Part 32 (1/2)

[716] _Apulia_: The south-eastern district of Italy, owing to its situation a frequent battle-field in ancient and modern times.

[717] _Rome_: 'Trojans' in most MSS.; and then the Romans are described as descended from Trojans. The reference may be to the defeat of the Apulians with considerable slaughter by P. Decius Mus, or to their losses in general in the course of the Samnite war.

[718] _War procrastinate_: The second Punic war lasted fully fifteen years, and in the course of it the battle of Cannae was gained by Hannibal, where so many Roman knights fell that the spoil of rings amounted to a peck.

[719] _Guiscard_: One of the Norman conquerors of the regions which up to our own time const.i.tuted the kingdom of Naples. In Apulia he did much fighting against Lombards, Saracens, and Greeks. He is found by Dante in Paradise among those who fought for the faith (_Par._ xviii. 48). His death happened in Cephalonia in 1085, at the age of seventy, when he was engaged on an expedition against Constantinople.

[720] _Ceperan_: In the swift and decisive campaign undertaken by Charles of Anjou against Manfred, King of Sicily and Naples, the first victory was obtained at Ceperano; but it was won owing to the treachery of Manfred's lieutenant, and not by the sword. The true battle was fought at Benevento (_Purg._ iii. 128). Ceperano may be named by Dante as the field where the defeat of Manfred was virtually begun, and where the Apulians first failed in loyalty to their gallant king. Dante was a year old at the time of Manfred's overthrow (1266).

[721] _Tagliacozzo_: The crown Charles had won from Manfred he had to defend against Manfred's nephew Conradin (grandson and last representative of Frederick II. and the legitimate heir to the kingdom of Sicily), whom, in 1268, he defeated near Tagliacozzo in the Abruzzi.

He made his victory the more complete by acting on the advice of Alardo or Erard de Valery, an old Crusader, to hold good part of his force in reserve. Charles wrote to the Pope that the slaughter was so great as far to exceed that at Benevento. The feet of all the low-born prisoners not slain on the field were cut off, while the gentlemen were beheaded or hanged.

[722] _Mahomet_: It has been objected to Dante by M. Littre that he treats Mahomet, the founder of a new religion, as a mere schismatic. The wonder would have been had he dwelt on the good qualities of the Prophet at a time when Islam still threatened Europe. He goes on the fact that Mahomet and his followers rent great part of the East and South from Christendom; and for this the Prophet is represented as being mutilated in a sorer degree than the other schismatics.

[723] _Ali_: Son-in-law of Mahomet.

[724] _Fra Dolcin_: At the close of the thirteenth century, Boniface being Pope, the general discontent with the corruption of the higher clergy found expression in the north of Italy in the foundation of a new sect, whose leader was Fra Dolcino. What he chiefly was--enthusiast, reformer, or impostor--it is impossible to ascertain; all we know of him being derived from writers in the Papal interest. Among other crimes he was charged with that of teaching the lawfulness of telling an Inquisitor a lie to save your life, and with prophesying the advent of a pious Pope. A holy war on a small scale was preached against him. After suffering the extremities of famine, snowed up as he was among the mountains, he was taken prisoner and cruelly put to death (1307). It may have been in order to save himself from being suspected of sympathy with him, that Dante, whose hatred of Boniface and the New Pharisees was equal to Dolcino's, provides for him by antic.i.p.ation a place with Mahomet.

[725] _Pier da Medicin_: Medicina is in the territory of Bologna. Piero is said to have stirred up dissensions between the Polentas of Ravenna and the Malatestas of Rimini.

[726] _From Vercelli, etc._: From the district of Vercelli to where the castle of Marcab once stood, at the mouth of the Po, is a distance of two hundred miles. The plain is Lombardy.

[727] _Majolica, etc._: On all the Mediterranean, from Cyprus in the east to Majorca in the west.

[728] _The traitor, etc._: The one-eyed traitor is Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Young Mastiff of the preceding Canto. He invited the two chief citizens of Fano, named in the text, to hold a conference with him, and procured that on their way they should be pitched overboard opposite the castle of Cattolica, which stood between Fano and Rimini.

This is said to have happened in 1304.

[729] _Focara_: The name of a promontory near Cattolica, subject to squalls. The victims were never to double the headland.

[730] _Curio_: The Roman Tribune who, according to Lucan--the incident is not historically correct--found Caesar hesitating whether to cross the Rubicon, and advised him: _Tolle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis_.

'No delay! when men are ready they always suffer by putting off.' The pa.s.sage of the Rubicon was counted as the beginning of the Civil War.--Curio gets scant justice, seeing that in Dante's view Caesar in all he did was only carrying out the Divine purpose regarding the Empire.

[731] _Mosca_: In 1215 one of the Florentine family of the Buondelmonti jilted a daughter of the Amidei. When these with their friends met to take counsel touching revenge for the insult, Mosca, one of the Uberti or of the Lamberti, gave his opinion in the proverb, _Cosa fatta ha capo_: 'A thing once done is done with.' The hint was approved of, and on the following Easter morning the young Buondelmonte, as, mounted on a white steed and dressed in white he rode across the Ponte Vecchio, was dragged to the ground and cruelly slain. All the great Florentine families took sides in the feud, and it soon widened into the civil war between Florentine Guelf and Ghibeline.

[732] _Bertrand de Born_: Is mentioned by Dante in his Treatise _De Vulgari Eloquio_, ii. 2, as specially the poet of warlike deeds. He was a Gascon n.o.ble who used his poetical gift very much to stir up strife.

For patron he had the Prince Henry, son of Henry II. of England. Though Henry never came to the throne he was, during his father's lifetime, crowned as his successor, and was known as the young King. After the death of the Prince, Bertrand was taken prisoner by the King, and, according to the legend, was loaded with favours because he had been so true a friend to his young master. That he had a turn for fomenting discord is shown by his having also led a revolt in Aquitaine against Richard I.--All the old MSS. and all the earlier commentators read _Re Giovanni_, King John; _Re Giovane_, the young King, being a comparatively modern emendation. In favour of adopting this it may be mentioned that in his poems Bertrand calls Prince Henry _lo Reys joves_, the young King; that it was Henry and not John that was his friend and patron; and that in the old _Cento Novelle_ Henry is described as the young King: in favour of the older reading, that John as well as his brother was a rebel to Henry; and that the line is hurt by the change from _Giovanni_ to _Giovane_. Considering that Dante almost certainly wrote _Giovanni_ it seems most reasonable to suppose that he may have confounded the _Re Giovane_ with King John.

[733] _From what, etc._: The spinal cord, as we should now say, though Dante may have meant the heart.

[734] _Pain for pain_: In the City of Dis we found the heresiarchs, those who lead others to think falsely. The lower depth of the Malebolge is reserved for such as needlessly rend any Divinely-const.i.tuted order of society, civil or religious. Conduct counts more with Dante than opinion--in this case.

CANTO XXIX.

The many folk and wounds of divers kind Had flushed mine eyes and set them on the flow, Till I to weep and linger had a mind; But Virgil said to me: 'Why gazing so?

Why still thy vision fastening on the crew Of dismal shades dismembered there below?

Thou didst not[735] thus the other Bolgias view: Think, if to count them be thine enterprise, The valley circles twenty miles and two.[736]

Beneath our feet the moon[737] already lies; 10 The time[738] wears fast away to us decreed; And greater things than these await thine eyes.'

I answered swift: 'Hadst thou but given heed To why it was my looks were downward bent, To yet more stay thou mightest have agreed.'

My Guide meanwhile was moving, and I went Behind him and continued to reply, Adding: 'Within the moat on which intent I now was gazing with such eager eye I trow a spirit weeps, one of my kin, 20 The crime whose guilt is rated there so high.'

Then said the Master: 'Henceforth hold thou in Thy thoughts from wandering to him: new things claim Attention now, so leave him with his sin.

Him saw I at thee from the bridge-foot aim A threatening finger, while he made thee known; Geri del Bello[739] heard I named his name.

But, at the time, thou wast with him alone Engrossed who once held Hautefort,[740] nor the place Didst look at where he was; so pa.s.sed he on.' 30 'O Leader mine! death violent and base, And not avenged as yet,' I made reply, 'By any of his partners in disgrace, Made him disdainful; therefore went he by And spake not with me, if I judge aright; Which does the more my ruth[741] intensify.'