Notes
7 The wars summed up in these opening stanzas
range from the wars of the early Romans (here "Trojans") against the Samnites
(343-290 B.C.) and the Punic Wars (264-146 B.C.) which included the battle of Cannae in
216 where Romans were slaughtered (l. 11) to Robert Guiscard’s battles from 1059 to
1090 against the Greeks and Saracens in southern Italy and Sicily, as well as the Apulian
treachery which turned the pass of Ceperano (l. 16) over to Manfred’s foes in 1266,
and Charles of Anjou’s stratagem which enabled him to defeat Manfred’s nephew
Conradin at the battle of Tagliacozzo in 1268. Alardo (l. 18) is Charles’ general
Erard de Valery.
24 See the fate of Judas in Acts 1:18,
"he burst open and his guts spilled out."
31 Mohammed (d. 632), the founder of Islam,
with his son-in-law Ali appears here in the ninth pouch with the sowers of schism.
55 Fra Dolcino in 1300 headed the Apostolic
Brothers, an outlawed religious sect that was forcibly suppressed; he was burned at the
stake in 1307.
73 Pier da Medicina, driven from Romagna in
1287, intrigued among its rulers to turn them against themselves.
76 Malatestino of Rimini, to acquire Fano for
himself, invited Angiolello da Carignano and Guido del Cassero, two of the town’s
leaders, to meet him at La Cattolica, a cape between the two towns, and had them drowned
off the headland of Focara. The city (ll. 85 and 93) is Rimini.
97 Curio is said by the Roman poet Lucan to
have urged Caesar to cross the Rubicon, declaring war on the Republic in 49 B.C. The spot
is near Rimini.
106 Mosca dei Lamberti suggested that one of
the Buondelmonti be murdered rather than beaten; the act resulted in the strife between
Ghibellines and Guelphs. See Paradiso XVI, l. 135, and note.
118 The headless body is that of Bertran de
Born (1140-1215), a knight and Provençal troubadour, who was believed to have instigated
a quarrel between Henry II of England and his son.
137 Achitophel supported Absalom in his
rebellion against his father King David (2 Samuel 15-17). |
|
- Who
could ever, even in straight prose
- And
after much retelling, tell in full
- The
bloodletting and wounds that I now saw?
-
- Each
tongue that tried would certainly trip up
- 5
Because our speaking and remembering
-
Cannot comprehend the scope of pain.
-
- Were
all those men gathered again together
- Who
once in the fateful land of Apulia
-
Mourned the lifeblood spilled by the Trojans,
-
- 10
And those who shed their blood in the long war
- In
which the spoils were a mound of golden rings,
- As
Livy has unerringly informed us,
-
- And
those also who felt the painful gashes
- In
the onslaught against Robert Guiscard,
- 15
And those others whose bones are still stacked up
-
- At
Ceperano where all the Apulians
-
Turned traitors, and those too from Tagliacozzo
- Where
old Alardo conquered without weapons,
-
- And
those who show their limbs run through and those
- 20
With limbs hacked off — they all could not have matched
- The
ninth pocket’s degraded state of grief.
-
- Even
a cask with bottom or sides knocked out
- Never
cracked so wide as one soul I saw
- Burst
open from the chin to where one farts.
-
- 25
His guts were hanging out between his legs;
- His
pluck gaped forth and that disgusting sack
- Which
turns to shit what throats have gobbled down.
-
- While
I was all agog with gazing at him,
- He
stared at me and, as his two hands pulled
- 30
His chest apart, cried, "Look how I rip myself!
-
-
"Look at how mangled is Mohammed here!
- In
front of me, Ali treks onward, weeping,
- His
face cleft from his chin to his forelock.
-
-
"And all the others whom you see down here
- 35
Were sowers of scandal and schism while
- They
lived, and for this they are rent in two.
-
-
"A devil goes in back here who dresses us
- So
cruelly by trimming each one of the pack
- With
the fine cutting edge of his sharp sword
-
- 40
"Whenever we come round this forlorn road:
-
Because by then our old wounds have closed up
-
Before we pass once more for the next blow.
-
-
"But who are you, moping upon that ridge
-
Perhaps to put off facing the penalty
- 45
Pronounced on you by your own accusations?"
-
-
"Death has not yet reached him, nor guilt led him
- To
the torture here," — my master answered,
-
"But, to offer him the full experience,
-
-
"I who am dead am destined to guide him
- 50
From circle to circle down here into hell,
- And,
as surely as I speak to you, it’s true."
-
- More
than a hundred, when they heard him, halted
-
Inside the ditch to peer at me in wonder,
-
Forgetting their torments for the moment.
-
- 55
"Tell Brother Dolcino then, you who perhaps
-
Shortly shall see the sun, to arm himself
- With
food — unless he wants to follow me
-
-
"Here promptly — so that the weight of snow
- Does
not bring victory to the Novarese
- 60
Who otherwise would not find winning easy."
-
- With
one foot lifted in the air to go,
-
Mohammed addressed these words to me,
- Then
set the foot back on the ground and left.
-
-
Another sinner with his throat lanced through
- 65
And with his nose carved off up to the eyebrows
- And
with only a single ear remaining
-
-
Stopped with the rest to stare in amazement,
- And,
before they could, he opened wide his windpipe,
- Which
on the outside looked bright red, and said,
-
- 70
"O you whom guilt does not condemn and whom
- I
have seen in the land of Italy,
-
Unless a strong resemblance now deceives me,
-
-
"Remember Pier da Medicina should you
- Ever
return to view the gentle plain
- 75
Which slopes from Vercelli to Marcabò,
-
-
"And make known to the two best men of Fano,
- To
Messers Guido and Angiolello,
- That,
unless our foresight here be worthless,
-
-
"They shall be thrown overboard from their ship
- 80
And sunk with stones near La Cattolica
-
Through the treachery of a felon tyrant.
-
-
"Between the islands of Cyprus and Majorca
-
Neptune never saw a crime more heinous
- By
raiding pirates or the ancient Argives.
-
- 85
"That one-eyed traitor — who rules over the city
- On
which someone here with me would prefer
- That
he had never fed his single sight —
-
-
"Shall first arrange for them a parley with him,
- Then
act to make sure that they will not need
- 90
Vows or prayers against Focara’s headwinds."
-
- And I
told him, "If you want me to carry
- News
of you above, point out and tell me
- Who
is the one who rues sighting the city?"
-
- At
that he gripped a hand upon the jaw
- 95
Of his companion and forced his mouth agape,
-
Shouting, "Here’s the one, but he doesn’t talk!
-
-
"This chap in exile submerged all the doubts
- Of
Caesar, boasting that one well prepared
- Can
only suffer loss by hesitation."
-
- 100
Oh how flabbergasted he appeared to me,
- With
his tongue slashed in his throat — Curio,
- Who
once had been so resolute in speaking!
-
- And
one who had both of his hands chopped off,
-
Raising up his stumps in the smut-filled air
- 105
So that the blood besmeared and soiled his face,
-
- Cried
out, "You will also remember Mosca
- Who
said, alas, ‘What’s done is dead and gone!’
- That
sowed the seed of trouble for the Tuscans!"
-
- And I
added, "— and for your kinsfolk, death!"
- 110
With that the sinner, sorrow heaped on sorrow,
-
Scurried away like one gone mad with grief.
-
- But I
stayed there to inspect that muster
- And
spied something that I should be afraid
- To
tell of on my own without more proof,
-
- 115
Had I not the assurance of my conscience,
- The
good companion heartening a man
-
Beneath the breastplate of its pure intention.
-
- I saw
for sure — and still I seem to see it —
- A
body without a head that walked along
- 120
Just as the others in that sad herd were walking,
-
- But
it held the severed head by the hair,
-
Swinging it like a lantern in its hand,
- And
the head stared at us and said, "Ah me!"
-
-
Itself had made a lamp of its own self,
- 125
And they were two in one and one in two:
- How
can that be? He knows who so ordains it.
-
- When
it was right at the base of the bridge,
- It
raised up full length the arm with the head
- To
carry closer to us words, which were:
-
- 130
"Now you see the galling punishment,
- You
there, breathing, come visiting the dead:
- See
if you find pain heavier than this!
-
-
"And so that you may bring back news of me,
- Know
that I am Bertran de Born, the one
- 135
Who offered the young king corrupt advice.
-
-
"I made the son and father rebel foes.
-
Achitophel with his pernicious promptings
- Did
no worse harm to Absalom and David.
-
-
"Because I severed persons bound so closely,
- 140
I carry my brain separate (what grief!)
- From
its life-source which is within this trunk.
-
-
"So see in me the counterstroke of justice."
|
return
to Inferno XXVII