Part 29 (2/2)

[651] _Who down Thebes' wall_: Capaneus (_Inf._ xiv. 63).

[652] _Maremma_: See note, _Inf._ xiii. 8.

[653] _Cacus_: Dante makes him a Centaur, but Virgil (_aen._ viii.) only describes him as half human. The pool was fed with the blood of his human victims. The herd was the spoil Hercules took from Geryon. In the _aeneid_ Cacus defends himself from Hercules by vomiting a fiery smoke; and this doubtless suggested the dragon of the text.

[654] _His brethren_: The Centaurs who guard the river of blood (_Inf._ xii. 56). In Fucci, as a sinner guilty of blood and violence above most of the thieves, the Centaur Cacus takes a special malign interest.

[655] _Our tale_: Of Cacus. It is interrupted by the arrival of three sinners whom Dante does not at first recognise as he gazes down on them, but only when they begin to speak among themselves. They are three n.o.ble citizens of Florence: Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, and Puccio Sciancatto de' Galigai--all said to have pilfered in private life, or to have abused their tenure of high office by plundering the Commonwealth. What is certainly known of them is that they were Florentine thieves of quality.

[656] _Cianfa_: Another Florentine gentleman, one of the Donati. Since his companions lost sight of him he has been transformed into a six-footed serpent. Immediately appearing, he darts upon Agnello.

[657] _On chin, etc._: A gesture by which silence is requested. The mention of Cianfa shows Dante that he is among Florentines.

[658] _Papyrus_: The original is _papiro_, the word used in Dante's time for a wick made out of a reed like the papyrus; _paper_ being still the name for a wick in some dialects.--(Scartazzini.) It cannot be shown that _papiro_ was ever employed for paper in Italian. This, however, does not prove that Dante may not so use it in this instance, adopting it from the Latin _papyrus_. Besides, he says that the brown colour travels up over the _papiro_; while it goes downward on a burning wick.

Nor would the simile, if drawn from a slowly burning lamp-wick, agree with the speed of the change described in the text.

[659] _A little snake_: As transpires from the last line of the Canto, this is Francesco, of the Florentine family of the Cavalcanti, to which Dante's friend Guido belonged. He wounds Buoso in the navel, and then, instead of growing into one new monster as was the case with Cianfa and Agnello, they exchange shapes, and when the transformation is complete Buoso is the serpent and Francesco is the human shade.

[660] _Rooted he stood, etc._: The description agrees with the symptoms of snake-bite, one of which is extreme drowsiness.

[661] _Sabellus and Na.s.sidius_: Were soldiers of Cato's army whose death by snake-bite in the Libyan desert is described by Lucan, _Pharsal._ ix.

Sabbellus was burned up by the poison, bones and all; Na.s.sidius swelled up and burst.

[662] _Cadmus_: _Metam._ iv.

[663] _Arethusa_: _Metam._ v.

[664] _The forms, etc._: The word _form_ is here to be taken in its scholastic sense of _virtus formativa_, the inherited power of modifying matter into an organised body. 'This, united to the divinely implanted spark of reason,' says Philalethes, 'const.i.tutes, on Dante's system, a human soul. Even after death this power continues to be an essential const.i.tuent of the soul, and constructs out of the elements what seems to be a body. Here the sinners exchange the matter they have thus made their own, each retaining, however, his proper plastic energy as part of his soul.' Dante in his _Convito_ (iii. 2) says that 'the human soul is the n.o.blest form of all that are made under the heavens, receiving more of the Divine nature than any other.'

[665] _The smoke has pause_: The sinners have robbed one another of all they can lose. In the punishment is mirrored the sin that plunged them here.

[666] _The novel theme_: He has lingered longer than usual on this Bolgia, and pleads wonder of what he saw in excuse either of his prolixity or of some of the details of his description. The expression is perhaps one of feigned humility, to balance his recent boast of excelling Ovid and Lucan in inventive power.

[667] _Gaville_: The other, and the only one of those five Florentine thieves not yet named in the text, is he who came at first in the form of a little black snake, and who has now a.s.sumed the shape of Buoso. In reality he is Francesco Cavalcanti, who was slain by the people of Gaville in the upper Valdarno. Many of them were in their turn slaughtered in revenge by the Cavalcanti and their a.s.sociates. It should be remarked that some of these five Florentines were of one party, some of the other. It is also noteworthy that Dante recruits his thieves as he did his usurers from the great Florentine families.--As the 's.h.i.+fting and changing' of this rubbish is apt to be found confusing, the following may be useful to some readers:--There first came on the scene Agnello, Buoso, and Puccio. Cianfa, in the shape of a six-footed serpent, comes and throws himself on Agnello, and then, grown incorporate in a new strange monster, two in one, they disappear. Buoso is next wounded by Francesco, and they exchange members and bodies. Only Puccio remains unchanged.

CANTO XXVI.

Rejoice, O Florence, in thy widening fame!

Thy wings thou beatest over land and sea, And even through Inferno spreads thy name.

Burghers of thine, five such were found by me Among the thieves; whence I ashamed[668] grew, Nor shall great glory thence redound to thee.

But if 'tis toward the morning[669] dreams are true, Thou shalt experience ere long time be gone The doom even Prato[670] prays for as thy due.

And came it now, it would not come too soon. 10 Would it were come as come it must with time: 'Twill crush me more the older I am grown.

Departing thence, my Guide began to climb The jutting rocks by which we made descent Some while ago,[671] and pulled me after him.

And as upon our lonely way we went 'Mong splinters[672] of the cliff, the feet in vain, Without the hand to help, had labour spent.

I sorrowed, and am sorrow-smit again, Recalling what before mine eyes there lay, 20 And, more than I am wont, my genius rein From running save where virtue leads the way; So that if happy star[673] or holier might Have gifted me I never mourn it may.

At time of year when he who gives earth light His face shows to us longest visible, When gnats replace the fly at fall of night, Not by the peasant resting on the hill Are seen more fire-flies in the vale below, Where he perchance doth field and vineyard[674] till, 30 Than flamelets I beheld resplendent glow Throughout the whole Eighth Bolgia, when at last I stood whence I the bottom plain could know.

And as he whom the bears avenged, when pa.s.sed From the earth Elijah, saw the chariot rise With horses heavenward reared and mounting fast, And no long time had traced it with his eyes Till but a flash of light it all became, Which like a rack of cloud swept to the skies: Deep in the valley's gorge, in mode the same, 40 These flitted; what it held by none was shown, And yet a sinner[675] lurked in every flame.

To see them well I from the bridge peered down, And if a jutting crag I had not caught I must have fallen, though neither thrust nor thrown.

My Leader me beholding lost in thought: 'In all the fires are spirits,' said to me; 'His flame round each is for a garment wrought.'

'O Master!' I replied, 'by hearing thee I grow a.s.sured, but yet I knew before 50 That thus indeed it was, and longed to be Told who is in the flame which there doth soar, Cloven, as if ascending from the pyre Where with Eteocles[676] there burned of yore His brother.' He: 'Ulysses in that fire And Diomedes[677] burn; in punishment Thus held together, as they held in ire.

And, wrapped within their flame, they now repent The ambush of the horse, which oped the door Through which the Romans' n.o.ble seed[678] forth went. 60 For guile Dedamia[679] makes deplore In death her lost Achilles, tears they shed, And bear for the Palladium[680] vengeance sore.'

'Master, I pray thee fervently,' I said, 'If from those flames they still can utter speech-- Give ear as if a thousand times I pled!

Refuse not here to linger, I beseech, Until the cloven fire shall hither gain: Thou seest how toward it eagerly I reach.'

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