CANTO VIII. not to comprehend, why an individual so slightly distinguished should have been selected by Dante for condemnation. But the reason was the same which I pointed out when speaking of Ciacco. In this fifth Circle anger is punished, not the nefa rious crimes which it too often causes; in the same way as in the third Circle intemperence is so, and not any of those lamentable excesses to which it generally leads. Argenti was chosen, because he was of a dangerous brutal impetuosity; which however had never betrayed him into any iniquity. of the deepest colour, but many eccentric breaches of decorum. That ungovernable anger is at every time a wretched foible, and was peculiarly so, in a town so ripe for discord as Florence, requires no elucidation; and Argenti, in giving way to it, was perhaps as interiorly and truly guilty as men who had been led by the same passion into deeds of more apparent ferocity, than any attributed to him. But poets (as well as legislators) are to pronounce on ostensible grounds . Dante was then most hapPy in his selection of Ciacco and Argenti to exemplify the odiousness of intemperance and choler, even when uncontaminated by those direr atrocities to which they almost invariably lead. Perhaps Florence never since Dante's day, possessed a counterpart for Argenti; a character noted for so much ire, and yet unaccused of any desperate malefaction. The wretch's biting himself is an idea repeated, by Dante in his version of the Psalms CANTO VITE. E per dolore se medesmo morde (1). Argenti is the hero of one of Boccaccio's tales (2); in substance Messer Ciacco (who, it is probable, was the same in Canto vi) and Biondello, two Florentine gentlemen, meeting in the fishmarket, Biondello, who had just purchased two fine lampreys, told Ciacco (what was not true) that they were for the Chief of the Blacks, Corso Donati. So to him the jocund Ciacco took care to go the next day, in expectation of a splendid dinner. He found there neither company nor lampreys, but a very sorry meal; so, very sorry meal; so, perceiving the jest, he vowed retaliation. Some days afterwards he therefore called a porter, and giving him a flask, told him to go with it to M. Argenti and say that he was sent by Biondello, to have it rubinated with some of his best wine, seeing Mes ser Filippo Argenti was universally reputed an excellent bottle-painter.' The porter did as he was ordered; keeping beyond the reach of Argenti's arm, which irritated him to madness. In the mean time Ciacco setting out in quest of Biondello, informed him, that his friend, Messer Filippo Argenti, was inquiring for him with sollicitude. Hence a ludicrous, but savage catastrophe. Both hastening to meet, one eagerly inquisitive, and the other boiling with rage at what he had interpreted a gross insult, little Biondello was kicked and cuffed (1) Isette Salmi di D. A. 1. 6. (2) Il Decamerone, Giorn. x Nov. 8. GANTO VIII. through the street, at such an unmerciful rate and so dragged through the kennel, by his gigantick ferocious antagonist, who continued vociferating, 'I'll rubinate you,' that if it had not been for the interference of a crowd, he had been murdered. This story was no fiction; but, like many of the Novelle, was a real event that happened in Florence a very short time before Dante's exile (1). It most naturally recurred to him then to mention Argenti and perhaps the more so (for who reprehends not more willingly the failings of his enemies, than his friends?) that Argenti belonged to a family, the Adimari, to whose enmity Sacchetti ascribes in a great degree Dante's exile (1). (1) So Benvenuti tells us paulo ante expulsionem auctoris. Perhaps the whole is yet more amusing in his quaint Latin, than in Boccaccio's beautifully measured prose... Argenti stabat totus turbatus, et rodebat se ipsum in animo, existimans quod Blondellus ad postam alicujus fecisset sibi hanc truffam... Erat corpore magnus, fortis, et nervosus, iracundus, et indignans, et dedit illi cum pugno magnum ictum in faciem... Quid est hoc? quid est hoc?... Proditor, bene videbis quid est hoc. Quare rubinare mittis tu ad me? Bene rubinabo te ... et, abjecto caputio, fulminabat manu et linguâ super eum... Omne dixerunt quod fatuè egerat Blondellus mittendo D. Philippo Argenti ribaldum cum flasco et truffis, quia bene debebat scire quod D. Philippus non erat homo mottezandus. ap. Mur. Antiq. Ital. Vol. 1. 1043. (2) Dante had one of the youths of that family severely fined, for prancing on horseback, and holding out his legs so widely, as to be a serious annoyance to the more tranquil passengers, particularly those on foot: nor was such a slight annoyance at that wild period, when the narrow streets of Florence were barricaded, and full of armed men both borse and foot; and when the city, iu fine, was so far more populous than at present. Yet this action of Dante is said to have been sole cause for the hatred of the Adimari; and a principal one for the subsequent exile of Dante, under pretence of his being a White. H. CANTO VIII. LXXIII. The city, which Dante 'unbars' ( sbarro) his eyes to see, is named Dis after the Aeneid: perque domos Ditis: (1) and it forms as it were a great division in Tartarus; for up to this moment, both the inflictions and the guilt which earned them are bearable if compared with the horrid spectacles to be found after passing within its walls. To this city, and not to any of the portions of Hell which we have yet traversed, Boccaccio was of opinion that the scroll above the gate of the Vestibule particularly referred (2); and however that be (for my own opinion is that it applies to all within the Hell-of-the-damned, which begins with the second Circle), yet this much is certain, that in all the future Circles we shall discover no mild offenders like poor Francesca or Ciacco, or even Argenti; but perpetrators of the most enormous wickedness. The minarets and walls glowing at a distance remind one of the Aeneid (the speci fication of minarets, instead of turrets, being nothing more than for the purpose of giving a profaner turn to the passage, not of throwing a slur on The chief cause was his withstanding Charles de Valois (Hell, Comment, Canto vi. p. 363): but the enmity of so powerful a family as the Adimari was no slight adjunct. Questo essendo la principal cagione, da ivi a poco fu per Bianco cacciato da Firenze. Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 114. (1) Aeneid. Lib. vt. v. 268. (2) Per me si va nella Città dolente - cioè nella città di Dite. Boccaccio, Comento, Vol. 1. · P. 138. CANTO VIII. any religion, which would be entirely out of Dan te's way: Respicit Aeneas subitò, et sub rupe sinistrâ Moenia lata videt triplici circumdata muro, The fallen, or 'heaven-showered' angels, who are now the demons that guard Dis, were once (as we shall learn presently) the guards of the hellish Vestibule from whose gate they were dislodged, on the descent of Jesus into the first, or Elysian circle of hell . The indignation of the fiends is directed entirely against Dante; or at least no otherwise against Virgil (who being a spirit was not an intruder) than as the guide of a Mortal. There is severe irony in telling Dante to 'retrace 'his steps 'alone'; not merely because it were hard for him to find the road, but because of the impossibility of retracing it whether alone or in company. That it was im possible, seems to have been the notion enter. tained by the Roman as well as the Tuscan: so we find Aeneas and the Sybil go from one new scene to another, and at last, without turning back, emerge by a different door-way than that by which (1) Aeneid. Lib. vi. v. 548. |