Inferno
Canto XIII
Crossing Phlegethon by the ford, the poets arrive in the Wood of the Suicides, who have become withered and poisonous trees among which the Harpies cry. Pier dalle Vigne, who rose to great power and to be Frederick II’s most intimate adviser, then suddenly fell into disgrace and committed suicide, speaks from one of the trees and tells Dante his story. Their talk is interrupted by a rushing noise made by two spirits pursued by hounds. These are Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea, and Lano, a Sienese, two notorious spendthrifts. Another spirit, unnamed and unknown, tells Dante that he is of Florence, the city which had Mars for its patron and by changing him for the Baptist was thought to have incurred that god’s malignity.
NESSUS had not regained the bank beyond
When we betook us onward from the shore
To a wood, wherein no path was to be found.
No green leaves there, but all of dim colour:
Smooth branches none, but wry with knot and gnarl;
No apples, but gaunt twigs with poison sour.
Not scrub or thicket rougher hides the snarl[i]7-9. Cecina, a town near Volterra, and Corneto, a town close to Civitavecchia, denote the northern and southern limits of the woody, swampy district known as Maremma. In Dante's time it was covered with dense forest.
'Twixt Cecina and Corneto of the beasts
That roaming them abhor the well-tilled marl.
Here have the savage Harpies made their nests [10][ii]10-12. The Harpies are voracious, filthy birds with maidens’ faces. On the Strophades is!ands, off Messenia, where they dwelt, their foul presence repeatedly interrupted the Trojans’ repast; and finally one of them uttered so threatening a prophecy that the warriors hastily departed.
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades
With prophecy of baleful prophecy of coming pests.
Wide wings, and human necks and visages,
Clawed feet, and a gross belly plumed below,
They make lament above on the strange trees.
“Before thou further dost adventure, know
That thou art in the second ring, from which,”
The gracious Master said, “thou canst not go
Until the terrible great sand thou reach.[iii]19. “The terrible great sand’: the third ring, consisting of a waste of sand, upon which falls a rain of fire.
Thou shalt see here—therefore look well around— [20]
Things which may take the credence from my speech.”
Even then I heard on all sides wailing sound,
But of those making it saw no one nigh;
Wherefore I stood still, in amazement bound.
I think he thought that I thought that the cry
Of those so many voices came from folk
Who ‘mid those trees hid, at our coming shy.
So now the Master said: “If thy hand broke
A shoot from any branch, the thoughts that went
With thy conjecture soon wouldst thou revoke.” [30]
Then I stretched forth my hand a little, and bent
And plucked a puny branch from a great thorn.
And the trunk cried out: “Why hast thou me rent?”
And when it grew embrowned with blood, so torn,
It cried again: “Why hast thou wounded me?
Wast thou without one breath of pity born?
Men were we, and are now turned each to a tree.
If souls of serpents were within us penned,
Still should compassion have been found in thee.”
As a green brand, that burneth at one end, [40]
At the other drips and hisses from the wood
Where the escaping wind and fire contend,
So from that broken splinter words and blood
Together came: whereat, like one afraid,
I let the tip fall and all silent stood.
“If he, O wounded spirit,” my sage then said,
“Had but been able to believe before
What he has seen but in my verse portrayed,[iv]48. “But in my verse . . .”: i.e., in the story of Polydorus in Aeneid III, 22-43.
He would not have stretched hand to hurt so sore;
But the incredible thing moved me to prove [50]
To him what now I do myself deplore.
But tell him who thou wast; so that thereof
To make amends, he may thy fame renew,
Where grace permits him to return, above.”
Then the trunk: “Thy sweet words so melt me through,
My lips cannot keep silence; if to impart
My tale I linger, may it not burden you.
I am he who held both keys of Frederick’s heart,[v]58.“I am he . . .”: Pier delle Vigne, who entered the court of Frederick I as a notary, and so won the confidence and affection of the sovereign that for over twenty years he was entrusted with the most important affairs of the realm. In 1248, or 1249, he was accused and convicted of treason; his eyes were put out, and according to one account he was condemned by the Emperor to be led in derision, on an ass, from town to town. To escape dishonour, he killed himself. by dashing his head against a wall. Piero, as Dante conceived him, is a magnanimous courtier, and most pathetic in his unshaken devotion to the master who wronged him.
And to their wards so softly did apply,
Locking and then unlocking with such art, [60]
That few had privacy of him as I.
So loyal was I to the proud office,
That sleep and pulses both were lost thereby.
The whore that at the house where Caesar is[vi]64. “The whore” is Envy, and the house of Caesar is the Imperial court.
Will ever her adulterous glances aim,
Man’s common bane, of courts the special vice,
The minds of all against me did inflame,
And these, inflamed, inflamed my lord august
Till my glad honours withered to sad shame.
My soul into disdainful temper thrust, [70]
Thinking by death to escape the world’s disdain,
Made me, the just, unto myself unjust.
But by the fresh roots that this tree sustain
I swear that never troth unto my lord,
So worthy of honour, did I vow in vain.
If either of you be to the world restored,
Comfort my memory which still lies so low
From the stroke dealt to it by Envy’s sword.”
The poet waited; then: “Since he is slow,
Further to speak, and thou the hour hast got, [80]
Speak now and ask, if more thou wouldest know.”
Then I to him: “Demand thou of him what
Thou think’st will most my mind’s desire appease.
Such pity is in my heart, that I could not.”
He resumed therefore: “So may this man ease,
By doing of what thou dost entreat, thy pain,
Now, O imprisoned spirit, may it please
To tell us how the soul becomes the grain
Of this gnarled wood; tell us too, if thou may’st,
Whether any from such limbs deliverance gain.” [90]
Then the trunk sighed out strongly until the blast
Of breath became voice into language knit:
“My answer into brief words shall be cast.
When the fierce spirit doth the body quit
From which it hath with violence broken out,
Minos consigns it to the seventh pit.
It falls into the wood, and there, without
Place chosen for it but as fortune dole,
Like any grain of spelt it comes to sprout,
Shoots up to a sapling and a forest bole; [100]
Then the Harpies feeding on its leaves, their nest,
Make for it both pain and the pain’s loop-hole[vii]102. By breaking the leaves, they provide an outlet.
We shall go seek our spoils out, like the rest,
But not to be again in them arrayed;
He earns not that who himself hath dispossessed.
Either shall we drag them through the grievous glade
And on the boughs our bodies shall be strung,
Each on the thorn-tree of its guilty shade.”
We still upon the voice attentive hung,
Supposing it desired to tell us more, [110]
When suddenly we heard a noise upsprung,
Like one who hears the coming of the boar
And hunt behind it on his place intrude,
And hears the branches crash and beasts’ uproar.
And on the left hand lo! two spirits pursued,
Naked and torn, who fled at speed so sick
That all the ground with broken boughs they strewed.
The foremost: “O come now, Death, O come quick!”
And the other, finding feet too slow to escape:
“Thy heels made no such answer to the prick, [120]
Lano, at Toppo jousts.” And then, mayhap,[viii]121. The spendthrift Lano of Siena perished in the battle of Pieve del Toppo. The speaker is Giacomo da Sant’Andrea.
Because the breath was failing in him, he
Made of himself and of a bush one shape.
Behind, the wood was full, from tree to tree,
Of great black mastiffs, running with such gust
As greyhounds from their leashes slipping free.
Into him, as he crouched, their teeth they thrust
And tore him all asunder, shred by shred,
To carry his woeful limbs off as they lust.
My Guide now took me by the hand and led [130]
My steps up to the bush, that vainly sighed
Lamenting through its fractures as they bled.
“O Giacomo da Sant’ Andrea,” it cried,[ix]133. The soul in the bush, whose identity is uncertain, addresses the second of the two runners, a mad prodigal.
“What blame have I of thy sins, or what good
Get’st thou by coming in my screen to hide?”
The Master spoke, when by it now he stood:
“Who wast thou who through all these wounds dost blow
Thy sorrowful speech forth, mingled with thy blood?”
And he to us: “Ye spirits that witness how
I have been with so great ignominy torn [140]
That these my leaves are severed from the bough,
Gather them close about the bush forlorn!
My city is that which changed its first patron[x]143. “My city”: Florence, whose first patron, according to tradition, was Mars, The new patron was John the Baptist, whose image adorned the florin, The Florentines gave up martial valour for money making.
To choose the Baptist; for which act of scorn
He by his arts will ever make it groan;
And were it not that Arno doth retain
Upon her bridge some shadow of him in stone,[xi]147. “Some shadow of him . . .”: an old stone statue, supposed to represent the God of War, stood at the head of the Ponte Vecchio.
Those citizens who the city built again
On the ashes left by Attila’s decree,[xii]149. It was believed that Attila, King of the Huns, had destroyed Florence.
Would have expended all their toil in vain. [150]
I made my gibbet of my own roof-tree.”[xiii]151. ”Gibbet”: place of execution. Two of the earliest commentators say that this sinner hanged himself with a girdle in his house.