Canto XX
CANTO XX
Standing on the bridge, Dante eagerly observes the sinners in the fourth ditch processing slowly and silently. He discovers on closer examination, however, that they are actually walking backwards with their heads fully wrenched around at the neck so that their tears bathe their buttocks. The Pilgrim, who has on various occasions pitied the victims of human weakness, now feels sorry for the punishment itself. Interpreting this feeling as contempt of divine justice, Virgil strongly rebukes him for his impiety (1–30) and then focuses the Poet’s attention on the Argolian Amphiaraus, the Theban Tiresias, and the Etruscan Aruns, all of them soothsayers forced to look backwards, as if to their past sins, for having ventured on earth to see into the future (31–51). Then he points out Manto, who with her servants fled Thebes after the unsuccessful siege of the Seven and wandered until coming to a lush site on the Mincio River between Peschiera and Governolo. She settled there with her maids to flee all other human society and to practice magic. When she died, the people of the environs founded a town upon her burial site and named it Mantua after her. Virgil thus dissociates the founding of his city, and himself by implication, from the divining arts punished here (52–99). Perhaps still smarting from his Master’s rebuke, and itching to return to his inspection of the spirits, Dante gives a perfunctory assent to his Teacher’s digression and begs to be shown any souls worthy of note. Virgil then details the Greek seer Eurypalus, the British occultist Michael the Scot, the Forlivese astrologer Guy Bonatti, and the Parmesan prophet Asdente (100–123). When he finishes, the moon is setting in the West, and the early hour urges the Travelers to hasten to the next ditch (124–130).
1 It suits me well that new-found pain be versed
And matter given Canto Twenty here
Of this first canticle on those submersed.
4 I was already quite disposed to peer
Down farther at the just discovered deep,
One bathed by many an afflicted tear,
7 When through the valley’s ring I saw some weep
In silence, who at such a pace processed
As that which litanies in this world keep.[297]
10 And as my view came down on them to rest,
A strange contortion seemed to strike these dead
Between the chin and top part of the chest;
13 For towards the loins each face was turned instead,
And backwards each of them was forced to go,
Since they had been denied to see ahead.
16 Perhaps by force of palsy one could grow
To be so fully twisted all awry,
But I’ve not seen the like, nor think it so.
19 God help you, Reader, pick what fruit may lie
In what you read; and you yourself be deft
And think how I could keep my visage dry
22 When near at hand I saw our image left
So turned about that tears flowed from their eyes
To bathe their buttocks, running down the cleft.
25 I wept, of course, against a rock that lies
On that rough crag so that my Escort said:
“Are you still like the others so unwise?
28 Here pity lives when it is fully dead;
For who can be more impious than one
Who feels compassion, with God’s judgment read?
31 Lift up, lift up your face; see one undone
At whom the earth gaped wide for Theban sight,
So that they shouted: ‘Where now would you run,
34 Amphiaräus? Have you quit the fight?’[298]
While plunging to the depths, he did not rest
Till Minos, who will hold each sinner tight.
37 See how his shoulders have been made a breast;
Since by his will his sight too far had ranged,
He must look back, upon a backward quest.
40 And see Tiresïas whose semblance changed[299]
When he became a female from a male,
As all his body’s members were exchanged
43 So that he first would be obliged to flail
Two tangled serpents with his rod anew
Before he had his manly plumes prevail.
46 And backing towards his paunch is Aruns, who[300]
Once dwelt in Luni’s hills, beneath whose height
The Carrarese reside and furrow too.
49 He had a cave of marble colored white
For his abode, and from its mouth he spied
The stars and sea with unobstructed sight.
52 The woman whose unbraided tresses hide
Her bosom, which you therefore cannot see,
And has her hairy parts on her far side,
55 Was Manto, who searched many lands till she[301]
Then settled in the place where I was born,
On which a little please give heed to me.
58 Now, when from life her father had been torn,
And Bacchus’ city played a servant role,[302]
She roamed the world for many years, forlorn.
61 One lake in lovely Italy’s control
Is named Benaco, under alps that soar
To shut in Germany above Tirol.[303]
64 A thousand springs bathe Pennine, maybe more,
To Val Camónica from Garda sent,[304]
With streams that stagnate on that basin’s floor.
67 And at their midpoint he who pastors Trent,
And he of Brescia, and that Veronese,
Might give their blessing, if that way they went.[305]
70 There Peschiera’s fair, strong fort one sees,
And where the shore around descends, it stands
To face the Brescians and the Bergamese.[306]
73 There all the waters which Benaco’s strands
Can’t harbor in its bosom fall below
And make a river through green pasture lands.
76 Just when that water has begun to flow,
They call it Mincio, not Benaco there,[307]
Until Govérnol’, where it joins the Po.
79 It flows not far to find a level where
It spreads itself so as to make a fen,
Which sometimes in the summer breathes foul air.
82 And passing by, the savage virgin then
Saw land within the midst of that morass,
Untilled and uninhabited by men.
85 To flee all human intercourse that lass
Now halted with her slaves to ply her art,
And lived and left her body’s empty mass.
88 The people then, though scattered far apart,
All gathered at that spot made strong and fast
By marshes that surround its every part.
91 They built a town on her dead bones at last,
And for the one who chose that place of yore,
They called it Mantua—no lot was cast.
94 Its people were more numerous before
The foolish Casalodi was deceived
By trickery that Pinamonte bore.[308]
97 I charge you, if you hear it is believed
My land originated differently,
Don’t let a lie defraud the truth received.”
100 I said: “Your reasons have such certainty,
O Master, and so great’s the trust they earn
That all the rest would be dead coals to me.
103 If of the people passing you discern
A soul who merits special notice, speak,
Because to that alone my mind would turn.”
106 “That one who spreads his whiskers from the cheek[309]
Across his swarthy shoulders,” he’d begun,
“Was seer when Greece in males was once so weak
109 That scarcely any crib retained a son.
In Aulis he and Calchas timed the blow
That severed the first cable. And that one
112 Was named Eurýpalus; that this is so
My lofty tragedy has sung somewhere,[310]
As you who know the whole of it well know.
115 And he, that other in the flanks so spare,
Was once named Michael Scot; he truly knew[311]
How games of magic fraud are played. And there,
118 See Guy Bonatti; see Asdente too,[312]
Who wishes now that he had cared for naught
But hide and thread, yet tardy is his rue.
121 See sorry women who left all they’d bought
Of needle, spool, and spindle, turning seers;
With herbs and images their spells were wrought.
124 But come, for with his brambles Cain appears
To touch the wave that crests beneath Seville
And hold the borders of both hemispheres.[313]
127 Last night the moon was full; you surely will
Recall as much, for there were times when it
Did you no harm in that deep forest’s chill.”
130 Then, as he spoke, we journeyed on a bit.