Allor Virgilio disse: 'Digli tosto,

"Non son colui, non son colui che credi."'
Ed io risposi come a me fu imposto.

Per che lo spirto tutti storse i piedi ;
Poi sospirando, e con voce di pianto,
Mi disse: 'Dunque che a me richiedi?
Se di saper chi io sia ti cal cotanto
Che tu abbi però la ripa corsa,
Sappi ch' io fui vestito del gran manto.
E veramente fui figliuol dell' orsa, 2
Cupido sì, per avanzar gli orsatti,

Che su l' avere, e qui me misi in borsa.
Di sotto al capo mio son gli altri tratti
Che precedetter me simoneggiando,
Per le fessure della pietra piatti..
Laggiù cascherò io altresì, quando

Verrà colui ch' io credea che tu fossi,
Allor ch' io feci il subito dimando.
Ma più è il tempo già che i piè mi cossi
E ch' io son stato così sottosopra,
Ch' ei non starà piantato coi piè rossi ;
Chè dopo lui verrà, di più laid' opra, ?

69. Cf. the papale ammanto of II, 27.

65

70

75

80

70. Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, Pope Nicholas III from 1277 to 1280, was notorious for his nepotism. The she-bear, orsa, was the cognizance in his family arms, so Dante calls his relatives orsatti, or 'cubs.'

72. On earth I pocketed wealth, and here I have pocketed myself.'

79. Nicholas has been there nearly twenty years, from August, 1280, to April, 1300. Boniface's feet will burn only about eleven years, from October, 1303, to April, 1314, when Clement V will die. This passage must have been written after the latter date.

82. After the brief pontificate of the good Benedict XI, Bertrand de Goth of Gascony became Pope in 1305 with the name of Clement V. He was noted for his greed and licentiousness, and became the unscrupulous tool of Philip the Fair of France. In 1309 he transferred the papal see to Avignon; he deceived the Emperor Henry VII, and aided Philip in the suppression of the Templars. Cf. Par. XVII, 82. Laid' opra, 'ugly deed.'

Di ver ponente un pastor senza legge,
Tal che convien che lui e me ricopra.
Nuovo Iason sarà, di cui si legge

Ne' Maccabei; e come a quel fu molle
Suo re, così fia a lui chi Francia regge.'
Io non so s' io mi fui qui troppo folle;

Ch' io pur risposi lui a questo metro:
'Deh or mi di', quanto tesoro volle
Nostro Signore in prima da san Pietro
Che ponesse le chiavi in sua balìa?

85

90

Nè Pier nè gli altri tolsero a Mattia

Certo non chiese se non : "Viemmi retro."

Oro od argento, quando fu sortito
Al loco che perdè l' anima ria.
Però ti sta', che tu se' ben punito;

E guarda ben la mal tolta moneta

Ch' esser ti fece contra Carlo ardito.
E se non fosse che ancor lo mi vieta in as

La riverenza delle somme chiavi

Che tu tenesti nella vita lieta, '/

I' userei parole ancor più gravi ;

Chè la vostra avarizia il mondo attrista,

Calcando i buoni e sollevando i pravi.

Di voi pastor s' accorse il Vangelista,

95

100

105

85. Clement is compared to the Jason of II Macc. iv and v, who bought the high-priesthood of King Antiochus. As Antiochus favored Jason, Philip will have Clement made Pope.

92. Mat. xvi, 19.

93. John xxi, 19.

94. Matthias was chosen apostle to fill the place of Judas: Acts i, 23-6. 99. From the beginning of his papacy, Clement was hostile to Charles of Anjou.

104. La vostra avarizia, 'the avarice of you and your like.'

106. See Rev. xvii: 'I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, . . . and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast,

rituere,

cento?

Quando colei che siede sopra l' acque
Puttaneggiar co' regi a lui fu vista:
Quella che con le sette teste nacque
E dalle dieci corna ebbe argomento,
Fin che virtute al suo marito piacque.
Fatto v' avete Dio d'oro e d'argento;
E che altro è da voi all' idolatre,
Se non ch' egli uno e voi n'
Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre,
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote du
Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!'
E mentre io gli cantava cotai note,
O ira o coscienza che il mordesse,
Forte spingava con ambo le piote. **
Io credo ben che al mio Duca piacesse,
Con sì contenta labbia sempre attese
Lo suon delle parole vere espresse.
Però con ambo le braccia mi prese,

E poi che tutto su mi s' ebbe al petto,
Rimontò per la via onde discese;

Nè si stancò d' avermi a sè distretto, 人区

110

115

120

125

full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.' Dante, dealing freely with this passage, combines the woman with the beast, and makes her the symbol of the corrupt Church. She was born with seven heads, the Sacraments, and had as her defence ten horns, the Commandments, as long as her husband, the Papacy, loved virtue.

112. Cf. Hosea viii, 4: 'of their silver and their gold they have made them idols.'

113. The idolater (for instance, those who made the golden calf) worships only one idol, but you worship everything that is of gold.

115. The Emperor Constantine was thought to have donated the Western Empire to St. Sylvester, the first Pope to hold temporal possessions. The document of this donation was preserved, and was generally considered authentic until the middle of the 15th century. Dante did not doubt its genuineness, but disputed the right of Constantine to give and of Sylvester to receive. Matre-madre, patre, in l. 117, is for padre. 120. Spingava, 'kicked.' Piote, 'soles.'

122. Labbia, 'countenance.'

Sì mi portò sopra il colmo dell' arco

Che dal quarto al quinto argine è tragetto.

Quivi soavemente spose il carco

Soave per lo scoglio sconcio ed erto,

Che sarebbe alle capre duro varco.
Indi un altro vallon mi fu scoperto.

128. St: cf. l. 44.

130

131. Soave soavemente: 'gently, because of the steep, rugged ridge.'

=

CANTO XX

ARGUMENT

IN the fourth bolgia we have another instance of perversion — this time perversion of mental sight - symbolized by bodily distortion. The souls of soothsayers, who misused their great gift of intelligence to beguile their credulous fellows, have their heads twisted to the rear, so that they are obliged to walk backwards. They suffer constantly all the agony one would feel in the instant of neckwringing; unable to make a sound, they pour forth their anguish in tears that flow down their backs. The aspect of this strange affliction makes Dante weep, before he recognizes any of the sinners; in other words, he is sorry for the penalty itself, and in so far rebels against God's will. For this, Reason chides him. "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance,' says Ps. lviii, 10; and theologians aver that the fate of the damned should be contemplated, not with pain, but with satisfaction, as a manifestation of divine justice. In the Visio S. Pauli (ed. H. Brandes, p. 66), when St. Paul weeps at the sight of the infernal torments, his angelic guide remonstrates: Quid ploras? Vis plus esse misericors filio Dei?' So Virgil rebukes Dante, declaring:

'Qui vive la pietà quando è ben morta,'

which probably means: 'Here, in thy grief, pity shows life when by rights it is dead'; that is, in Hell there should be no such thing as compassion for punishment, and there is none, save for thy silly tears. See D' Ovidio, 77-80.

A meeting with the prophetess Manto, daughter of the Theban Tiresias, leads Virgil to launch forth into a lengthy account of the founding of Mantua, his native place. The town, he affirms, was named after this same woman, who, leaving Thebes, ended her long wanderings on the spot where it was afterwards built. Dante represents himself as listening respectfully but with only indifferent interest to the narrative, at the close of which he eagerly asks about the other souls. Now, the peculiar feature of this incident is that Dante here ascribes to Virgil quite another story from that indicated in the Æneid, X, 198-200:

'Ille etiam patriis agmen ciet Ocnus ab oris
Fatidicæ Mantus et Tusci filius amnis,

Qui muros matrisque dedit tibi, Mantua, nomen.'