[649] The robber, etc.: By means of his prophecy Fucci has, after a fashion, taken revenge on Dante for being found by him among the cheating thieves instead of among the nobler sinners guilty of blood and violence. But in the rage of his wounded pride he must insult even Heaven, and this he does by using the most contemptuous gesture in an Italian’s repertory. The fig is made by thrusting the thumb between the next two fingers. In the English ‘A fig for him!’ we have a reference to the gesture.

[650] Pistoia: The Pistoiese bore the reputation of being hard and pitiless. The tradition was that their city had been founded by such of Catiline’s followers as survived his defeat on the Campo Piceno. ‘It is no wonder,’ says Villani (i. 32) ‘that, being the descendants as they are of Catiline and his followers, the Pistoiese have always been ruthless and cruel to strangers and to one another.’

[651] Who down Thebes’ wall: Capaneus (Inf. xiv. 63).

[652] Maremma: See note, Inf. xiii. 8.

[653] Cacus: Dante makes him a Centaur, but Virgil (Æn. viii.) only describes him as half human. The pool was fed with the blood of his human victims. The herd was the spoil Hercules took from Geryon. In the Æneid Cacus defends himself from Hercules by vomiting a fiery smoke; and this doubtless suggested the dragon of the text.

[654] His brethren: The Centaurs who guard the river of blood (Inf. xii. 56). In Fucci, as a sinner guilty of blood and violence above most of the thieves, the Centaur Cacus takes a special malign interest.

[655] Our tale: Of Cacus. It is interrupted by the arrival of three sinners whom Dante does not at first recognise as he gazes down on them, but only when they begin to speak among themselves. They are three noble citizens of Florence: Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, and Puccio Sciancatto de’ Galigai—all said to have pilfered in private life, or to have abused their tenure of high office by plundering the Commonwealth. What is certainly known of them is that they were Florentine thieves of quality.

[656] Cianfa: Another Florentine gentleman, one of the Donati. Since his companions lost sight of him he has been transformed into a six-footed serpent. Immediately appearing, he darts upon Agnello.

[657] On chin, etc.: A gesture by which silence is requested. The mention of Cianfa shows Dante that he is among Florentines.

[658] Papyrus: The original is papiro, the word used in Dante’s time for a wick made out of a reed like the papyrus; papÉr being still the name for a wick in some dialects.—(Scartazzini.) It cannot be shown that papiro was ever employed for paper in Italian. This, however, does not prove that Dante may not so use it in this instance, adopting it from the Latin papyrus. Besides, he says that the brown colour travels up over the papiro; while it goes downward on a burning wick. Nor would the simile, if drawn from a slowly burning lamp-wick, agree with the speed of the change described in the text.

[659] A little snake: As transpires from the last line of the Canto, this is Francesco, of the Florentine family of the Cavalcanti, to which Dante’s friend Guido belonged. He wounds Buoso in the navel, and then, instead of growing into one new monster as was the case with Cianfa and Agnello, they exchange shapes, and when the transformation is complete Buoso is the serpent and Francesco is the human shade.

[660] Rooted he stood, etc.: The description agrees with the symptoms of snake-bite, one of which is extreme drowsiness.

[661] Sabellus and Nassidius: Were soldiers of Cato’s army whose death by snake-bite in the Libyan desert is described by Lucan, Pharsal. ix. Sabbellus was burned up by the poison, bones and all; Nassidius swelled up and burst.

[662] Cadmus: Metam. iv.

[663] Arethusa: Metam. v.

[664] The forms, etc.: The word form is here to be taken in its scholastic sense of virtus formativa, the inherited power of modifying matter into an organised body. ‘This, united to the divinely implanted spark of reason,’ says Philalethes, ‘constitutes, on Dante’s system, a human soul. Even after death this power continues to be an essential constituent of the soul, and constructs out of the elements what seems to be a body. Here the sinners exchange the matter they have thus made their own, each retaining, however, his proper plastic energy as part of his soul.’ Dante in his Convito (iii. 2) says that ‘the human soul is the noblest form of all that are made under the heavens, receiving more of the Divine nature than any other.’

[665] The smoke has pause: The sinners have robbed one another of all they can lose. In the punishment is mirrored the sin that plunged them here.

[666] The novel theme: He has lingered longer than usual on this Bolgia, and pleads wonder of what he saw in excuse either of his prolixity or of some of the details of his description. The expression is perhaps one of feigned humility, to balance his recent boast of excelling Ovid and Lucan in inventive power.

[667] Gaville: The other, and the only one of those five Florentine thieves not yet named in the text, is he who came at first in the form of a little black snake, and who has now assumed the shape of Buoso. In reality he is Francesco Cavalcanti, who was slain by the people of Gaville in the upper Valdarno. Many of them were in their turn slaughtered in revenge by the Cavalcanti and their associates. It should be remarked that some of these five Florentines were of one party, some of the other. It is also noteworthy that Dante recruits his thieves as he did his usurers from the great Florentine families.—As the ‘shifting and changing’ of this rubbish is apt to be found confusing, the following may be useful to some readers:—There first came on the scene Agnello, Buoso, and Puccio. Cianfa, in the shape of a six-footed serpent, comes and throws himself on Agnello, and then, grown incorporate in a new strange monster, two in one, they disappear. Buoso is next wounded by Francesco, and they exchange members and bodies. Only Puccio remains unchanged.