the rest I will make other disposal." Thou knowest well how in
the air is condensed that moist vapor which turns to water soon
as it rises where the cold seizes it. He joined that evil will,
which seeketh only evil, with intelligence, and moved the mist
and the wind by the power that his own nature gave. Then when the
day was spent he covered the valley with cloud, from Pratomagno
to the great chain, and made the frost above so intense that the
pregnant air was turned to water. The rain fell, and to the
gullies came of it what the earth did not endure, and as it
gathered in great streams it rushed so swiftly towards the royal
river that nothing held it back. The robust Archiano found my
frozen body near its outlet, and pushed it into the Arno, and
loosed on my breast the cross which I made of myself when the
pain overcame me. It rolled me along its banks, and along its
bottom, then with its spoil it covered and girt me."

[1] Son of Count Guido da Montefeltro, the treacherous counsellor
who had told his story to Dante in Hell, Canto XXVII. Joan was
his wife.

[2] The battle of Campaldino, in which Dante himself, perhaps,
took part, was fought on the 11th of June, 1289, between the
Florentine Guelphs and the Ghibellines of Arezzo. Buonconte was
the captain of the Aretines. Campaldino is a little plain in the
upper valley of the Arno.

[3] The convent of the Calmaldoli, founded by St. Romualdo of
Ravenna, in 1012.

[4] Being lost at its junction with the Arno.

[5] St. Francis and one of the black Cherubim had had a similar
contention, as will be remembered, over the soul of Buonconte's
father.


"Ah! when thou shalt have returned unto the world, and rested
from the long journey," the third spirit followed on the second,
"be mindful of me, who am Pia.[1] Siena made me, Maremma unmade
me; he knows it who with his gem ringed me, betrothed before."

[1] This sad Pia is supposed to have belonged to the Sienese
family of the Tolomei, and to have been the wife of Nello or
Paganello de' Pannocchieschi, who was reported to have had her
put to death in his stronghold of Pietra in the Tuscan Maremma.
Her fate seems the more pitiable that she does not pray Dante to
seek for her the prayers of any living person. The last words of
Pia are obscure, and are interpreted variously. Possibly the
"betrothed before" hints at a source of jealousy as the motive of
her murder.



CANTO VI. Ante-Purgatory.--More spirits who had deferred
repentance till they were overtaken by a violent death.--Efficacy
of prayer.--Sordello.--Apostrophe to Italy.


When a game of dice is broken up, he who loses remains sorrowful,
repeating the throws, and, saddened, learns; with the other all
the folk go along; one goes before and one plucks him from
behind, and at his side one brings himself to mind. He does not
stop; listens to one and the other the man to whom he reaches
forth his hand presses on him no longer, and thus from the throng
he defends himself. Such was I in that dense crowd, turning my
face to them this way and that; and, promising, I loosed myself
from them.

Here was the Aretine,[1] who from the fierce arms of Ghin di
Tacco had his death; and the other who was drowned when running
in pursuit. Here Federigo Novello [2] was praying with hands
outstretched, and he of Pisa, who made the good Marzucco seem
strong.[3] I saw Count Orso; and the soul divided from its body
by spite and by envy, as it said, and not for fault committed,
Pierre do la Brosse,[5] I mean; and here let the Lady of Brabant
take forethought, while she is on earth, so that for this she be
not of the worse flock.

[1] The Aretine was Messer Benincasa da Laterina, a learned
judge, who had condemned to death for their crimes two relatives
of Ghin di Tacco, the most famous freebooter of the day, whose
headquarters were between Siena and Rome. Some time after, Messer
Benincasa sitting as judge in Rome, Ghino entered the city with a
band of his followers, made his way to the tribunal, slew
Benincasa, and escaped unharmed.

[2] Another Aretine, of the Tarlati family, concerning whose
death the early commentators are at variance. Benvenuto da Imola
says that, hotly pursuing his enemies, his horse carried him into
a marsh, from which he could not extricate himself, so that his
foes turned upon him and slew him with their arrows.

[3] Federigo, son of the Count Guido Novello, of the
circumstances of whose death, said to have taken place in 1291,
nothing certain is known. Benvenuto says, he was multum probus, a
good youth, and therefore Dante mentions him.

[4] Of him of Pisa different stories are told. Benvenuto says, "I
have heard from the good Boccaccio, whom I trust more than the
others, that Marzucco was a good man of the city of Pisa, whose


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