Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this?
E'en as a billow 1, on Charybdis rising,
Against encounter'd billow dashing breaks;
Such is the dance this wretched race must lead,
Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found.
From one side and the other, with loud voice,
Both roll'd on weights, by main force of their breasts,
Then smote together, and each one forthwith
Roll'd them back voluble, turning again;
Exclaiming these, "Why holdest thou so fast?"
Those answering, "And why castest thou away?"
So, still repeating their despiteful song,

They to the opposite point, on either hand,
Traversed the horrid circle; then arrived,

Both turn'd them round, and through the middle space
Conflicting met again. At sight whereof

I, stung with grief, thus spake: "O say, my guide!
What race is this. Were these, whose heads are shorn,
On our left hand, all separate to the church?"

He straight replied: "In their first life, these all
In mind were so distorted, that they made,

According to due measure, of their wealth

No use.

This clearly from their words collect,
Which they howl forth, at each extremity
Arriving of the circle, where their crime
Contrary in kind disparts them.

To the church

Were separate those, that with no hairy cowls

Are crown'd, both Popes and Cardinals 2, o'er whom
Avarice dominion absolute maintains."

I then

"Mid such as these some needs must be,

1 E'en as a billow.]

As when two billows in the Irish sowndes,
Forcibly driven with contrarie tides,
Do meet together, each aback rebounds
With roaring rage, and dashing on all sides,
That filleth all the sea with foam, divides
The doubtful current into divers wayes.

Spenser, F. Q. b. iv. c. i. st. 42.

Popes and Cardinals.] Ariosto having personified Avarice as a strange

and hideous monster, says of her

Peggio facea nella Romana corte,

Che v'avea uccisi Cardinali e Papi. Orl. Fur. c. xxvi. st. 32. Worse did she in the Court of Rome, for there

She had slain Popes and Cardinals.

Whom I shall recognise, that with the blot
Of these foul sins were stain'd."

He answering thus :
"Vain thought conceivest thou. That ignoble life,
Which made them vile before, now makes them dark,
And to all knowledge indiscernible.

For ever they shall meet in this rude shock :
These from the tomb with clenched grasp shall rise,
Those with close-shaven locks. That ill they gave,
And ill they kept, hath of the beauteous world
Deprived, and set them at this strife, which needs
No labour'd phrase of mine to set it off.

Now mayst thou see, my son! how brief, how vain,
The goods committed into Fortune's hands,
For which the human race keep such a coil!
Not all the gold1 that is beneath the moon,
Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls
Might purchase rest for one." I thus rejoin'd:
My guide! of thee this also would I learn;
This Fortune, that thou speak'st of, what it is,
Whose talons grasp the blessings of the world."

66

He thus: "O beings blind! what ignorance
Besets you! Now my judgment hear and mark.
He, whose transcendent wisdom 2
passes all,
The heavens creating, gave them ruling powers
To guide them; so that each part 3 shines to each,
Their light in equal distribution pour'd.

By similar appointment he ordain'd,
Over the world's bright images to rule,
Superintendence of a guiding hand

And general minister 4, which, at due time,
May change the empty vantages of life

1 Not all the gold.] Tutto l'oro ch' è sotto la luna. For all the gode under the colde mone.

Chaucer, Legende of Hypermnestra.

He, whose transcendent wisdom.] Compare Frezzi:

Dio è primo prince in ogni parte.

Sempre e di tutto, &c. Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. ii.

3 Each part.] Each hemisphere of the heavens shines upon that hemisphere of the earth which is placed under it. 4 General minister.] Lombardi cites an apposite passage from Augustin, De Civitate Dei, lib. v.:— "Nos eas causas, quæ dicuntur fortuita (unde etiam fortuna nomen accepit) non dicimus nullas, sed latentes, easque tribuimus, vel veri Dei, vel quorumlibet spirituum voluntati."

From race to race, from one to other's blood,
Beyond prevention of man's wisest care :
Wherefore one nation rises into sway,
Another languishes, e'en as her will
Decrees, from us conceal'd, as in the grass
The serpent train. Against her nought avails
Your utmost wisdom. She with foresight plans,
Judges, and carries on her reign, as theirs
The other powers divine. Her changes know
None intermission: by necessity1

She is made swift, so frequent come who claim
Succession in her favours. This is she,

So execrated e'en by those whose debt
To her is rather praise: they wrongfully
With blame requite her, and with evil word;
But she is blessed, and for that recks not:
Amidst the other primal beings glad,
Rolls on her sphere, and in her bliss exults.
Now on our way pass we, to heavier woe
Descending for each star2 is falling now,
That mounted at our entrance, and forbids
Too long our tarrying." We the circle cross'd
To the next steep, arriving at a well,

That boiling pours itself down to a foss

Sluiced from its source. Far murkier was the wave

Than sablest grain: and we in company

Of the inky waters, journeying by their side,

Enter'd, though by a different track3, beneath.

By necessity.] This sentiment called forth the reprehension of Francesco Stabilì, commonly called Cecco d' Ascoli, in his Acerba, lib. i. c. i.

In ciò peccasti, O Fiorentin poeta,
Ponendo che li ben della fortuna
Necessitati sieno con lor meta.
Non è fortuna, cui ragion non vinca.
Or pensa Dante, se prova nessuna

Si può più fare che questa convinca.

Herein, O bard of Florence, didst thou err,

Laying it down that fortune's largesses

Are fated to their goal. Fortune

none,

That reason cannot conquer. Mark thou, Dante,

If any argument may gainsay this.

2 Each star.] So Boccaccio: "Giù ogni stella a cader cominciò, che salia." Dec. G. 3. at the end. 3 A different track.] Una via diversa. Some understand this "a strange path"; "as the word is used in the preceding Canto; "fiera crudele e diversa,' "monster fierce and strange"; and

Into a lake, the Stygian named, expands

The dismal stream, when it hath reach'd the foot
Of the grey wither'd cliffs. Intent I stood
To gaze, and in the marish sunk descried
A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks
Betokening rage. They with their hands alone
Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,
Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs.

The good instructor spake: "Now seest thou, son!
The souls of those, whom anger overcame.
This too for certain know, that underneath
The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs
Into these bubbles make the surface heave,
As thine eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turn.
Fix'd in the slime, they say: 'Sad once were we,
'In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun,
Carrying a foul and lazy mist within:

'Now in these murky settlings are we sad.'
Such dolorous strain they gurgle in their throats,
But word distinct can utter none." Our route
Thus compass'd we, a segment widely stretch'd
Between the dry embankment, and the core
Of the loath'd pool, turning meanwhile our eyes
Downward on those who gulp'd its muddy lees;
Nor stopp'd. till to a tower's low base we came.

CANTO VIII.

ARGUMENT.

A signal having been made from the tower, Phlegyas, the ferryman of the lake, speedily crosses it, and conveys Virgil and Dante to the other side. On their passage, they meet with Filippo Argenti, whose fury and torment are described. They then arrive at the city of Dis, the entrance whereto is denied, and the portals closed against them by many Demons.

My theme pursuing, I relate, that ere

We reach'd the lofty turret's base, our eyes

in the Vita Nuova," visi diversi ed orribili a vedere," "visages strange and horrible to see."

1 My theme pursuing.] It is related by some of the early commentators, that the seven preceding Cantos were found at Florence after our Poet's banishment, by some one, who was searching over his papers, which were

Its height ascended, where we mark'd uphung
Two cressets, and another saw from far
Return the signal, so remote, that scarce
The eye could catch its beam. I, turning round
To the deep source of knowledge, thus inquired:
"Say what this means; and what, that other light
In answer set: what agency doth this?"

"There on the filthy waters," he replied,
"E'en now what next awaits us mayst thou see,
If the marsh-gendered fog conceal it not."
Never was arrow from the cord dismiss'd,
That ran its way so nimbly through the air,
As a small bark, that through the waves I spied
Toward us coming, under the sole sway

Of one that ferried it, who cried aloud:

"Art thou arrived, fell spirit?"-"Phlegyas, Phlegyas',
This time thou criest in vain," my lord replied;
"No longer shalt thou have us, but while o'er
The slimy pool we pass." As one who hears
Of some great wrong he hath sustain'd, whereat
Inly he pines: so Phlegyas inly pined
In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepp'd
Into the skiff, and bade me enter next,
Close at his side; nor, till my entrance, seem'd
The vessel freighted. Soon as both embark'd,
Cutting the waves, goes on the ancient prow,
More deeply than with others it is wont.

While we our course 2 o'er the dead channel held,

left in that city; that by this person they were taken to Dino Frescobaldi; and that he, being much delighted with them, forwarded them to the Marchese Morello Malaspina, at whose entreaty the poem was resumed. This account, though very circumstantially related, is rendered improbable by the prophecy of Ciacco in the sixth Canto, which must have been written after the events to which it alludes. The manner, in which the present Canto opens, furnishes no proof of the truth of the report; for, as Maffei remarks in his Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 249, referred to by Lombardi, it might as well be affirmed that Ariosto was interrupted in his Orlando Furioso, because he begins c. xvi.

Dico la bella storia ripigliando.

And c. xxii. Ma tornando al lavor, che vario ordisco.

1 Phlegyas.] Phlegyas, who was so incensed against Apollo, for having violated his daughter Coronis, that he set fire to the temple of that deity, by whose vengeance he was cast into Tartarus. See Virg. Æn. 1. vi. 618.

2 While we our course.] Solcando noi per quella morta gora.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. 7.