beA citizen of our corrupted town.’Alas, what scars I on their limbs did see,10Both old and recent, which the flames had made:Even now my ruth is fed by memory.My Teacher halted at their cry, and said:‘Await a while:’ and looked me in the face;‘Some courtesy to these were well displayed.And but that fire—the manner of the place—Descends for ever, fitting ’twere to findRather than them, thee quickening thy pace.’When we had halted, they again combinedIn their old song; and, reaching where we stood,20Into a wheel all three were intertwined.And as the athletes used, well oiled and nude,To feel their grip and, wary, watch their chance,Ere they to purpose strike and wrestle could;So each of them kept fixed on me his glanceAs he wheeled round,[481]and in opposing waysHis neck and feet seemed ever to advance.‘Ah, if the misery of this sand-strewn placeBring us and our petitions in despite,’One then began, ‘and flayed and grimy face;30Let at the least our fame goodwill inciteTo tell us who thou art, whose living feetThus through Inferno wander without fright.For he whose footprints, as thou see’st, I beat,Though now he goes with body peeled and nude,More than thou thinkest, in the world was great.The grandson was he of Gualdrada good;He, Guidoguerra,[482]with his armèd handDid mighty things, and by his counsel shrewd.The other who behind me treads the sand40Is one whose name should on the earth be dear;For he is Tegghiaio[483]Aldobrand.And I, who am tormented with them here,James Rusticucci[484]was; my fierce and proudWife of my ruin was chief minister.’If from the fire there had been any shroudI should have leaped down ’mong them, nor have earnedBlame, for my Teacher sure had this allowed.But since I should have been all baked and burned,Terror prevailed the goodwill to restrain50With which to clasp them in my arms I yearned.Then I began: ‘’Twas not contempt but painWhich your condition in my breast awoke,Where deeply rooted it will long remain,When this my Master words unto me spoke,By which expectancy was in me stirredThat ye who came were honourable folk.I of your city[485]am, and with my wordYour deeds and honoured names oft to recallDelighted, and with joy of them I heard.60To the sweet fruits I go, and leave the gall,As promised to me by my Escort true;But first I to the centre down must fall.’‘So may thy soul thy members long endueWith vital power,’ the other made reply,‘And after thee thy fame[486]its light renew;As thou shalt tell if worth and courtesyWithin our city as of yore remain,Or from it have been wholly forced to fly.For William Borsier,[487]one of yonder train,70And but of late joined with us in this woe,Causeth us with his words exceeding pain.’‘Upstarts, and fortunes suddenly that grow,Have bred in thee pride and extravagance,[488]Whence tears, O Florence! thou art shedding now.’Thus cried I with uplifted countenance.The three, accepting it for a reply,Glanced each at each as hearing truth men glance.And all: ‘If others thou shalt satisfyAs well at other times[489]at no more cost,80Happy thus at thine ease the truth to cry!Therefore if thou escap’st these regions lost,Returning to behold the starlight fair,Then when “There was I,”[490]thou shalt make thy boast,Something of us do thou ’mong men declare.’Then broken was the wheel, and as they fledTheir nimble legs like pinions beat the air.So much as oneAmen!had scarce been saidQuicker than what they vanished from our view.On this once more the way my Master led.90I followed, and ere long so near we drewTo where the water fell, that for its roarSpeech scarcely had been heard between us two.And as the stream which of all those which pourEast (from Mount Viso counting) by its ownCourse falls the first from Apennine to shore—As Acquacheta[491]in the uplands knownBy name, ere plunging to its bed profound;Name lost ere by Forlì its waters run—Above St. Benedict with one long bound,100Where for a thousand[492]would be ample room,Falls from the mountain to the lower ground;Down the steep cliff that water dyed in gloomWe found to fall echoing from side to side,Stunning the ear with its tremendous boom.There was a cord about my middle tied,With which I once had thought that I might holdSecure the leopard with the painted hide.When this from round me I had quite unrolledTo him I handed it, all coiled and tight;110As by my Leader I had first been told.Himself then bending somewhat toward the right,[493]He just beyond the edge of the abyssThrew down the cord,[494]which disappeared from sight.‘That some strange thing will follow upon thisUnwonted signal which my Master’s eyeThus follows,’ so I thought, ‘can hardly miss.’Ah, what great caution need we standing byThose who behold not only what is done,But who have wit our hidden thoughts to spy!120He said to me: ‘There shall emerge, and soon,What I await; and quickly to thy viewThat which thou dream’st of shall be clearly known.’[495]From utterance of truth which seems untrueA man, whene’er he can, should guard his tongue;Lest he win blame to no transgression due.Yet now I must speak out, and by the songOf this my Comedy, Reader, I swear—So in good liking may it last full long!—I saw a shape swim upward through that air.130All indistinct with gross obscurity,Enough to fill the stoutest heart with fear:Like one who rises having dived to freeAn anchor grappled on a jagged stone,Or something else deep hidden in the sea;With feet drawn in and arms all open thrown.FOOTNOTES:[479]The next circle: The Eighth.[480]Thy garb: ‘Almost every city,’ says Boccaccio, ‘had in those times its peculiar fashion of dress distinct from that of neighboring cities.’[481]As he wheeled round: Virgil and Dante have come to a halt upon the embankment. The three shades, to whom it is forbidden to be at rest for a moment, clasping one another as in a dance, keep wheeling round in circle upon the sand.[482]Guidoguerra: A descendant of the Counts Guidi of Modigliana. Gualdrada was the daughter of Bellincion Berti de’ Ravignani, praised for his simple habits in theParadiso, xv. 112. Guidoguerra was a Guelf leader, and after the defeat of Montaperti acted as Captain of his party, in this capacity lending valuable aid to Charles of Anjou at the battle of Benevento, 1266, when Manfred was overthrown. He had no children, and left the Commonwealth of Florence his heir.[483]Tegghiaio: Son of Aldobrando of the Adimari. His name should be dear in Florence, because he did all he could to dissuade the citizens from the campaign which ended so disastrously at Montaperti.[484]James Rusticucci: An accomplished cavalier of humble birth, said to have been a retainer of Dante’s friends the Cavalcanti. The commentators have little to tell of him except that he made an unhappy marriage, which is evident from the text. Of the sins of him and his companions there is nothing known beyond what is to be inferred from the poet’s words, and nothing to say, except that when Dante consigned men of their stamp, frank and amiable, to the Infernal Circles, we may be sure that he only executed a verdict already accepted as just by the whole of Florence. And when we find him impartially damning Guelf and Ghibeline we may be equally sure that he looked for the aid of neither party, and of no family however powerful in the State, to bring his banishment to a close. He would even seem to be careful to stop any hole by which he might creep back to Florence. When he did return, it was to be in the train of the Emperor, so he hoped, and as one who gives rather than seeks forgiveness.[485]Of your city, etc.: At line 32 Rusticucci begs Dante to tell who he is. He tells that he is of their city, which they have already gathered from hisberrettaand the fashion of his gown; but he tells nothing, almost, of himself. Unless to Farinata, indeed, he never makes an open breast to any one met in Inferno. But here he does all that courtesy requires.[486]Thy fame: Dante has implied in his answer that he is gifted with oratorical powers and is the object of a special Divine care; and the illustrious Florentine, frankly acknowledging the claim he makes, adjures him by the fame which is his in store to appease an eager curiosity about the Florence which even in Inferno is the first thought of every not ignoble Florentine.[487]William Borsiere: A Florentine, witty and well bred, according to Boccaccio. Being once at Genoa he was shown a fine new palace by its miserly owner, and was asked to suggest a subject for a painting with which to adorn the hall. The subject was to be something that nobody had ever seen. Borsiere proposed liberality as something that the miser at any rate had never yet got a good sight of; an answer of which it is not easy to detect either the wit or the courtesy, but which is said to have converted the churl to liberal ways (Decam.i. 8). He is here introduced as an authority on the noble style of manners.[488]Pride and extravagance: In place of the nobility of mind that leads to great actions, and the gentle manners that prevail in a society where there is a due subordination of rank to rank and well-defined duties for every man. This, the aristocratic in a noble sense, was Dante’s ideal of a social state; for all his instincts were those of a Florentine aristocrat, corrected though they were by his good sense and his thirst for a reign of perfect justice. During his own time he had seen Florence grow more and more democratic; and he was irritated—unreasonably, considering that it was only a sign of the general prosperity—at the spectacle of the amazing growth of wealth in the hands of low-born traders, who every year were coming more to the front and monopolising influence at home and abroad at the cost of their neighbours and rivals with longer pedigrees and shorter purses. InParadisoxvi. Dante dwells at length on the degeneracy of the Florentines.[489]At other times: It is hinted that his outspokenness will not in the future always give equal satisfaction to those who hear.[490]There was I, etc.:Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.—Æn.i. 203.[491]Acquacheta: The fall of the water of the brook over the lofty cliff that sinks from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle is compared to the waterfall upon the Montone at the monastery of St. Benedict, in the mountains above Forlì. The Po rises in Monte Viso. Dante here travels in imagination from Monte Viso down through Italy, and finds that all the rivers which rise on the left hand, that is, on the north-east of the Apennine, fall into the Po, till the Montone is reached, that river falling into the Adriatic by a course of its own. Above Forlì it was called Acquacheta. The Lamone, north of the Montone, now follows an independent course to the sea, having cut a new bed for itself since Dante’s time.[492]Where for a thousand, etc.: In the monastery there was room for many more monks, say most of the commentators; or something to the like effect. Mr. Longfellow’s interpretation seems better: Where the height of the fall is so great that it would divide into a thousand falls.[493]Toward the right: The attitude of one about to throw.[494]The cord: The services of Geryon are wanted to convey them down the next reach of the pit; and as no voice could be heard for the noise of the waterfall, and no signal be made to catch the eye amid the gloom, Virgil is obliged to call the attention of the monster by casting some object into the depth where he lies concealed. But, since they are surrounded by solid masonry and slack sand, one or other of them must supply something fit to throw down; and the cord worn by Dante is fixed on as what can best be done without. There may be a reference to the cord of Saint Francis, which Dante, according to one of his commentators, wore when he was a young man, following in this a fashion common enough among pious laymen who had no thought of ever becoming friars. But the simile of the cord, as representing sobriety and virtuous purpose, is not strange to Dante. InPurg.vii. 114 he describes Pedro of Arragon as being girt with the cord of every virtue; and Pedro was no Franciscan. Dante’s cord may therefore be taken as standing for vigilance or self-control. With it he had hoped to get the better of the leopard (Inf.i. 32), and may have trusted in it for support as against the terrors of Inferno. But although he has been girt with it ever since he entered by the gate, it has not saved him from a single fear, far less from a single danger; and now it is cast away as useless. Henceforth, more than ever, he is to confide wholly in Virgil and have no confidence in himself. Nor is he to be girt again till he reaches the coast of Purgatory, and then it is to be with a reed, the emblem of humility.—But, however explained, the incident will always be somewhat of a puzzle.[495]Dante attributes to Virgil full knowledge of all that is in his own mind. He thus heightens our conception of his dependence on his guide, with whose will his will is blent, and whose thoughts are always found to be anticipating his own. Few readers will care to be constantly recalling to mind that Virgil represents enlightened human reason. But even if we confine ourselves to the easiest sense of the narrative, the study of the relations between him and Dante will be found one of the most interesting suggested by the poem—perhaps only less so than that of Dante’s moods of wonder, anger, and pity.

Now could I hear the water as it fellTo the next circle[479]with a murmuring soundLike what is heard from swarming hives to swell;When three shades all together with a boundBurst from a troop met by us pressing on’Neath rain of that sharp torment. O’er the groundToward us approaching, they exclaimed each one:‘Halt thou, whom from thy garb[480]we judge to beA citizen of our corrupted town.’Alas, what scars I on their limbs did see,10Both old and recent, which the flames had made:Even now my ruth is fed by memory.My Teacher halted at their cry, and said:‘Await a while:’ and looked me in the face;‘Some courtesy to these were well displayed.And but that fire—the manner of the place—Descends for ever, fitting ’twere to findRather than them, thee quickening thy pace.’When we had halted, they again combinedIn their old song; and, reaching where we stood,20Into a wheel all three were intertwined.And as the athletes used, well oiled and nude,To feel their grip and, wary, watch their chance,Ere they to purpose strike and wrestle could;So each of them kept fixed on me his glanceAs he wheeled round,[481]and in opposing waysHis neck and feet seemed ever to advance.‘Ah, if the misery of this sand-strewn placeBring us and our petitions in despite,’One then began, ‘and flayed and grimy face;30Let at the least our fame goodwill inciteTo tell us who thou art, whose living feetThus through Inferno wander without fright.For he whose footprints, as thou see’st, I beat,Though now he goes with body peeled and nude,More than thou thinkest, in the world was great.The grandson was he of Gualdrada good;He, Guidoguerra,[482]with his armèd handDid mighty things, and by his counsel shrewd.The other who behind me treads the sand40Is one whose name should on the earth be dear;For he is Tegghiaio[483]Aldobrand.And I, who am tormented with them here,James Rusticucci[484]was; my fierce and proudWife of my ruin was chief minister.’If from the fire there had been any shroudI should have leaped down ’mong them, nor have earnedBlame, for my Teacher sure had this allowed.But since I should have been all baked and burned,Terror prevailed the goodwill to restrain50With which to clasp them in my arms I yearned.Then I began: ‘’Twas not contempt but painWhich your condition in my breast awoke,Where deeply rooted it will long remain,When this my Master words unto me spoke,By which expectancy was in me stirredThat ye who came were honourable folk.I of your city[485]am, and with my wordYour deeds and honoured names oft to recallDelighted, and with joy of them I heard.60To the sweet fruits I go, and leave the gall,As promised to me by my Escort true;But first I to the centre down must fall.’‘So may thy soul thy members long endueWith vital power,’ the other made reply,‘And after thee thy fame[486]its light renew;As thou shalt tell if worth and courtesyWithin our city as of yore remain,Or from it have been wholly forced to fly.For William Borsier,[487]one of yonder train,70And but of late joined with us in this woe,Causeth us with his words exceeding pain.’‘Upstarts, and fortunes suddenly that grow,Have bred in thee pride and extravagance,[488]Whence tears, O Florence! thou art shedding now.’Thus cried I with uplifted countenance.The three, accepting it for a reply,Glanced each at each as hearing truth men glance.And all: ‘If others thou shalt satisfyAs well at other times[489]at no more cost,80Happy thus at thine ease the truth to cry!Therefore if thou escap’st these regions lost,Returning to behold the starlight fair,Then when “There was I,”[490]thou shalt make thy boast,Something of us do thou ’mong men declare.’Then broken was the wheel, and as they fledTheir nimble legs like pinions beat the air.So much as oneAmen!had scarce been saidQuicker than what they vanished from our view.On this once more the way my Master led.90I followed, and ere long so near we drewTo where the water fell, that for its roarSpeech scarcely had been heard between us two.And as the stream which of all those which pourEast (from Mount Viso counting) by its ownCourse falls the first from Apennine to shore—As Acquacheta[491]in the uplands knownBy name, ere plunging to its bed profound;Name lost ere by Forlì its waters run—Above St. Benedict with one long bound,100Where for a thousand[492]would be ample room,Falls from the mountain to the lower ground;Down the steep cliff that water dyed in gloomWe found to fall echoing from side to side,Stunning the ear with its tremendous boom.There was a cord about my middle tied,With which I once had thought that I might holdSecure the leopard with the painted hide.When this from round me I had quite unrolledTo him I handed it, all coiled and tight;110As by my Leader I had first been told.Himself then bending somewhat toward the right,[493]He just beyond the edge of the abyssThrew down the cord,[494]which disappeared from sight.‘That some strange thing will follow upon thisUnwonted signal which my Master’s eyeThus follows,’ so I thought, ‘can hardly miss.’Ah, what great caution need we standing byThose who behold not only what is done,But who have wit our hidden thoughts to spy!120He said to me: ‘There shall emerge, and soon,What I await; and quickly to thy viewThat which thou dream’st of shall be clearly known.’[495]From utterance of truth which seems untrueA man, whene’er he can, should guard his tongue;Lest he win blame to no transgression due.Yet now I must speak out, and by the songOf this my Comedy, Reader, I swear—So in good liking may it last full long!—I saw a shape swim upward through that air.130All indistinct with gross obscurity,Enough to fill the stoutest heart with fear:Like one who rises having dived to freeAn anchor grappled on a jagged stone,Or something else deep hidden in the sea;With feet drawn in and arms all open thrown.

FOOTNOTES:[479]The next circle: The Eighth.[480]Thy garb: ‘Almost every city,’ says Boccaccio, ‘had in those times its peculiar fashion of dress distinct from that of neighboring cities.’[481]As he wheeled round: Virgil and Dante have come to a halt upon the embankment. The three shades, to whom it is forbidden to be at rest for a moment, clasping one another as in a dance, keep wheeling round in circle upon the sand.[482]Guidoguerra: A descendant of the Counts Guidi of Modigliana. Gualdrada was the daughter of Bellincion Berti de’ Ravignani, praised for his simple habits in theParadiso, xv. 112. Guidoguerra was a Guelf leader, and after the defeat of Montaperti acted as Captain of his party, in this capacity lending valuable aid to Charles of Anjou at the battle of Benevento, 1266, when Manfred was overthrown. He had no children, and left the Commonwealth of Florence his heir.[483]Tegghiaio: Son of Aldobrando of the Adimari. His name should be dear in Florence, because he did all he could to dissuade the citizens from the campaign which ended so disastrously at Montaperti.[484]James Rusticucci: An accomplished cavalier of humble birth, said to have been a retainer of Dante’s friends the Cavalcanti. The commentators have little to tell of him except that he made an unhappy marriage, which is evident from the text. Of the sins of him and his companions there is nothing known beyond what is to be inferred from the poet’s words, and nothing to say, except that when Dante consigned men of their stamp, frank and amiable, to the Infernal Circles, we may be sure that he only executed a verdict already accepted as just by the whole of Florence. And when we find him impartially damning Guelf and Ghibeline we may be equally sure that he looked for the aid of neither party, and of no family however powerful in the State, to bring his banishment to a close. He would even seem to be careful to stop any hole by which he might creep back to Florence. When he did return, it was to be in the train of the Emperor, so he hoped, and as one who gives rather than seeks forgiveness.[485]Of your city, etc.: At line 32 Rusticucci begs Dante to tell who he is. He tells that he is of their city, which they have already gathered from hisberrettaand the fashion of his gown; but he tells nothing, almost, of himself. Unless to Farinata, indeed, he never makes an open breast to any one met in Inferno. But here he does all that courtesy requires.[486]Thy fame: Dante has implied in his answer that he is gifted with oratorical powers and is the object of a special Divine care; and the illustrious Florentine, frankly acknowledging the claim he makes, adjures him by the fame which is his in store to appease an eager curiosity about the Florence which even in Inferno is the first thought of every not ignoble Florentine.[487]William Borsiere: A Florentine, witty and well bred, according to Boccaccio. Being once at Genoa he was shown a fine new palace by its miserly owner, and was asked to suggest a subject for a painting with which to adorn the hall. The subject was to be something that nobody had ever seen. Borsiere proposed liberality as something that the miser at any rate had never yet got a good sight of; an answer of which it is not easy to detect either the wit or the courtesy, but which is said to have converted the churl to liberal ways (Decam.i. 8). He is here introduced as an authority on the noble style of manners.[488]Pride and extravagance: In place of the nobility of mind that leads to great actions, and the gentle manners that prevail in a society where there is a due subordination of rank to rank and well-defined duties for every man. This, the aristocratic in a noble sense, was Dante’s ideal of a social state; for all his instincts were those of a Florentine aristocrat, corrected though they were by his good sense and his thirst for a reign of perfect justice. During his own time he had seen Florence grow more and more democratic; and he was irritated—unreasonably, considering that it was only a sign of the general prosperity—at the spectacle of the amazing growth of wealth in the hands of low-born traders, who every year were coming more to the front and monopolising influence at home and abroad at the cost of their neighbours and rivals with longer pedigrees and shorter purses. InParadisoxvi. Dante dwells at length on the degeneracy of the Florentines.[489]At other times: It is hinted that his outspokenness will not in the future always give equal satisfaction to those who hear.[490]There was I, etc.:Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.—Æn.i. 203.[491]Acquacheta: The fall of the water of the brook over the lofty cliff that sinks from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle is compared to the waterfall upon the Montone at the monastery of St. Benedict, in the mountains above Forlì. The Po rises in Monte Viso. Dante here travels in imagination from Monte Viso down through Italy, and finds that all the rivers which rise on the left hand, that is, on the north-east of the Apennine, fall into the Po, till the Montone is reached, that river falling into the Adriatic by a course of its own. Above Forlì it was called Acquacheta. The Lamone, north of the Montone, now follows an independent course to the sea, having cut a new bed for itself since Dante’s time.[492]Where for a thousand, etc.: In the monastery there was room for many more monks, say most of the commentators; or something to the like effect. Mr. Longfellow’s interpretation seems better: Where the height of the fall is so great that it would divide into a thousand falls.[493]Toward the right: The attitude of one about to throw.[494]The cord: The services of Geryon are wanted to convey them down the next reach of the pit; and as no voice could be heard for the noise of the waterfall, and no signal be made to catch the eye amid the gloom, Virgil is obliged to call the attention of the monster by casting some object into the depth where he lies concealed. But, since they are surrounded by solid masonry and slack sand, one or other of them must supply something fit to throw down; and the cord worn by Dante is fixed on as what can best be done without. There may be a reference to the cord of Saint Francis, which Dante, according to one of his commentators, wore when he was a young man, following in this a fashion common enough among pious laymen who had no thought of ever becoming friars. But the simile of the cord, as representing sobriety and virtuous purpose, is not strange to Dante. InPurg.vii. 114 he describes Pedro of Arragon as being girt with the cord of every virtue; and Pedro was no Franciscan. Dante’s cord may therefore be taken as standing for vigilance or self-control. With it he had hoped to get the better of the leopard (Inf.i. 32), and may have trusted in it for support as against the terrors of Inferno. But although he has been girt with it ever since he entered by the gate, it has not saved him from a single fear, far less from a single danger; and now it is cast away as useless. Henceforth, more than ever, he is to confide wholly in Virgil and have no confidence in himself. Nor is he to be girt again till he reaches the coast of Purgatory, and then it is to be with a reed, the emblem of humility.—But, however explained, the incident will always be somewhat of a puzzle.[495]Dante attributes to Virgil full knowledge of all that is in his own mind. He thus heightens our conception of his dependence on his guide, with whose will his will is blent, and whose thoughts are always found to be anticipating his own. Few readers will care to be constantly recalling to mind that Virgil represents enlightened human reason. But even if we confine ourselves to the easiest sense of the narrative, the study of the relations between him and Dante will be found one of the most interesting suggested by the poem—perhaps only less so than that of Dante’s moods of wonder, anger, and pity.

[479]The next circle: The Eighth.

[480]Thy garb: ‘Almost every city,’ says Boccaccio, ‘had in those times its peculiar fashion of dress distinct from that of neighboring cities.’

[481]As he wheeled round: Virgil and Dante have come to a halt upon the embankment. The three shades, to whom it is forbidden to be at rest for a moment, clasping one another as in a dance, keep wheeling round in circle upon the sand.

[482]Guidoguerra: A descendant of the Counts Guidi of Modigliana. Gualdrada was the daughter of Bellincion Berti de’ Ravignani, praised for his simple habits in theParadiso, xv. 112. Guidoguerra was a Guelf leader, and after the defeat of Montaperti acted as Captain of his party, in this capacity lending valuable aid to Charles of Anjou at the battle of Benevento, 1266, when Manfred was overthrown. He had no children, and left the Commonwealth of Florence his heir.

[483]Tegghiaio: Son of Aldobrando of the Adimari. His name should be dear in Florence, because he did all he could to dissuade the citizens from the campaign which ended so disastrously at Montaperti.

[484]James Rusticucci: An accomplished cavalier of humble birth, said to have been a retainer of Dante’s friends the Cavalcanti. The commentators have little to tell of him except that he made an unhappy marriage, which is evident from the text. Of the sins of him and his companions there is nothing known beyond what is to be inferred from the poet’s words, and nothing to say, except that when Dante consigned men of their stamp, frank and amiable, to the Infernal Circles, we may be sure that he only executed a verdict already accepted as just by the whole of Florence. And when we find him impartially damning Guelf and Ghibeline we may be equally sure that he looked for the aid of neither party, and of no family however powerful in the State, to bring his banishment to a close. He would even seem to be careful to stop any hole by which he might creep back to Florence. When he did return, it was to be in the train of the Emperor, so he hoped, and as one who gives rather than seeks forgiveness.

[485]Of your city, etc.: At line 32 Rusticucci begs Dante to tell who he is. He tells that he is of their city, which they have already gathered from hisberrettaand the fashion of his gown; but he tells nothing, almost, of himself. Unless to Farinata, indeed, he never makes an open breast to any one met in Inferno. But here he does all that courtesy requires.

[486]Thy fame: Dante has implied in his answer that he is gifted with oratorical powers and is the object of a special Divine care; and the illustrious Florentine, frankly acknowledging the claim he makes, adjures him by the fame which is his in store to appease an eager curiosity about the Florence which even in Inferno is the first thought of every not ignoble Florentine.

[487]William Borsiere: A Florentine, witty and well bred, according to Boccaccio. Being once at Genoa he was shown a fine new palace by its miserly owner, and was asked to suggest a subject for a painting with which to adorn the hall. The subject was to be something that nobody had ever seen. Borsiere proposed liberality as something that the miser at any rate had never yet got a good sight of; an answer of which it is not easy to detect either the wit or the courtesy, but which is said to have converted the churl to liberal ways (Decam.i. 8). He is here introduced as an authority on the noble style of manners.

[488]Pride and extravagance: In place of the nobility of mind that leads to great actions, and the gentle manners that prevail in a society where there is a due subordination of rank to rank and well-defined duties for every man. This, the aristocratic in a noble sense, was Dante’s ideal of a social state; for all his instincts were those of a Florentine aristocrat, corrected though they were by his good sense and his thirst for a reign of perfect justice. During his own time he had seen Florence grow more and more democratic; and he was irritated—unreasonably, considering that it was only a sign of the general prosperity—at the spectacle of the amazing growth of wealth in the hands of low-born traders, who every year were coming more to the front and monopolising influence at home and abroad at the cost of their neighbours and rivals with longer pedigrees and shorter purses. InParadisoxvi. Dante dwells at length on the degeneracy of the Florentines.

[489]At other times: It is hinted that his outspokenness will not in the future always give equal satisfaction to those who hear.

[490]There was I, etc.:Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.—Æn.i. 203.

[491]Acquacheta: The fall of the water of the brook over the lofty cliff that sinks from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle is compared to the waterfall upon the Montone at the monastery of St. Benedict, in the mountains above Forlì. The Po rises in Monte Viso. Dante here travels in imagination from Monte Viso down through Italy, and finds that all the rivers which rise on the left hand, that is, on the north-east of the Apennine, fall into the Po, till the Montone is reached, that river falling into the Adriatic by a course of its own. Above Forlì it was called Acquacheta. The Lamone, north of the Montone, now follows an independent course to the sea, having cut a new bed for itself since Dante’s time.

[492]Where for a thousand, etc.: In the monastery there was room for many more monks, say most of the commentators; or something to the like effect. Mr. Longfellow’s interpretation seems better: Where the height of the fall is so great that it would divide into a thousand falls.

[493]Toward the right: The attitude of one about to throw.

[494]The cord: The services of Geryon are wanted to convey them down the next reach of the pit; and as no voice could be heard for the noise of the waterfall, and no signal be made to catch the eye amid the gloom, Virgil is obliged to call the attention of the monster by casting some object into the depth where he lies concealed. But, since they are surrounded by solid masonry and slack sand, one or other of them must supply something fit to throw down; and the cord worn by Dante is fixed on as what can best be done without. There may be a reference to the cord of Saint Francis, which Dante, according to one of his commentators, wore when he was a young man, following in this a fashion common enough among pious laymen who had no thought of ever becoming friars. But the simile of the cord, as representing sobriety and virtuous purpose, is not strange to Dante. InPurg.vii. 114 he describes Pedro of Arragon as being girt with the cord of every virtue; and Pedro was no Franciscan. Dante’s cord may therefore be taken as standing for vigilance or self-control. With it he had hoped to get the better of the leopard (Inf.i. 32), and may have trusted in it for support as against the terrors of Inferno. But although he has been girt with it ever since he entered by the gate, it has not saved him from a single fear, far less from a single danger; and now it is cast away as useless. Henceforth, more than ever, he is to confide wholly in Virgil and have no confidence in himself. Nor is he to be girt again till he reaches the coast of Purgatory, and then it is to be with a reed, the emblem of humility.—But, however explained, the incident will always be somewhat of a puzzle.

[495]Dante attributes to Virgil full knowledge of all that is in his own mind. He thus heightens our conception of his dependence on his guide, with whose will his will is blent, and whose thoughts are always found to be anticipating his own. Few readers will care to be constantly recalling to mind that Virgil represents enlightened human reason. But even if we confine ourselves to the easiest sense of the narrative, the study of the relations between him and Dante will be found one of the most interesting suggested by the poem—perhaps only less so than that of Dante’s moods of wonder, anger, and pity.

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