Part 38 (1/2)
Fixed as he was continues to appear. 120 Headlong from Heaven he fell upon this side; Whereon the land, protuberant here before, For fear of him did in the ocean hide, And 'neath our sky emerged: land, as of yore[876]
Still on this side, perhaps that it might shun His fall, heaved up, and filled this depth no more.'
From Belzebub[877] still widening up and on, Far-stretching as the sepulchre,[878] extends A region not beheld, but only known By murmur of a brook[879] which through it wends, 130 Declining by a channel eaten through The flinty rock; and gently it descends.
My Guide and I, our journey to pursue To the bright world, upon this road concealed Made entrance, and no thought of resting knew.
He first, I second, still ascending held Our way until the fair celestial train Was through an opening round to me revealed: And, issuing thence, we saw the stars[880] again.
FOOTNOTES:
[858] _Vexilla, etc._: '_The banners of the King of h.e.l.l advance._' The words are adapted from a hymn of the Cross used in Holy Week; and they prepare us to find in Lucifer the opponent of 'the Emperor who reigns on high' (_Inf._ i. 124). It is somewhat odd that Dante should have put a Christian hymn into Virgil's mouth.
[859] _Now was I where_: In the fourth and inner division or ring of the Ninth Circle. Here are punished those guilty of treachery to their lawful lords or to their benefactors. From Judas Iscariot, the arch-traitor, it takes the name of Judecca.
[860] _Some stood, etc._: It has been sought to distinguish the degrees of treachery of the shades by means of the various att.i.tudes a.s.signed to them. But it is difficult to make more out of it than that some are suffering more than others. All of them are the worst of traitors, hard-hearted and cold-hearted, and now they are quite frozen in the ice, sealed up even from the poor relief of intercourse with their fellow-sinners.
[861] _The creature once, etc._: Lucifer, guilty of treachery against the Highest, at _Purg._ xii. 25 described as 'created n.o.ble beyond all other creatures.' Virgil calls him Dis, the name used by him for Pluto in the _aeneid_, and the name from which that of the City of Unbelief is taken (_Inf._ viii. 68).
[862] _Judge then what bulk_: The arm of Lucifer was as much longer than the stature of one of the giants as a giant was taller than Dante. We have seen (_Inf._ x.x.xi. 58) that the giants were more than fifty feet in height--nine times the stature of a man. If a man's arm be taken as a third of his stature, then Satan is twenty-seven times as tall as a giant, that is, he is fourteen hundred feet or so. For a fourth of this, or nearly so--from the middle of the breast upwards--he stands out of the ice, that is, some three hundred and fifty feet. It seems almost too great a height for Dante's purpose; and yet on the calculations of some commentators his stature is immensely greater--from three to five thousand feet.
[863] _Three faces_: By the three faces are represented the three quarters of the world from which the subjects of Lucifer are drawn: vermilion or carnation standing for Europe, yellow for Asia, and black for Africa. Or the faces may symbolise attributes opposed to the Wisdom, Power, and Love of the Trinity (_Inf._ iii. 5). See also note on line 1.
[864] _A bat's wing_: Which flutters and flaps in dark and noisome places. The simile helps to bring more clearly before us the dim light and half-seen horrors of the Judecca.
[865] _A heckle_: Or brake; the instrument used to clear the fibre of flax from the woody substance mixed with it.
[866] _Sometimes nude_: We are to imagine that the frame of Judas is being for ever renewed and for ever mangled and torn.
[867] _Ca.s.sius_: It has been surmised that Dante here confounds the pale and lean Ca.s.sius who was the friend of Brutus with the L. Ca.s.sius described as corpulent by Cicero in the Third Catiline Oration. Brutus and Ca.s.sius are set with Judas in this, the deepest room of h.e.l.l, because, as he was guilty of high treason against his Divine Master, so they were guilty of it against Julius Caesar, who, according to Dante, was chosen and ordained by G.o.d to found the Roman Empire. As the great rebel against the spiritual authority Judas has allotted to him the fiercer pain. To understand the significance of this harsh treatment of the great Republicans it is necessary to bear in mind that Dante's devotion to the idea of the Empire was part of his religion, and far surpa.s.sed in intensity all we can now well imagine. In the absence of a just and strong Emperor the Divine government of the world seemed to him almost at a stand.