[3] Envie ys lavendere of the court alway;
For she ne parteth neither nyght ne day
Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Daunte.
Legende of Goode Women, 358.60.


A while he paused, and then, "Since he is silent," said the Poet
to me, "lose not the hour, but speak and ask of him, if more
pleaseth thee." Whereon I to him, "Do thou ask him further of
what thou thinkest may satisfy me, for I cannot, such pity fills
my heart."

Therefore he began again, "So may this man do for thee freely
what thy speech prays, spirit incarcerate, still be pleased to
tell us how the soul is bound within these knots, and tell us, if
thou canst, if any from such limbs is ever loosed."

Then the trunk puffed strongly, and soon that wind was changed
into this voice: "Briefly shall ye be answered. When the
ferocious soul departeth from the body wherefrom itself hath torn
itself, Minos sends it to the seventh gulf. It falls into the
wood, and no part is chosen for it, but where fortune flings it,
there it takes root like a grain of spelt; it springs up in a
shoot and to a wild plant. The Harpies, feeding then upon its
leaves, give pain, and to the pain a window.[1] Like the rest
we shall go for our spoils,[2] but not, forsooth, that any one
may revest himself with them, for it is not just to have that of
which one deprives himself. Hither shall we drag them, and
through the melancholy wood shall our bodies be suspended, each
on the thorn-tree of his molested shade."

[1] The tearing of the leaves gives an outlet to the woe.

[2] Our bodies, at the Last Judgment.


We were still attentive to the trunk, believing that it might
wish to say more to us, when we were surprised by an uproar, as
one who perceives the wild boar and the chase coming toward his
stand and hears the Feasts and the branches crashing. And behold
two on the left hand, naked and scratched, flying so violently
that they broke all the limbs of the wood. The one in front was
shouting, "Now, help, help, Death!" and the other, who seemed to
himself too slow, "Lano, thy legs were not so nimble at the
jousts of the Toppo:"[1] and when perhaps his breath was
failing, of himself and of a bush he made a group. Behind them
the wood was full of black bitches, ravenous and running like
greyhounds that have been unleashed. On him that had squatted
they set their teeth and tore him to pieces, bit by bit, then
carried off his woeful limbs.

[1] Lano was slain in flight at the defeat of the Sienese by the
Aretines, near the Pieve del Toppo, in 1280. He and Jacomo were
notorious prodigals.


My Guide then took me by the hand, and led me to the bush, which
was weeping through its bleeding breaks in vain. "O Jacomo of
Sant' Andrea," it was saying, "what hath it vantaged thee to make
of me a screen? What blame have I for thy wicked life?" When the
Master had stopped beside it, he said, "Who wast thou, who
through so many wounds blowest forth with blood thy woeful
speech?" And he to us, "O souls who art arrived to see the
shameful ravage that hath thus disjoined my leaves from me,
collect them at the foot of the wretched bush. I was of the city
which for the Baptist changed her first patron;[1] wherefore will
he always make her sorrowful with his art. And were it not that
at the passage of the Arno some semblance of him yet remains,
those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the ashes that were
left by Attila[2] would have labored in vain. I made a gibbet for
myself of my own dwelling."

[1] The first patron of florence was Mars; a fragment of a statue
of whom stood till 1333 on the Ponte Vecchio.

[2] It was not Attila, but Totila, who in 542 besieged Florence,
and, according to false popular tradition, burned it. The names
and personages were frequently confounded in the Dark Ages.



CANTO XIV. Third round of the Seventh Circle of those who have
done violence to God.--The Burning Sand.--Capaneus.--Figure of
the Old Man in Crete.--The Rivers of Hell.

Because the charity of my native place constrained me, I gathered
up the scattered leaves and gave them back to him who was already
hoarse.

Then we came to the confine, where the second round is divided
from the third, and where is seen a horrible mode of justice.

To make clearly manifest the new things, I say that we had
reached a plain which from its bed removeth every plant. The
woeful wood is a garland round about it, even as the dismal foss
to that. Here, on the very edge, we stayed our steps. The floor
was a dry and dense sand, not made in other fashion than that
which of old was trodden by the feet of Cato.

O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest to be feared by every


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