The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri Part 11

[257] _The next_: Dido, perhaps not named by Virgil because to him she owed her fame. For love of aeneas she broke the vow of perpetual chast.i.ty made on the tomb of her husband.

[258] _At the last, etc._: Achilles, when about to espouse Polyxena, and when off his guard, was slain.

[259] _Paris ... and Tristram_: Paris of Troy, and the Tristram of King Arthur's Table.

[260] _So light_: Denoting the violence of the pa.s.sion to which they had succ.u.mbed.

[261] _If none_: If no Superior Power.

[262] _Doves_: The motion of the tempest-driven shades is compared to the flight of birds--starlings, cranes, and doves. This last simile prepares us for the tenderness of Francesca's tale.

[263] _Dido_: Has been already indicated, and is now named. This a.s.sociation of the two lovers with Virgil's Dido is a further delicate touch to engage our sympathy; for her love, though illicit, was the infirmity of a n.o.ble heart.

[264] _Living creature_: 'Animal.' No shade, but an animated body.

[265] _Thy peace_: Peace from all the doubts that a.s.sail him, and which have compelled him to the journey: peace, it may be, from temptation to sin cognate to her own. Even in the gloom of Inferno her great goodheartedness is left her--a consolation, if not a grace.

[266] _Your demand_: By a refinement of courtesy, Francesca, though addressing only Dante, includes Virgil in her profession of willingness to tell all they care to hear. But as almost always, he remains silent.

It is not for his good the journey is being made.

[267] _Native city_: Ravenna. The speaker is Francesca, daughter of Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna. About the year 1275 she was married to Gianciotto (Deformed John) Malatesta, son of the lord of Rimini; the marriage, like most of that time in the cla.s.s to which she belonged, being one of political convenience. She allowed her affections to settle on Paolo, her husband's handsome brother; and Gianciotto's suspicions having been aroused, he surprised the lovers and slew them on the spot.

This happened at Pesaro. The a.s.sociation of Francesca's name with Rimini is merely accidental. The date of her death is not known. Dante can never have set eyes on Francesca; but at the battle of Campaldino in 1289, where he was present, a troop of cavaliers from Pistoia fought on the Florentine side under the command of her brother Bernardino; and in the following year, Dante being then twenty-five years of age, her father, Guido, was Podesta in Florence. The Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna, whom Dante had for his last and most generous patron, was grandson of that elder Guido, and nephew of Francesca.

[268] _To have lost it so_: A husband's right and duty were too well defined in the prevalent social code for her to complain that Gianciotto avenged himself. What she does resent is that she was left no breathing-s.p.a.ce for repentance and farewells.

[269] _Which absolves, etc._: Which compels whoever is beloved to love in return. Here is the key to Dante's comparatively lenient estimate of the guilt of Francesca's sin. See line 39, and _Inf._ xi. 83. The Church allowed no distinctions with regard to the lost. Dante, for his own purposes, invents a scale of guilt; and in settling the degrees of it he is greatly influenced by human feeling--sometimes by private likes and dislikes. The vestibule of the caitiffs, _e.g._, is his own creation.

[270] _Cana_: The Division of the Ninth and lowest Circle, a.s.signed to those treacherous to their kindred (_Inf._ x.x.xii. 58). Her husband was still living in 1300.--May not the words of this line be spoken by Paolo? It is as a fratricide even more than as the slayer of his wife that Gianciotto is to find his place in Cana. The words are more in keeping with the masculine than the feminine character. They certainly jar somewhat with the gentler censure of line 102. And, immediately after, Dante speaks of what the 'souls' have said.

[271] _Thy teacher_: Boethius, one of Dante's favourite authors (_Convito_ ii. 13), says in his _De Consol. Phil._, 'The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.' But, granting that Dante found the idea in Boethius, it is clearly Virgil that Francesca means.

She sees that Dante's guide is a shade, and gathers from his grave pa.s.sionless aspect that he is one condemned for ever to look back with futile regret upon his happier past.

[272] _Lancelot_: King Arthur's famous knight, who was too bashful to make his love for Queen Guinivere known to her. Galahad, holding the secret of both, persuaded the Queen to make the first declaration of love at a meeting he arranged for between them. Her smile, or laugh, as she 'took Lancelot by the chin and kissed him,' a.s.sured her lover of his conquest. The Arthurian Romances were the favourite reading of the Italian n.o.bles of Dante's time.

[273] _Galahad_: From the part played by Galahad, or Galeotto, in the tale of Lancelot, his name grew to be Italian for Pander. The book, says Francesca, was that which tells of Galahad; and the author of it proved a very Galahad to us. The early editions of the _Decameron_ bear the second t.i.tle of 'The Prince Galeotto.'

CANTO VI.

When I regained my senses, which had fled At my compa.s.sion for the kindred two, Which for pure sorrow quite had turned my head, New torments and a crowd of sufferers new I see around me as I move again,[274]

Where'er I turn, where'er I bend my view.

In the Third Circle am I of the rain Which, heavy, cold, eternal, big with woe, Doth always of one kind and force remain.

Large hail and turbid water, mixed with snow, 10 Keep pouring down athwart the murky air; And from the ground they fall on, stenches grow.

The savage Cerberus,[275] a monster drear, Howls from his threefold throat with canine cries Above the people who are whelmed there.

Oily and black his beard, and red his eyes, His belly huge: claws from his fingers sprout.

The shades he flays, hooks, rends in cruel wise.

Beat by the rain these, dog-like, yelp and shout, And s.h.i.+eld themselves in turn with either side; 20 And oft[276] the wretched sinners turn about.

When we by Cerberus, great worm,[277] were spied, He oped his mouths and all his fangs he showed, While not a limb did motionless abide.

My Leader having spread his hands abroad, Filled both his fists with earth ta'en from the ground, And down the ravening gullets flung the load.

Then, as sharp set with hunger barks the hound, But is appeased when at his meat he gnaws, And, worrying it, forgets all else around; 30 So with those filthy faces there it was Of the fiend Cerberus, who deafs the crowd Of souls till they from hearing fain would pause.

We, travelling o'er the spirits who lay cowed And sorely by the grievous showers hara.s.sed, Upon their semblances[278] of bodies trod.

p.r.o.ne on the ground the whole of them were cast, Save one of them who sat upright with speed When he beheld that near to him we pa.s.sed.

'O thou who art through this Inferno led,[279] 40 Me if thou canst,' he asked me, 'recognise; For ere I was dismantled thou wast made.'

And I to him: 'Thy present tortured guise Perchance hath blurred my memory of thy face, Until it seems I ne'er on thee set eyes.

But tell me who thou art, within this place So cruel set, exposed to such a pain, Than which, if greater, none has more disgrace.'

And he: 'Thy city, swelling with the bane Of envy till the sack is running o'er, 50 Me in the life serene did once contain.

As Ciacco[280] me your citizens named of yore; And for the d.a.m.ning sin of gluttony I, as thou seest, am beaten by this shower.

No solitary woful soul am I, For all of these endure the selfsame doom For the same fault.' Here ended his reply.

I answered him, 'O Ciacco, with such gloom Thy misery weighs me, I to weep am p.r.o.ne; But, if thou canst, declare to what shall come 60 The citizens[281] of the divided town.

Holds it one just man? And declare the cause Why 'tis of discord such a victim grown.'

Then he to me: 'After[282] contentious pause Blood will be spilt; the boorish party[283] then Will chase the others forth with grievous loss.

The former it behoves to fall again Within three suns, the others to ascend, Holpen[284] by him whose wiles ere now are plain.

Long time, with heads held high, they'll make to bend The other party under burdens dire, 71 Howe'er themselves in tears and rage they spend.

There are two just[285] men, at whom none inquire.

Envy, and pride, and avarice, even these Are the three sparks have set all hearts on fire.'

With this the tearful sound he made to cease: And I to him, 'Yet would I have thee tell-- And of thy speech do thou the gift increase-- Tegghiaio[286] and Farinata, honourable, James Rusticucci,[287] Mosca, Arrigo, 80 With all the rest so studious to excel In good; where are they? Help me this to know; Great hunger for the news hath seized me; Delights them Heaven, or tortures h.e.l.l below?'

He said: 'Among the blackest souls they be; Them to the bottom weighs another sin.

Shouldst thou so far descend, thou mayst them see.

But when[288] the sweet world thou again dost win, I pray thee bring me among men to mind; No more I tell, nor new reply begin.' 90 Then his straightforward eyes askance declined; He looked at me a moment ere his head He bowed; then fell flat 'mong the other blind.

'Henceforth he waketh not,' my Leader said, 'Till he shall hear the angel's trumpet sound, Ushering the hostile Judge. By every shade Its dismal sepulchre shall then be found, Its flesh and ancient form it shall resume, And list[289] what echoes in eternal round.'

So pa.s.sed we where the shades and rainy spume 100 Made filthy mixture, with steps taken slow; Touching a little on the world to come.[290]

Wherefore I said: 'Master, shall torments grow After the awful sentence hath been heard, Or lesser prove and not so fiercely glow?'

'Repair unto thy Science,'[291] was his word; 'Which tells, as things approach a perfect state To keener joy or suffering they are stirred.

Therefore although this people cursed by fate Ne'er find perfection in its full extent, 110 To it they then shall more approximate Than now.'[292] Our course we round the circle bent, Still holding speech, of which I nothing say, Until we came where down the pathway went: There found we Plutus, the great enemy.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] _As I move again_: In his swoon he has been conveyed from the Second Circle down to the Third.

[275] _Cerberus_: In the Greek mythology Cerberus is the watch-dog of the under world. By Dante he is converted into a demon, and with his three throats, canine voracity, and ugly inflamed bulk, is appropriately set to guard the entrance to the circle of the gluttonous and wine-bibbers.

[276] _And oft, etc._: On entering the circle the shades are seized and torn by Cerberus; once over-nice in how they fed, they are now treated as if they were food for dogs. But their enduring pain is to be subjected to every kind of physical discomfort. Their senses of hearing, touch, and smell are a.s.sailed by the opposite of what they were most used to enjoy at their luxurious feasts.

[277] _Great worm_: Though human in a monstrous form, Cerberus is so called as being a disgusting brute.

[278] _Semblances, etc._: 'Emptiness which seems to be a person.' To this conception of the shades as only seeming to have bodies, Dante has difficulty in remaining true. For instance, at line 101 they mix with the sleet to make a sludgy ma.s.s; and cannot therefore be impalpable.

[279] Ciacco at once perceives by the weight of Dante's tread that he is a living man.

[280] _Ciacco_: The name or nickname of a Florentine wit, and, in his day, a great diner-out. Boccaccio, in his commentary, says that, though poor, Ciacco a.s.sociated with men of birth and wealth, especially such as ate and drank delicately. In the _Decameron_, ix. 8, he is introduced as being on such terms with the great Corso Donati as to be able to propose himself to dinner with him. Clearly he was not a bad fellow, and his pitiful case, perhaps contrasted with the high spirits and jovial surroundings in which he was last met by Dante, almost, though not quite, win a tear from the stern pilgrim.

[281] _The citizens, etc._: Dante eagerly confers on Florentine politics with the first Florentine he encounters in Inferno.

[282] _After, etc._: In the following nine lines the party history of Florence for two years after the period of the poem (March 1300) is roughly indicated. The city was divided into two factions--the Whites, led by the great merchant Vieri dei Cerchi, and the Blacks, led by Corso Donati, a poor and turbulent n.o.ble. At the close of 1300 there was a b.l.o.o.d.y encounter between the more violent members of the two parties. In May 1301 the Blacks were banished. In the autumn of that year they returned in triumph to the city in the train of Charles of Valois, and got the Whites banished in April 1302, within three years, that is, of the poet's talk with Ciacco. Dante himself was a.s.sociated with the Whites, but not as a violent partisan; for though he was a strong politician no party quite answered his views. From the middle of June till the middle of August 1300 he was one of the Priors. In the course of 1301 he is believed to have gone on an emba.s.sy to Rome to persuade the Pope to abstain from meddling in Florentine affairs. He never entered Florence again, being condemned virtually to banishment in January 1302.