my Master said. And I then: “Let us find
some compensation for the time of waiting.”
And he: “You shall see I have just that in mind.
My son,” he began, “there are below this wall
three smaller circles, each in its degree
like those you are about to leave, and all
are crammed with God’s accurst. Accordingly,
that you may understand their sins at sight,
I will explain how each is prisoned, and why.
Malice is the sin most hated by God.
And the aim of malice is to injure others
whether by fraud or violence. But since fraud
is the vice of which man alone is capable,
God loathes it most. Therefore, the fraudulent
are placed below, and their torment is more painful.
The first below are the violent. But as violence
sins in three persons, so is that circle formed
of three descending rounds of crueler torments.
Against God, self, and neighbor is violence shown.
Against their persons and their goods, I say,
as you shall hear set forth with open reason.
Murder and mayhem are the violation
of the person of one’s neighbor: and of his goods;
harassment, plunder, arson, and extortion.
Therefore, homicides, and those who strike
in malice—destroyers and plunderers—all lie
in that first round, and like suffers with like.
A man may lay violent hands upon his own
person and substance; so in that second round
eternally in vain repentance moan
the suicides and all who gamble away
and waste the good and substance of their lives
and weep in that sweet time when they should be gay.
Violence may be offered the deity
in the heart that blasphemes and refuses Him
and scorns the gifts of Nature, her beauty and bounty.
Therefore, the smallest round brands with its mark
both Sodom and Cahors, and all who rail
at God and His commands in their hearts’ dark.
Fraud, which is a canker to every conscience,
may be practiced by a man on those who trust him,
and on those who have reposed no confidence.
The latter mode seems only to deny
the bond of love which all men have from Nature;
therefore within the second circle lie
simoniacs, sycophants, and hypocrites,
falsifiers, thieves, and sorcerers,
grafters, pimps, and all such filthy cheats.
The former mode of fraud not only denies
the bond of Nature, but the special trust
added by bonds of friendship or blood-ties.
Hence, at the center point of all creation,
in the smallest circle, on which Dis is founded,
the traitors lie in endless expiation.”
“Master,” I said, “the clarity of your mind
impresses all you touch; I see quite clearly
the orders of this dark pit of the blind.
But tell me: those who lie in the swamp’s bowels,
those the wind blows about, those the rain beats,
and those who meet and clash with such mad howls—
why are they not punished in the rust-red city
if God’s wrath be upon them? and if it is not,
why must they grieve through all eternity?”
And he: “Why does your understanding stray
so far from its own habit? or can it be
your thoughts are turned along some other way?
Have you forgotten that your Ethics states
the three main dispositions of the soul
that lead to those offenses Heaven hates—
incontinence, malice, and bestiality?
and how incontinence offends God least
and earns least blame from Justice and Charity?
Now if you weigh this doctrine and recall
exactly who they are whose punishment
lies in that upper Hell outside the wall,
you will understand at once why they are confined
apart from these fierce wraiths, and why less anger
beats down on them from the Eternal Mind.”
“O sun which clears all mists from troubled sight,
such joy attends your rising that I feel
as grateful to the dark as to the light.
Go back a little further,” I said, “to where
you spoke of usury as an offense
against God’s goodness. How is that made clear?”
“Philosophy makes plain by many reasons,”
he answered me, “to those who heed her teachings,
how all of Nature,—her laws, her fruits, her seasons,—
springs from the Ultimate Intellect and Its art:
and if you read your Physics with due care,
you will note, not many pages from the start,
that Art strives after her by imitation,
as the disciple imitates the master;
Art, as it were, is the Grandchild of Creation.
By this, recalling the Old Testament
near the beginning of Genesis, you will see
that in the will of Providence, man was meant
to labor and to prosper. But usurers,
by seeking their increase in other ways,
scorn Nature in herself and her followers.
But come, for it is my wish now to go on:
the wheel turns and the Wain lies over Caurus,
the Fish are quivering low on the horizon,
and there beyond us runs the road we go
down the dark scarp into the depths below.”
NOTES
2. broken boulders: These boulders were broken from the earthquake that shook Hell at the death of Christ.
3. the stink: The stink is, of course, symbolic of the foulness of Hell and its sins. The action of the Poets in drawing back from it, and their meditations on the nature of sin, are therefore subject to allegorical as well as to literal interpretation.
8-9. ANASTASIUS and PHOTINUS: Anastasius II was Pope from 496 to 498. This was the time of schism between the Eastern (Greek) and Western (Roman) churches. Photinus, deacon of Thessalonica, was of the Greek church and held to the Acacian heresy, which denied the divine paternity of Christ. Dante follows the report that Anastasius gave communion to Photinus, thereby countenancing his heresy. Dante’s sources, however, had probably confused Anastasius II, the Pope, with Anastasius I, who was Emperor from 491 to 518. It was the Emperor Anastasius who was persuaded by Photinus to accept the Acacian heresy.
17. three smaller circles: The Poets are now at the cliff that bounds the Sixth Circle. Below them lie Circles Seven, Eight, and Nine. They are smaller in circumference, being closer to the center, but they are all intricately subdivided, and will be treated at much greater length than were the Circles of Upper Hell.
LOWER HELL: The structure of Dante’s Hell is based on Aristotle (as Virgil makes clear in his exposition), but with certain Christian symbolisms, exceptions, and misconstructions of Aristotle’s text. The major symbolisms are the three beasts met in Canto I. The exceptions are the two peculiarly Christian categories of sin: Paganism and Heresy. The misconstructions of Aristotle’s text involve the classification of “bestiality.” Aristotle classified it as a different thing from vice or malice, but medieval commentators construed the passage to mean “another sort of malice.” Dante’s intent is clear, however; he understood Aristotle to make three categories of sin: Incontinence, Violence and Bestiality, and Fraud and Malice. Incontinence is punished in the Upper Hell. The following table sets forth the categories of the Lower Hell.
THE CLASSIFICATIONS OF SIN IN LOWER HELL
50. Sodom an
d Cahors: Both these cities are used as symbols for the sins that are said to have flourished within them. Sodom (Genesis, xix) is, of course, identified with unnatural sex practices. Cahors, a city in southern France, was notorious in the Middle Ages for its usurers.
64. the center point of all creation: In the Ptolemaic system the earth was the center of the universe. In Dante’s geography, the bottom of Hell is the center of the earth.
70. those who lie, etc.: These are, of course, the sinners of the Upper Hell.
73. the rust-red city: Dis. All of Lower Hell is within the city walls.
79. your Ethics: The Ethics of Aristotle.
101. your Physics: The Physics of Aristotle.
113. the Wain lies over Caurus etc.: The Wain is the constellation of the Great Bear. Caurus was the northwest wind in classical mythology. Hence the constellation of the Great Bear now lies in the northwest. The Fish is the constellation and zodiacal sign of Pisces. It is just appearing over the horizon. The next sign of the zodiac is Aries. We know from Canto I that the sun is in Aries, and since the twelve signs of the zodiac each cover two hours of the day, it must now be about two hours before dawn. It is, therefore, approximately 4:00 A.M. of Holy Saturday.
The stars are not visible in Hell, but throughout the Inferno Virgil reads them by some special power which Dante does not explain.
Canto XII
CIRCLE SEVEN: ROUND ONE
The Violent Against Neighbors
The Poets begin the descent of the fallen rock wall, having first to evade the MINOTAUR, who menaces them. Virgil tricks him and the Poets hurry by.
Below them they see the RIVER OF BLOOD, which marks the First Round of the Seventh Circle as detailed in the previous Canto. Here are punished the VIOLENT AGAINST THEIR NEIGHBORS, great war-makers, cruel tyrants, highwaymen—all who shed the blood of their fellowmen. As they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt, while fierce Centaurs patrol the banks, ready to shoot with their arrows any sinner who raises himself out of the boiling blood beyond the limits permitted him. ALEXANDER THE GREAT is here, up to his lashes in the blood, and with him ATTILA, THE SCOURGE OF GOD. They are immersed in the deepest part of the river, which grows shallower as it circles to the other side of the ledge, then deepens again.
The Poets are challenged by the Centaurs, but Virgil wins a safe conduct from CHIRON, their chief, who assigns NESSUS to guide them and to bear them across the shallows of the boiling blood. Nessus carries them across at the point where it is only ankle deep and immediately leaves them and returns to his patrol.
The scene that opened from the edge of the pit
was mountainous, and such a desolation
that every eye would shun the sight of it:
a ruin like the Slides of Mark near Trent
on the bank of the Adige, the result of an earthquake
or of some massive fault in the escarpment—
for, from the point on the peak where the mountain split
to the plain below, the rock is so badly shattered
a man at the top might make a rough stair of it.
Such was the passage down the steep, and there
at the very top, at the edge of the broken cleft,
lay spread the Infamy of Crete, the heir
of bestiality and the lecherous queen
who hid in a wooden cow. And when he saw us,
he gnawed his own flesh in a fit of spleen.
And my Master mocked: “How you do pump your breath!
Do you think, perhaps, it is the Duke of Athens,
who in the world above served up your death?
Off with you, monster; this one does not come instructed by your sister, but of himself to observe your punishment in the lost kingdom.”
As a bull that breaks its chains just when the knife
has struck its death-blow, cannot stand nor run
but leaps from side to side with its last life—
so danced the Minotaur, and my shrewd Guide
cried out: “Run now! While he is blind with rage!
Into the pass, quick, and get over the side!”
So we went down across the shale and slate
of that ruined rock, which often slid and shifted
under me at the touch of living weight.
I moved on, deep in thought; and my Guide to me:
“You are wondering perhaps about this ruin
which is guarded by that beast upon whose fury
I played just now. I should tell you that when last
I came this dark way to the depths of Hell,
this rock had not yet felt the ruinous blast.
But certainly, if I am not mistaken,
it was just before the coming of Him who took
the souls from Limbo, that all Hell was shaken
so that I thought the universe felt love
and all its elements moved toward harmony,
whereby the world of matter, as some believe,
has often plunged to chaos. It was then,
that here and elsewhere in the pits of Hell,
the ancient rock was stricken and broke open.
But turn your eyes to the valley; there we shall find
the river of boiling blood in which are steeped
all who struck down their fellow men.” Oh blind!
Oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity
which spurs us so in the short mortal life
and steeps us so through all eternity!
I saw an arching fosse that was the bed
of a winding river circling through the plain
exactly as my Guide and Lord had said.
A file of Centaurs galloped in the space
between the bank and the cliff, well armed with arrows,
riding as once on earth they rode to the chase.
And seeing us descend, that straggling band
halted, and three of them moved out toward us,
their long bows and their shafts already in hand.
And one of them cried out while still below:
“To what pain are you sent down that dark coast?
Answer from where you stand, or I draw the bow!”
“Chiron is standing there hard by your side;
our answer will be to him. This wrath of yours
was always your own worst fate,” my Guide replied.
And to me he said: “That is Nessus, who died in the wood
for insulting Dejanira. At his death
he plotted his revenge in his own blood.
The one in the middle staring at his chest
is the mighty Chiron, he who nursed Achilles:
the other is Pholus, fiercer than all the rest.
They run by that stream in thousands, snapping their bows
at any wraith who dares to raise himself
out of the blood more than his guilt allows.”
We drew near those swift beasts. In a thoughtful pause
Chiron drew an arrow, and with its notch
he pushed his great beard back along his jaws.
And when he had thus uncovered the huge pouches
of his lips, he said to his fellows: “Have you noticed
how the one who walks behind moves what he touches?
That is not how the dead go.” My good Guide,
already standing by the monstrous breast
in which the two mixed natures joined, replied:
“It is true he lives; in his necessity
I alone must lead him through this valley.
Fate brings him here, not curiosity.
From singing Alleluia the sublime
spirit who sends me came. He is no bandit.
Nor am I one who ever stooped to crime.
But in the name of the Power by which I go
this sunken way across the floor of Hell,
assign us one of your troop whom we may follow,
 
; that he may guide us to the ford, and there
carry across on his back the one I lead,
for he is not a spirit to move through air.”
Chiron turned his head on his right breast
and said to Nessus: “Go with them, and guide them,