heads, who I knew were priests, cardinals, and popes, notorious for their avarice. Virgil then admonished me

'Now see, my son, how brief, how vain, the good
In Fortune's hands retained, by her dispensed;
Not all the gold beneath the wandering moon
Can purchase rest for one of these lost souls,
Who all their lifetime toiled in search of gain.'

I desired to know what kind of being Fortune was, and he informed me

He whose transcendent wisdom rules the spheres,
Dealing to every world its portioned light,

By an appointment similar ordained

A guiding hand o'er earth's fair images,
A delegate, his blessings to disperse ;
To change the empty 'vantages of life

From realm to realm, from race to race, by turns,
Beyond man's power to keep them at one stay.
Fast changing states her mighty march proclaim,
No chance her unrelenting sway controls;
By turns her subjects mount, by turns they fall,
And falling, loudly execrate her name.
But little recks she of their idle rage,

Blest in herself, and listening to the song
Of those who turn the mighty mundane sphere,
And glory in her reign, themselves exempt

From every adverse change.'

In the fifth circle, the wrathful and gloomy are tormented in the Stygian lake. I beheld them as naked shades, wallowing in the mire, and burning with such fury, that they struck themselves and each other, not only with their hands, but with head, breast, and feet. My instructor told me, that beneath the water was a multitude more, whose sighs formed the bubbles on the surface. Following the course of the stream, we arrived at the base of a tower, from which arose two signal-flames. These were answered by another from a different shore, and Phlegias, the ferryman of the Styx, immediately appeared with a small boat, in which he conveyed us to the other side. We arrived at the city of Dis, with its burning towers and walls of iron. The portals were kept by numerous demons, who refused us entrance. Meanwhile, on the top of a tower, I perceived three furies.

No. 16.

Of female form they seemed, but every face
A snaky vizor wore; and round them rolled
Volumes of hydras green, their only vest;
While mingled adders and cerastes crept,
Weaving a horrid crest instead of hair..
Each clawing, tore her breast, and with her palms
Smote herself sore, and such shrill clamour raised,
And menacing, that to the bard I clung.

9

Virgil recognised them as Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone, and warned me to close my eyes, as they were preparing to shew me the head of Medusa, the terrible Gorgon, to transform me to adamant. Moreover, he himself covered my eyes with his hands. And now, o'er the perturbed waves there came Dismal afar, but more astounding near,

A crashing sound that made the shores to tremble;
As whirlwind from conflicting vapours sprung,
Against the forest drives with fearful might,
And rends the shattered boughs, and flings afar,
Then proudly passing, sweeps an ample path,

While beasts and shepherds fly to shun his rage.

An angel, announced by this commotion, appeared walking over the Styx, scattering a crowd of evil spirits before him. He opened the gate of the city with a touch, and reproved the outcasts of heaven for having opposed our entrance. Entering the city, I perceived that here heretics, or rather infidels, have their dwellings, each in a burning sepulchre, the lids being suspended over them till the judgment-day; while groans, which seem extorted by dreadful suffering, proceed from them. Following my guide in a narrow path between these tombs and the city-wall, I was arrested by a voice.

'O Tuscan, thou who through the realm of fire
Alive art passing, courteously conversing,
Stay, please thee, here awhile. Thy dialect
Proclaims the place of thy nativity

To be that noble land with which, perhaps,

I too severely dealt.'

With terror seized, I crept towards my guide,

When thus the Mantuan bold: Turn, coward, turn!

"Tis Farinata that has raised his head ;

See how he half emerges from the flame.'

The spectre stood with haughty mien, as though

On hell itself he looked with utter scorn.

His eye met mine; my guardian thrust me forth
Into a path between the burning tombs ;

And thus he said: "Thy words be few and plain.'
Uberti eyed me with disdainful gaze;

'Who were thine ancestors?' demanded he.

With faltering tongue my lineage I disclosed.

Fierce foes of mine,' he said, 'have been thy sires;
But twice I swept them from their native plains.'

* Farinata di Uberti was once an illustrious leader of the Ghibellines. At the battle of Arbia, in 1260, he had defeated the Guelphs, to whom the family of Dante then belonged. A dreadful carnage ensued, and Florence lay at the mercy of his followers, who proposed to raze it to the ground for their own security. But the bowels of Farinata yearned over his native city; and partly by entreaties, partly by threats, he succeeded in saving it from destruction.

Stern I replied: "If scattered twice, yet still
Back they returned on every hand; 'twere well
Thy friends had learned to rally thus again.'
Roused by my voice, another shade appeared;
Eager he looked around, but soon his cheek
Was blanched with disappointment; and he cried:
'If through this dungeon-gloom thy daring soul,
Guided by genius, finds an open path,

Why is my son, my Guido, not with thee?"
'He who conducts me through this realm of wo,'
Said I, 'is one thy Guido held in scorn.'

'Held! didst thou say?' he cried with sudden start;
'Lives he not then? doth not the light of heaven
Still bless his eyes?' and while I paused for answer,
Backward he sank, and reappeared no more.
Meanwhile the other shade stood stern and mute;
Nor changed his countenance, nor turned his neck.
And if,' quoth he, resuming our debate

Just where it had broke off-' if they have failed
To learn that lesson well, their deep disgrace
Gives me more pain than this infernal bed.
But ere the fiftieth moon shall fill her horn,
The vanquished shall rejoice, the victor mourn :
And thou thyself shalt prove how hard that task?

Farinata then adjured me to tell him the reason of that implacable enmity of the Florentines against his family, on account of which the Uberti were made an exception in every decree passed in favour of exiles. I attributed it to the slaughter which he and his followers committed at the battle of Mont Aperto, when the river Arbia was dyed with blood; and he replied:

'I was not there alone; nor without reason
Excited others to that dreadful carnage;

But there alone I was, with single arm

To ward the bursting vengeance, when our council,
With voice unanimous, decreed that Florence

To her foundations should be razed.'

In further conversation, Farinata named some of his companions in punishment. He informed me that the condemned have knowledge of future things, but are ignorant of what are at present passing, unless it be revealed by some new-comer from earth.*

The descent to the next circle was over a rocky precipice, guarded by Minotaur, whose fury being appeased by Virgil, we

*It is thus that Dante gains opportunity to represent such personages as even, in the midst of their torments, inquiring with eager interest after the welfare of their friends and the state of their country. It is difficult for us at this distance of time to appreciate the thrilling interest to his contemporaries which was thus thrown around some of his descriptions.

stepped down from crag to crag; and as we drew near the bottom, descried a river of blood

Whose crimson wave the sons of violence hides.
Between this river and the rampart's base
Were Centaurs armed with arrows; as on earth
They to the chase were wont to speed,..
Around the foss they go in thousands, aiming
At whatsoever spirit, from the blood,

Dares to emerge, more than his guilt allows.

Alexander the Great, Dionysius of Syracuse, with some modern despots of Italy, were immersed to the forehead.

A ghastly race I next espied, who held

The head and all the bust above the stream.
'Mid these I many a face remembered well.
So lengthening down the vale, successive bands
In just gradation rose, till at the last
The scanty rill but quivered o'er the feet.
And here were we to pass athwart the foss.

Nessus, one of the Centaurs, was appointed to guide us, and we proceeded to that section of this circle occupied by those whose violence had injured chiefly themselves.

Now entered we a forest without track;

No verdant foliage there o'erhung the wave,
Nor tapering boughs; but thick entangled shades
With leaves of dusky hue: nor fruits were there;
But thorns instead with venom filled..

On these the Harpies make their nest, the same
Whose voice pursued the Trojan fleet of old,
And direful scenes of future wo displayed.

Broad are their wings, their feet with talons armod,
Of human form the neck and countenance;

But dusky plumage covers all the rest;

And thus upon the boughs they sit and wail.

Now I heard dismal shrieks, but saw no one from whom they could proceed. I was then desired to pluck a branch off one of the

trees:

My ready hand the hanging branches tore

Of a great wildling; when-O dread surprise!

My fingers streamed with blood; and straight exclaimed
The injured trunk: Why tear'st me thus ?

Is there no touch of pity in thy breast?

Who now are rooted here thy brethren are;

But were we born of serpents' venomed race,

Thou might'st have spared our fibres thus to rend.'
As when in summer green the unseasoned bough,
Sullen and slow the hissing flame receives;

And forces out its way the struggling steam
By many a vent; so burst the broken splinter,
And poured forth sighs and blood at every seam.

I dropped it in terror, and Virgil apologised for me on the ground of my ignorance; adding

'But tell us who thou wast; and if thy fame

On earth hath suffered aught unjustly, he

To do thee some amends will clear thee there.'

The injured shade revealed himself as the late chancellor of Frederic II., and related how envy had poisoned the mind of his prince against him, and caused his degradation, which drove him to commit suicide. He then explained in what manner suicides become transformed into these trees.

When the fierce soul, refusing longer stay,
Tears itself from the body, it descends,
By Minos doomed, into this seventh hell;
No place assigned it; but wherever flung
It casts a random root, and springing thence
Its horrid fibres shoot and form a plant.
Then on the stem the baleful bird descending,
The foliage rends, and causes both the pain,
And for the pain, a vent to the complaint.
The day of doom shall bid us seek our dust;
But not to clothe us in the hated forms,
For none commands a mortal to resume
His own, if by himself renounced. By force
We'll drag those bodies hither, and throughout
This dismal wood each shall be hung aloft
Upon the thorn of his accursed shade.

Passing from the forest of suicides, we came upon a plain of burning sand covered with spirits, of whom some were lying, others sitting, and others pacing restlessly to and fro. Large flakes of fire were falling on them, as snow on the Alps when no wind is stirring. Such is the punishment of those whose violence has been peculiarly against God; and among them was one who thus defied the Almighty.

I feel his utmost, and his power despise.

Blow all your fires, ye sons of Etna; blow,
Vesuvius! groan through every vault below;
In vain your red explosions sweep the skies;
Your blended fires shall find my soul the same,
Though Phlegra add her fierce auxiliar flame,
With every D
bolt that scared the giant brood.

Yes, here in burning tempest not forlorn,
This eye can bid his boasted triumph mourn,
This mind retain its firm unaltered mood..

Keeping our way on the margin of the forest of suicides, we