changed not aspect, nor moved his neck, nor bent his side. "And
if," he said, continuing his first words, "they have ill learned
that art, it torments me more than this bed. But the face of the
lady who ruleth here will not be rekindled fifty times ere thou
shalt know how much that art weighs. And, so mayest thou return
unto the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so
pitiless against my race in its every law?" Then I to him, "The
rout and the great carnage that colored the Arbia red cause such
orison to be made in our temple." After he had, sighing, shaken
his head, "In that I was not alone," he said, "nor surely without
cause would I have moved with the rest; but I was alone,--there
[1] where it was agreed by every one to lay Florence waste,--he
who defended her with open face." "Ah! so hereafter may your seed
repose," I prayed to him, "loose for me that knot, which here has
entangled my judgment. It seems, if I rightly hear, that ye
foresee that which time is bringing with him, and as to the
present have another way." "We see," he said, "like those who
have feeble light, the things that are far from us, so much still
shineth on us the supreme Leader; when they draw near, or are,
our intelligence is all vain, and, if some one report not to us,
we know nothing of your human state. Therefore thou canst
comprehend that our knowledge will be utterly dead from that
moment when the gate of the future shall he closed." Then, as
compunctious for my fault I said, "Now wilt thou therefore tell
that fallen one that his son is still conjoined with the living,
and if just now I was dumb to answer, make him know that I was so
because I was still thinking in that error which you have solved
for me." [2]

[1] At Empoli, in 1260, after the defeat of the Florentine
Guelphs at Montaperti on the Arbia.

[2] Guido Cavalcanti died in August, 1300; his death, being near
at hand at the time of Dante's journey, was not known to his
father.


And now my Master was calling me back, wherefore I prayed the
spirit more hastily that he would tell me who was with him. He
said to me, "Here with more than a thousand do I lie; here within
is the second Frederick and the Cardinal,[1] and of the others I
am silent."

[1] Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a fierce Ghibelline, who was
reported as saying, "If there be a soul I have lost it for the
Ghibellines."


Thereon he hid himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my
steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He
moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so
distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve
that which thou hast heard against thyself," commanded me that
Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When
thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance of her whose
beautiful eye sees everything, from her thou shalt learn the
journey of thy life." Then to the left he turned his step.

We left the wall, and went toward the middle by a path which
strikes into a valley that even up there its stench made
displeasing.



CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasins.--
Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.

Upon the edge of a high bank formed by great rocks broken in a
circle, we came above a more cruel pen. And here, because of the
horrible excess of the stench that the deep abyss throws out, we
drew aside behind the lid of a great tomb, whereon I saw an
inscription which said, "Pope Anastasius I hold, he whom Photinus
drew from the right way."

"Our descent must needs be slow so that the sense may first
accustom itself a little to the dismal blast, and then will be no
heed of it." Thus the Master, and I said to him, "Some
compensation do thou find that the time pass not lost." And be,
"Behold, I am thinking of that. My son, within these rocks," he
began to say, "are three circlets from grade to grade like those
thou leavest. All are full of accursed spirits; but, in order
that hereafter sight only may suffice thee, hear how and
wherefore they are in constraint.

"Of every malice that wins hate in heaven injury is the end, and
every such end afflicts others either by force or by fraud. But
because fraud is the peculiar sin of man, it most displeaseth
God; and therefore the fraudulent are the lower, and more woe
assails them.

"The first circle[1] is wholly of the violent; but because
violence can be done to three persons, in three rounds it is
divided and constructed. Unto God, unto one's self, unto one's
neighbor may violence be done; I mean unto them and unto their
belongings, as thou shalt hear in plain discourse. By violence
death and grievous wounds are inflicted on one's neighbor; and on
his substance ruins, burnings, and harmful robberies. Wherefore
homicides, and every one who smites wrongfully, devastators and
freebooters, all of them the first round torments, in various
troops.


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