otto.. fu il libro e chi lo scris-se quel giorno

CANTO VI.

THE THIRD CIRCLE.

THE GLUTTONOUS.

CERBERUS.

CIACCO.

We left Dante at the end of the Fifth Canto falling into a swoon brought on by the intensity of his sympathy for the sorrows of Francesca and Paolo. He wakes to find himself in the Third Circle, where the sin of Gluttony is punished.

Benvenuto divides the Canto into four parts.

In the First Division, from v. I to v. 33, Dante relates the punishment of the Gluttonous, and describes Cerberus, their guardian and tormentor.

In the Second Division, from v. 34 to v. 57, the spirit of Ciacco is introduced.

In the Third Division, from v. 58 to v. 93, Dante asks Ciacco the reasons for the feuds and factions by which the City of Florence is rent, and he also enquires what has been the fate of certain distinguished Florentine citizens after their death, and Ciacco replies to him.

In the Fourth Division, from v. 94 to v. 115, Dante asks Virgil whether, after the Day of Judgment, there will be any aggravation of the penalty of the doomed.

Benvenuto observes that the sin of gluttony would naturally have been treated by Dante before that of Lasciviousness, for the former sin fosters the latter,

N

but that Dante considers Gluttony the more culpable and sinful of the two, and therefore as tending more to drag down to the centre of Hell. Dante would seem to have taken this idea from Aristotle (Ethics, iii, ch. 10) where the following passage occurs:

"Therefore temperance and intemperance belong to those pleasures in which other animals participate; whence they appear slavish and brutal; and these are touch and taste. Now they seem to have little or nothing to do with taste; for to taste belongs the judging of flavours; as those who try wines do, and those who prepare sauces; but the intemperate do not take much or indeed any pleasure in these flavours, but only in the enjoyment, which is caused entirely by means of touch, and which is felt in meat, in drink, and in venereal pleasures. Wherefore Philoxemus, the son of Eryxis, a glutton, wished that he had a throat longer than a crane's because he was pleased with touch, the most common of senses, and the one to which intemperance belongs: and it would appear justly to be deserving of reproach, since it exists in us, not so far forth as we are men, but so far forth as we are animals."-Browne's Translation.

Division I. In the same way as after his swoon at the Acheron, Dante's eyes on opening behold an entirely different scene from that which he had looked upon in the last canto.

Al tornar della mente, che si chiuse

Dinanzi alla pietà de' due cognati,

* Dinanzi : Some have tried to interpret dinanzi as an adverb, and implying that it was a short time ago that Dante

Che di tristizia tutto mi confuse,
Nuovi tormenti e nuovi tormentati

Mi veggio intorno, come ch' io mi mova,
E ch' io mi volga, e come ch' io mi guati.
On the return of my sense, which had closed
itself before the anguish of the two kinsfolk
that completely overwhelmed me with sad-
ness, I discern around me fresh torments and
fresh tormented (souls), whichever way I
move, and (whichever way) I turn, and
whichever way I look.

5

He finds that invisible hands have transported him into the next division of Hell.

Io sono al terzo cerchio della piova
Eterna, maledetta, fredda e greve :
Regola e qualità mai non l' è nuova.*
Grandine grossa, e acqua tinta, e neve
Per l'aer tenebroso si riversa:
Pute la terra che questo riceve.

I am in the third circle of the eternal rain,
accursed, cold, and heavy: its law and quality
are never new. Thick hail, and dark water,
and snow, come pouring down through the
murky air the ground which receives this
(ie., upon which this tempest falls) emits a
putrid stench.

The guardian of this circle is the monster Cerberus, three-headed, as he is depicted in the heathen mytho

fainted; but the more generally accepted interpretation is the one I have given.

* mai non è nuova: This means that for ever and ever this rain is unceasing, accursed, cold, and heavy.