CANTO XXV.

The robber,[649] when his words were ended so,
Made both the figs and lifted either fist,
 Shouting: ‘There, God! for them at thee I throw.’
 Then were the snakes my friends; for one ’gan twist
 And coiled itself around the sinner’s throat,
 As if to say: ‘Now would I have thee whist.’
 Another seized his arms and made a knot,
 Clinching itself upon them in such wise
 He had no power to move them by a jot.
 Pistoia![650] thou, Pistoia, shouldst devise10
 To burn thyself to ashes, since thou hast
 Outrun thy founders in iniquities.
The blackest depths of Hell through which I passed
 Showed me no soul ’gainst God so filled with spite,
 No, not even he who down Thebes’ wall[651] was cast.
 He spake no further word, but turned to flight;
 And I beheld a Centaur raging sore
 Come shouting: ‘Of the ribald give me sight!’
 I scarce believe Maremma[652] yieldeth more
 Snakes of all kinds than what composed the load20
 Which on his back, far as our form, he bore.
 Behind his nape, with pinions spread abroad,
 A dragon couchant on his shoulders lay
 To set on fire whoever bars his road.
 ‘This one is Cacus,’[653] did my Master say,
‘Who underneath the rock of Aventine
 Watered a pool with blood day after day.
 Not with his brethren[654] runs he in the line,
 Because of yore the treacherous theft he wrought
 Upon the neighbouring wealthy herd of kine:30
 Whence to his crooked course an end was brought
 ’Neath Hercules’ club, which on him might shower down
 A hundred blows; ere ten he suffered nought.’
 While this he said, the other had passed on;
 And under us three spirits forward pressed
 Of whom my Guide and I had nothing known
But that: ‘Who are ye?’ they made loud request.
 Whereon our tale[655] no further could proceed;
 And toward them wholly we our wits addressed.
 I recognised them not, but gave good heed;40
 Till, as it often haps in such a case,
 To name another, one discovered need,
 Saying: ‘Now where stopped Cianfa[656] in the race?’
Then, that my Guide might halt and hearken well,
 On chin[657] and nose I did my finger place.
 If, Reader, to believe what now I tell
 Thou shouldst be slow, I wonder not, for I
 Who saw it all scarce find it credible.
 While I on them my brows kept lifted high
 A serpent, which had six feet, suddenly flew50
 At one of them and held him bodily.
 Its middle feet about his paunch it drew,
 And with the two in front his arms clutched fast,
 And bit one cheek and the other through and through.
 Its hinder feet upon his thighs it cast,
 Thrusting its tail between them till behind,
 Distended o’er his reins, it upward passed.
The ivy to a tree could never bind
 Itself so firmly as this dreadful beast
 Its members with the other’s intertwined.60
 Each lost the colour that it once possessed,
 And closely they, like heated wax, unite,
 The former hue of neither manifest:
 Even so up o’er papyrus,[658] when alight,
Before the flame there spreads a colour dun,
 Not black as yet, though from it dies the white.
 The other two meanwhile were looking on,
 Crying: ‘Agnello, how art thou made new!
 Thou art not twain, and yet no longer one.’
 A single head was moulded out of two;70
 And on our sight a single face arose,
 Which out of both lost countenances grew.
 Four separate limbs did but two arms compose;
 Belly with chest, and legs with thighs did grow
 To members such as nought created shows.
 Their former fashion was all perished now:
 The perverse shape did both, yet neither seem;
 And, thus transformed, departed moving slow.
 And as the lizard, which at fierce extreme
 Of dog-day heat another hedge would gain,80
Flits ’cross the path swift as the lightning’s gleam;
 Right for the bellies of the other twain
A little snake[659] quivering with anger sped,
 Livid and black as is a pepper grain,
 And on the part by which we first are fed
 Pierced one of them; and then upon the ground
 It fell before him, and remained outspread.
 The wounded gazed on it, but made no sound.
 Rooted he stood[660] and yawning, scarce awake,
 As seized by fever or by sleep profound.90
 It closely watched him and he watched the snake,
 While from its mouth and from his wound ’gan swell
 Volumes of smoke which joined one cloud to make.
 Be Lucan henceforth dumb, nor longer tell
 Of plagued Sabellus and Nassidius,[661]
But, hearkening to what follows, mark it well.
 Silent be Ovid: of him telling us
 How Cadmus[662] to a snake, and to a fount
 Changed Arethuse,[663] I am not envious;
 For never of two natures front to front100
 In metamorphosis, while mutually
 The forms[664] their matter changed, he gives account.
’Twas thus that each to the other made reply:
 Its tail into a fork the serpent split;
 Bracing his feet the other pulled them nigh:
 And then in one so thoroughly were knit
 His legs and thighs, no searching could divine
 At where the junction had been wrought in it.
 The shape, of which the one lost every sign,
 The cloven tail was taking; then the skin110
 Of one grew rough, the other’s soft and fine.
 I by the armpits saw the arms drawn in;
 And now the monster’s feet, which had been small,
 What the other’s lost in length appeared to win.
 Together twisted, its hind feet did fall
 And grew the member men are used to hide:
 For his the wretch gained feet with which to crawl.
 Dyed in the smoke they took on either side
 A novel colour: hair unwonted grew
 On one; the hair upon the other died.120
The one fell prone, erect the other drew,
 With cruel eyes continuing to glare,
 ’Neath which their muzzles metamorphose knew.
 The erect to his brows drew his. Of stuff to spare
 Of what he upward pulled, there was no lack;
 So ears were formed on cheeks that erst were bare.
 Of that which clung in front nor was drawn back,
 Superfluous, on the face was formed a nose,
 And lips absorbed the skin that still was slack.
 His muzzle who lay prone now forward goes;130
 Backward into his head his ears he draws
 Even as a snail appears its horns to lose.
 The tongue, which had been whole and ready was
 For speech, cleaves now; the forked tongue of the snake
 Joins in the other: and the smoke has pause.[665]
The soul which thus a brutish form did take,
 Along the valley, hissing, swiftly fled;
 The other close behind it spluttering spake,
 Then, toward it turning his new shoulders, said
 Unto the third: ‘Now Buoso down the way140
 May hasten crawling, as I earlier sped.’
 Ballast which in the Seventh Bolgia lay
 Thus saw I shift and change. Be my excuse
 The novel theme,[666] if swerves my pen astray.
And though these things mine eyesight might confuse
 A little, and my mind with fear divide,
 Such secrecy they fleeing could not use
 But that Puccio Sciancatto plain I spied;
 And he alone of the companions three
 Who came at first, was left unmodified.150
 For the other, tears, Gaville,[667] are shed by thee.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.