Inferno
Canto VII
Plutus, the ancient God of Riches (who seems to be identified or confused by Dante with Pluto), presides over the Fourth Circle. Here are the Misers and the Spendthrifts, abusers of worldly goods in different ways. They roll dead weights in opposite directions and when they meet scold each other. Dante inquires of the function of Fortune, which Virgil explains. They arrive at the descent into the Fifth Circle, accompanying the fall of a stream which has worn a passage to form the marsh of Styx below. Here are the Wrathful, quarrelling in the mud, and the Sullen, sunk beneath it. The poets arrive at last at the foot of a tower.
PAPE SATAN, aleppe, pape Satan!”[i]1. The first line is evidently intended to produce the effect of an unintelligible jargon.
That gentle sage who knew what all speech meant,
When Plutus thus with clucking noise began,
Said for my comfort: “Fear not, nor repent
Thy journey; for our descending of this rock
Whatever power he hath shall not prevent.”
He turned him to that swollen visage and spoke;
“Cease, thou accursed Wolf, thy rage to spit!
Within thyself consume it till thou choke.
Not without cause our journey is to the pit. [10]
There is it willed on high, where Michaël
For the rebel arrogance took vengeance fit.”[ii]12. “The rebel arrogance”: the revolt of the angels.
As sails that sudden gusts of tempest swell,
Fall when the mast breaks, tangled past amend,
So to the ground that cruel goblin fell.
Thus down to the fourth hollow we descend,
Taking the more in of that bank of woe
Wherein all the evil of the world is penned.
Ah! Divine Justice! Who crowds throe on throe,
Toil upon toil, such as mine eyes now met? [20]
And why doth guilt of ours consume us so?
Like to the wave above Charybdis’ threat[iii]22. “Charybdis”: in the Strait of Messina.
That breaks against the wave it meeteth there,
So are the people here at counter set.
Here saw I troops more numerous than elsewhere
With yells prolonged on this side and that side
Rolling dead weights with full chest pushing square.
Smiting against each other in force they vied,
Then wheeled about just there and rolled them back.
“Why holdest thou?” “Why flingest away?” they cried. [30]
Thus they return along the dismal track
On either hand to the point opposite,
And their refrain of scolding never slack.
Then everyone when he had compassed it
Through his half-circle turned to the other mark,
And my heart felt as though itself were hit.
“Master mine,” said I, “lighten my mind’s dark.
Who are these? And all those that the tonsure wear,
Those on our left side, were they each a clerk?”[iv]39. “Were they each a clerk?” Clerics form a large part of the miserly host; Dante was by no means alone in regarding avarice as the besetting fault of the clergy.
And he: “All these in mind so squint-eyed were [40]
In their first life, that they were quite without
All measure, whether to expend or spare.
Most clearly may’st thou tell this from their shout
When they the two points of the circle have won
Where contraries of guilt divide the rout.
Priests were they that no hairy cover have on
Their heads, and Popes, and Cardinals, in whom
Avarice hath its utmost mischief done.”
And I: “Master, among this crew are some
Whose faces surely I should recognise, [50]
Who were polluted with this evil scum.”
And he to me: “Confused is thy surmise.
The squalor that in life their senses shut
Now makes them too dim to be known of eyes.
For ever at one another must they butt.
These from the grave shall rise up with fists tight,
Those others with their very hair close-cut.
Ill-giving, ill-hoarding, lost for them the light
Of the bright world, and in this scuffing caught.
I beautify no words to tell their plight. [60]
Now, my son, see to what a mock are brought
The goods of Fortune’s keeping, and how soon!
Though to possess them still is all man’s thought.
For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever was, never could buy repose
For one of those souls, faint to have that boon.”
“Master,” said I, “tell me from what power rose
This Fortune upon whom thy word did glance.
What is she, whose grasp doth the world’s good enclose?”
And he to me: “How heavy the ignorance, [70]
O foolish creatures, that on you is laid!
Hear now my judgment of her governance.
The wisdom that transcendeth all, and made
The heavens and gave them guides to rule them right,[v]74. “And gave them guides”: the angels, who govern the revolutions of the spheres.
So that each splendour should the other aid
With equal distribution of the light,
In like sort also a general minister[vi]77. “A general minister’: Fortune, a power similar to the celestial intelligences that move the heavens. It is her mission to shift prosperity to and fro, without apparent plan, seeing that it remain not too long with one person, family, or nation.
Set over this world’s glory and fond delight,
From time to time those vain goods to transfer
From people to people, and from class to class, [80]
Beyond cunning of mortals to deter.
Hence the empire from that race to this must pass,
In wax and wane obeying her decree
Which lurketh like a snake hid in the grass.
She is past your wit to understand; but she
Provideth, judgeth, governeth her own,
As the other Gods do theirs in their degree.
To her mutations is no respite known.
Necessity in her forbiddeth pause:
Thus comes he oft who is raised or overthrown. [90]
This is she who is cursed without a cause,
And even from those hath maledictions got,
Unjustly, of whom she should have won applause.
But she is in her bliss, and hears them not.
In chime with the other primal creatures glad,[vii]95. “Primal creatures”: the angels.
She turns her sphere and tastes her blissful lot.[viii]96. “Her sphere”: the wheel, the traditional symbolic attribute of Fortune.
Descend we now to miseries more sad.
The stars that when I set forth climbed on high[ix]98. The stars which were rising in the east when they started have now crossed the meridian and begun to descend towards the west: it is past midnight. Virgil usually states the hour in astronomical terms.
Sink, and to stay too long my charge forbad.”
To the other bank we crossed the circle, nigh [100]
Above a spring that boiled and overflowed
Down through the cleft it wore to issue by.
Darker than blackest purple the water showed.
We followed down the sombre stream’s decline
And reached the floor below by a strange road.
These sullen waves into a fen combine
Called Styx, whenas the water’s last descent[x]107. The Styx was the most famous of the rivers of the classic lower world.
Reaches the foot of that grey scarp malign.
And I who stood with fixed looks intent
Saw muddied people in that slough who stuck, [110]
All naked and with brows in anger bent.
Not with hands only each the other struck
But with the head and breast and heels that spurn:
At one another with their teeth they pluck.
“Son,” said the gracious Master, “here discern
The souls of those whom anger stupefied.
And I would have thee for a surety learn
That sobbing underneath the water abide
People who make the surface bubble and froth,
As the eye may tell, turned to whatever side. [120]
Fixed in slime, groan they: “We were sullen and wroth
In the sweet air made glad by the Sun’s fire;
We fumed and smouldered inly, lapt in sloth,
And now we gloom and blacken in the mire.’
This sad refrain they gurgle in their throat
Because they cannot speak the words entire.”
We 'twixt the dry bank and the putrid moat
Compassed a wide are of those waters sour,
And still those swallowers of the filth we note.
At last we reached the basis of a tower. [130][xi]130. Here, as frequently, Dante breaks his narrative at an interesting point, using suspense as a means of heightening effect.