Il gran vermo, 'the huge worm' is Scriptural; and is introduced again by Dante in his translation of the sixth psalm defend me, O Lord, from the huge worm! ()' Some may consider this expression taken from Alberic's vision, a monkish rhapsody ridiculously extolled as the origin of the Divine Comedy; for that Dante had perused it may be true, (although there is no testimony proving any such thing) but that he could have gleaned any useful hints from that unreadable foolery, will not, I am sure, be allowed by any reasonable man who examines it. The passage to which I just now allude, is indeed the only tolerable one in it: 'at the entrence of hell I beheld a worm of infinite magnitude tied by a mighty chain, and it seemed that, that chain was fastened to another head within-side of hell. And before the mouth of the worm stood a multitude of souls, all of whom were sucked in like so many flies when he inhaled his breath; and when he breathed from him, they rushed out again half-burned, like a shower of sparks. By this penalty are fulfilled the words of

(1) Defendimi, o Signor, dallo gran Vermo. p. 19. Shakespere uses the word twice as synonimous with serpent"The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal". ( Henry vi. Part. 2. Act. 3. v. 467 ) “Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus here?”( Ant. and Cleop. Act. 5. v. 376) "worm" (says Johnson, Com. to Id.)" is the Teutonic for serpent, and the Norwegians call a huge monster sometimes seen in the nothern sea, the sea worm.

"

CANTO V1.

the Prophet," their worm shall never die and their fire shall never be extinguished (1)." As for this VISION, it is so absurd that it could have only excited a feeling of contempt in Dante, had he seen it (2). The 'spasms' of Cerberus (thus expressed in the Italian, non avea membro che tenesse fermo) engage me to remark that in the translation of the above-mentioned psalm Dante repeats nearly the same verse, and, in order to do so, quits the Vulgate and adopting the original Hebrew version, writes

Non ho osso

Che conturbato possa omai star fermo (3).

The throwing of 'lumps of sordid soil' into the hellish monster's throat is more appropriate than Virgil's soporific cake; the more so, because they, who were journeying under the guidance of Pro

(1) Juxta infernum vermis erat infinitæ magnitudinis ligatus maximâ catenâ, cujus catena alterum caput in inferno ligatum esse videbatur. Ante os ipsius vermis animarum stabat multitudo, quas omnes quasi muscas simul absorbebat, ita ut cum flatum traheret omnes simul deglutiret; cum flatum emitteret omnes in favillarum modum reliceret exustas... Impleturque sermo Propheticus, Vermis eorum non morietur et ignis non extinguetur. Fra: Alberici Visio. cap. 9.

(2) Nothing so disproportioned as its punishments: those tender with their own wives on the sabbath or fast-days, or festivals, are boil ed in a cauldron of oil and pitch. Tunc beatus Petrus Apostolus dixit: isti quos vides cruciari idcirco taliter torquentur, quoniam Dominicis diebus, vel Sanctorum festivitatibus, atque præcipuis jejuniis a carnali voluptate et a suis uxoribus se nequaquam refrenare studuerunt. Sunt enim quidam, qui omni tempore licite et inculpabiliter cum conjugibus suis se luxuriam posse confidunt: omnino tamen talibus diebus ab uxoribus abstinendum est. Id. cap. 5.

(3) v. 2.

CANTO VI.

vidence, had no need of putting the brute to sleep; so that those lumps of clay are not to appease, but to punish his voracity.

'I have elsewhere said' (it is Boccaccio's note on the present passage) that spirits are incorporeal and as such are invisible to human eyes: nevertheless our Author endows them in this poem with bodies, and herein imitates Virgil who adopts throughout the sixth of the Aeneid the same contrivance of making incorporeal substances and punishments appear corporeal, in order to be more easily understood (1).' But here Virgil followed Plato who supposed them not wholly immaterial, but in a middle state between body and pure spirit; and Daute, not only Virgil, but S. Austin (2).

6

Messer Ciacco was a respectable Florentine gentleman, ' a man' (writes Landino) of pleasing manners and singularly winning eloquence, distinguished for his urbanity, wit and facetiousness, and altogether most amiable in society (3).' Such a character is so contrary to that given by M. Ginguené, that it invalidates all his criticisms on the

(1) Comento p. 346.

(2) . . . inter corpus et spiritum mædiam. De Civ. Dei; Lib. vIII. cap. 14. and 15, and Lib. xxi. cap. 10.

(3) Eloquente e pieno d'urbanità e di motti e di facezie e di soavissima conversatione.

SANTO VI.

present Canto, by proving clearly that he had not entered into its spirit. But particularly when he applies the term vile (1) to Ciacco, it is not to be denied, that he hazards a most manifest interpolation. Dante (whose business was not to degrade his jocund countryman, but to point out the evils of luxury) seems to have done what he could to prevent this mistake; for he greets him in a most friendly manner, melting at the sufferings of one, whose brilliant and harmless mirth he had probably long known, loved, and admired; although he could not but condemn as a patriot what he had smiled at as a companion.

Boccaccio tells a story in his Decameron (2) about one Ciacco; but whether he means precisely the same person of whom Dante is now speaking, is not quite certain: nor indeed is it so, whether Ciacco was not a surname. That it was synonimous with porco, pig, is probable, but not absolutely proved (3); and even if it were so, that would not establish that it was expressive of the disposition of him who bore it, any more than with us Mr. Smith indicates his employment by his appellation. Although Ciacco might have been once, like such English titles, conferred as a characteris

(1) Enfin l'on n'aime pas à le voir donner des larmes au sort de ce vil Ciacco. Hist. Litt. Vol. 2. p. 53.

(2) Giorn. 9. Nov. 8.

(3) Ciacco nella volgar lingua nel tempo di Dante sembra volesse dir porco. Poggiali, Ed. Livorn. Vol. 3. p. 81..

i

CANTO vi.

tic, it might, like them, have become hereditary before Dante's day; and that no family called Ciacco appears in Villani, (nor, as far as I have observed, in any of the Priorists) is no proof of there not having been any such; because it might have been used to designate, not an entire family, but a particular branch of one (as was frequently the case), and no registry of family names can well be verified farther back than the year 1300 the date of the present poem. But it appears impossible either that Dante would have applied the term pig to such a pleasing, inoffensive individual, as Landino pictures Ciacco to have been; or that to one meriting such an ignominous reproach he would have conceded the honor of a tear, as we shall see he does in the next tiercet but one. We must allow then, that the identity of this gentle. man escapes us: it is of small consequence; and it suffices to know that he possessed both rank, good-nature and wit, and was a frequenter of the tables of the rich and gay, and moved in the widest circle of fashion, to enable us to gather, that no fitter person could be selected to inform us of the domestic politics of his native city. The chiefs of the day might have returned a partial answer to Dante's queries; but the festive Ciacco, who had laughed with, and at the conflicting factions, had no undue bias; nor was the lesson taught through such a medium less emphatic. A few tiercets lower down, we shall therefore find