E tu per più che alcun altro demonio.' 'Ricorditi, spergiuro, del cavallo,' Rispose quel ch' avea enfiata l' epa ; 'E siati reo che tutto il mondo sallo.' Disse il Greco, 'la lingua, e l' acqua marcia 120 Allora il monetier: 'Così si squarcia La bocca tua per tuo mal come suole; Chè s'i' ho sete ed umor mi rinfarcia, 125 Ad ascoltarli er' io del tutto fisso, 130 Quando il Maestro mi disse: 'Or pur mira 135 Sì che quel ch'è, come non fosse, agogna, Tal mi fec' io, non potendo parlare, Che desiava scusarmi, e scusava Me tuttavia, e nol mi credea fare. 120. Siati reo, 'may it be a plague to thee.' 121. Crepa, 'cracks'; the subject is lingua in l. 122. 123. Il ventre assiepa, 'makes a hedge (barrier) of thy belly.' 124. Monetier, 'coiner.' 126. Rinfarcia, 'stuffs.' 140 128. 'Narcissus's glass' is water, in which he saw himself mirrored: Met., III, 407 ff. 132. I am very near quarreling with thee.' 136. Dannaggio = danno. 138. Agogna, 'longs for.' 140. My dumbness was proof of my shame. 'Maggior difetto men vergogna lava,' E fa' ragion ch' io ti sia sempre allato, 144. Disgrava, ‘unburden.' 145. Fa' ragion, 'take care.' Allato, 'beside.' 146. Accoglia, 'take.' 147. Piato, 'wrangle.' 145 CANTO XXXI ARGUMENT As the poets cross the broad bank that intervenes between the tenth bolgia and the great central pit of Hell, Dante sees looming through the dusk, like the towers of a city, the forms of giants, visible from the waist up all around the mouth of the well. As far as we can judge, they are from sixty to eighty feet in total height. But the apparently precise dimensions given are vague to us, because of the variability of standards: one creature measures from neck to middle thirty palms, probably something like twenty feet; another, five ells, perhaps some thirty feet. One of these monsters, Antæus, picks up the travellers and sets them on the ice at the bottom of the hole. Dante speaks as if he did so without quitting his post; nothing but the giant's stoop is described, as he lifts them up, and his straightening when he has put them down. We are told, however, that, unlike his mates, he is not bound. Now, inasmuch as the last bolgia is eleven miles in circumference, and inasmuch as the poets walk for some time over the plain of ice before seeing, in the middle of it, the enormous figure of Lucifer, we must think of this pit as at least a mile wide; and since it is described in XVIII, 5, as 'un pozzo assai largo e profondo,' it can hardly be less than twice as deep as it is broad. It is obvious, then, that the giants, the upper half of whose bodies appears above the edge, cannot be standing on the bottom: their feet must rest on a ledge or shelf near the top of the wall; in fact, in XXXII, 16-7, we are told that when Dante and Virgil were on the bottom of the 'pozzo scuro,' they were 'sotto i piè del gigante, e assai più bassi.' Antæus, therefore, carrying the poets, must have left his place and climbed down the precipice; but of this descent our author, for reasons of his own, says not a word. Perhaps he conceived of himself as so terrified that he could recall nothing of the adventure but its awful beginning and end. It is likely, too, that he preferred to leave a gap for the reason set forth in the argument to Canto V. We do not know how many giants there are in all. Those named are Nimrod, Ephialtes, Briareus, and Antæus all, except the last, damned for their presumption in attempting to scale Heaven. Ephialtes and Briareus were among the most active at Phlegra, when the giants piled mountain upon mountain, and threatened the Gods. This combat is mentioned by Ovid (Met., I, 151-5), Statius (Thebaid, II, 595-6), and Lucan (Phars., IV, 593–7); and the two latter authorities speak of Briareus. Ephialtes is not named by any of the ancient poets that Dante seems to have known, but he is to be found in Servius's commentary on the Georgics, I, 180. Antæus, so Lucan tells us (Phars., IV, 597), did not participate in the fight, and therefore he is unbound in Dante's Hell; in Phars., IV, 593 ff., his misdeeds and his defeat by Hercules are related at length. The 'fable' of the battle of Phlegra doubtless represented to Dante merely the old pagan sages' idea of the revolt of the angels; the giants are stricken down by 'il sommo Giove,' the supreme Power. The Biblical Nimrod, then, is not out of place among them. The following particulars are culled from Gen. x, 8-10, and xi, 2-9: 'And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.... And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, in the land of Shinar. . . . And it came to pass that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. . . . And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. . . . So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel.' Nimrod, then, was held responsible for the audacious enterprise; and as early as Orosius and St. Augustine he was regarded by Christians as a giant. According to De Vulgari Eloquentia, I, vii, 24-31, it was 'sub persuasione gigantis' that man presumed to surpass his maker. In the confusion of tongues Dante's Nimrod has suffered more than his misguided fellows, for he speaks a language understood by no one else and can comprehend no other soul. His mind, too, is as dazed as his words are senseless. He can vent his feelings only by blowing the big horn with which, as a 'mighty hunter,' he is equipped. The manifold crimes of the Lower Hell are due to pride and envy, and these sins are personified in Satan and the giants. Embedded in the central point of his kingdom, the arch-sinner, surrounded by a ring of fellow-rebels, holds his eternal court. The spirits that thought to rise so high are sunken at the bottom of the universe; their monstrous forms are fixed and impotent forevermore. This, rather than the Circle of Violence, is artistically their fit place; and here, no doubt, Dante would have put them, even if Virgil had not pointed the way (En., VI, 580-1): "Hic genus antiquum terræ, Titania pubes, For the pozzo, cf. G. Agnelli in Giorn. dant., VIII, 546. Una medesma lingua pria mi morse Così od' io che soleva la lancia D' Achille e del suo padre esser cagione Su per la ripa che il cinge dintorno, Quivi era men che notte e men che giorno, Che, contra sè la sua via seguitando, Carlo Magno perdè la santa gesta, Poco portai in là volta la testa, Che mi parve veder molte alte torri ; 4. Virgil's tongue has the same power as the magic spear of Achilles and his father Peleus, which could both wound and cure: Met., XII, 112, XXIII, 171; Tristia, V, 2, 15-18; Remedia Amoris, 47. In Provençal and early Italian poetry there are many references to this spear; it was believed in the Middle Ages that a hurt inflicted by could be healed only by another wound from the same weapon. 6. Mancia, gift.' 11. Viso, 'sight.' 13. Fioco: cf. I, 63. 14. It attracted my eyes to one spot, and my sight went out toward that place, following (in the opposite direction) the course of the sound that came from it. Seguitando goes with occhi. 16. At Roncesvalles Charlemagne lost his rear-guard, led by his peers (the 'blessed band') under the command of his nephew Roland. When all was lost, Roland blew his horn so loud that it was heard thirty leagues away: Chanson de Roland, ll. 1753-7. For the use of gesta as 'company,' see the early Italian Spagna, I, st. 35, 1. 7: 'E tutta sua baronia e nobil gesta '; also II, 30, 7; XXXVI, 26, 8 ('santa gesta'); XL, 26, 4; etc. |