[1] Being purified from sin they will retain no memory of it.

[2] "Fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of
God."--Ephesians, ii. 19.

[3] "For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to
come."--Hebrews, xiii. 14.

[4] This was the battle in 1259, in which the Florentines routed
die Sienese Ghibellines, at whose head was Provenzan Salvani. who
was slain. See Canto XI.

[5] I should not yet within Purgatory have diminished my debt of
expiation, but, because I delayed repentance till the hour of
Death, I should still be outside the gate.

[6] A poor comb-dealer, a man of kind heart, honest dealings, and
good deeds, and still remembered for them in Siena. He died in
1289.

[7] A little port on the coast of Tuscany, on which the Sienese
wasted toil and money in the vain hope that by strengthening and
enlarging it they could make themselves rivals at sea of the
Pisans and Genoese.

[8] A subterranean stream supposed to flow beneath the city.

[9] Of these last words the meaning is obscure.



CANTO XIV. Second Ledge: the Envious--Guido del Duca.--Rinieri
de' Calboli.--Examples of the punishment of Envy.


"Who is this that circles our mountain ere death have given him
flight, and opens and shuts his eyes at his own will?"[1] "I know
not who he is, but I know that he is not alone. Do thou, who art
nearer to him, ask him; and sweetly, so that he may speak, accost
him." Thus two spirits, leaning one to the other, discoursed of
me there on the right hand, then turned up their faces to speak
to me. And one of them said, "O soul that still fixed in thy body
goest on toward heaven, for charity console us, and tell us
whence thou comest, and who thou art; for thou makest us so
marvel at this thy grace, as needs must a thing that never was
before." And I, "Through mid Tuscany there wanders a little
stream, that has its rise on Falterona,[2] and a hundred miles of
coarse does not suffice it. From thereupon I bring this body.
To tell you who I am would be to speak in vain, for my name as
yet makes no great sound." "If I grasp aright thy meaning with my
understanding," then replied to me he who had spoken first, "thou
speakest of the Arno." And the other said to him, "Why did he
conceal the name of that river, even as one does of horrible
things?" And the shade of whom this was asked, delivered itself
thus, "I know not, but truly it is fit that the name of such a
valley perish, for from its source (where the rugged mountain
chain, from which Pelorus[3] is cut off, is so teeming that in
few places it passes beyond that mark), far as there where it
gives back in restoration that which heaven dries up of the sea
(wherefrom the rivers have what flows in them), virtue is driven
away as an enemy by all men, like a snake, either through
misfortune of the place, or through evil habit that incites them.
Wherefore the inhabitants of the wretched valley have so changed
their nature that it seems as though Circe had had them in her
feeding. Among foul hogs,[4] more fit for acorns than for other
food made for human use, it first directs its poor path. Then,
coming down, it finds curs more snarling, than their power
warrants,[5] and at them disdainfully it twists its
muzzle.[6] It goes on falling, and the more it swells so much the
more the accursed and ill-fated ditch finds the dogs becoming
wolves.[7] Descending then through many hollow gulfs, it finds
foxes[8] so full of fraud, that they fear not that wit may entrap
them. Nor will I leave to speak though another hear me: and well
it will be for this one if hereafter he mind him of that which a
true spirit discloses to me.

[1] These words are spoken by Guido del Duca, who is answered by
Rinieri de' Calboli; both of them from the Romagna.

[2] One of the highest of the Tuscan Apennines.

[3] The north-eastern promontory of Sicily.

[4] The people of the Casentino, the upper valley of the Arno.

[5] The Aretines.

[6] Turning westward.

[7] The wolves of Florence.

[8] The Pisans.


"I see thy grandson,[1] who becomes hunter of those wolves upon
the bank of the fierce stream, and terrifies them all. He sells
their flesh,[2] it being yet alive; then he slays them, like an
old wild beast; many of life, himself of honor he deprives.
Bloody he comes forth from the dismal wood;[3] he leaves it such,
that from now for a thousand years, in its primal state it is not


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