Notes
7 This brass bull was designed by Perillus
for Phalaris, the Sicilian tyrant, as an instrument of torture; the first victim was its
inventor.
19 The speaker is Guido da Montefeltro
(1223-1298), count and leader of the Ghibellines of Romagna, the area described in lines
28-30.
37 Romagna is a region in the North-East part
of Italy; its main city is Ravenna.
40 Guido Vecchio da Polenta (his coat of arms
contained an eagle) ruled Ravenna in 1300. Cervia is a small city some dozen miles below
Ravenna.
43 Forlė was successfully defended in 1282
against the French; in 1300 it was ruled by Sinibal degli Ordelaffi, whose arms feature a
green lion.
46 The mastiffs are Malatesta and his son
Malatestino, lords of Rimini, who captured the Ghibelline leader Montagna de’
Parcitati in 1295 and then killed him.
50 Mainardo Pagano, lord of Faenza on the
Lamone, of Imola near the Santerno, and of Forlė was a northern Ghibelline who supported
the Florentine Guelphs. Cesena, on the Savio river (l. 52), was self-administrated at the
time.
67 Guido entered the Franciscan order in 1296
and became an adviser to Boniface VIII (here "the high priest" and "prince
of Pharisees") who under the pretense of amnesty for the Colonna family razed their
stronghold of Penestrino, (now Palestrina) in 1298 (l. 102).
94 Pope Sylvester (314-335) was called from
Mount Soracte by Constantine to cure his leprosy. .
105 Celestine V abdicated in 1294, making way
for Boniface.
112 St. Francis of Assisi. Guido had in fact
become a Franciscan.
124 Minos (see Canto V) assigns
the souls to their proper place in hell. |
|
-
By this time the flame stood straight and still
- With
no more words and by now took its leave
- With
the permission of the gentle poet
-
- When
another, coming right behind it,
- 5
Forced us to turn our eyes toward its tip
-
Because of the scrambled sound it sputtered out.
-
- As
the Sicilian bull — that bellowed first
- With
cries of the man (it served him right!)
- Who
with his file had tuned the beast for torture —
-
- 10
Would bellow so loudly with its victim’s voice
-
Within it that, though the whole was brass
- The
thing seemed penetrated by the pain:
-
- So,
without a way out or through the soul
-
Burning inside the flame, the words of woe
- 15
Then became the language of the fire.
-
- But
after the voices found their own way up
-
Through the tip, giving it the tremble which
- The
tongue had given to the fiery passage,
-
- We
heard the flame: "O you to whom I turn
- 20
My voice and who, speaking in Lombard, said,
-
‘Now you may leave, I ask no more of you,’
-
-
"Although, perhaps, I come a little late,
- Take
the trouble to stop and speak to me:
- See,
it shan't trouble me, and I am burning.
-
- 25
"If you just now fell down to this blind world
- Out
of that sweet country of Italy
- From
which I carry all my guilt, tell me,
-
-
"Do the Romagnoles have peace or war?
- For I
came from the mountains between Urbino
- 30
And the range where the Tiber fountains forth."
-
- I
still leaned out, bent and listening,
- When
my guide nudged me on my side and said,
-
"You talk to him: this one is Italian."
-
- And
I, already eager to respond,
- 35
Began to speak up without hesitation:
-
"O soul, hidden below there in that fire,
-
-
"Your Romagna is not now and never was
- Free
of war in the hearts of her tyrants,
- But
no war was waging when I left her.
-
- 40
"Ravenna, now many years, remains the same:
- The
eagle of Polenta broods over her
- And
also covers Cervia with his wings.
-
-
"Forlė, the city which once withstood the siege
- And
reduced the French to a bloody rubble,
- 45
Finds herself again beneath green talons.
-
-
"Both mastiffs, old and young, from Verrucchio,
- Who
kept such a poor watchout for Montagna,
- Sink
their teeth where they usually do.
-
-
"The cities on Lamone and Santerno
- 50
Are ruled by the lion-cub on the white lair
- Who
summer to winter shifts from side to side.
-
-
"Cesena, whose shore the Savio bathes,
- Just
as it lies between the plain and mountain,
- Lives
in-between tyranny and freedom.
-
- 55
"Now I beg you to tell us who you are:
-
Don’t be more stubborn than I’ve been with you
- If in
the world you’d like your name to last."
-
- After
the flame had roared on for some time
- In
its unique way, the pointed tip swayed
- 60
Back and forth and then released this breath:
-
-
"If I thought that my answer was to someone
- Who
might one day return up to the world,
- This
flame would never cease its flickering.
-
-
"However, since no one ever turned back, alive,
- 65
From this abyss — should what I hear be true —
-
Undaunted by infamy, I answer you.
-
-
"I was a man of arms and then a friar,
-
Thinking to atone, girt with the cincture,
- And
surely my thought would have proven right
-
- 70
"Had not that high priest (evil overtake him!)
-
Caused me to backslide into earlier crimes:
- And
how and why, I would you heard from me.
-
-
"While I was still bound by the bones and flesh
- My
mother gave me, the things I accomplished
- 75
Were not those of the lion but the fox.
-
-
"Its wiles and covert ways, I knew them all,
- And I
conducted their art so cunningly
- My
repute resounded to the ends of earth.
-
-
"But when I saw that I had reached the point
- 80
In my life when each man takes on the duty
- To
lower the sails and pull in the tackle,
-
-
"Things that once brought pleasure now gave pain.
-
Repentant and confessed, I joined the friars:
- What
a pity! And it would have worked!
-
- 85
"The crowned prince of the new Pharisees —
- Going
to war close to the Lateran
- And
not against the Saracens or Jews
-
-
"(Since every enemy of his was Christian
- And
not one of them had gone to conquer Acre
- 90
Or been a trader in the Sultan’s country) —
-
-
"Ignored the high office and holy orders
-
Belonging to him and ignored the cincture
- Which
once made men — like me — who wore it leaner:
-
-
"But just as Constantine sought out Sylvester
- 95
On Mount Soracte to heal his leprosy,
- So he
sought me to act as his physician
-
-
"To help heal him of the fever of his pride.
- He
asked me for my counsel — I kept quiet
-
Because his words seemed from a drunken stupor.
-
- 100
"Then he said, ‘Your heart need not mistrust:
- I
absolve you in advance and you instruct me
- How
to knock Penestrino to the ground.
-
-
" ‘I have the power to lock and unlock heaven,
- You
know that, because I keep the two keys
- 105
For which my predecessor took no care.’
-
-
"His weighty arguments so pressured me then
- That
silence seemed the worse course, and I said,
-
‘Father, since you cleanse me of that sin
-
-
" ‘Into which I now must fall — remember:
- 110
An ample promise with a small repayment
- Shall
bring you triumph on the lofty throne.’
-
-
"Francis — the moment that I died — came then
- For
me, but one of the black cherubim
-
Called to him, ‘Don’t take him! don’t cheat me!
-
- 115
" ‘He must come down to join my hirelings
-
Because he offered counsel full of fraud,
- And
ever since I’ve been after his scalp!
-
-
" ‘For you can’t pardon one who won’t repent,
- And
one cannot repent what one wills also:
- 120
The contradiction cannot be allowed.’
-
-
"O miserable me! how shaken I was
- When
he grabbed hold of me and cried, ‘Perhaps
- You
didn’t realize I was a logician!’
-
-
"He carried me off to Minos who twisted
- 125
His tail eight times around his hardened back,
- Then
bit it in gigantic rage and blared,
-
-
" ‘This is a sinner for the fire of thieves!’
- So I
am lost here where you see me go
-
Walking in this robe and in my rancor."
-
- 130
When he had finished speaking in this fashion,
- The
lamenting flame went away in sorrow,
-
Turning and tossing its sharp-pointed horn.
-
- We
traveled on ahead, my guide and I,
- Along
the ridge as far as the next bridgeway
- 135
Arching the ditch where they must pay the price
-
- Who
earned such loads by sowing constant discord.
|
return
to Inferno XXVI