Purgatorio
Canto XIV
Overhearing Dante’s talk, and learning that he is still alive, two spirits, Guy del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli, engage him in conversation. The former, discovering that Dante comes from the shores of the Arno, describes the course of that accursed river down a valley in which the inhabitants of each town it passes grow ever more brutish, till it reaches Pisa, the worst of all. He predicts what Florence is to suffer (in 1308) at the hands of Rinieri’s grandson, and goes on to condemn the people of his own Romagna for os degeneracy. Virgil and Dante leave this rope of spirits, and as they go on hear voices in the air warning against envy.
WHO is this that circles round about our hill
Ere death have licensed him from earth to fly
And shuts his eyes and opens them at will?”
“I know not who he is: but this know I,
He is not alone; ask thou who art nearer him,
And sweetly accost him, so that he reply.”
Thus two shades closely huddled, limb to limb,
There on the right of me were talking low,
Then held upturned for speech their faces dim.
And the one said: “O Soul, that on dost go [10][i]10. “The one” is Guy del Duca.
Toward Heaven, though still within the body set,
For charity console us, and tell who
Thou art and whence thou comest; for so great
Astonishment is in us at thy grace
As must be at a thing known never yet.”
And I: “Through Tuscan country spreads apace
A stream from Falterona issuing[ii]17. “Falterona”: a mountain in the Apennines. “The other” is Rinieri da Calboli.
And a hundred miles contenteth not its race.
This body from the banks of it I bring.
To tell you who I am, since yet hath been [20]
But little noised my name, were a vain thing.”
“If my mind rightly pierce within that screen
To thy intention,” then to me replied
He who spoke first, “’Tis Arno thou dost mean.”
And the other said to him: “Why did he hide,
In speaking of that river, the name of it,
As one does, loathly matter to avoid?”
The shade thus questioned did him thus acquit:
“I know not, but indeed good cause he has.
That such a stream’s name perish is most fit. [30]
For from its springing, where the mountain-mass,[iii]31. “The mountain-mass”: the Apennine chain, of which Pelorum is the continuation.
Wherefrom is torn Pelorum, swells and soars
So that few points that measure overpass,
As far as where surrendered it restores
That which the sky hath sucked up from the sea,
Whence rivers have what flows between their shores,
Virtue is cast out for an enemy
By all, yea like a viper, either from
The curst place or ingrained malignancy.
And they who have the unhappy vale for home [40]
Have altered so their nature, one would swear
That into Circe’s pastures they had come.
Among brute hogs, on acorns fit to fare
Rather than viand on which man subsists,
It first directs its current poor and spare.
Curs it encounters, coming downward, beasts
Whose force is feebler than their snarlings’ threat,
And from them in contempt its muzzle twists.[iv]48. Toward Arezzo the Arno suddenly turns off to the west.
It goes down, and the more it groweth great
The more it finds the dogs to wolves transformed, [50]
This ill-starred gutter of accursed fate.
Its way then through deep gorges having wormed,
Foxes it finds that trap nor cunning fear,
So have their hearts with fraud’s devices swarmed.
Nor will I cease, for all another hear:
And well for him if later he recall
What prophecy to me discloseth clear.
I see upon those wolves thy grandson fall,[v]58. “Thy grandson”: the nephew of Rinieri, Fulcieri da Calboli, who had many citizens put to death.
To hunt them by the savage river and drive
Along its banks and terrify them all. [60]
I see him sell their flesh while yet alive,
Then kill them like old cattle,—many a head
Of life, himself of honour to deprive.
Bloody he comes forth from the wood of dread.
He leaves it such that hence a thousand years
'Tis not to its first state re-forested.”
As at the announcing of great ills appears
The face of him who listens sore disturbed,
Whence-so-ever comes the peril to his ears,
So saw I the other soul, who held him curbed [70]
To listen, become troubled and grow sad
When these words into itself it had absorbed.
The speech of the one, the look the other had
Filled me with longing that their names I knew,
And question of them, mixt with prayers, I made.
Wherefore the spirit that first spoke, now anew
Began to speak: “Thou wouldest that I agree
To indulge thee in what for me thou wilt not do.[vi]78. Dante has avoided giving his name.
But since God wills that his grace shine through thee
So greatly, I will not baulk thee, and therefore learn [80]
That Guy del Duca it is whom thou dost see.
My blood with envy did so hotly burn,
That did I see joy in a face upleap
Thou wouldst have seen my face all livid turn.
Of my own sowing such the straw I reap.
O human people, why the heart confide
There where fruition ousteth partnership?[vii]87. Upon earthly possessions.
This is Rinier, the glory and the pride
Of the house of Calboli, which house hath lacked
All sign of heir to his virtue since he died. [90]
Nor only is his blood beggared, in that tract
'Twixt Po and Reno and sea and mountain's foot[viii]92. ’Twixt Po and Reno . . .”: Romagna.
Of the good, truth and gentle ways exact,
For all within those borders the rank shoot
Of poison smothers, so that too late may
The tiller come, that canker to uproot.
Good Lizio, Hal Mainardi, where are they?[ix]97-107. In these lines are enumerated sundry noble and famous citizens of Romagna in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Guy di Carpigna and Traversaro, where?
O Romagnuols all bastardised today!
When in Bologna shall a Fabbro appear? [100]
In Faenza a Bernardin di Fosco arise
Again, fair scion for small plant to bear?
Marvel not, Tuscan, if tears fill mine eyes
When Guy of Prata I remember, and
Ugolin d’Azzo, and our friendship’s ties,
Frederic Tignoso and his comrade band,
The Traversari and Anastagi, names
Extinguished, houses heirless and dismanned,
The ladies and the knights, the toils and games
Which love and courtesy made our delight [110]
There where our hearts now wickedness inflames.
Why, O Brettinoro, didst not vanish quite,[x]112. “Brettinoro” was the birthplace of Guido [Guy] del Duca.
Since out of thee thy family is gone
With much folk, to escape their guilt by flight?
Bagnacaval does well, to bear no son;[xi]115-117. “Bagnacavallo” is a little place near Ravenna. The counts of Castrocaro (near Forli) and Conio (near Imola) were numerous and ill-famed.
But Castracaro ill, and Conio worse,
Since such Counts it hath troubled to breed on.
Well shall do the Pagani when their curse,[xii]118. “The Pagani,” a noble family of Faenza, “shall do well” to get no more sons, “when their demon,” Maghinardo, shall have died.
The Demon, quits them; not that clean of shame
May ever be their record that endures. [120]
O Ugolin de’ Fantolin, thy name[xiii]121. “Ugolino” was a worthy gentleman of Faenza.
Is safe, expecting no inheritor
To blacken and by debasing it defame.
But go thy way now, Tuscan, for far more
To weep than speak comforteth now my heart,
So hath our converse wrung it to the core.”
That those dear spirits heard our steps depart
We knew, and therefore by their silence they
Emboldened us, sure of the path, to start.
When we were left alone, bent on our way, [130]
Like lightning when it cuts the air in twain
We heard a voice that smote against us say:
“By whoever findeth me shall I be slain”[xiv]133. The first of the examples of envy is that of Cain.
And fled, like thunder in a dying peal,
If suddenly the cloud bursts with its rain.
And when our ears a truce from it could feel
The second lo! with such a crash and groan
Came, as the thunder upon thunder’s heel:
“I am Aglauros who was turned to stone.”[xv]139. Because she was envious of her sister Herse.
Then I, to press close to the Poet, slept [140]
With one foot backward and not forward thrown.
Now all around the air in quiet slept;
And he was saying: “That was the hard bit
By which within his bounds man should have kept.
But ye the bait seize, so that the hook in it
Of the old Enemy draws you to his side,
And bridle or lure therefore avails no whit.
The heavens call to you and around you glide
In circle, and their eternal beauties show,
And with earth only is your eye satisfied, [150]
Wherefore he who discerns all battereth you.”