Inferno

Canto XXVI

The Eighth Bolgia: evil counsellors—Ulysses and Diomed.

Rejoice, O Florence, since thou art so great,¹That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,And throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad!Among the thieves five citizens of thine²Like these I found, whence shame comes unto me,And thou thereby to no great honor risest.But if when morn is near our dreams are true,³Feel shalt thou in a little time from nowWhat Prato, if none other, craves for thee.⁴And if it now were, it were not too soon;⁵Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,For ’twill aggrieve me more the more I age.We went our way, and up along the stairsThe bourns had made us to descend before,Remounted my Conductor and drew me.And following the solitary pathAmong the rocks and ridges of the crag,The foot without the hand sped not at all.Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,When I direct my mind to what I saw,And more my genius curb than I am wont,That it may run not unless virtue guide it;So that if some good star, or better thing,⁶Have given me good, I may myself not grudge it.⁷As many as the hind (who on the hillRests at the time when he who lights the worldHis countenance keeps least concealed from us,While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)Seeth the glow-worms down along the valley,Perchance there where he ploughs and makes his vintage;With flames as manifold resplendent allWas the eighth Bolgia, as I grew awareAs soon as I was where the depth appeared.And such as he who with the bears avenged him⁸Beheld Elijah’s chariot at departing,⁹What time the steeds to heaven erect uprose,For with his eye he could not follow itSo as to see aught else than flame alone,Even as a little cloud ascending upward,Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchmentWas moving; for not one reveals the theft,And every flame a sinner steals away.I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see,So that, if I had seized not on a rock,Down had I fallen without being pushed.And the Leader, who beheld me so attent,Exclaimed: “Within the fires the spirits are;Each swathes himself with that wherewith he burns.”“My Master,” I replied, “by hearing theeI am more sure; but I surmised alreadyIt might be so, and already wished to ask theeWho is within that fire, which comes so cleftAt top, it seems uprising from the pyreWhere was Eteocles with his brother placed.”¹⁰He answered me: “Within there are tormentedUlysses and Diomed, and thus together¹¹They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.And there within their flame do they lamentThe ambush of the horse, which made the door¹²Whence issued forth the Romans’ gentle seed;Therein is wept the craft, for which being deadDeidamia still deplores Achilles,¹³And pain for the Palladium there is borne.”¹⁴“If they within those sparks possess the powerTo speak,” I said, “thee, Master, much I pray,And re-pray, that the prayer be worth a thousand,That thou make no denial of awaitingUntil the horned flame shall hither come;Thou seest that with desire I lean towards it.”And he to me: “Worthy is thy entreatyOf much applause, and therefore I accept it;But take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.Leave me to speak, because I have conceivedThat which thou wishest; for they might disdainPerchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine.”¹⁵When now the flame had come unto that point,Where to my Leader it seemed time and place,After this fashion did I hear him speak:“O ye, who are twofold within one fire,If I deserved of you, while I was living,If I deserved of you or much or littleWhen in the world I wrote the lofty verses,Do not move on, but one of you declareWhither, being lost, he went away to die.”Then of the antique flame the greater horn,Murmuring, began to wave itself aboutEven as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.Thereafterward, the summit to and froMoving as if it were the tongue that spake,It uttered forth a voice, and said: “When IFrom Circe had departed, who concealed meMore than a year there near unto Gaëta,Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,Nor fondness for my son, nor reverenceFor my old father, nor the due affectionWhich joyous should have made Penelope,Could overcome within me the desireI had to be experienced of the world,And of the vice and virtue of mankind;But I put forth on the high open seaWith one sole ship, and that small companyBy which I never had deserted been.Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,And the others which that sea bathes round about.I and my company were old and slowWhen at that narrow passage we arrivedWhere Hercules his landmarks set as signals,¹⁶That man no farther onward should adventure.On the right hand behind me left I Seville,And on the other already had left Ceuta.‘O brothers, who amid a hundred thousandPerils,’ I said, ‘have come unto the West,To this so inconsiderable vigilWhich is remaining of your senses still,Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’So eager did I render my companions,With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,That then I hardly could have held them back.And having turned our stern unto the morning,We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,¹⁷Evermore gaining on the larboard side.Already all the stars of the other pole¹⁸The night beheld, and ours so very lowIt did not rise above the ocean floor.Five times rekindled and as many quenchedHad been the splendor underneath the moon,Since we had entered into the deep pass,When there appeared to us a mountain, dimFrom distance, and it seemed to me so highAs I had never any one beheld.Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,And smote upon the fore part of the ship.Three times it made it whirl with all the waters,At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,Until the sea above us closed again.”¹⁹

The Eighth Bolgia, in which Fraudulent Counsellors are punished. ↩
Of these five Florentine nobles, Cianfa Donati, Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, and Guercio Cavalcanti, nothing is known but what Dante tells us. Perhaps that is enough. ↩
See Purgatorio IX 13:— “Just at the hour when her sad lay begins / The little swallow, near unto the morning, / Perchance in memory of her former woes. / And when the mind of man, a wanderer / More from the flesh, and less by thought imprisoned, / Almost prophetic in its visions is.” ↩
The disasters soon to befall Florence, and in which even the neighboring town of Prato would rejoice, to mention no others. These disasters were the fall of the wooden bridge of Carraia, with a crowd upon it, witnessing a Miracle Play on the Arno; the strife of the Bianchi and Neri; and the great fire of 1304. See Villani, VIII 70, 71. Napier, Florentine History, I 394, gives this account:— “Battles first began between the Cerchi and Giugni at their houses in the Via del Garbo; they fought day and night, and with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Antellesi the former subdued all that quarter: a thousand rural adherents strengthened their bands, and that day might have seen the Neri’s destruction if an unforseen disaster had not turned the scale. A certain dissolute priest, called Neri Abati, prior of San Piero Scheraggio, false to his family and in concert with the Black chiefs, consented to set fire to the dwellings of his own kinsmen in Orto-san-Michele; the flames, assisted by faction, spread rapidly over the richest and most crowded part of Florence: shops, warehouses, towers, private dwellings and palaces, from the old to the new marketplace, from Vacchereccia to Porta Santa Maria and the Ponte Vecchio, all was one broad sheet of fire: more than nineteen hundred houses were consumed; plunder and devastation revelled unchecked amongst the flames, whole races were reduced in one moment to beggary, and vast magazines of the richest merchandise were destroyed. The Cavalcanti, one of the most opulent families in Florence, beheld their whole property consumed, and lost all courage; they made no attempt to save it, and, after almost gaining possession of the city, were finally overcome by the opposite faction.” ↩
Macbeth, 1.7:— “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.” ↩
See Paradiso XII 112:— “O glorious stars! O light impregnated / With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge / All of my genius, whatsoe’er it be.” ↩
I may not balk or deprive myself of this good. ↩
The Prophet Elisha, 2 Kings 2:23:— “And he went up from thence unto Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him. Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord: and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” ↩
2 Kings 2:11:— “And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” ↩
These two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, were so hostile to each other, that, when after death their bodies were burned on the same funeral pile, the flames swayed apart, and the ashes separated. Statius, Thebaid, XII 430, Lewis’s Tr.:— “Again behold the brothers! When the fire / Pervades their limbs in many a curling spire, / The vast hill trembles, and the intruder’s corse / Is driven from the pile with sudden force. / The flames, dividing at the point, ascend, / And at each other adverse rays extend. / Thus when the ruler of the infernal state, / Pale-visaged Dis, commits to stern debate / The sister-fiends, their brands, held forth to fight, / Now clash, then part, and shed a transient light.” ↩
The most cunning of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, now united in their punishment, as before in warlike wrath. ↩
As Troy was overcome by the fraud of the wooden horse, it was in a poetic sense the gateway by which Aeneas went forth to establish the Roman empire in Italy. ↩
Deidamia was a daughter of Lycomedes of Scyros, at whose court Ulysses found Achilles, disguised in woman’s attire, and enticed him away to the siege of Troy, telling him that, according to the oracle, the city could not be taken without him, but not telling him that, according to the same oracle, he would lose his life there. ↩
Ulysses and Diomed together stole the Palladium, or statue of Pallas, at Troy, the safeguard and protection of the city. ↩
The Greeks scorned all other nations as “outside barbarians.” Even Virgil, a Latian, has to plead with Ulysses the merit of having praised him in the Aeneid. ↩
The Pillars of Hercules at the straits of Gibraltar; Abyla on the African shore, and Gibraltar on the Spanish; in which the popular mind has lost its faith, except as symbolized in the columns on the Spanish dollar, with the legend, Plus ultra. Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto IX 119:— “Appresso questo mare, / Vidi diritto stare / Gran colonne, le quali / Vi mise per segnali / Ercules il potente, / Per mostrare alia gente / Che loco sia finata / La terra e terminata.” ↩
Odyssey, XI 155:— “Well-fitted oars, which are also wings to ships.” ↩
Humboldt, Personal Narrative, II 19, Miss Williams’s Tr., has this passage:— “From the time we entered the torrid zone, we were never wearied with admiring, every night, the beauty of the Southern sky, which, as we advanced toward the south, opened new constellations to our view. We feel an indescribable sensation, when, on approaching the equator, and particularly on passing from one hemisphere to the other, we see those stars, which we have contemplated from our infancy, progressively sink, and finally disappear. Nothing atvakens in the traveller a livelier remembrance of the immense distance by which he is separated from his country, than the aspect of an unknown firmament. The grouping of the stars of the first magnitude, some scattered nebula, rivalling in splendor the milky way, and tracks of space remarkable for their extreme blackness, give a particular physiognomy to the Southern sky. This sight fills with admiration even those who, uninstructed in the branches of accurate science, feel the same emotion of delight in the contemplation of the heavenly vault, as in the view of a beautiful landscape, or a majestic site. A traveller has no need of being a botanist, to recognize the torrid zone on the mere aspect of its vegetation; and without having acquired any notions of astronomy, without any acquaintance with the celestial charts of Flamstead and De la Caille, he feels he is not in Europe, when he sees the immense constellation of the Ship, or the phosphorescent clouds of Magellan, arise on the horizon.” ↩
Compare Tennyson’s Ulysses:— “There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: / There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, / Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me— / That ever with a frolic welcome took / The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed / Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; / Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; / Death closes all: but something ere the end, / Some work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. / The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: / The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs; the deep / Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, / ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. / Push off, and, sitting well in order, smite / The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die. / It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: / It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, / And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. / Though much is taken, much abides; and though / We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; / One equal temper of heroic hearts. / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” ↩