CANTO XVI

The Divine Comedy - Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Translated by Charles Eliot Norton

CANTO XVI, THE DIVINE COMEDY - INFERNO by Alighieri Dante
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Third round of the Seventh Circle: of those who have
done violence to Nature.--Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi and
Jacopo Rusticucci.--The roar of Phlegethon as it pours downward.-
-The cord thrown into the abyss.

Now was I in a place where the resounding of the water that was
falling into the next circle was heard, like that hum which the
beehives make, when three shades together separated themselves,
running, from a troop that was passing under the rain of the
bitter torment. They came toward us, and each cried out, "Stop
thou, that by thy garb seemest to us to be one from our wicked
city!"

Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs, recent and old, burnt
in by the flames. Still it grieves me for them but to remember
it.

To their cries my Teacher gave heed; he turned his face toward
me, and "Now wait," he said; "to these one should be courteous,
and were it not for the fire that the nature of the place shoots
out, I should say that haste better befitted thee than them."

They began again, when we stopped, the old verse, and when they
had reached us they made a wheel of themselves all three. As
champions naked and oiled are wont to do, watching their hold and
their vantage, before they come to blows and thrusts, thus,
wheeling, each directed his face on me, so that his neck in
contrary direction to his feet was making continuous journey.

"Ah! if the misery of this shifting sand bring us and our prayers
into contempt," began one, "and our darkened and blistered
aspect, let our fame incline thy mind to tell us who thou art,
that so securely plantest thy living feet in Hell. He whose
tracks thou seest me trample, though he go naked and singed, was
of greater state than thou thinkest. Grandson he was of the good
Gualdrada; his name was Guidoguerra, and in his life he did much
with counsel, and with the sword. The other who treads the sand
behind me is Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose fame should be welcome
in the world above. And I, who am set with them on the cross, was
Jacopo Rusticucci,[1] and surely my savage wife more than aught
else injures

[1] Concerning Tegghiaio and Rusticucci Dante had enquired of
Ciacco, Canto vi. They and Guido Guerra were illustrious citizens
of Florence in the thirteenth century. Their deeds are recorded
by Villani and Ricordano Malespini. The good Gualdrada, famed for
her beauty and her modesty, was the daughter of Messer
Bellincione Berti, referred to in Cantos w. and wi. of Paradise
as one of the early worthies of the city. See O. Villani,
Cronica. V. xxxvii.


If I could have been sheltered from the fire I would have cast
myself below among them, and I think that the Teacher would have
permitted it; but because I should have been scorched and baked,
fear overcame my good will that made me greedy to embrace them.
Then I began: "Not contempt, but grief, did your condition fix
within me, so that slowly will it be all divested, soon as this
my Lord said words to me by which I understood that such folk as
ye are might be coming. Of your city I am; and always your deeds
and honored names have I retraced and heard with affection. I
leave the gall and go for the sweet fruits promised me by my
veracious Leader; but far as the centre needs must I first
descend."

"So may thy soul long direct thy limbs," replied he then, "and so
may thy fame shine after thee, say if courtesy and valor abide in
our city as they were wont, or if they have quite gone forth from
it? For Guglielmo Borsiere,[1] who is in torment with us but
short while, and goes yonder with our companions, afflicts us
greatly with his words."

[1] Nothing is known from contemporary record of Borsiere, bnt
Boccaccio tells a story of him in the Decameron, giorn. i. nov.
8.


"The new people and the sudden gains [1] have generated pride and
excess, Florence, in thee, so that already thou weepest thereat."
Thus cried I with face uplifted. And the three, who understood
that for answer, looked one at the other, as men look at hearing
truth.

[1] Florence had grown rapidly in population and in wealth during
the last years of the thirteenth century.


"If other times it costeth thee so little," replied they all, "to
satisfy others, happy thou that thus speakest at thy pleasure.
Therefore, if thou escapest from these dark places, and returnest
to see again the beautiful stars, when it shall rejoice thee to
say, 'I have been,' mind thou speak of us unto the people." Then
they broke the wheel, and in flying their swift legs seemed
wings.

Not an amen could have been said so quickly as they had
disappeared; wherefore it seemed good to my Master to depart. I
followed him, and we had gone little way before the sound of the
water was so near to us, that had we spoken we scarce had heard.
As that river on the left slope of the Apennine, which, the first
from Monte Veso toward the east, has its proper course,--which is
called Acquacheta up above, before it sinks valleyward into its
low bed, and at Forli no longer has that name,[1] --reverberates
from the alp in falling with a single leap there above San
Benedetto, where there ought to be shelter for a thousand;[2]
thus down from a precipitous bank we found that dark-tinted water
resounding, so that in short while it would have hurt the ears.

[1] At Forli the river is called the Montone; it was the first of
the rivers on the left of the Apennines that had its course to
the sea; the others before it being tributaries of the Po, which
rises on Monte Veso.

[2] These last words are obscure, and none of the commentators
explain them satisfactorily.


I had a cord girt around me, and with it I had once thought to
take the leopard of the dappled skin.[1] After I had loosed it
wholly from me, even as my Leader had commanded me, I reached it
to him wound up and coiled. Whereon he turned toward the right,
and somewhat far from the edge threw it down into that deep
abyss. "And surely some strange thing must needs respond," said I
to myself, "to the strange signal which the Master so follows
with his eye."

[2] The leopard of the dappled skin, which had often turned
back Dante from the Mountain to the Dark Wood (see Canto i.); the
type of sensual sin. The cord is the type of religions
asceticism, of which the poet no longer has need. The meaning of
its use as a signal is not apparent.


Ah! how cautious men ought to be near those who see not only the
act, but with their wisdom look within the thoughts. He said to
me: "Soon will come up that which I await, and what thy thought
is dreaming must soon discover itself unto thy sight."

To that truth which has the aspect of falsehood ought one always
to close his lips so far as he can, because without fault it
causes shame;[1] but here I cannot be silent, and by the notes of
this comedy, Reader, I swear to thee,--so may they not be void of
lasting grace,--that I saw through that thick and dark air a
shape come swimming upwards marvelous to every steadfast heart;
like as he returns who goes down sometimes to loose an anchor
that grapples either a rock or other thing that in the sea is
hid, who stretches upward, and draws in his feet.

[1] Because the narrator is falsely taxed with falsehood.