[1]Too close to leave a space for walking.


Accursed be thou, old she-wolf, who more than all the other
beasts hast prey, because of thy hunger hollow without end! O
Heaven! by whose revolution it seems that men believe conditions
here below are transmuted, when will he come through whom she
shall depart?[1] We were going on with slow and scanty steps, and
I attentive to the shades whom I heard piteously lamenting and
bewailing; and peradventure I heard in front of us one crying
out, "Sweet Mary," in his lament, even as a woman does who is in
travail; and continuing, "So poor wast thou as may be seen by
that inn where thou didst lay down thy holy burden." And
following this I heard, "O good Fabricius,[2] thou didst rather
wish for virtue with poverty than to possess great riches with
vice." These words were so pleasing to me that I drew myself
further on to have acquaintance with that spirit from whom they
seemed to come. He was speaking furthermore of the largess which
Nicholas[3] made to the damsels in order to conduct their youth
to honor. "O soul that discoursest so well," said I, "tell me who
thou wast, and why thou alone renewest these worthy praises. Not
without meed will be thy words, if I return to complete the short
journey of that life which flies towards its end." And he, "I
will tell thee, not for comfort that I may expect from yonder,[4]
but because such grace shineth on thee ere thou art dead. I was
the root of the evil plant which so overshadows all the Christian
land[5] that good fruit is rarely plucked therefrom. But if
Douai, Lille, Ghent, and Bruges had power, soon would there be
vengeance on it;[6] and I implore it from him who judges
everything. Yonder I was called Hugh Capet: of me are born the
Philips and the Louises, by whom of late times France is ruled. I
was the son of a butcher of Paris.[7] When the ancient kings had
all died out, save one, who had assumed the grey garb,[8] I found
me with the bridle of the government of the realm fast in my
hands, and with so much power recently acquired, and so full of
friends, that to the widowed crown the head of my son was
promoted, from whom the consecrated bones[9] of these began.

[1] The old she-wolf is avarice, the same who at the outset
(Hell, Canto I.) had driven Dante back and made him lose hope of
the height. The likeness of the two passages is striking.

[2] Caius Fabricius, the famous poor and incorruptible Roman
consul, who refused the bribes of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. Dante
extols his worth also in the Convito, iv. 5.

[3] St. Nicholas, Bishop of Mira, who, according to the legend,
knowing that owing to the poverty of their father, three maidens
were exposed to the risk of leading lives of dishonor, secretly,
at night, threw into the window of their house money enough to
provide each with a dowry.

[4] The earth.

[5] In 1300 the descendants of Hugh Capet were ruling France,
Spain, and Naples.

[6] Phillip the Fair gained possession of Flanders, by force and
fraud, in 1299; but in 1802 the French were driven out of the
country, after a fatal defeat at Courtrai, here dimly prophesied.

[7] Dante here follows the incorrect popular tradition.

[8] Who had become a monk. The historical reference is obscure.

[9] An ironical reference to the ceremony of consecration at the
coronation of the kings.


"So long as the great dowry of Provence[1] took not the sense of
shame from my race, it was little worth, but still it did not
ill. Then it began its rapine with force and with falsehood; and,
after, for amends,[2] Ponthieu and Normandy it took, and Gascony;
Charles[3] came to Italy, and, for amends, made a victim of
Conradin,[4] and then thrust Thomas[5] back to heaven for amends.
A time I see, not long after this day, that draws forth another
Charles[6] from France to make both himself and his the better
known. Without arms he goes forth thence alone, but with the
lance with which Judas jousted;[7] and that he thrusts so that he
makes the paunch of Florence burst. Therefrom he will gain not
land,[8] but sin and shame so much the heavier for himself, as he
the lighter reckons such harm. The other,[9] who has already gone
out a prisoner from his ship, I see selling his daughter, and
bargaining over her, as do the corsairs with other female slaves.
O Avarice, what more canst thou do with us, since thou hast so
drawn my race unto thyself that it cares not for its own flesh?
In order that the ill to come and that already done may seem the
less, I see the fleur-de-lis entering Anagna, and in his Vicar
Christ made a captive.[10] I see him being mocked a second time;
I see the vinegar and the gall renewed, and between living
thieves him put to death. I see the new Pilate so cruel that this
does not sate him, but, without decretal, he bears his covetous
sails into the Temple.[11] O my Lord, when shall I be glad in
seeing thy vengeance which, concealed, makes sweet thine anger in
thy secrecy?

[1] Through the marriage in 1245 of Charles of Anjou, brother of
St. Louis (Louis IX.), with Beatrice, the heiress of the Count
of Provence.



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