The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
56-63. Ulysses and Diomede, etc.: They suffer here for their joint guilt in counseling and carrying out many stratagems which Dante considered evil, though a narrator who was less passionately a partisan of the Trojans might have thought their actions justifiable methods of warfare. They are in one flame for their joint guilt, but the flame is divided, perhaps to symbolize the moral that men of evil must sooner or later come to a falling out, for there can be no lasting union except by virtue.
Their first sin was the stratagem of the Wooden Horse, as a result of which Troy fell and Aeneas went forth to found the Roman line. The second evil occurred at Scyros. There Ulysses discovered Achilles in female disguise, hidden by his mother, Thetis, so that he would not be taken off to the war. Deidamia was in love with Achilles and had borne him a son. When Ulysses persuaded her lover to sail for Troy, she died of grief.
The third count is Ulysses’ theft of the sacred statue of Pallas from the Palladium. Upon the statue, it was believed, depended the fate of Troy. Its theft, therefore, would result in Troy’s downfall.
72. since they were Greek: Dante knew no Greek, and these sinners might scorn him, first, because he spoke what to them would seem a barbarous tongue, and second, because as an Italian he would seem a descendant of Aeneas and the defeated Trojans. Virgil, on the other hand, appeals to them as a man of virtuous life (who therefore has a power over sin) and as a poet who celebrated their earthly fame. (Prof. MacAllister suggests another meaning as well: that Dante [and his world] had no direct knowledge of the Greeks, knowing their works through Latin intermediaries. Thus Virgil stood between Homer and Dante.)
80-81. one of you: Ulysses. He is the figure in the larger horn of the flame (which symbolizes that his guilt, as leader, is greater than that of Diomede). His memorable account of his last voyage and death is purely Dante’s invention.
86. Circe: Changed Ulysses’ men to swine and kept him a prisoner, though with rather exceptional accommodations.
87. Gaëta: Southeastern Italian coastal town. According to Virgil (Aeneid, VII, 1 ff.) it was earlier named Caieta by Aeneas in honor of his aged nurse.
90. Penelope: Ulysses’ wife.
98. both shores: Of the Mediterranean. 101. narrow pass: The Straits of Gilbraltar, formerly called the Pillars of Hercules. They were presumed to be the Western limit beyond which no man could navigate.
104. Ceuta: In Africa, opposite Gibraltar.
105. Seville: In Dante’s time this was the name given to the general region of Spain. Having passed through the Straits, the men are now in the Atlantic.
115. morning . . . night: East and West.
118. we raised the other pole ahead: I.e., they drove south across the equator, observed the southern stars, and found that the North Star had sunk below the horizon. The altitude of the North Star is the easiest approximation of latitude. Except for a small correction, it is directly overhead at the North Pole, shows an altitude of 45° at North latitude 45, and is on the horizon at the equator.
124. a peak: Purgatory. They sight it after five months of passage. According to Dante’s geography, the Northern hemisphere is land and the Southern is all water except for the Mountain of Purgatory which rises above the surface at a point directly opposite Jerusalem.
Canto XXVII
CIRCLE EIGHT: BOLGIA EIGHT
The Evil Counselors
The double flame departs at a word from Virgil and behind it appears another which contains the soul of COUNT GUIDO DA MONTEFELTRO, a Lord of Romagna. He had overheard Virgil speaking Italian, and the entire flame in which his soul is wrapped quivers with his eagerness to hear recent news of his wartorn country. (As Farinata has already explained, the spirits of the damned have prophetic powers, but lose all track of events as they approach.)
Dante replies with a stately and tragic summary of how things stand in the cities of Romagna. When he has finished, he asks Guido for his story, and Guido recounts his life, and how Boniface VIII persuaded him to sin.
When it had finished speaking, the great flame
stood tall and shook no more. Now, as it left us
with the sweet Poet’s license, another came
along that track and our attention turned
to the new flame: a strange and muffled roar
rose from the single tip to which it burned.
As the Sicilian bull—that brazen spit
which bellowed first (and properly enough)
with the lament of him whose file had tuned it—
was made to bellow by its victim’s cries
in such a way, that though it was of brass,
it seemed itself to howl and agonize:
so lacking any way through or around
the fire that sealed them in, the mournful words
were changed into its language. When they found
their way up to the tip, imparting to it
the same vibration given them in their passage
over the tongue of the concealed sad spirit,
we heard it say: “O you at whom I aim
my voice, and who were speaking Lombard, saying:
‘Go now, I ask no more,’ just as I came—
though I may come a bit late to my turn,
may it not annoy you to pause and speak a while:
you see it does not annoy me—and I burn.
If you have fallen only recently
to this blind world from that sweet Italy
where I acquired my guilt, I pray you, tell me:
is there peace or war in Romagna? for on earth
I too was of those hills between Urbino
and the fold from which the Tiber springs to birth.”
I was still staring at it from the dim
edge of the pit when my Guide nudged me, saying:
“This one is Italian; you speak to him.”
My answer was framed already; without pause
I spoke these words to it: “O hidden soul,
your sad Romagna is not and never was
without war in her tyrants’ raging blood;
but none flared openly when I left just now.
Ravenna’s fortunes stand as they have stood
these many years: Polenta’s eagles brood
over her walls, and their pinions cover Cervia.
The city that so valiantly withstood
the French, and raised a mountain of their dead,
feels the Green Claws again. Still in Verrucchio
the Aged Mastiff and his Pup, who shed
Montagna’s blood, raven in their old ranges.
The cities of Lamone and Santerno
are led by the white den’s Lion, he who changes
his politics with the compass. And as the city
the Savio washes lies between plain and mountain,
so it lives between freedom and tyranny.
Now, I beg you, let us know your name;
do not be harder than one has been to you;
so, too, you will preserve your earthly fame.”
And when the flame had roared a while beneath
the ledge on which we stood, it swayed its tip
to and fro, and then gave forth this breath:
“If I believed that my reply were made
to one who could ever climb to the world again,
this flame would shake no more. But since no shade
ever returned—if what I am told is true—
from this blind world into the living light,
without fear of dishonor I answer you.
I was a man of arms: then took the rope
of the Franciscans, hoping to make amends:
and surely I should have won to all my hope
but for the Great Priest—may he rot in Hell!—
who brought me back to all my earlier sins;
and how and why it happened I wish to tell
in my own words: while I was still encased
in the pulp and bone my mother bore, my deeds
through tangled ways; all wiles were mine from birth,
and I won to such advantage with my arts
that rumor of me reached the ends of the earth.
But when I saw before me all the signs
of the time of life that cautions every man
to lower his sail and gather in his lines,
that which had pleased me once, troubled my spirit,
and penitent and confessed, I became a monk.
Alas! What joy I might have had of it!
It was then the Prince of the New Pharisees drew
his sword and marched upon the Lateran—
and not against the Saracen or the Jew,
for every man that stood against his hand
was a Christian soul: not one had warred on Acre,
nor been a trader in the Sultan’s land.
It was he abused his sacred vows and mine:
his Office and the Cord I wore, which once
made those it girded leaner. As Constantine
sent for Silvestro to cure his leprosy,
seeking him out among Soracte’s cells;
so this one from his great throne sent for me
to cure the fever of pride that burned his blood.
He demanded my advice, and I kept silent
for his words seemed drunken to me. So it stood
until he said: “Your soul need fear no wound;
I absolve your guilt beforehand; and now teach me
how to smash Penestrino to the ground.
The Gates of Heaven, as you know, are mine
to open and shut, for I hold the two Great Keys
so easily let go by Celestine.”
His weighty arguments led me to fear
silence was worse than sin. Therefore, I said:
“Holy Father, since you clean me here
of the guilt into which I fall, let it be done:
long promise and short observance is the road
that leads to the sure triumph of your throne.”
Later, when I was dead, St. Francis came
to claim my soul, but one of the Black Angels
said: ‘Leave him. Do not wrong me. This one’s name
went into my book the moment he resolved
to give false counsel. Since then he has been mine,
for who does not repent cannot be absolved;
nor can we admit the possibility
of repenting a thing at the same time it is willed,
for the two acts are contradictory.’
Miserable me! with what contrition
I shuddered when he lifted me, saying: ‘Perhaps
you hadn’t heard that I was a logician.’
He carried me to Minos: eight times round
his scabby back the monster coiled his tail,
then biting it in rage he pawed the ground
and cried: ‘This one is for the thievish fire!’
And, as you see, I am lost accordingly,
grieving in heart as I go in this attire.”
His story told, the flame began to toss
and writhe its horn. And so it left, and we
crossed over to the arch of the next fosse
where from the iron treasury of the Lord
the fee of wrath is paid the Sowers of Discord.
NOTES
3. with the sweet Poet’s license: The legend of Virgil as a magician and sorcerer was widespread through the Middle Ages and was probably based on the common belief that his Fourth Eclogue was a specific prophecy of the birth of Christ and of the Christian Era. Some commentators have argued as an extension of this legend that Dante assigns Virgil a magical power of conjuration over the damned, a power of white rather than black magic—that distinction being necessary to save him from damnation. Despite the fact that Dante nowhere makes that distinction himself, this interpretation can be made plausible, but only in the most incidental way. The whole idea of Virgil as a magician is trivial beside Dante’s total concept. Virgil’s power is divinely given him by Beatrice. That is, it represents Human Reason informed and commanded by Divine Love, a reassertion of a fundamental medieval theme that reason is the handmaiden of faith. His power is God’s will and is most clearly expressed in his words to Minos: “This has been willed where what is willed must be.” Only with this light within it, can reason exert its power over evil.
3. another came: Guido da Montefeltro (1223-1298). As head of the Ghibellines of Romagna, he was reputed the wisest and cunningest man in Italy.
7. the Sicilian bull: In the sixth century B.C. Perillus of Athens constructed for Phalaris, Tyrant of Sicily, a metal bull to be used as an instrument of torture. When victims were placed inside it and roasted to death, their screams passed through certain tuned pipes and emerged as a burlesque bellowing of the bull. Phalaris accepted delivery and showed his gratitude by appointing the inventor the bull’s first victim. Later Phalaris was overthrown, and he, too, took his turn inside the bull.
21. Go now, I ask no more: These are the words with which Virgil dismisses Ulysses and Diomede, his “license.”
29-30. Urbino and the fold from which the Tiber, etc.: Romagna is the district that runs south from the Po along the east side of the Apennines. Urbino is due east of Florence and roughly south of Rimini. Between Urbino and Florence rise the Coronaro Mountains which contain the headwaters of the Tiber.
39-41. Ravenna . . . Polenta’s eagles . . . Cervia: In 1300 Ravenna was ruled by Guido Vecchio da Polenta, father of Francesca da Rimini. His arms bore an eagle and his domain included the small city of Cervia about twelve miles south of Ravenna.
42-44. The city . . . the Green Claws: The city is Forlì. In 1282 Guido da Montefeltro defended Forlì from the French, but in 1300 it was under the despotic rule of Sinibaldo degli Ordelaffi, whose arms were a green lion.
44-45. Verrucchio . . . the Aged Mastiff and his Pup . . . Montagna: Verrucchio (Vehr-OO-Kyoe) was the castle of Malatesta and his son Malatestino, Lords of Rimini, whom Dante calls dogs for their cruelty. Montagna de’ Parcitati (Mon-TAH-nyah day Pahr-tchit-AH-tee), the leader of Rimini’s Ghibellines, was captured by Malatesta in 1295 and murdered in captivity by Malatestino.
47-48. Lamone and Santerno . . . the white den’s Lion: Maginardo (Mah-djin-AHR-doe) de’ Pagani (died 1302) ruled Faenza, on the River Lamone, and Imola, close by the River Santerno. His arms were a blue lion on a white field (hence “the Lion from the white den”). He supported the Ghibellines in the north, but the Guelphs in the south (Florence), changing his politics according to the direction in which he was facing.
49-50. the city the Savio washes: Cesena. It ruled itself for a number of years, but was taken over by Malatestino in 1314. It lies between Forlì and Rimini.
67. the Great Priest: Boniface VIII, so called as Pope.
82. the Prince of the New Pharisees: Also Boniface.
83. marched upon the Lateran: Boniface had had a long-standing feud with the Colonna family. In 1297 the Colonna walled themselves in a castle twenty-five miles east of Rome at Penestrino (now called Palestrina) in the Lateran. On Guido’s advice the Pope offered a fair-sounding amnesty which he had no intention of observing. When the Colonna accepted the terms and left the castle, the Pope destroyed it, leaving the Colonna without a refuge.
86-87. Acre . . . trader in the Sultan’s land: It was the Saracens who opposed the crusaders at Acre, the Jews who traded in the Sultan’s land.
90-92. Constantine . . . Silvestro . . . Soracte: In the persecutions of the Christians by the Emperor Constantine, Pope Sylvester I took refuge in the caves of Mount Soracte near Rome. (It is now called Santo Oreste.) Later, according to legend, Constantine was stricken by leprosy and sent for Sylvester, who cured him and converted him to Christianity, in return for which the Emperor was believed to have made the famous “Donation of Constantine.” (See Canto XIX.)
102. so easily let go by Celestine: Celestine V
107. long promise and short observance: This is the advice upon which Boniface acted in trapping the Colonna with his hypocritical amnesty.
109. St. Francis came: To gather in the soul of one of his monks.
110. Black Angel: A devil.
130-31. I have taken liberties with these lines in the hope of achieving a reasonably tonic final couplet. The literal reading is: “In which the fee is paid to those who, sowing discord, acquire weight (of guilt and pain).”