The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno

CANTO XXI.

Conversing still from bridge to bridge[575] we went;
But what our words I in my Comedy
Care not to tell. The top of the ascent
Holding, we halted the next pit to spy
Of Malebolge, with plaints bootless all:
There, darkness[576] full of wonder met the eye.
As the Venetians[577] in their Arsenal
Boil the tenacious pitch at winter-tide,
To caulk the ships with for repairs that call;
For then they cannot sail; and so, instead,10
One builds his bark afresh, one stops with tow
His vessel’s ribs, by many a voyage tried;
One hammers at the poop, one at the prow;
Some fashion oars, and others cables twine,
And others at the jib and main sails sew:
So, not by fire, but by an art Divine,
Pitch of thick substance boiled in that low Hell,
And all the banks did as with plaster line.
I saw it, but distinguished nothing well
Except the bubbles by the boiling raised,20
Now swelling up and ceasing now to swell.
While down upon it fixedly I gazed,
‘Beware, beware!’ my Leader to me said,
And drew me thence close to him. I, amazed,
Turned sharply round, like him who has delayed,
Fain to behold the thing he ought to flee,
Then, losing nerve, grows suddenly afraid,
Nor lingers longer what there is to see;
For a black devil I beheld advance
Over the cliff behind us rapidly.30
Ah me, how fierce was he of countenance!
What bitterness he in his gesture put,
As with spread wings he o’er the ground did dance!
Upon his shoulders, prominent and acute,
Was perched a sinner[578] fast by either hip;
And him he held by tendon of the foot.
He from our bridge: ‘Ho, Malebranche![579] Grip
An Elder brought from Santa Zita’s town:[580]
Stuff him below; myself once more I slip
Back to the place where lack of such is none.40
There, save Bonturo, barrates[581] every man,
And No grows Yes that money may be won.’
He shot him down, and o’er the cliff began
To run; nor unchained mastiff o’er the ground,
Chasing a robber, swifter ever ran.
The other sank, then rose with back bent round;
But from beneath the bridge the devils cried:
‘Not here the Sacred Countenance[582] is found,
One swims not here as on the Serchio’s[583] tide;
So if thou wouldst not with our grapplers deal50
Do not on surface of the pitch abide.’
Then he a hundred hooks[584] was made to feel.
‘Best dance down there,’ they said the while to him,
‘Where, if thou canst, thou on the sly mayst steal.’
So scullions by the cooks are set to trim
The caldrons and with forks the pieces steep
Down in the water, that they may not swim.
And the good Master said to me: ‘Now creep
Behind a rocky splinter for a screen;
So from their knowledge thou thyself shalt keep.60
And fear not thou although with outrage keen
I be opposed, for I am well prepared,
And formerly[585] have in like contest been.’
Then passing from the bridge’s crown he fared
To the sixth bank,[586] and when thereon he stood
He needed courage doing what he dared.
In the same furious and tempestuous mood
In which the dogs upon the beggar leap,
Who, halting suddenly, seeks alms or food,
They issued forth from underneath the deep70
Vault of the bridge, with grapplers ’gainst him stretched;
But he exclaimed: ‘Aloof, and harmless keep!
Ere I by any of your hooks be touched,
Come one of you and to my words give ear;
And then advise you if I should be clutched.’
All cried: ‘Let Malacoda then go near;’
On which one moved, the others standing still.
He coming said: ‘What will this[587] help him here?’
‘O Malacoda, is it credible
That I am come,’ my Master then replied,80
‘Secure your opposition to repel,
Without Heaven’s will, and fate, upon my side?
Let me advance, for ’tis by Heaven’s behest

[575] From bridge to bridge: They cross the barrier separating the Fourth from the Fifth Bolgia, and follow the bridge which spans the Fifth until they have reached the crown of it. We may infer that the conversation of Virgil and Dante turned on foreknowledge of the future.

[576] Darkness, etc.: The pitch with which the trench of the Bolgia is filled absorbs most of the scanty light accorded to Malebolge.

[577] The Venetians: But for this picturesque description of the old Arsenal, and a passing mention of the Rialto in one passage of the Paradiso, and of the Venetian coinage in another, it could not be gathered from the Comedy, with all its wealth of historical and geographical references, that there was such a place as Venice in the Italy of Dante. Unlike the statue of Time (Inf. xiv.), the Queen of the Adriatic had her face set eastwards. Her back was turned and her ears closed as in a proud indifference to the noise of party conflicts which filled the rest of Italy.

[578] A sinner: This is the only instance in the Inferno of the arrival of a sinner at his special place of punishment. See Inf. v. 15, note.

[579] Malebranche: Evil Claws, the name of the devils who have the sinners of this Bolgia in charge.

[580] Santa Zita’s town: Zita was a holy serving-woman of Lucca, who died some time between 1270 and 1280, and whose miracle-working body is still preserved in the church of San Frediano. Most probably, although venerated as a saint, she was not yet canonized at the time Dante writes of, and there may be a Florentine sneer hidden in the description of Lucca as her town. Even in Lucca there was some difference of opinion as to her merits, and a certain unlucky Ciappaconi was pitched into the Serchio for making fun of the popular enthusiasm about her. See Philalethes, GÖtt. Com. In Lucca the officials that were called Priors in Florence, were named Elders. The commentators give a name to this sinner, but it is only guesswork.

[581] Save Bonturo, barrates, etc.: It is the barrators, those who trafficked in offices and sold justice, that are punished in this Bolgia. The greatest barrator of all in Lucca, say the commentators, was this Bonturo; but there seems no proof of it, though there is of his arrogance. He was still living in 1314.

[582] The Sacred Countenance: An image in cedar wood, of Byzantine workmanship, still preserved and venerated in the cathedral of Lucca. According to the legend, it was carved from memory by Nicodemus, and after being a long time lost was found again in the eighth century by an Italian bishop travelling in Palestine. He brought it to the coast at Joppa, where it was received by a vessel without sail or oar, which, with its sacred freight, floated westwards and was next seen at the port of Luna. All efforts to approach the bark were vain, till the Bishop of Lucca descended to the seashore, and to him the vessel resigned itself and suffered him to take the image into his keeping. ‘Believe what you like of all this,’ says Benvenuto; ‘it is no article of faith.’—The sinner has come to the surface, bent as if in an attitude of prayer, when he is met by this taunt.

[583] The Serchio: The stream which flows past Lucca.

[584] A hundred hooks: So many devils with their pronged hooks were waiting to receive the victim. The punishment of the barrators bears a relation to their sins. They wrought their evil deeds under all kinds of veils and excuses, and are now themselves effectually buried out of sight. The pitch sticks as close to them as bribes ever did to their fingers. They misused wards and all subject to them, and in their turn are clawed and torn by their devilish guardians.

[585] Formerly, etc.: On the occasion of his previous descent (Inf. ix. 22).

[586] The sixth bank: Dante remains on the crown of the arch overhanging the pitch-filled moat. Virgil descends from the bridge by the left hand to the bank on the inner side of the Fifth Bolgia.

[587] What will this, etc.: As if he said: What good will this delay do him in the long-run?

[588] At Caprona: Dante was one of the mounted militia sent by Florence in 1289 to help the Lucchese against the Pisans, and was present at the surrender by the Pisan garrison of the Castle of Caprona. Some make the reference to be to a siege of the same stronghold by the Pisans in the following year, when the Lucchese garrison, having surrendered on condition of having their lives spared, were met as they issued forth with cries of ‘Hang them! Hang them!’ But of this second siege it is only a Pisan commentator that speaks.

[589] The next rib: Malacoda informs them that the arch of rock across the Sixth Bolgia in continuation of that by which they have crossed the Fifth is in ruins, but that they will find a whole bridge if they keep to the left hand along the rocky bank on the inner edge of the pitch-filled moat. But, as appears further on, he is misleading them. It will be remembered that from the precipice enclosing the Malebolge there run more than one series of bridges or ribs into the central well of Inferno.

[590] Yestreen, etc.: This is the principal passage in the Comedy for fixing the date of the journey. It is now, according to the text, twelve hundred and sixty-six years and a day since the crucifixion. Turning to the Convito, iv. 23, we find Dante giving his reasons for believing that Jesus, at His death, had just completed His thirty-fourth year. This brings us to the date of 1300 A.D. But according to Church tradition the crucifixion happened on the 25th March, and to get thirty-four years His life must be counted from the incarnation, which was held to have taken place on the same date, namely the 25th March. It was in Dante’s time optional to reckon from the incarnation or the birth of Christ. The journey must therefore be taken to have begun on Friday the 25th March, a fortnight before the Good Friday of 1300; and, counting strictly from the incarnation, on the first day of 1301—the first day of the new century. So we find Boccaccio in his unfinished commentary saying in Inf. iii. that it will appear from Canto xxi. that Dante began his journey in MCCCI.—The hour is now five hours before that at which the earthquake happened which took place at the death of Jesus. This is held by Dante (Convito iv. 23), who professes to follow the account by Saint Luke, to have been at the sixth hour, that is, at noon; thus the time is now seven in the morning.

[591] Alichino, etc.: The names of the devils are all descriptive: Alichino, for instance, is the Swooper; but in this and the next Canto we have enough of the horrid crew without considering too closely how they are called.

[592] Unbroken: Malacoda repeats his lie.

[593] Each bit his tongue, etc.: The demons, aware of the cheat played by Malacoda, show their devilish humour by making game of Virgil and Dante.—Benvenuto is amazed that a man so involved in his own thoughts as Dante was, should have been such a close observer of low life as this passage shows him. He is sure that he laughed to himself as he wrote the Canto.

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