Inferno
Canto XXIII
Dante, following in Virgil’s steps, begins to fear that they will be overtaken the revengeful demons. They are in fact pursued, and only escape by hurried flight, Virgil making a glissade, with Dante in his arms, down the slope of the next chasm. Here are the Hypocrites pacing in copes of lead, heavier than those devised by Frederick II for malefactors. Two Friars of Bologna speak with Dante; they were in 1266 installed in the office of Podesta at Florence. Suddenly Dante catches sight of Caiaphas crucified on the ground. One of the Friars tells of the punishment of him and Annas, and afterwards points out to the poets the right path for them to take.
SILENT, lonely, and with no company,
One before and one after, as on their way
Journey the Minor Friars, journeyed we.[i]3. “Minor Friars”: Franciscans. In Aesop’s fable, a frog, having offered to tow a rat across a stream, ties itself to the animal, jumps in with it, and then treacherously tries to dive to the bottom, expecting to drown its companion. While the rat is struggling to keep afloat, a kite, seeing the disturbance, swoops down and carries off both creatures. The beginning and the end of the fable, Dante says, are exactly like the recent episode.
My thought, that lingered on the present fray,
Was turned to Aesop and his fable, where
The frog would the inveigled mouse betray.
For Yes and Yea make not a better pair
Than that with this case, if but with good heed
End and beginning be accoupled fair.
And, as one thought springs from another's seed, [10]
So out of that soon did another start
Which made my first fear double terror breed.
Through us it is, my thought was, that these smart
And suffer such derision as is bound
To mortify and sting them to the heart;
And if with rage their enmity be crowned,
They will come after us with more cruel tread
Than, snapping at the leveret, comes the hound.
Already I felt my hair all rise in dread
And stood with backward gaze and anxious brow, [20]
As “Master, if thou hide not quickly,” I said,
“Thyself and me, I have terror, I avow,
Evil-Talons; they are close behind:
I so imagine them, I hear them now.”
And he: “Were I of glass and leaden-lined,
Thine outward image were not in me shown
Sooner than now is the image of thy mind.
Already thy thoughts came among my own
With the like motion and the self-same face,
So that the two to one resolve have grown. [30]
If the right bank so shelves down to its base
That we may into the next pouch descend,
We shall escape from that foreboded chase.”
Of these words hardly had he made an end
When them I saw, coming with outspread wing
Not far off, ardent us to apprehend.
My Guide suddenly seized me, hurrying
‘As a mother whom the roar and cries awake,
Who sees the flames quite near her start and spring
Snatches her child and flieth, for his sake [40]
More than her own, and has no thought to stop
So long as even a shift on her to take;
And down the hard rock from the ridge’s top
Supine resigned him to its sloping side
Which on one hand walls the next valley up.
Never so fast by sluice did water glide
To make revolve the wheel of a land-mill,
Close on the paddles gathering speed to slide,
As slid my Master down that slanting hill,
And me upon his bosom, as his son, [50]
Not now as his companion, carried still.
Scarce had his feet down to the level won
Of the deep hollow, when they were on the height
Above us; but all fear of them was gone;
For the high Providence that did commit
To them the warding of that fifth ravine
Takes from them all the power of leaving it.
There in the moat beneath was to be seen
A painted people who circled with slow tread
Weeping, with drooping and defeated mien. [60]
They wore cloaks with a deep hood on the head
Over their eyes, according to the mode
Wherein the monks of Cluny are habited.
Without, these were so gilded that they glowed
To the eye; within all lead, and so heavy
That Frederick’s were of straw to such a load.[ii]66. The leaden cloaks which Frederick I put upon criminals were, in comparison with these, as light as straw.
O weary mantle in that eternity!
We turned again to the left hand, and drew
Along with them, intent on their deep sigh.
But under the aching weight so slow that crew [70]
Came on, that at each movement of the thighs
The company abreast of us was new.
Wherefore I to my Guide: “Do thou devise
To find one who by deed or name is known,
And, as we go on, move around thine eyes.”
And one, who recognised the Tuscan tone,
Cried after us: “O stay, relax your speed,
Ye who so run through this our dismal zone.
Perchance from me thou’lt have what thou dost need.”
Whereat my Guide turned round on me and said, [80]
“Delay a little, and at his pace proceed.”
I stood still, and saw two whose looks betrayed
Their mind’s haste to be with me, but whom the throng
And the weight that they were burdened with delayed.
When they came up to us, they stood gazing long
Askance at me, but uttered not a word;
Then turned to each other and spoke themselves among:
“By the working of his throat this one appeared
Alive; and if dead, why of the heavy shroud
Have they permission to go undeterred?” [90]
To me they spoke then: “Tuscan, to this crowd
That comest where the hypocrites go sad,
Be not, to tell us who thou art, too proud.”
And I to them: “By Arno’s water glad
Was I born; in that city did I grow,
And am with the body I have always had.
But ye, who are ye, from whom distils such woe
As I behold down-dropping either cheek?
What punishment upon you glitters so?”
And one of them replied: “Of lead so thick [100]
Our orange copes are that the balances
By the greatness of the weights are made to creak.
Jovial Friars were we, and Bolognese;[iii]103-108. The brethren of the lay order of Beata Maria were not required to lead an ascetic life, and were nicknamed “Jovial Friars.” Catalano de’ Malavolti and Loderingo degli Andalo were both men of great authority, and successful mayors of several cities. “Together both . . . thy city chose . . .”: it was customary in Florence, as in many other cities, to choose as mayor for a term some distinguished outsider. In 1266, however instead of “one alone,” two mayors, one from each party, were elected as a compromise. “Gardingo”: an old Longobard fortress in Florence. Near it were the houses of the Uberti, which were destroved in 1266, when the Ghibellines left the city.
I Catalano, he Loderingo; and us,
Though to choose one alone the custom is,
Together both at once thy city chose
For maintenance of its peace; and how we bore
Ourselves in office the Gardingo shows.”
I began: “Friars, your misdeeds”—but more
Said not, for one came now before mine eyes [110]
Crucified with three stakes upon that floor.
He, when he saw me, into his beard with sighs
Blew, and contorted all his limbs as well;
And Friar Catalano, marking this,
Said: “He, impaled, on whom thy gaze doth dwell,[iv]115-16. The evil counselor is Caiaphas, who favoured the sacrifice of Christ.
Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
That one should suffer for the whole people.
Naked and cross-wise on the road he is set
As thou beholdest, and must feel what load,
Ere they have passed, is in their passing feet. [120]
His father-in-law hath wretched like abode[v]121. “His father-in-law’: Annas.
Within this fosse, with the others whose consent
For all the Jews a seed of evil sowed.”
Then I saw Virgil marvelling as he bent
Over him outstretcht on the cross, in plight
So abject, in the eternal banishment.
The Friar in these words did he then invite:
“May it not displease you, if your law permit,
To tell us if a gap be on the right
By which we both may issue and hence be quit, [130]
Nor any of the Black Angels need compel
To come and to retrieve us from this pit.”
He answered: “Nearer than thy hopes foretell
A rock that from the encircling wall doth go
Maketh a bridge across the valleys fell,
Save here where the arch is broken and roofless, so
That you may mount the ruin, which is spread
All down the slope, and heaps itself below.”
The Guide stood still a little with bended head,
Then spoke: “Maliciously did he advise [140]
Who hooks the sinners in yon seething bed.”
The Friar then: “Of the devil’s iniquities
Once in Bologna I heard told, and heard
That he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Then with long strides my Guide went onward, stirred
To trouble and with an angered look: whereat
With the laden spirits no more I conferred,
Following the prints of his beloved feet.