Canto XXIX
CANTO XXIX
The Pilgrim’s eyes are drunken with the sight of dismembered spirits until he is sobered by Virgil’s reproof: the view is too vast for inspection, the time too short for lingering, and more remains to be seen. As they move on, Dante attempts to justify his delay with the suspicion that one of his forebears, Geri del Bello, is suffering there. Virgil had actually seen him pointing with a threatening finger while Dante was preoccupied with the troubadour Bertran de Born. Filled with pity, the Poet explains his ancestor’s disdain through the fact that his murder still goes unavenged (1–36). The Wanderers then quit the sowers of discord and come to the falsifiers in the tenth and last ditch, where the arrows of lament barbed with pity pierce the ear, the stench of rotting flesh offends the nose, and the sight of itching souls scraping off their scabs with filthy nails fills the eye (37–84). When two scabrous lepers, feebly propped against each other, learn that Dante is alive, they tremulously sit up to answer his questions. The first identifies himself as Griffolino da Arezzo who, though he had tricked the gullible Albero da Siena into believing he could teach him to fly, is nevertheless condemned for having practiced alchemy (85–120). His story causes the Florentine to wonder if any people, even the French, could be more foolish than the Sienese, to which the other leper replies in the negative, ironically excepting Stricca, Niccolò, Caccia di Asciano, and the Abbagliato, members of the notorious Spendthrift Brigade, a dozen young wastrels who recklessly squandered their fortunes in Siena in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The speaker turns out to be Cappochio, an alchemist, counterfeiter, and mimic (121–139).
1 The multitude with diverse wounds cut deep
Kept both my eyes with drunkenness so lamed
That they were eager to remain and weep.
4 “What are you watching?” Virgil, though, exclaimed.
“Why do you cast so lingering a view
Down there among those spirits sad and maimed?
7 At other trenches’ scenes you did not do
Such things; if you would count them, don’t forget
The miles this valley rings are twenty-two.
10 Beneath our feet the moon’s already set;[457]
The time allotted us now slips away,
And there is more to see than you’ve seen yet.”
13 “Had you,” I answered him without delay,
“Observed the reason that my gaze inclined,
You might have granted me a longer stay.”
16 And while my Guide moved on, I came behind,
But as I now was making my reply,
I had to add: “Within that cave confined,
19 On which I held a so attentive eye,
I think a blood relation mourns in pain
For guilt whose cost down here is set so high.”
22 At that my Master said: “Don’t let your train
Of thought be broken now by him anew;
Heed something else, and let him there remain.
25 Below the bridge I saw him point at you
And make you threats—that’s what his finger meant—
And heard him called Geri del Bello too.[458]
28 But you were then so utterly intent
On him who to Hautefort had once held claim[459]
You did not look that way until he went.”
31 “My Guide, his death by violence became
—Because it still is unavenged by those
Who may,” I said, “be partners in his shame—
34 The cause of his disdain; and I suppose
That’s why, without a word, he left that site,
Because of which my pity for him grows.”
37 We went on speaking thus up to the height
That from the ridge would show the other vale,[460]
Right to the bottom, if there were more light.
40 We stood above the final cloistered dale
Of Malebolge then and saw just where
Lay brothers came within our vision’s pale.
43 And diverse lamentations pierced me there,
Like arrows that were barbed with pity, till
My hands stopped up my ears. And everywhere
46 There was such pain as if Maremma’s ill,
Valdichïana’s and Sardegna’s too,[461]
Would from July until September fill
49 A single ditch with all their spitals’ crew.
The putrid stench that issued from it stank
Just as a rotting limb is wont to do.
52 We then descended to the final bank
Of that long reef as leftwards yet we strolled,
And to the depths my sight more clearly sank
55 To where unerring justice had been told,
As minister that serves the Lord Most High,
To chasten falsifiers there enscrolled.
58 I think it was no greater grief to spy
Aegina’s people when they were infirm
(As once malignant air so filled their sky
61 That every animal down to the worm
Had fallen dead, and ancient people then
—To which the poets, all of them, hold firm—
64 Were from the seed of ants restored again)[462]
Than when through darksome vales I saw that day,
In diverse heaps, those pining souls of men.
67 Upon another’s shoulders some there lay,
Some on their bellies, some went crawhng round
Upon all fours along the dismal way.
70 We journeyed step by step without a sound
And watched and listened to the sick a bit,
Who could not lift their bodies off the ground.
73 I saw two propped against each other sit
Just as two pans, to dry, lean side to side,
Scab-spotted head to foot. And, I admit,
76 I never saw a currycomb applied
By stableboys on whom their lords must wait,
Or those who grudgingly stay open-eyed,
79 As each one plies the biting claws to grate
Against himself, whom angry itching ails,
But there is no relief from such a state.
82 And so their scabs were scraped off by their nails
As knives will scrape the scales of carp or flay
Another fish with even larger scales.
85 “O you whose fingers strip your flesh away,”
So did my Guide begin to one of these,
“And sometimes turn them into pincers, say
88 If some Italian lies with those one sees
Down here; so may your nails eternally
Suffice for such a labor as you please.”
91 “We are Italians, both, whom here you see
Disfigured thus,” said one, while weeping so,
“But you who ask of us, who might you be?”
94 “From ledge to ledge I make descent below
With this one still alive,” my Guide averred,
“Whom I intend to show infernal woe.”
97 A break then in their common prop occurred;
Each turned to me, while shaking through and through,
As did the others who had overheard.
100 The kindly Master drew quite close anew;
“Just tell them what it is you want,” he prayed,
And so I started, as he wished me to:
103 “So that your memory may never fade
From men’s minds in your former worldly place,
But live yet under many suns, O shade,
106 Do tell me who you are and from what race;
Declare yourself to me, and do not fear,
Though loathsome is your punishment and base.”
109 “I’m from Arezzo,” one’s reply was clear,[463]
“And Alber’ da Siena lit my fire,
But what I died for does not bring me here.
112 It’s true that when, in jest, I told that sire
I’d learned to rise through air in flight, he yearned
With very little sense, though much desire,
115 For me to teach that art; but when I turned
Him not to Daedalus, then just for this,
By one who called him son, he had me burned.
118 But Minos, who is not allowed to miss,
Damned me—for alchemy that I had used
On earth—down to the tenth and last abyss.”
121 And to the Bard, “Could any race,” I mused,
“Be vainer ever than the Sienese?
The French are certainly not thus accused!”
124 At that, the other leper, hearing these
Remarks, said: “None, save Stricca, who indeed[464]
Knew very well to moderate his sprees;
127 Save Niccolò, who was the first to breed
The clove and find a costly use for it
In gardens that will root that kind of seed;
130 And save the band that squandered every bit
Of Caccia di Asciano’s woods and vines
And let the Abbagliato show his wit.
133 If you would know who seconds your designs
Against the Sienese, make sharp your view
For clear responses in my face’s lines,
136 And see the shadow of Capocchio, who[465]
Had made false metals with his alchemy;
You must recall, if I lay eyes on you,
139 How good an ape by nature was in me.”