I eye thee more than all the rest." And he then, beating his
pate, "Down here those flatteries wherewith my tongue was never
cloyed have submerged me."

[1] Of him nothing is known but what these words tell.


Hereupon my Leader, "Mind thou push thy sight a little farther
forward so that with thine eyes thou mayest quite reach the face
of that dirty and disheveled creature, who is scratching herself
there with her nasty nails, and now is crouching down and now
standing on foot. She is Thais the prostitute, who answered her
paramour when he said, 'Have I great thanks from thee?'--'Nay,
marvelous.'" [1] And herewith let our sight be satisfied.

[1] These words are derived from Terence, Eunuchus, act iii. sc.
1.



CANTO XIX. Eighth Circle third pit: simonists.--Pope Nicholas
III.

Oh Simon Magus! Oh ye his wretched followers, who, rapacious, do
prostitute for gold and silver the things of God that ought to be
the brides of righteousness, now it behoves for you the trumpet
sound, since ye are in the third pit!

Already were we come to the next tomb,[1] mounted on that part of
the crag which just above the middle of the ditch hangs plumb. Oh
Supreme Wisdom, how great is the art that Thou displayest in
Heaven, on Earth, and in the Evil World! and how justly doth Thy
Power distribute!

[1] The next bolgia or pit.


I saw along the sides, and over the bottom, the livid stone full
of holes all of one size, and each was circular. They seemed to
me not less wide nor larger than those that in my beautiful Saint
John are made as place for the baptizers [1] one of which, not
many years ago, I broke for sake of one who was stifling in it;
and be this the seal to undeceive all men. Forth from the mouth
of each protruded the feet of a sinner, and his legs up to the
calf, and the rest was within. The soles of all were both on
fire, wherefore their joints quivered so violently that they
would have snapped withes and bands. As the flaming of things
oiled is wont to move only on the outer surface, so was it there
from the heels to the toes.

[1] "My beautiful Saint John" is the Baptistery at Florence. In
Dante's time the infants, born during the year, were all here
baptized by immersion, mostly on the day of St. John Baptist, the
24th of June. There was a large circular font in the middle of
the church, and around it in its marble wall were four
cylindrical standing-places for the priests, closed by doors, to
protect them from the pressure of the crowd.


"Who is he, Master, that writhes, quivering more than the others
his consorts," said I, "and whom a ruddier flame is sucking?" And
he to me, "If thou wilt that I carry thee down there by that bank
which slopes the most,[1] from him thou shalt know of himself and
of his wrongs." And I, "Whatever pleaseth thee even so is good to
me. Thou art Lord, and knowest that I part me not from thy
will, and thou knowest that which is unspoken."

[1] The whole of the Eighth circle slopes toward the centre, so
that the inner wall of each bolgia is lower, and is less sharply
inclined than the outer.


Then we went upon the fourth dyke, turned, and descended on the
left hand, down to the bottom pierced with holes, and narrow. And
the good Master set me not down yet from his haunch, till he
brought me to the cleft of him who was thus lamenting with his
shanks.

"O whoe'er thou art, that keepest upside down, sad soul, planted
like a stake," I began to say, "speak, if thou canst." I was
standing like the friar who confesses the perfidious assassin,[1]
who, after he is fixed, recalls him, in order to delay his death.

[1] Such criminals were not infrequently punished by being set,
head downwards, in a hole in which they were buried alive.


And he[1] cried out, "Art thou already standing there? Art thoh
already standing there, Boniface? By several years the record
lied to me. Art thou so quickly sated with that having, for which
thou didst not fear to seize by guile the beautiful Lady,[2] and
then to do her outrage?"

[1] This is Nicholas III., pope from 1277 to 1280; he takes Dante
to be Boniface VIII., but Boniface was not to die till 1303.
Compare what Nicholas says of "the record" with Farinata's
statement, in Canto X, concerning the foresight of the damned.

[2] The Church, to which Boniface did outrage in many forms;
but worst by his simoniacal practices.


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