Canto VII
CANTO VII
Pluto, catching sight of the Wayfarers, screeches incomprehensibly, perhaps invoking Satan. After reassuring the startled Dante, Virgil deflates the turgid beast by appealing to St. Michael’s suppression of the angels’ rebellion in Heaven (1–15). The Poets then descend to the fourth circle, where they find the avaricious on the left and the prodigal on the right rolling boulders with their chests, clashing at one antipode of the circle, shouting mutual reproaches, and returning to the counterpole (16–35). Dante wonders if those tonsured among the avaricious were clerics, and Virgil confirms that they were priests, cardinals, and popes. When the Pilgrim then expects to be able to recognize some of them, his Master chides him for the expectation since they are so befouled by their vice. Virgil avails himself of the opportunity, however, to comment on the irony of man’s insatiable desire for the ephemeral goods of Fortune (36–66). At the mention of Fortune, Dante inquires about her nature, and his Teacher explains that she is an angelic intelligence, similar to those that guide the celestial spheres, but one entrusted with the impenetrable, ever-changing distribution of goods on earth (67–99). The Travelers then cross the circle to the next descent, find a murky, bubbling stream at the brink, and follow it down to the marsh of Styx, where they encounter both the souls of the wrathful, tearing and biting each other in the mire (100–114), and those of the sullen, gurgling their words and submerged in slime (115–126). Continuing their way on the dry bank around the swamp, they come at last to the base of a tower (127–130).
1 “Papé Satán, Papé Satán aleppe!”[113]
When Pluto started thus with clucking tongue,
That gentle Sage, all-knowing, thought to say,
4 Consoling me: “By fear do not be stung.
Whatever powers may in him reside,
None stops your climbing down this rocky rung.”
7 Then to that bloated face he turned aside
And said to him: “You cursèd wolf, be still!
With your own rage consume yourself inside.
10 Our journey to the depths is not for nil.
For it is willed on high where Michael found
Revenge against a proud, adult’rous will.”[114]
13 As sails inflated by the wind are downed
And fall entangled when there snaps the mast,
Just so that cruel beast fell to the ground.
16 Down to the fourth depression we thus passed[115]
To take in more of that despondent shore
Where all the universe’s ills are massed.
19 O God of justice! Who has held in store
As many toils and pains as I descried?
Why does our guilt consume us all the more?
22 As waves above Charybdis will collide
And shatter when they meet each other there,[116]
So all the people here must dance in stride.
25 I saw more spirits here than anywhere,
On one side and the other; as they wheel
Large weights by force of chest, their howhngs blare.
28 They clash against each other; then they reel
Around right there and, rolling back, recede.
“Why do you hoard?” “Why do you waste?” they squeal.
31 Thus by the gloomy circle they proceed
On either hand back to the counter-pole,
While shouting once again their scornful screed.
34 Each one of them, when he had reached his goal,
Would circle halfway back to joust again.
And I, who felt my heart within condole,
37 Said: “Show me who are all these former men,
O Master, and if all were clerics who,
Upon our left, are in the tonsured den.”
40 “Now every one of them went so askew
In mind in his first life,” he answered so,
“That no expense observed the measure due.
43 And this their barking voices clearly show
When to the circle’s double points they tread,
Where counter-faults dispair them all. Thus know
46 That they who have no hair upon the head
Were clerics, popes, and cardinals, and in these
Man’s greed has done its utmost.” And I said:
49 “I surely ought to recognize with ease,
O Master, some from out of such a lot,
Who were defiled by such iniquities.”
52 He said to me: “What empty thoughts you’ve got!
Their heedless life, which covered them with smut,
Now makes them so obscure you know them not.
55 For all eternity their shades will butt.
Thus, from their gravesites these will rise one day
With tightened fists, and those with hair close cut.
58 Ill-giving and ill-keeping took away
Their comely world and put them to strife’s test;[117]
What kind it is I prank no words to say.
61 Now you, my son, can see the short-lived jest
Of goods committed unto Fortune’s hold,[118]
Which human generations so contest.
64 For all there is or ever was of gold
Down here beneath the moon could never let
One weary soul repose of all this fold.”
67 “My Master,” I replied, “now tell me yet:
This Fortune you have touched on, what is she,
Whose fists so clutch the worldly goods we get?”
70 “You foolish creatures,” thus he said to me,
“How great this ignorance that so offends
You all! May you imbibe what I decree:
73 The very One whose wisdom far transcends
All things has made the heavens and supplied
Their guides, so every part to all resplends,
76 Allotting equal light to every side.
For worldly splendors He was to ordain
A common minister as well and guide
79 To transfer in due time goods held in vain,
From people unto people, kind to kind,
In ways that human wit can not restrain.
82 So, where one folk has ruled, another’s pined,
Both following her judgments, which all lie
As hidden as, in grass, a snake entwined.
85 But with her force your knowledge cannot vie,
For she foresees and judges to pursue
Her kingdom’s ends like other gods on high.[119]
88 Her permutations have no truce in view.
It is necessity that makes her swift,
So human fortune changes often too.
91 She is the one whom they so often lift
Upon the cross and whom they blame amiss
With evil words when they should praise her gift.
94 Yet she is blest, and does not hear of this.
With other primal creatures, glad at play,[120]
She turns her sphere, rejoicing in her bliss.[121]
97 But let’s descend where greater grief holds sway;
Each star now falls that rose when I first moved,[122]
And we are not allowed too long a stay.”
100 We crossed the ring to seashores far removed,
Just past a spring that boils to overflow
Down by a trench its overspill had grooved
103 With waters darker far than perse, and so
In company with murky waves we went
By rugged pathways to a place below.
106 This dismal little stream makes its descent
Down to the foot of shores malign and grey
Where, in a swamp named Styx, it then is spent.[123]
109 And I, who stood intent to look their way,
Saw muddy people in that bog, who stand[124]
All naked there, with angry looks. And they
112 All strike each other, not with just the hand,
But with their heads and chests and feet they feud;
Their teeth disjoin each other strand by strand.
115 “Now see, my son,” the kindly Master sued
“The souls of those defeated by their ire.
And I would have you hold with certitude
118 That people underwater there suspire[125]
And make the water bubble at its crest,
As eyes will tell, wherever they inquire.
121 “We once were sullen,” those in slime attest,
“Up in those sweeter airs the sun makes glad,
While bearing sluggish vapors in our breast,
124 But in this blackish mire we now are sad.”
This hymn they gurgle in their gullets then,
For there no strength to form full words is had.
127 And thus between the dry bank and the fen
We made a wide arc round that pond’s foul space,
And eyed those swallowers of sullage when,
130 At last, we came upon a tower’s base.