Inferno
Canto XVII
The monster is Geryon, the emblem of Fraud, who guards the Eighth Circle; and to this the poets are now to descend on Geryon’s back. But first Dante goes alone to see a group of the third class of the violent who are punished in the burning sand. These are the Usurers, who are violent against Nature and Art. Returning to Virgil he takes his place on Geryon, who floats down the circular abyss and brings them to the next circle.
Behold the fell beast with the sharp tail curled
That mountains, walls and armour pierces through!
Behold him who corrupteth the whole world!”
Thus did my Master speak to me anew,
And beckoned him that he should come ashore
Where to the marbled causeway’s end we drew.
And that obscene image of Fraud then bore
Onward, and landed with his head and chest,
But drew not up his tail upon the scaur.
His face was as a just man’s, and expressed [10]
The mildness that its outward aspect feigned;
Like to a serpent’s trunk was all the rest.
He had two paws, up to the armpits maned
With hair; the neck and breast and either flank
Were freaked with knots and little whorls ingrained.
Never did Turk or Tartar livelier prank
With colour cloth, inlaid and overlaid;
Such dyes Arachne’s tissue never drank.[i]18. “Arachne”: the famous weaver who challenged Minerva to contest, and was turned into a spider.
As sometimes on the shore a barge is stayed,
That part in water lies and part on land; [20]
And as, where guzzling Germans dwell, to aid
His fishery, the beaver takes his stand,[ii]22. It was believed that the beaver caught fish with its tail, dangling it in the water. In the Middle Ages the beaver was associated with Germany.
So that most evil of beasts leant on the stone
Which with its rim encloses the great sand.
Out in the void flickered his tail alone,
Twisting the venomed fork up in the air
Which armed the point, as in the scorpion.
My Guide said, “Now must we a little bear
Of from our path, far as that beast that, buoyed
Upon the bank, couches in evil there.” [30]
Descending to the right hand we deployed,
And made ten paces toward the margin, so
That we might well the flame and sand avoid;
And soon as we came close upon him, lo!
A little farther upon the sandy waste
Were people sitting near the abyss a-row.[iii]36. “Were people . . .”: the usurers, who did violence to human industry.
“Here,” said to me my Master, “that thou may’st
Bear with thee full experience of this ring,
Go and observe the state of these; but haste!
Brief let thy talk be. I will with this thing [40]
Be parleying, till thou return again,
That to his strong back he may let us cling.”
Thus on the extreme border of the plain
Of that seventh circle, all alone I went
To where that folk were seated in their pain.
Through the eyes their grief in torrents was unpent.
This side and that their hands twisted about,
Some shield from flame or hot soil to invent.
Not otherwise the dogs in summer drought,
When they are bitten by the fleas or flies, [50]
Defend themselves, either with paw or snout.
After I had scanned the faces with my eyes
Of many on whom the dread fire falling smote,
I found not one that I could recognise,
But saw on each a pouch, hung from the throat,
With a certain colour and device impressed,
And on it with their gaze they seemed to gloat.
As I came close to them, mine eyes at quest
Saw azure on a yellow purse display
A lion’s face and figure for a crest. [60][iv]60. The azure lion here, the goose on line 63, and the sow on line 64, are the arms of three well-known families of usurers.
Then as my look continued on its way
Another, red as blood, I noted now
Whereon was stampt a goose more white than whey.
And one, whose argent wallet with a sow,
Azure and pregnant, was imprinted, cried:
“What in this ditch of misery doest thou?
Get thee away, and as thou hast not yet died,
Know, neighbour Vitaliano shall appear[v]68. Of “Vitaliano,” the only one of the usurers mentioned by name, we have no certain information.
And come to seat himself at my left side.
Florentine these are, Paduan I, whose ear [70]
Their cries belabour often as with blows,
Shouting ‘Let come the sovereign cavalier
Who brings the pouch with three goats where he goes.’[vi]73. “Three goats” were the arms of the Becchi family of Florence. It is thought that the “sovereign cavalier’ of usurers is Gianni Buiamonte, the head of a money-lending company. ”
Then with his mouth he writhed and sudden sent
His tongue out, like an ox that licks his nose.
And I, dreading my lord’s admonishment,
Lest longer stay should his displeasure meet,
Turned and went back from those spirits spent.
I found my master, who had taken seat
Already on that dread creature’s haunches bare: [80]
“Be bold,” he said, “and think not of retreat.
This way must serve us for the downward stair.
Mount thou in front, I shall the middle take,
Lest the tail, swindging, hurt thee unaware.”
Like one whom shiverings of the quartan shake
So that he has his nails already blue
And starts at the mere sight of shade to quake,
So, when these words came to me, did I grue;
But threat of shame, which makes a servant bold
Before his good lord, heartened me anew. [90]
On those great shoulders then I got me hold.
I wished to say, only the voice came not
As I had meant: “Thy arms about me fold.”
But he who at other times my succour wrought
In other peril, clasped me by the waist,
Soon as I mounted, and my body caught.
Then he: “Move, Geryon, gently as thou may’st,
Wide be thy wheelings, thy descending slow.
Think on the unusual burden that thou hast.”
As from shore glides the boat back, backward, so [100]
He launched himself from where he had come to lean;
And when he felt him wholly freed below,
His tail he turned there where his breast had been
And like an eel he moved it as to steer,
And with his paws gathered the air between.
Verily I think there was not greater fear
When Phaëthon his reins relaxing lost,[vii]107-108. Phaeton, son of Phoebus, was carried away by the horses of the chariot of the sun, which he tried to drive. The sky, scorched by the runaway chariot, still shows traces of it in the Milky Way.
Whereby heaven scorched, as ev’n now doth appear
Or when faint Icarus felt his shoulders roast[viii]109-111. Daedalus, to escape from Crete, fashioned wings for his son Icarus and himself and fastened them on with wax. In spite of his father’s warning, the boy flew so high that the sun melted the wax, and, losing his wings, he fell into the sea.
Disfeathered, as the warm’d wax was unbound. [110]
And his sire cried to him, “An ill way thou go’st,
Than was my terror when myself I found
In the air all round about me and all alone,
And save that beast all else from sight was drowned.
Slow, slowly he continueth swimming on,
Wheels and descends, but naught of this appeared.
Save on my face a wind from under blown.
Already upon the right the stream I heard
Roar horribly beneath us; and I lowered
My head, and forth with eyes bent down I peered. [120]
Then feared I the dismounting that was toward
Yet more, for fires I saw, and crying keen
I heard, so that my limbs all trembling cowered.
I saw, what heretofore I had not seen,
The sinking and the wheeling, shown me by
The nearing on all sides of bale and teen.
As falcon, after flying long and high,
That has no lure nor any bird in sight,
And “Oh, thou stoopest” makes the falconer cry,
Weary descends where swift he started flight, [130]
Makes many a circle, and from his master far
Goes sullen and disdainful to alight;
So Geryon at the bottom of the scar
Set us beside the rock’s foot, ribbed and rough,
And when he was disburdened of our care
Like arrow from the string he bounded off.