Le man distese, e prese il Duca mio, Disse a me: 'Fatti in qua, sì ch' io ti prenda.' Poi fece sì che un fascio er' egli ed io. Nè sì chinato lì fece dimora, E come albero in nave si levò. 135 140 145 132. The story of the combat between Hercules and Antæus is told in Phars., IV, 609-53.- Onde refers to man. - Stretta, 'grip': cf. Phars., IV, 617, 'conseruere manus.' = 133. Sentio sentì: cf. XX, 58. 134. Fatti in qua, 'come hither': cf. XXII, 96. 136. Bologna has two famous leaning towers. The shorter but more inclined is called Garisenda or Carisenda; it was much taller in Dante's time. In 1286 the town demolished the buildings around it. 137. Il chinato, 'the slant.' To an observer standing beneath the overhang, and looking upward, a cloud passing over the tower, in the direction opposite to its slope, makes the structure seem to be falling. Dante, in all probability, observed this phenomenon himself when he was in Bologna. 139. A bada, 'on the watch.' 143. Sposò, set down,' on the 'bottom that swallows up Lucifer and Judas,' the 9th circle. 145. He rose like a mast that is being hoisted into its step on a ship. CANTO XXXII ARGUMENT THE hardest, coldest heart is that of the traitor; from it all the warmth of human affection has been banished. The symbol of treachery is ice; and at the bottom of the well, buried in the circular plain formed by the freezing of Cocytus, are the sinners of the ninth and last circle. In the middle of the plain, at the centre of the earth, is Lucifer or Satan, called Dis by the ancients. Ice is used as a means of punishment in other visions of Hell, and in the Visio Alberici we find a graded immersion in ice; but nowhere else has it the significance that our poem gives it. Dante's traitors have no desire to be remembered on earth: the best they can hope is to be forgotten. Their evil disposition is unchanged, and even in Hell they are eager to betray one another. The cold, cruel spirit that pervades their congregation communicates itself to the beholder; the mere thought of their odious crimes arouses an instinct of vindictiveness. Scorn and hatred possess Dante as he contemplates them, and he feels impelled to pay them in their own coin. The traitors fall into four divisions, according to the relation between themselves and their victims. They are arranged in the round plain in four concentric circles; taking them in order, from circumference to middle, these rings are called Caina, Antenora, Tolomea (Ptolemea'), Giudecca (Judecca'). They are distinguished only by the position of the sinners in the ice: in the first three, the souls are embedded up to their heads; in the last, Giudecca, they are entirely covered. In Caina, the heads are bowed down; in Antenora they are apparently erect; in Tolomea they are thrown back. Caina contains traitors to kindred, Antenora traitors to country or party, Tolomea traitors to guests, Giudecca traitors to benefactors. In all cases the treachery involves murder. Caina and Giudecca are named respectively for Cain and Judas. Antenora derives its title from the Trojan Antēnor, who bears an excellent character in the Iliad; in the later narratives, however, ascribed to Dares and Dictys, and regarded in the Middle Ages as an authentic account, he figures as the arch-traitor who hands over the Palladium to the Greeks (cf. Servius's commentary on En., I, 242). Tolomea is so called after the Ptolemy of I Macc. xvi, 11-6, a captain of Jericho, who murdered his father-in-law and two brothersin-law at a banquet to which he had invited them. S' io avessi le rime aspre e chiocce, Come si converrebbe al tristo buco Più pienamente; ma perch' io non l'abbo, Descriver fondo a tutto l' universo, Che stai nel loco onde parlare è duro, Sotto i piè del gigante, assai più bassi, E sotto i piedi un lago, che per gelo 1. Chiocce, clucking.' Cf. VII, 2. 3. Pontan, 'thrust.' 5. L'abbo le ho. 9. Nor one fit for a childish tongue. An example of rhetorical understatement, or litotes: cf. D' Ovidio, 514-9. 10. Donne: the Muses, thanks to whom Amphion's lyre charmed the rocks to move and form the walls of Thebes. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, 394 ff.; Thebaid, X, 873 ff. 15. Me' meglio: cf. XIV, 36. Zebe, 'goats.' 16. Pozzo: in the Visio Alberici, IX, the mouth of the pit 'similis videbatur puteo.' See the argument at the head of the preceding canto. 19. Udimmi-mi udii. The two brothers who thus address Dante from the ice are, as we learn presently, the counts of Mangona. Avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante. Non fece al corso suo sì grosso velo D' inverno la Danoia in Osteric, Nè Tanaï là sotto il freddo cielo, Col muso fuor dell' acqua, quando sogna Da bocca il freddo, e dagli occhi il cor tristo Che il pel del capo avieno insieme misto. 'Ditemi voi, che sì stringete i petti,' Diss' io, 'chi siete.' E quei piegaro i colli ; t 25 30 35 40 26. The Danube in Austria. Osteric and Osterlic were used in early Italian. 27. The Tanǎis, or Don. 28. Tambernic (or Tamberlic or Taberlic) is an unidentified mountain. 29. Pietra pana, now called Pania della Croce, is a rocky mountain in the Tuscan Apennines. 30. Cric is a word made to imitate the sound. 33. In the summer, the season when the country woman is apt to dream of gleaning. 34. As far as their faces: shame manifests itself by a blush. 36. Their teeth chatter like a stork's bill. Cf. Met., VI, 97: 'Ipsa sibi plaudat crepitante ciconia rostro.' Also Hugh of St. Victor, De Bestiis, I, 42: Ciconiæ sonum oris pro voce quatiente rostro faciunt.' And Brunetto Latini, Trésor, I, v, 161 (see Tor.). 38. Freddo and cor are subjects of procaccia, of which testimonianza is the object. The chattering teeth bear witness to the cold; the weeping eyes, to the sadness of the heart. E poi ch' ebber li visi a me eretti, Gli occhi lor, ch' eran pria pur dentro molli, Con legno legno mai spranga non cinse Se vuoi saper chi son cotesti due, La valle onde Bisenzio si dichina Del padre loro Alberto e di lor fue. 45 50 55 60 Con esso un colpo per la man d' Artù ; Non Focaccia; non questi che m' ingombra 65 Col capo sì ch' io non veggio oltre più, E fu nomato Sassol Mascheroni 46. Their eyes until now 'were wet only within' because they were frozen over on the outside. A new flood of tears bursts the icy coat for a moment. 48. Essi: the eyes. Riserrol i, 'locked them up again.' 49. 'Clamp never fastened wood to wood.' 56. The Bisenzio is a little stream that runs near Prato and empties into the Arno. 57. Alberto, count of Mangona. Two of his sons, Napoleone and Alessandro, quarrelled over their inheritance and killed each other. 61. Mordrec, or Mordred, the treacherous nephew of King Arthur, was pierced by such a blow from Arthur's spear that, when the weapon was pulled out, a ray of sunlight traversed his body. The story is told in the Old French Lancelot du lac. 62. Con esso = con: cf. XXIII, 54. 63. Foccaccia de' Cancellieri, of the White party of Pistoia, lay in wait, with other ruffians, for one of his relatives, Detto de' Cancellieri, a Black, and killed him in a tailor's shop. 65. Sassol Mascheroni is known to us only through an early commentator, who says he murdered a nephew to secure his inheritance. |