Inferno
Canto XX
Dante looks down on the fourth chasm of Malebolge, where the Sorcerers and Diviners go with their faces twisted so as to look behind them: Among these are Amphiaraus of Argos, one of the Seven Against Thebes, Tiresias the Theban, Aruns the Etruscan, and Manto, daughter of Tiresias, who, according to the story now put in Virgil’s mouth, founded his native city of Mantua. Virgil points out other diviners, among whom is Michael Scot, a prominent figure at the court of Frederick II in Sicily; then enjoins haste, as “Cain and his Thorns,” ie. the “man in the moon,” is setting beyond Seville (Spain being conceived as the Western boundary of the northern hemisphere, as India or “Ganges” the Eastern).
VERSE for fresh penances must I compose
To fill the first book’s twentieth canto and tell
Of the submergèd spirits and their woes.
I was now stationed so that I could well
Look down into the new discovered deep
Bathed in the tears of anguish as they fell.
In the round valley I saw a people weep
As they came on, all silent, at the pace
Our Litanies in their processions keep.
When deeper down my eyes perused the place, [10]
Each appeared strangely to be wrenched awry
Between the upper chest and lower face.
For toward the reins the chin was screwed, whereby
With gait reversed they were constrained to go,
For to look forth this posture would deny.
Perhaps by palsy’s overmastering throe
Some may have been thus quite distorted, yet
I ne’er saw such, nor think it could be so.
Reader, so God vouchsafe thee fruit to get
Of what thou readest, think now in thy mind [20]
If I could keep my cheeks from being wet
When this our image in such twisted kind
I saw, that tears out of their eyelids prest
Ran down their buttocks by the cleft behind.
Truly I wept, leant up against the breast
Of the hard granite, so that my Guide said:
“Art thou then still so foolish, like the rest?
Here pity lives when it is rightly dead.
What more impiety can he avow
Whose heart rebelleth at God’s judgment dread? [30]
Lift up thy head, lift up, and see him now
For whom in the eye of Thebes earth clove her floor:
Whereat they all cried: ‘Whither rushest thou,
Amphiaraus? Quittest thou the war?”[i]34. The story of Amphiaraus, the augur, one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes, is told by Statius in the Thebaid.
And he stopt not upon his headlong track
To Minos down, who clutcheth evermore.
Mark how the shoulders now his bosom make.
Because he wished too far in front to see
He looks behind and ever goeth back.
Behold Tiresias, who so changed that he [40][ii]40. “Tiresias,” a famous soothsayer of Thebes, having struck with his stick two snakes that were together, became a woman; seven years later, striking the same snakes again, he regained his male form.
Lost his male semblance and became woman,
Causing the transformed members all to agree.
And afterwards he needs must over again
Strike with his rod the two convolvèd snakes
Ere he could reassume the plumes of man.
With back to his belly, next his footing takes
Aruns, who in hills of Luni, where his hoe[iii]47. Aruns was an Etruscan soothsayer of Caesar’s time. The mountain cave seems to be an invention of Dante, who was in Lunigiana in 1306.
The Carrarese plies and his dwelling makes
‘Mid the white marbles, had the cave below
For his abode, wherefrom the prospect wide [50]
Of stars and sea he had not to forgo.
And yonder she who both her breasts doth hide
With her dishevelled tresses from thy view,
And has all the hairy skin on the other side,
Was Manto, who searched many countries through.[iv]55. Manto was the daughter of Tiresias of Thebes.
Then settled there where I was born; wherefore[v]56. “Where I was born”: the city of Mantua. Here Virgil launches into a lengthy account of the founding of his native place: the town was named after Manto, who ended her long wanderings on the spot where it was afterwards built.
Listen awhile, as I would have thee do.
After her father had passed out by death’s door
And Bacchus’ city in servitude was thralled,[vi]59. Bacchus was the son of the Thebean Semele. Thebes came under the rule of the tyrant Creon.
Over the world she roamed a long time more. [60]
Above in beauteous Italy lieth, walled
By the Alps behind it, Germany’s confine
Over Tiralli, a lake Benaco called.[vii]63-65. “Benaco” is Lake Garda; Garda rises on the east of it, Val Camonica is a long valley some distance west of it.
Through a thousand springs is all between Pennine
And Garda and Val Camonica hesprent
The land by streams that in that luke resign.
Midmost a place is where the pastor of Trent[viii]67. There is a point in or near the lake where the dioceses of Trent, Brescia, and Verona meet, so that any one of the three bishops might make the sign of the cross in that spot.
And he of Brescia and the Veronese
Might give their blessing if that road they went.
Peschiera, beautiful and strong fortress, [70]
Sits where the shore around is lowest seen
To front the Brescians and the Bergamese.
There down must slide what is not held within
The bosom of Benaco, and below
It swells to a river amid pastures green.
Soon as the water setteth head to flow,
No more Benaco, Mincio it is named
Far as Governol, where it meeteth Po.
Soon is his current on the level tamed
And widens into shallows smooth as glass, [80]
Sometimes in summer for miasma blamed.
By that way did the unmellowed virgin pass,
And saw land bare of any denizen
Or tillage, in the midst of the morass.
There, to shun all communion with men,
She stayed, her arts amid her thralls to ply;
There lived she and left her body in that fen.
Afterwards those who dwelt dispersed anigh
Drew to that spot which had for bastions
The swampy pools that it was compassed by. [90]
They reared the city over those dead bones,
Calling it, after her who chose it first,
Mantua, and sought no augury’s response.
In it a denser populace was nursed
Ere Casalodi’s mad pride, overawed[ix]95. The Ghibelline Pinamonte Bonaccorsi treacherously advised the Guelf Count Alberto da Casalodi, lord of Mantua, to exile the nobles so as to win the favour of the people. Following this counsel and thus losing support, Casalodi was driven from the city, with much slaughter and banishment of the Guelfs.
By Pinamonte’s cunning was reversed.
Therefore I charge thee, if e’er thou hear abroad
Given to my city other origin,
Let false invention not the truth defraud.”
And I: “Master, thy affirmations win [100]
Such certainty in me, that all else were
As a dead coal that once had kindled been.
But tell me of those that pass, if any appear
Of note, of whom thou knowest and canst speak;
For only of this my wish is bent to hear.”
Then he answered: “He whose beard juts from his cheek
Over his dusky shoulders on each hand
Was, when in Greece the males were so to seek[x]108. All the men of Greece had gone to the Trojan war.
That hardly for the cradles they remained,
An Augur: he with Calchas timed the blow [110]
Which was to sever the first cable’s strand.
Eurypylus his name: and somewhere so[xi]112-13. Eurypylus assisted Calchas the soothsayer in determining “the right moment for cutting the first cable at Aulis,” when the Greeks set sail from Troy.—“My high Tragedy”: Virgil’s Aeneid.
Doth my high Tragedy tell the tale of him:
Thou know’st it well who dost the whole well know.
The other, who looks about the flanks so slim,
Was Michael Scot; and verily he knew[xii]116. Michael Scot, the Scotch scholar, who lived many years at the court of Frederick II, had great repute as a sorcerer.
The magic game and its false signs to limn.
See Guy Bonatti, see Asdente, who[xiii]118. Guido Bonatti of Forli was a famous astrologer. Asdente, a poor cobbler of Parma, was known far and wide as a prophet.
Would fain he had still attended to his cord
And leather, but too late the choice must rue. [120]
See the sad women, who the needle ignored,
The shuttle and spindle, and with effigy
And herb devised their sorceries abhorred.
But come, Cain and his thorns, reminding me,[xiv]124. For “Cain and his thorns” see the Argument.
Occupies of each hemisphere the bound
Already, and beyond Seville meets the sea.
Already yester-eve the moon was round:
Thou must remember, for she harmed thee not
That time when thou wast in the wood profound.”
Thus as he spoke, we moved on from that spot. [130]