Ahi quanto cauti gli uomini esser denno
Presso a color che non veggon pur l' opră,
Ma per entro i pensier miran col senno!
Ei disse a me: 'Tosto verrà di sopra

Ciò ch' io attendo, e che il tuo pensier sogna;

120

Tosto convien ch' al tuo viso si scopra.' r hi
Sempre a quel ver ch' ha faccia di menzogna
De' l' uom chiuder le labbra finch' ei puote, 125
Però che senza colpa fa vergogna;

Ma qui tacer nol posso, e per le note

Di questa commedìa, lettor, ti giuro,
fa
S'elle non sien di lunga grazia vote,
Ch' io vidi per quell' aer grosso e scuro
Venir notando una figura in suso,
Maravigliosa ad ogni cor sicuro;
Sì come torna colui che va giuso
Talora a solver àncora ch' aggrappa

130

O scoglio od altro che nel mare è chiuso,
Che in su si stende e da piè si rattrappa.

135

125. Dee deve. Puote = può.

126. It causes one to be unjustly suspected of falsehood.

127. Le note: Dante speaks of his poem as if it were a song. The names commedia and tragedia (which Dante accented on the i) were applied to nondramatic poems composed respectively in a simple or a grand style; tragedia, according to the Letter to Cran Grande, also has an unhappy ending. 129. As I hope they may not want lasting favor': cf. X, 82.

136. To the observer above, a diver, returning to the surface, is foreshortened and magnified by the intervening water.

CANTO XVII

ARGUMENT

IN the description of the usurers, squatting on the edge of the chasm, now brushing off the flakes of fire, now lifting themselves on their hands from the hot sand, we are shown guilty souls in a state of abominable degradation. Their faces have lost all human likeness; they can be recognized only by their money-bags, decked out with their coats of arms. To such a pass man can be brought by inordinate love of gold, which consumes his humanity and his very individuality. Doglike, bovine, disgusting as these creatures are, they came of noble stock. No poor Jews, but illustrious Italian Christians, are selected by the poet to point his moral.

The descent into the darkness, on Geryon's back, is suggestively pictured in quick, realistic touches. At first nothing but the monster himself is visible, and Dante's only consciousness of motion comes from the upward rush of the air. Gradually, at various points below, the fires of the eighth circle begin to glimmer, and lamentations reach his ear; but all is dim and mysterious.

In classical mythology Geryon, son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoë, was a three-headed giant king in Spain, who was killed by Hercules. "Tergemini nece Geryonis spoliisque superbus Alcides aderat.' — Æn., VIII, 202-3.

A passing reference to his shade, as a 'forma tricorporis umbræ,' is made in Æn., VI, 289. To the medieval scholar this triple nature apparently symbolized deceit. Boccaccio says, in his Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, I, 21, speaking of Dante's Fraud: 'Et inde Gerion dicta est, quia regnans apud Baleares insulas Gerion miti vulto blandisque verbis et omni comitatu consueverit hospites suscipere et demum sub hac benignitate sospites occidere.' He discusses the classic Geryon in XIII, 1 (numbered also 38).

and

The monstrous form ascribed to him by Dante was doubtless suggested in part by the locusts of Rev. ix, 7-11: 'And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle. . . their faces were as the faces of men. .. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails.... And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit. St. Thomas, in his commentary on this passage, tells us that the scorpion has a smooth and gentle countenance, to induce people to touch it. The belief that scorpions have attractive faces seems

of a

to have been prevalent. Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description followed by Solinus strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30), which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's. Similar creatures are portrayed by Albertus Magnus (De Animalibus, Lib. XXII, Tr. ii, Cap. 1) and Brunetto Latini (Trésor, V, Ch. 59); all of these eat human flesh, and of one of them it is said that 'deceptos homines devorat.' On the appropriateness of an upright human face combined with a scorpion's sting, as an emblem of fraud, there is no need to dwell. See F. Cipolla, Il Gerione di Dante, 1895; B. Soldati in Giorn. stor., XLI, 84; R. T. Holbrook, Dante and the Animal Kingdom, 64.

'Ecco la fiera con la coda aguzza,

Che passa i monti e rompe i muri e l' armi ;
Ecco colei che tutto il mondo appuzza.'
Sì cominciò lo mio Duca a parlarmi,
Ed l'accennolle che venisse a proda

Vicino al fin de' passeggiati marmi.

E quella sozza imagine di froda

Sen venne, ed arrivò la testa e il busto;
Ma in su la riva non trasse la coda.
La faccia sua era faccia d' uom giusto,

Tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle;
E d'un serpente tutto l'altro fusto.
. Due branche avea pilose infin l'ascelle;
Lo dosso e il petto ed ambedue le coste
Dipinte avea di nodi e di rotelle. '
Con più color, sommesse e soprapposte,

3. Appuzza, 'infects.'

5

10

15

6. Near the end of the stony edge of the dike, upon which the poets had walked.

8. Arrivò is used in its most literal sense, 'brought ashore.'

12. Fusto, trunk.' Serpente: cf. Gen. iii, 1, 'Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field.'

15. In mediæval pictures, dragons often have their whole bodies covered with little rings: cf. R. T. Holbrook, Dante and the Animal Kingdom, 63, 65. 16. Sommesse, 'woof' (the groundwork). Soprapposte, 'warp' (the embroidery).

Non fer mai drappo Tartari nè Turchi,
Nè fur tai tele per Aragne imposte.
Come talvolta stanno a riva i burchi

Che parte sono in acqua e parte in terra,
E come là tra li Tedeschi lurchi
Lo bevero s'assetta a far sua guerra,

24

Così la fiera pessima si stava Sull' orlo che, di pietra, il sabbion serra. Nel vano tutta sua coda guizzava,< tur Torcendo in su la venenosa forca,

20

25

Che a guisa di scorpion la punta armava.
Lo Duca disse: 'Or convien che si torca
La nostra via un poco infino a quella
Bestia malvagia che colà si corca.' que. 30
Però scendemmo alla destra mammella, (^.^

E dieci passi femmo in sullo stremo,

Per ben cessar la rena e la fiammella.

E quando noi a lei venuti semo,

Onwards

Poco più oltre veggio in su la rena

Gente seder propinqua al loco scemo.

35

17. Fer fecero: the object is drappo, the subject Tartari nè Turchi. The Tartars and Turks were famous for their cloths: cf. P. Toynbee in Rom., XXIX, 559.

18. Imposte, 'designed.' Arachne was the famous weaver who challenged Minerva to a contest, and was turned into a spider: Met., VI, 5 ff. 19. Burchi, 'skiffs.'

21. Lurchi, 'gluttonous.'

22. It was believed that the beaver caught fish with its tail, by dangling it in the water.

24. The sandy desert has an edge of rock, along the top of the cliff.

31. The poets, on leaving the wood, had mounted the nearer or right side of the embankment, and had walked on the right side of the stream; now, therefore, they must come down on the right side, else they would have to cross the boiling blood.

32. Dieci is probably used for an indefinite moderate number. - Stremo, 'verge.'

33. Cessar, 'avoid.'

36. The usurers, who did violence to human industry, are seated on the sand, close to the abyss.

Quivi il Maestro: 'Acciocchè tutta piena
sperienza d'esto giron porti,'

Mi disse, 'va, e vedi la lor mena.
Li tuoi ragionamenti sian là corti.
Mentre che torni parlerò con questa,

همانان

Che ne conceda i suoi omeri forti.'
Così ancor sur la strema testal
L quel settimo cerchio tutto solo
Andai, ove sedea la gente mesta.
Per gli occhi fuori scoppiava, lor duolo;
Di qua, di là soccorrien con le mani,
Quando a' vapori, e quando al caldo suolo.

Non altrimenti fan di state i cani,

Or col ceffo, or col piè, quando son morsi

O da pulci o da mosche o da tafani.
Poi che nel viso a certi gli occhi porsi,

Ne' quali il doloroso foco casca,
Non ne conobbi alcun ; ma io m' accorsi
Che dal collo a ciascun pendea una tasca,
Che avea certo colore e certo segno;
E quindi par che il loro occhio si pasca.
E com' io riguardando tra lor vegno,
In una borsa gialla vidi azzurro,

Che d'un leone avea faccia e contegno.
Poi, procedendo di mio sguardo il curro,
Vidine un' altra, come sangue rossa,
Mostrare un' oca bianca più che burro.
Ed un, che d' una scrofa azzurra e grossa

39. Mena, 'mien.'

40

45

50

60. A lion azure in or (gold): the arms of the Gianfigliazzi of Florence. 61. Curro, 'course.'

55

60

63. A goose argent ('whiter than butter') in gules (red): the arms of the Ubriachi of Florence.

64. A sow in brood azure in argent: the arms of the Scrovigni of Padua.