The Divine Comedy

and turn back any others that would contest

  their passage.” So we moved beside our guide

  along the bank of the scalding purple river

  in which the shrieking wraiths were boiled and dyed.

  Some stood up to their lashes in that torrent,

  and as we passed them the huge Centaur said:

  “These were the kings of bloodshed and despoilment.

  Here they pay for their ferocity.

  Here is Alexander. And Dionysius,

  who brought long years of grief to Sicily.

  That brow you see with the hair as black as night

  is Azzolino; and that beside him, the blonde,

  is Opizzo da Esti, who had his mortal light

  blown out by his own stepson.” I turned then

  to speak to the Poet but he raised a hand:

  “Let him be the teacher now, and I will listen.”

  Further on, the Centaur stopped beside

  a group of spirits steeped as far as the throat

  in the race of boiling blood, and there our guide

  pointed out a sinner who stood alone:

  “That one before God’s altar pierced a heart

  still honored on the Thames.” And he passed on.

  We came in sight of some who were allowed

  to raise the head and all the chest from the river,

  and I recognized many there. Thus, as we followed

  along the stream of blood, its level fell

  until it cooked no more than the feet of the damned.

  And here we crossed the ford to deeper Hell.

  “Just as you see the boiling stream grow shallow

  along this side,” the Centaur said to us

  when we stood on the other bank, “I would have you know

  that on the other, the bottom sinks anew

  more and more, until it comes again

  full circle to the place where the tyrants stew.

  It is there that Holy Justice spends its wrath

  on Sextus and Pyrrhus through eternity,

  and on Attila, who was a scourge on earth:

  and everlastingly milks out the tears

  of Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo,

  those two assassins who for many years

  stalked the highways, bloody and abhorred.”

  And with that he started back across the ford.

  NOTES

  4. the Slides of Mark: Li Slavoni di Marco are about two miles from Rovereto (between Verona and Trent) on the left bank of the River Adige.

  9. a man at the top might, etc.: I am defeated in all attempts to convey Dante’s emphasis in any sort of a verse line. The sense of the original: “It might provide some sort of a way down for one who started at the top, but (by implication) would not be climbable from below.”

  12-18. the Infamy of Crete: This is the infamous Minotaur of classical mythology. His mother was Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, the King of Crete. She conceived an unnatural passion for a bull, and in order to mate with it, she crept into a wooden cow. From this union the Minotaur was born, half-man, half-beast. King Minos kept him in an ingenious labyrinth from which he could not escape. When Androgeos, the son of King Minos, was killed by the Athenians, Minos exacted an annual tribute of seven maidens and seven youths. These were annually turned into the labyrinth and there were devoured by the Minotaur.

  The monster was finally killed by Theseus, Duke of Athens. He was aided by Ariadne, daughter of Minos (and half-sister of the monster). She gave Theseus a ball of cord to unwind as he entered the labyrinth and a sword with which to kill the Minotaur.

  The Minotaur was, thus, more beast than human, he was conceived in a sodomitic union, and he was a devourer of human flesh—in all ways a fitting symbol of the souls he guards.

  34 ff. THE BROKEN ROCKS OF HELL. According to Matthew, xxvii, 51, an earthquake shook the earth at the moment of Christ’s death. These stones, Dante lets us know, were broken off in that earthquake. We shall find other effects of the same shock in the Eighth Circle. It is worth noting also that both the Upper (See Canto V, 34) and the Lower Hell begin with evidences of this ruin. For details of Virgil’s first descent see notes to Canto IX.

  38. the coming of Him, etc.: For details of Christ’s descent into Hell see notes to Canto IV.

  40-42. the universe felt love . . . as some believe: The Greek philosopher, Empedocles, taught that the universe existed by the counter-balance (discord or mutual repulsion) of its elements. Should the elemental matter feel harmony (love or mutual attraction) all would fly together into chaos.

  47. the river of boiling blood: This is Phlegethon, the river that circles through the First Round of the Seventh Circle, then sluices through the wood of the suicides (the Second Round) and the burning sands (Third Round) to spew over the Great Cliff into the Eighth Circle, and so, eventually, to the bottom of Hell (Cocytus).

  The river is deepest at the point at which the Poets first approach it and grows shallower along both sides of the circle until it reaches the ford, which is at the opposite point of the First Round. The souls of the damned are placed in deeper or shallower parts of the river according to the degree of their guilt.

  55. THE CENTAURS. The Centaurs were creatures of classical mythology, half-horse, half-men. They were skilled and savage hunters, creatures of passion and violence. Like the Minotaur, they are symbols of the bestial-human, and as such, they are fittingly chosen as the tormentors of these sinners.

  64. Chiron: The son of Saturn and of the nymph Philira. He was the wisest and most just of the Centaurs and reputedly was the teacher of Achilles and of other Greek heroes to whom he imparted great skill in bearing arms, medicine, astronomy, music, and augury. Dante places him far down in Hell with the others of his kind, but though he draws Chiron’s coarseness, he also grants him a kind of majestic understanding.

  67. Nessus: Nessus carried travelers across the River Evenus for hire. He was hired to ferry Dejanira, the wife of Hercules, and tried to abduct her, but Hercules killed him with a poisoned arrow. While Nessus was dying, he whispered to Dejanira that a shirt stained with his poisoned blood would act as a love charm should Hercules’ affections stray. When Hercules fell in love with Iole, Dejanira sent him a shirt stained with the Centaur’s blood. The shirt poisoned Hercules and he died in agony. Thus Nessus revenged himself with his own blood.

  72. Pholus: A number of classical poets mention Pholus, but very little else is known of him.

  88-89. the sublime spirit: Beatrice.

  97. Chiron turned his head on his right breast: The right is the side of virtue and honor. In Chiron it probably signifies his human side as opposed to his bestial side.

  107. Alexander: Alexander the Great. Dionysius: Dionysius I (died 367 B.C.) and his son, Dionysius II (died 343), were tyrants of Sicily. Both were infamous as prototypes of the bloodthirsty and exorbitant ruler. Dante may intend either or both.

  110. Azzolino (or Ezzolino): Ezzolino da Romano, Count of Onora (1194-1259). The cruelest of the Ghibelline tyrants. In 1236 Frederick II appointed Ezzelino his vicar in Padua. Ezzolino became especially infamous for his bloody treatment of the Paduans, whom he slaughtered in great numbers.

  111. Opizzo da Esti: Marquis of Ferrara (1264-1293). The account of his life is confused. One must accept Dante’s facts as given.

  119-120. that one . . . a heart still honored on the Thames: The sinner indicated is Guy de Montfort. His father, Simon de Montfort, was a leader of the barons who rebelled against Henry III and was killed at the battle of Evesham (1265) by Prince Edward (later Edward I).

  In 1271, Guy (then Vicar General of Tuscany) avenged his father’s death by murdering Henry’s nephew (who was also named Henry). The crime was openly committed in a church at Viterbo. The murdered Henry’s heart was sealed in a casket and sent to London, where it was accorded various honors.

  134. Sextus: Probably the younger son of Pompey the Great. His piracy is mentioned in Lucan (Pharsalia, VI, 420-422)
. Pyrrhus: Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, was especially bloodthirsty at the sack of Troy. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus (319-372 B.C.), waged relentless and bloody war against the Greeks and Romans. Either may be intended.

  135. Attila: King of the Huns from 433 to 453. He was called the Scourge of God.

  137. Rinier da Corneto, Rinier Pazzo (Rin-YAIR PAH-tsoe): Both were especially bloodthirsty robber-barons of the thirteenth century.

  Canto XIII

  CIRCLE SEVEN: ROUND TWO

  The Violent Against Themselves

  Nessus carries the Poets across the river of boiling blood and leaves them in the Second Round of the Seventh Circle, THE WOOD OF THE SUICIDES. Here are punished those who destroyed their own lives and those who destroyed their substance.

  The souls of the Suicides are encased in thorny trees whose leaves are eaten by the odious HARPIES, the overseers of these damned. When the Harpies feed upon them, damaging their leaves and limbs, the wound bleeds. Only as long as the blood flows are the souls of the trees able to speak. Thus, they who destroyed their own bodies are denied a human form; and just as the supreme expression of their lives was self-destruction, so they are permitted to speak only through that which tears and destroys them. Only through their own blood do they find voice. And to add one more dimension to the symbolism, it is the Harpies—defilers of all they touch—who give them their eternally recurring wounds.

  The Poets pause before one tree and speak with the soul of PIER DELLE VIGNE. In the same wood they see JACOMO DA SANT’ ANDREA, and LANO DA SIENA, two famous SQUANDERERS and DESTROYERS OF GOODS pursued by a pack of savage hounds. The hounds overtake SANT’ ANDREA, tear him to pieces and go off carrying his limbs in their teeth, a self-evident symbolic retribution for the violence with which these sinners destroyed their substance in the world. After this scene of horror, Dante speaks to an UNKNOWN FLORENTINE SUICIDE whose soul is inside the bush which was torn by the hound pack when it leaped upon Sant’ Andrea.

  Nessus had not yet reached the other shore

  when we moved on into a pathless wood

  that twisted upward from Hell’s broken floor.

  Its foliage was not verdant, but nearly black.

  The unhealthy branches, gnarled and warped and tangled,

  bore poison thorns instead of fruit. The track

  of those wild beasts that shun the open spaces

  men till between Cecina and Corneto

  runs through no rougher nor more tangled places.

  Here nest the odious Harpies of whom my Master

  wrote how they drove Aeneas and his companions

  from the Strophades with prophecies of disaster.

  Their wings are wide, their feet clawed, their huge bellies

  covered with feathers, their necks and faces human.

  They croak eternally in the unnatural trees.

  “Before going on, I would have you understand,”

  my Guide began, “we are in the second round

  and shall be till we reach the burning sand.

  Therefore look carefully and you will see

  things in this wood, which, if I told them to you

  would shake the confidence you have placed in me.”

  I heard cries of lamentation rise and spill

  on every hand, but saw no souls in pain

  in all that waste; and, puzzled, I stood still.

  I think perhaps he thought that I was thinking

  those cries rose from among the twisted roots

  through which the spirits of the damned were slinking

  to hide from us. Therefore my Master said:

  “If you break off a twig, what you will learn

  will drive what you are thinking from your head.”

  Puzzled, I raised my hand a bit and slowly

  broke off a branchlet from an enormous thorn:

  and the great trunk of it cried: “Why do you break me?”

  And after blood had darkened all the bowl

  of the wound, it cried again: “Why do you tear me?

  Is there no pity left in any soul?

  Men we were, and now we are changed to sticks;

  well might your hand have been more merciful

  were we no more than souls of lice and ticks.”

  As a green branch with one end all aflame

  will hiss and sputter sap out of the other

  as the air escapes—so from that trunk there came

  words and blood together, gout by gout.

  Startled, I dropped the branch that I was holding

  and stood transfixed by fear, half turned about

  to my Master, who replied: “O wounded soul,

  could he have believed before what he has seen

  in my verses only, you would yet be whole,

  for his hand would never have been raised against you.

  But knowing this truth could never be believed

  till it was seen, I urged him on to do

  what grieves me now; and I beg to know your name,

  that to make you some amends in the sweet world

  when he returns, he may refresh your fame.”

  And the trunk: “So sweet those words to me that I

  cannot be still, and may it not annoy you

  if I seem somewhat lengthy in reply.

  I am he who held both keys to Frederick’s heart,

  locking, unlocking with so deft a touch

  that scarce another soul had any part

  in his most secret thoughts. Through every strife

  I was so faithful to my glorious office

  that for it I gave up both sleep and life.

  That harlot, Envy, who on Caesar’s face

  keeps fixed forever her adulterous stare,

  the common plague and vice of court and palace,

  inflamed all minds against me. These inflamed

  so inflamed him that all my happy honors

  were changed to mourning. Then, unjustly blamed,

  my soul, in scorn, and thinking to be free

  of scorn in death, made me at last, though just,

  unjust to myself. By the new roots of this tree

  I swear to you that never in word or spirit

  did I break faith to my lord and emperor

  who was so worthy of honor in his merit.

  If either of you return to the world, speak for me,

  to vindicate in the memory of men

  one who lies prostrate from the blows of Envy.”

  The Poet stood. Then turned. “Since he is silent,”

  he said to me, “do not you waste this hour,

  if you wish to ask about his life or torment.”

  And I replied: “Question him for my part,

  on whatever you think I would do well to hear;

  I could not, such compassion chokes my heart.”

  The Poet began again: “That this man may

  with all his heart do for you what your words

  entreat him to, imprisoned spirit, I pray,

  tell us how the soul is bound and bent

  into these knots, and whether any ever

  frees itself from such imprisonment.”

  At that the trunk blew powerfully, and then

  the wind became a voice that spoke these words:

  “Briefly is the answer given: when

  out of the flesh from which it tore itself,

  the violent spirit comes to punishment,

  Minos assigns it to the seventh shelf.

  It falls into the wood, and landing there,

  wherever fortune flings it, it strikes root,

  and there it sprouts, lusty as any tare,

  shoots up a sapling, and becomes a tree.

  The Harpies, feeding on its leaves then, give it

  pain and pain’s outlet simultaneously.

  Like the rest, we shall go for our husks on Judgment Day,

  but not that we may wear them, for it is not just

  that a man be given what he throw
s away.

  Here shall we drag them and in this mournful glade

  our bodies will dangle to the end of time,

  each on the thorns of its tormented shade.”

  We waited by the trunk, but it said no more;

  and waiting, we were startled by a noise

  that grew through all the wood. Just such a roar

  and trembling as one feels when the boar and chase