I level them at thee." From that day forth
The serpents were my friends; for round his neck
One of them rolling twisted, as it said,

"Be silent, tongue!" Another, to his arms
Upgliding, tied them, riveting itself

So close, it took from them the power to move.
Pistoia! ah, Pistoia! why dost doubt

To turn thee into ashes, cumbering earth
No longer, since in evil act so far

Thou hast outdone thy seed 1? I did not mark,
Through all the gloomy circles of the abyss,
Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God;
Not him2, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled,
Nor utter'd more; and after him there came
A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where,
Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh3
Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch
They swarm'd, to where the human face begins.
Behind his head, upon the shoulders, lay
With open wings a dragon, breathing fire
On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide:
"Cacus is this, who underneath the rock
Of Aventine spread oft a lake of blood.

He, from his brethren parted, here must tread
A different journey, for his fraudful theft [found
Of the great herd that near him stall'd; whence
His felon deeds their end, beneath the mace
Of stout Alcides, that perchance laid on
A hundred blows, and not the tenth was felt."
While yet he spake, the centaur sped away:
And under us three spirits came, of whom
Nor I nor he was ware, till they exclaim'd
"Say who are ye!" We then brake off discourse,
Intent on these alone. I knew them not:
But, as it chanceth oft, befel, that one

Had need to name another. "Where," said he, "Doth Cianfa lurk ?" I, for a sign my guide Should stand attentive, placed against my lips

1 Thy seed.] Thy ancestry.

2 Not him.] Capaneus. Canto xiv.

3 On Maremma's marsh.] An extensive tract near the seashore of Tuscany.

4 Cacus.] Virgil Æn. lib. viii. 193.

5 A hundred blows.] Less than ten blows, out of the hundred Hercules gave him, had deprived him of feeling.

6 Cianfa.] He is said to have been of the family of Donati at Florence.

The finger lifted. If, O reader! now
Thou be not apt to credit what I tell,
No marvel; for myself do scarce allow
The witness of mine eyes. But as I look'd
Toward them, lo! a serpent with six feet
Springs forth on one, and fastens full upon him :
His midmost grasp'd the belly, a forefoot

Seized on each arm (while deep in either cheek1
He flesh'd his fangs); the hinder on the thighs
Were spread, 'twixt which the tail inserted curl'd
Upon the reins behind. Ivy ne'er clasp'd2
A dodder'd oak, as round the other's limbs
The hideous monster intertwined his own.
Then, as they both had been of burning wax,
Each melted into other, mingling hues,
That which was either now was seen no more.
Thus up the shrinking paper3, ere it burns,
A brown tint glides, not turning yet to black,
And the clean white expires. The other two
Look'd on, exclaiming, "Ah! how dost thou change,
Agnello! See! Thou art nor double now,
Nor only one." The two heads now became
One, and two figures blended in one form
Appear'd, where both were lost. Of the four lengths
Two arms were made: the belly and the chest,

1 In either cheek.] Ostendit mihi post hoc apostolus lacum magnum tetrum, et aquæ sulphureæ plenum, in quo animarum multitudo demersa est, plenum serpentibus ac scorpionibus; stabant vero ibi et dæmones serpentes tenentes et ora vultus et capita hominum cum eisdem serpentibus percutientes. Alberici Visio, § 23.

2 Ivy ne'er clasp'd.]

Ὁποῖα κισσὸς δρυὸς ὅπως τῆσδ ̓ ἕξομαι.

Euripides, Hecuba, v. 102.

Like ivy to an oak, how will I cling to her!

3 Thus up the shrinking paper.] Many of the commentators suppose that by "papiro" is he meant the wick of a lamp or candle, and Lombardi adduces an extract from Pier Crescenzio (Agricolt. lib. vi. cap. ix.) to show that this use was then made of the plant. But Tiraboschi has proved that paper made of linen came into use towards the latter half of the fourteenth century, and that the inventor of it was Pier da Fabiano, who carried on his manufactory in the city of Trevigi; whereas paper of cotton, with, perhaps, some linen mixed, was used during the twelfth century. Stor. della Lett. Ital. tom. v. lib. i. cap. iv. sect. 4.

All my bowels crumble up to dust.
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

Shakspeare, K. John, act v. sc. 7.

4 Agnello] Agnello Brunelleschi.

The thighs and legs, into such members changed
As never eye hath seen. Of former shape
All trace was vanish'd. Two, yet neither, seem'd
That image miscreate, and so pass'd on

With tardy steps. As underneath the scourge
Of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields,
Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems
A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road;
So toward the entrails of the other two
Approaching seem'd an adder all on fire,
As the dark pepper-grain livid and swart.
In that part', whence our life is nourish'd first,
One he transpierced; then down before him fell
Stretch'd out. The pierced spirit look'd on him,
But spake not; yea, stood motionless and yawn'd,
As if by sleep or feverous fit assail'd2.

He eyed the serpent, and the serpent him.
One from the wound, the other from the mouth
Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapoury columns
Lucan3 in mute attention now may hear, [join'd.
Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus, tell,

Nor thine, Nasidius. Ovid4 now be mute.
What if in warbling fiction he record
Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake

Him changed, and her into a fountain clear,
I envy not; for never face to face

Two natures thus transmuted did he sing,
Wherein both shapes were ready to assume
The other's substance. They in mutual guise
So answer'd, that the serpent split his train
Divided to a fork, and the pierced spirit
Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs
Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon
Was visible: the tail, disparted, took
The figure which the spirit lost; its skin
Softening, his indurated to a rind.

The shoulders next I mark'd, that entering join'd

1 In that part.] The navel.

2 As if by sleep or feverous fit assail'd.]

O Rome thy head

Is drown'd in sleep, and all thy body fev'ry.

Ben Jonson's Cataline.

3 Lucan.] Phars. lib. ix. 766 and 793. Lucan di alcun di questi poetando Conta si come Sabello e Nasidio

Fù punti e trasformati ivi passando.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, 1. v. cap. xvii.

4 Ovid.] Metam. lib. iv. and v.

The monster's arm-pits, whose two shorter feet
So lengthen'd, as the others dwindling shrunk.
The feet behind then twisting up became
That part that man conceals, which in the wretch
Was cleft in twain. While both the shadowy smoke
With a new colour veils, and generates
The excrescent pile on one, peeling it off
From the other body, lo! upon his feet
One upright rose, and prone the other fell.
Nor yet their glaring and malignant lamps
Were shifted, though each feature changed beneath.
Of him who stood erect, the mounting face
Retreated towards the temples, and what there
Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears [dragg'd,
From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward
Of its excess did shape the nose; and swell'd
Into due size protuberant the lips.

He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends
His sharpen'd visage, and draws down the ears
Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.
His tongue, continuous before and apt
For utterance, severs; and the other's fork
Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.
The soul, transform'd into the brute, glides off,
Hissing along the vale, and after him
The other talking sputters; but soon turn'd
His new-grown shoulders on him, and in few
Thus to another spake: "Along this path
Crawling, as I have done, speed Buoso now!"
So saw I fluctuate in successive change
The unsteady ballast of the seventh hold:
And here if aught my pen3 have swerved, events
So strange may be its warrant.
O'er mine eyes
Confusion hung, and on my thoughts amaze.
Yet scaped they not so covertly, but well

I mark'd Sciancato: he alone it was

1 His sharpen'd visage] Compare Milton, P. L. b. x. 511, &c. 2 Buoso.] He is also said by some to have been of the Donati family; but by others of the Abbati.

3 My pen.] Lombardi justly prefers "la penna " to "la lingua;" but, when he tells us that the former is in the Nidobeatina, and the latter in the other editions, he ought to have excepted at least Landino's of 1484, and Vellutello's of 1544, and, perhaps, many besides these.

4 Sciancato.] Puccio Sciancato, a noted robber, whose family, Venturi says, he has not been able to discover. The Latin annotator on the Monte Casino MS. informs us that he was one of the Galigai of Florence, the decline of which house is mentioned in the Paradise, Canto xvi. 96.

Of the three first that came, who changed not: thou The other's fate, Gaville! still dost rue.

CANTO XXVI.

ARGUMENT.

Remounting by the steps, down which they had descended to the seventh gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors, each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses, the latter of whom relates the manner of his death. FLORENCE, exult! for thou so mightily Hast thriven, that o'er land and sea2 thy wings Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell. Among the plunderers, such the three I found Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son, And no proud honour to thyself redounds.

But if our minds 3, when dreaming near the dawn, Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long Shalt feel what Prato (not to say the rest) Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance Were in good time, if it befel thee now. Would so it were, since it must needs befal! For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more. We from the depth departed; and my guide

1 Gaville.] Francesco Guercio Cavalcante was killed at Gaville, near Florence; and in revenge of his death several inhabitants of that district were put to death.

2 O'er land and sea.]

For he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas.

3 But if our minds.]

Milton, Son. viii.

Namque sub Auroram, jam dormitante lucernâ,
Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent.

Ovid, Epist. xix. The same poetical superstition is alluded to in the Purgatory, Canto ix. and xxvii.

4 Shalt feel what Prato.] The poet prognosticates the calamities which were soon to befal his native city, and which, he says, even her nearest neighbour, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more particularly pointed at are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over the Arno, in May 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of hell and the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagration, that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen hundred houses, many of them sumptuous buildings. See G. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. lxx. and lxxi.

5 As time.] "I shall feel all calamities more sensibly as I am further advanced in life."