Buoso Donati's person dared to feign, Questa a peccar con esso così venne PARSONS. Testando, e dando al testamento norma.2 1 GREGORIO DI SIENA, 'La più vistosa cavalla dell' armento buono a propagar la razza.' Cf. HORACE (Od. I, 17) : — 'Impune tutum per nemus arbutos Quærent latentes et thyma deviæ Olentis uxores mariti. . . .' Buti also says 'cavalla.' The Anonimo Fiorentino, fallible like all copyists, seems in this case to have blundered. 2 Inf. XXX, 40-45. CHAPTER XIX THE MULE In a hell pit assigned by Dante to thieves our poet sees a man, whom a serpent has just bitten, kindle and burn to ashes and resume his previous shape in less time than it takes to write O or I. Virgil asks the man who he was, and gets this reply:1— Io piovvi di Toscana, Poco tempo è, in questa gola fera. Vita bestial mi piacque, e non umana,2 Si come a mul ch' io fui; son Vanni Fucci 'I rained from Tuscany A short time since into this cruel gorge. Being urged to say more, Fucci goes on: LONGFELLOW. 'What thou demandest I cannot deny ; 1 Inf. XXIV, 121–126. - LONGFELLOW. 2 See chapter on 'The Lower Animals,' p. 81. 8 Inf. XXIV, 136–138. Vanni Fucci now foretells disaster to the Whites, lifts his fingers in an infamous gesture, and cries: 'Take that, God, for at thee I aim them.'1 What led Dante to call Vanni Fucci a mule? Though the question is answered vaguely by Dante's own lines, for further understanding we must go to the chroniclers. Benvenuto da Imola records that Vanni Fucci was the bastard son of Messer Fucci de' Lazzari of Pistoia, that he was a great scoundrel, most bold for every crime, and though often banished for enormous offences, nevertheless he often was in the city by night with most base companions. A contemporary document describes Vanni Fucci as one of three unspeakable (nephandi) citizens, but an abusive generality is not characterisation. Landino characterises the deed rather than the man. Dante had seen this Fucci alive,3 and must have known the fellow's reputation in Pistoia, but why the poet calls him a mule a word not elsewhere used by Dante — must remain obscure unless we are willing to accept the explanation of Benvenuto da Imola, who lived a century after Vanni, and may have got his ideas not only from older records, but from the words of Dante. 1 Inf. XXV, 3. 2 Cf. CIAMPI, 'Notizie inedite della Sagrestia pistoiese de belli arredi,' cited by Toynbee in Dante Dictionary, p. 253. Inf. XXIV, 129, 'Ch' io il vidi uomo di sangue e di crucci' (For him I saw a man of blood and wrath). The phrase 'a mulo' shows a general human tendency (here manifested by chance in Dante) to look upon the ugly traits of men as characteristic of various 'lower' animals. For further villanies laid at Vanni's door, see VERNON, Readings on Inf. vol. II, 291-292; also 295–297. Benvenuto says: 'Note that he (Vanni) was truly a mule, naturally and morally, because he was a bastard born of a bastard (spurius natus de spurio). For the mule is born of a cursed coition; to wit, of a mare and of an ass, and rather he follows the ass than the mare, though he called himself the grandson of the horse in the presence of the lion. He is a hard animal, fit for toil and for blows, a loiterer, and stubborn. And such was that obstinate thief. A mule is sterile; so was he baleful to all. A mule is without reason and beyond correction; wherefore it is said in the Psalms, Nolite fieri sicut equus et mulus, in quibus non est intellectus.' CHAPTER XX THE ASS 'THINGS should be named,' writes Dante,1 'from the ultimate nobility of their character; as a man from reason and not from feeling, nor from anything less noble. Wherefore when it is said man lives, it should be understood man uses reason, which is his special life, and the act of his noblest part. And therefore whoever abandons reason and uses only the senses, lives not as a man, but as a beast, as says that most excellent Boethius, An ass he lives (Asino vive).' Boethius asks, Segnis ac stupidus torpet? and answers, Asinum vivit.2 One need speculate very little to understand Dante's not altogether original estimate. But how came he to depict his sluggards in so dreadful an attitude? Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi, These miscreants, who never were alive, Were naked, and were stung exceedingly 1 Conv. II, viii, 15-27. See, also, Conv. IV, xv, 58–63. 2 De Consol. Phil. IV, Pros. iii. In the Bible, asses cut no such sorry figure as in the literature and daily talk of Europe. 4 Inf. III, 64-69. |