Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

GANTO VIE

ry longer, since its inhabitants were none of them recognised) they find a hole with a gush.. of nauseous waters: these being apparently that gloomy Acheron which we saw encompassing the first Circle, and which (from its never having been noticed since) we may suppose had performed a subterranean course as far as this point; where it seems to have eaten away a hole, that renders its conduit a little visible. Its flood of sorrow' then tumbles along; till, spouting out below, it forms the fifth Circle or Stygian lake. Into this fifth Circle Virgil and Dante descend, and find the Stygian lake to be the place of punishment for the crime of anger: and with the more propriety is this classic name given, because the Ancients believed Styx to be symbolical of the very same vice (1).

As to the dimensions of this fifth Circle, they are similar to the preceding ones, viz: it is 14 miles deep and (in its net diameter) 17 wide. But its form is different. Immediately under the wall runs a narrow path, forming an exterior border to the lake: and the interior circumference instead of being, as heretofore, the brink of a pit, presents us with a circular fortification inclosing that horrid town which is to form the sixth Circle—both the fifth and sixth Circle being on a level. This

(1) Stygem quicquid inter se humanos animos in gurgite mergit odiorum. Macrob. in Som. Scip. lib. 1. cap. 10.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic]

Bird's-eye view of the Fifth and Sixth Circles.

A. Fifth Circle, or Stygian Lake.

AA. Sixth Circle, Dis, or City of Sepulchres.

[blocks in formation]

CANTO.VII.

may require a little drawing, to be quite clear. "Make no friendship with an angry man," (thus says the holy proverb) " and with a furious man thou shalt not go ()." Here are manifestly two kinds of wrathful men; the first of whom we are told not to select for a friend, but with the second are absolutely prohibited from having any communication whatever: and I believe such was precisely the authority which induced Dante to make the distinction, which we find he does, of choler into two kinds. One of these (ungovernable, impetuous anger) is tormented on the surface of Styx; and it is surely a wretched infirmity: "make no friendship with an angry man."

[blocks in formation]

The obvious signification of Virgil's words is: it is anger that is punished in this lake; those whom you see on the surface, were men who allowed themselves to be habitually overpowered by transports of violence; and the bubbles that you see rising (or rather bourgeoning (2)) all along the water, are the hard breathings of crowds who are there deeply immersed for having been con

(1) Proverbs, XXII, 24.

(2) The word is pullulare, and is a figurative expression drawn from the bourgeoning of plants. È propriamente lo spuntar de' ger mogli dalle piante. Felice metafora! che esprime un simil cangiamento sulla superficie dell' acqua per l'eruzione dell'aria, ec. Poggiali, Ed. Livorn. vol. 3.p. 101. Mr. Cary attends not to the metaphor.

SANTO VIE

taminated with a still worse description of the same iniquity -pent up anger, or hate.' This is of a piece with what we shall see in the 'river of blood' of a future Canto; where the sufferers are plunged more or less deeply according to their gradations in the same crime, tyranny (1). The ira of the Latins was divided into ira, and lenta ira. It is the first is on the surface of Styx. Greek, with characteristic abundance, has severa] words to express each of these two angers. 'Op (ira vehementior) has a peculiar application to the flounderers on the top of the pool; for it is derived from péyoua (porrectis manibus vel pedibus capto) to struggle with hands or legs widely extended (2).'

[merged small][ocr errors]

I am quite of Daniello's opinion, that it is the second and worse description of anger that is below the surface sticking in the hellish mud (3). We call it hate. "With a furious man thou shalt not go." It is an implacability of nature with which' (thus Boccaccio) the Tuscans are cursed above all other Italians, and the Florentines above all other Tuscans. The Florentines never pardon (4). Yet Dante's manner of rendering his idea is

(1) Inferno, Canto XII. v. 124.

(2) Lexicon Ernest.

(3) Comento, p. 54.

(4) Comento, vol. 1. p. 56.

« AnteriorContinuar »