Inferno
Canto XVI
Three Florentines detach themselves from a troop of spirits and hail Dante as their countryman. Of the fate of two of them, Tegghiaio and Rusticucci, whom he admired for their political uprightness, he had already been told vaguely in Canto VI. They ask if Florence is really so degenerate as they have heard, and at Dante’s answer depart sorrowfully. The poets have now arrived at the place where the stream falls roaring over into a great abyss: but how are they to descend? Virgil takes the cord which Dante wears as a girdle and throws it down into the pit; and to Dante’s astonishment a strange monster floats up and poises itself on the brink of the precipice.
Already I had come to where the boom
Of water falling into the other ring[i]2. “The other ring” is the eighth circle, separated from the seventh by a mighty precipice.
Was heard resounding like a bee-hive’s hum,
When three shades parted, in their haste running
Together, from a troop that passed beside
Beneath the rain that scorched them with its sting.
Toward us they ran and each with one voice cried:
“Stop thou! Of our corrupted city’s brood
Thou seem’st, if by thy dress thou art not belied.”
Ah me, what scars I saw, both old and crude, [10]
Upon their bodies burnt unto the bone!
Even at the thought of it is my pain renewed.
My Teacher lent a grave ear to their moan,
Turned his face to me, and then said, “Now give heed
For unto these should courtesy be shown.
Were it not for the arrowy fire indeed
This place engenders, I would say for thee
Rather than them ’twere fitting to make speed.”
They, as we stood still, wailed their ancient dree
Afresh, and when they had arrived quite close [20]
Made of themselves a wheel there, all the three.
As champions do, when stript and oiled they choose[ii]22. “Champions”: the wrestlers and boxers of ancient times.
With the eye their hold and purchase, ere to get
At grips they come with thrusting and with blows,
So, as they wheeled, each one his visage set
Continually toward me, in such wise
That the neck travelled counter to the feet.
And “If this crumbling region’s miseries,”
One began, “and our burnt and blackened fell
Cause thee not our petitions to despise, [30]
Let our renown incline thy heart to tell
What man thou art whose living feet tread so
Unterrified the thoroughfare of Hell.
He in whose steps thou seest me trample, although
All naked now he goes, and parched and peeled,
Was higher in degree than thou canst know.
Grandson of good Gualdrada, he upheld[iii]37. “Gualdrada” was renowned for her beauty and modesty. Her grandson, Guido Guerra, was a distinguished Florentine Guelph.
The name of Guido Guerra, and in his days
Great service did with counsel and in the field.
The other who in the sand behind me stays [40]
Is Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose fame
Should in the world above have earned him praise.[iv]42. Tegghiaio, of the Adimari family, was an illustrious citizen of Florence in the middle part of the thirteenth century. If his counsel had been heeded, his countrymen would have escaped the defeat of Montaperti in 1260.
And I who with them to the torment came
Was Iacopo Rusticucci; and more than aught[v]44. Of Jacopo Rusticucci, a contemporary of the other two, little is recorded. Nothing is known of his wife.
It is my fierce wife who hath brought me blame.”
Could I a shelter from the fire have got
I would have flung me down among them there,
Nor had my Guide forbidden it, I thought;
But since I should have burnt from heel to hair,
Terror prevailed that good will to constrain [50]
Which made me greedy their embrace to share.
Then I began: “Sorrow and not disdain
Of your condition did my heart imbrue
So deeply that not soon will fade the pain,
When this my lord spoke words wherefrom I drew
Such thought as expectation in me nursed
That there might be approaching such as you.
I am of your city; and always from the first
Your names with honour did my heart recall
And with affection heard your deeds rehearsed. [60]
For the sweet apples, leaving soon the gall,
I go, as promised me my trusted Guide,
But to the centre needs that first I fall.”
“So may thy spirit long time,” he replied,
“Sustain thy members and their motions fill,
And so thy fame bright after thee abide,
Tell us if courtesy and valour still
Dwell in our city, once their old resort,
Or have they quite abandoned her to ill?
Guglielmo Borsiere, who time but short [70][vi]70. The newly arrived Guglielmo Borsiere is known to us only through a story in Boccaccio’s Decameron, I, 8.
Has suffered with us, and is yonder gone
With the others, grieves us sore by his report.”
“Because new men and sudden gains have sown
In thee the seeds of luxury and pride,
Florence, thou hast already cause to groan.”
Thus, lifting up my countenance, I cried.
The three, who knew they had their answer got,
As men when truth is told, each other eyed.
“If other times thou canst so free of scot,”
They all replied, “make answer in like case, [80]
Thus as thou list, thou art lucky in thy lot.
Therefore if thou escape this dismal pass
And win to see the beauteous stars again,
When it shall pleasure thee to say ‘I was,’
See that thou speak of us to living men.”
Then broke they up their wheel, and as they fled
Their nimble legs seemed wings upon the plain.
Truly an Amen could not have been said
So quickly as those spirits disappeared:
Wherefore it pleased my Master to be sped. [90]
I followed him and after a little neared
So close the falling water with its din
That, speaking, we had scarce each other heard.
As that stream, which its own path doth begin[vii]94-99. The roaring cataract in Hell is compared to the noisy falls of the Montone river. “Monte Veso” is Monviso. One of the three upper branches of the Montone is the “Acquaqueta” which, at Forli, gives up that name, and merges into the Montone.
From Monte Veso with an eastward aim
Upon the left slope of the Apennine
And, Acquaqueta called, is still the same
Till it descends into its nether bed
And at Forli is emptied of that name,
Resoundeth, falling in one full cascade [100][viii]100-103. “St. Benedict” (San Benedetto dell’ Alpi) is a little village. The river roars because it falls over a single ledge, when it ought to be caught by a thousand.
Above St. Benedict of the Mountain, where
A thousand their safe refuge might have made,
So, thundering from a bank and plunging sheer,
That crimsoned water on our senses smote
So that ere long it would have stunned the ear.[ix]106. The significance of the “cord” has been variously interpreted It must stand for something upon which Dante at one time built false hopes, but now, at the command of Reason, discards.
had a cord that girdled me about,
‘And one time had I thought within its noose
To catch the leopard with the spotted coat.
When from my loins I had made it wholly loose,
I gave it to my Guide, upcoiled and wound, [110]
Even as he commanded, for his use.
He bent him on the right side toward the ground,
‘And some few paces from the precipice
He flung it forth into that pit profound.
“Surely it must be something strange shall rise,”
I inly said, “by this strange signal brought
Which thus my Master follows with his eyes.”
Ah, well should men be circumspection taught
With those who see not only the deed done
But with their mind look through into the thought. [120]
He said to me: “There will come up anon
What I expect, and what thou seest in dream
Must soon be plain for sight to look upon.”
Ever from truths which liker falsehood seem,
Far as man may, one should his lips refrain,
For, blameless, he yet hazards disesteem;
But speak I needs must here, and by the strain
Of this my Comedy, reader, I aver—
So may it some enduring favour gain—
That I saw through that gross and gloomy air [130]
Come swimming up a shape, miraculous
To any mind, unshaken howsoe’er;
Like one who reappears from where he goes[x]133-136. To the observer above, a diver, returning to the surface, is foreshortened and magnified by the intervening water.
To undo the anchor which, far down, grapnels
A rock or aught else hidden in the ooze;
Who stretches arms up, and draws in the heels.