Chè le lagrime prime fanno groppo, Per ch' io: 'Maestro mio, questo chi move? Ond' egli a me : 'Avaccio sarai dove Di ciò ti farà l'occhio la risposta, Veggendo la cagion che il fiato piove.' Sì ch' io sfoghi il dolor che il cor m' impregna, Un poco, pria che il pianto si raggeli.' Dimmi chi sei, e s' io non ti disbrigo, Al fondo della ghiaccia ir mi convegna.' 97. Groppo, 'knot,' i. e., a solid block of ice. 99. Coppo, 'cup.' = 100. Avvegna che, although.' D'un - da un. 102. Cessato stallo, 'ended its stay,' i. e., departed. - Del=dal. 105. Wind is a 'dry vapor': cf. Conv., I, iv, 36. 106. Avaccio, 'quickly.' 108. Che il fiato piove, which rains down (produces) the blast.' 100 105 115 III. This spirit thinks that Dante and Virgil must be going to Giudecca. 113. Impregna, 'swells.' 116. Disbrigo, 'rid.' 117. This oath seems to be uttered with false intent, as Dante's way lies, in any case, through 'the bottom of the ice.' 118. Alberigo de' Manfredi of Faenza, a frate gaudente, had two of his family murdered at a dinner, in his presence, in 1285. He gave the signal to the assassins by calling: 'Vengano le frutta!' Io son quel delle frutta del mal orto, Da un demonio, che poscia il governa Mentre che il tempo suo tutto sia volto. E forse pare ancor lo corpo suso Dell' ombra che di qua retro mi verna. Egli è Ser Branca d' Oria, e son più anni 'Io credo,' diss' io lui, 'che tu m' inganni; 120 125 130 135 120. Riprendo dattero per figo, 'am being repaid with interest,' a date being worth more than a fig. 121. Ancor = già. 122. Stea= stia. 126. 'Before Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life) gives it a start.' Dea = dia. 127. Rade rada. 134. Suso: on earth. 135. Verna, 'is wintering.' 136. Dei=devi. Pur mo, 'only now.' 137. Branca d' Oria, of the famous Genoese family of Doria, was a rich and powerful noble of Genoa, who had great estates in Liguria, Corsica, and Sardinia. Apparently he lived until 1325. Aided by a relative not known to us by name, he murdered, probably in 1275, his father-in-law Michel Zanche, the Sardinian barrator whom we met in 'the sticky pitch' of the 8th ditch of Malebolge (XXII, 88). Chè Branca d' Oria non morì unquanche, Non era giunto ancora Michel Zanche, Aprimi gli occhi.' Ed io non glieli apersi, D'ogni costume, e pien d' ogni magagna, Chè col peggiore spirto di Romagna Trovai di voi un tal che per sua opra 140. Unquanche, 'as yet.' 140 145 150 155 145. Branca's soul, leaving a devil in its stead, reached this ninth circle as soon as the murdered man's soul reached the 8th. 146. Ed un suo prossimano, 'and so did a relative of his.' 150. 'And it was courtesy to be rude to him.' 152. Diversi d'ogni costume, 'strange to all morality.' Magagna, 'cor ruption.' 153. Spersi dispersi. 154. Alberigo de' Manfredi. 155. Branca d' Oria. CANTO XXXIV ARGUMENT THE Souls in the fourth division of the last circle are entirely covered by the frozen lake, through which they are seen like bits of straw blown into glass. They lie pell-mell in the ice, some curled up, some horizontal, some vertical these last with head or feet upward, as they chanced to fall. Three sinners only - the worst of all humankind - have a different and more awful fate: they are crunched by the three mouths of Satan himself. Judas sold Christ, the founder of the Church; Brutus and Cassius betrayed Cæsar, the founder of the Empire. Church and Empire being co-ordinate powers, divinely established for the spiritual and temporal government of men, their founders were both sacred. But inasmuch as the spiritual kingdom is holier than the temporal, and inasmuch as Jesus was not only man but God, treason to Christ is wickeder than treason to the merely human Cæsar. Judas, then, is more tortured than his two companions; his back is rent by Satan's claws, and his head is inside the demon's mouth, while his legs, like those of the Simonists, dangle outside. He is chewed by the red face of Love of Evil, whereas Brutus and Cassius, head downward, hang respectively from the black face of Ignorance and the sallow face of Impotence. In this Giudecca, the home of betrayers of their benefactors, the central figure is the arch-traitor and arch-ingrate, Lucifer. Here he fell when he was cast headlong from Heaven, and here he will remain, huge, hideous, and impassive, through all eternity. 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit' (Isaiah xiv, 12-15). Christian interpretation applied these verses not only to an earthly ruler, but to a fallen angel as well. They naturally linked themselves to Luke x, 18: 'And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven'; and to Rev. xii, 7-9: 'And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.' Taken together, these passages corroborate the ancient tradition of the revolt and fall of the angels (cf. the note to III, 7), and at the same time furnish ground for an identification of Lucifer with Satan, the Devil, the Serpent, and the Dragon. As we shall see from 1. 127, Dante regarded Beelzebub as still another name for the same demon. In spite of the abundance of realistic detail that makes us share with Dante the experiences of this canto, we must consider his portrayal of Satan as essentially allegorical. His Devil is the image of sin, the principle of evil, the negative counterpart of God, who is the principle of good. As the Godhead is composed of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, representing the three attributes, Power, Wisdom, and Love, so Lucifer is pictured threefaced: his red visage betokens Love of Evil, or Hate; the black face is the emblem of Ignorance, the opposite of Wisdom and the source of pride; the pale yellow one signifies Impotence, the opposite of Power and the begetter of envy. Just as the Holy Ghost, or Love, is continually engendered by Father and Son, so, in Satan, Hate is the result of ignorant Pride and impotent Envy. Dante's Lucifer, though less grotesque and fantastic than the usual diabolical monster of vision literature, is ugly beyond description. Like the four beasts surrounding God's throne in Rev. iv, 8, and like the seraphim of Isaiah vi, 2, he has six wings; a pair of them sprouts beneath each face, and the three winds produced by their flapping freeze Cocytus. Immovable and helpless in the ice of his own making, he holds sway over his 'doloroso regno' — so it would seem by these winds alone. They are the Satanic instigations, the inspiration of sin. Presumably they correspond to the three great divisions of Hell, the 'tre disposizioni che il ciel non vuole' of XI, 81-3. From the wings of Love of Evil issues the blast of Fraud or Malice; from the wings of Ignorance, the blast of Violence or Bestiality; from the wings of Impotence, the wind of Incontinence or weakness to resist the passions. Having explored all the manifestations of sin, and having finally scrutinized its very essence, Dante, with the help of Reason, turns his back upon it and laboriously wrests himself from its attraction. That is the allegory of the long and uneventful climb from the bottom of Hell, at the earth's centre, out to the surface on the other side: it is the steady, monotonous effort by which the remorseful wrongdoer is weaned from evil practices. In this journey Dante has no light to guide him- only the encouraging murmur of the streamlet of discarded sin, flowing constantly from Purgatory, |