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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
      "url": "/sources/divine-comedy/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 13,
    "slug": "canto-13",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 13",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1625,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 13\n\n\nCanto XIII\n\nArgument\n\nStill in the seventh circle, Dante enters its second compartment, which\ncontains both those who have done violence on their own persons and those who\nhave violently consumed their goods; the first changed into rough and knotted\ntrees whereon the harpies build their nests, the latter chased and torn by\nblack female mastiffs. Among the former, Piero delle Vigne is one who tells\nhim the cause of his having committed suicide, and moreover in what manner the\nsouls are transformed into those trunks. Of the latter crew, he recognizes\nLano, a Siennese, and Giacomo, a Paduan; and lastly, a Florentine, who had\nhung himself from his own roof, speaks to him of the calamities of his\ncountrymen.\n\nEre Nessus yet had reach'd the other bank,\nWe enter'd on a forest, where no track\nOf steps had worn a way. Not verdant there\nThe foliage, but of dusky hue; not light\nThe boughs and tapering, but with knares deform'd\nAnd matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns\nInstead, with venom fill'd. Less sharp than these,\nLess intricate the brakes, wherein abide\nThose animals, that hate the cultured fields,\nBetwixt Corneto and Cecina's stream.[1]\n\n[1: A wild and woody tract, abounding in deer, goats, and wild boars.\nCecina is a river not far to the south of Leghorn; Corneto, a small city on\nthe same coast, in the patrimony of the Church.]\n\nHere the brute harpies make their nest, the same\nWho from the Strophades the Trojan band\nDrove with dire boding o their future woe.\nBroad are their pennons, of the human form\nTheir neck and countenance, arm'd with talons keen\nThe feet, and the huge belly fledged with wings.\nThese sit and wail on the drear mystic wood.\n\nThe kind instructor in these words began:\n\"Ere further thou proceed, know thou art now\nI' th' second round, and shalt be, till thou come\nUpon the horrid sand: look therefore well\nAround thee, and such things thou shalt behold,\nAs would my speech discredit.\" On all sides\nI heard sad plainings breathe, and none could see\nFrom whom they might have issued. In amaze\nFast bound I stood. He, as it seem'd, believed\nThat I had thought so many voices came\nFrom some amid those thickets close conceal'd,\nAnd thus his speech resum'd: \"If thou lop off\nA single twig from one of those ill plants,\nThe thought thou hast conceived shall vanish quite.\"\n\nThereat a little stretching forth my hand,\nFrom a great wilding gather'd I a branch,\nAnd straight the trunk exclaim'd: \"Why pluck'st thou me?\"\nThen, as the dark blood trickled down its side,\nThese words it added: \"Wherefore tear'st me thus?\nIs there no touch of mercy in thy breast?\nMen once were we, that now are rooted here.\nThy hand might well have spared us, had we been\nThe souls of serpents.\" As a brand yet green,\nThat burning at one end from the other sends\nA groaning sound, and hisses with the wind\nThat forces out its way, so burst at once\nForth from the broken splinter words and blood.\n\nI, letting fall the bough, remain'd as one\nAssail'd by terror; and the sage replied:\n\"If he, O injured spirit! could have believed\nWhat he hath seen but in my verse described,\nHe never against thee had stretch'd his hand.\nBut I, because the thing surpass'd belief,\nPrompted him to this deed, which even now\nMyself I rue. But tell me, who thou wast;\nThat, for this wrong to do thee some amends,\nIn the upper world (for thither to return\nIs granted him) thy fame he may revive.\"\n\"That pleasant word of thine,\" the trunk replied,\n\"Hath so inveigled me, that I from speech\nCannot refrain, wherein if I indulge\nA little longer, in the snare detain'd,\nCount it not grievous. I it was,[2] who held\nBoth keys to Frederick's heart, and turn'd the wards,\nOpening and shutting, with a skill so sweet,\nThat besides me, into his inmost breast\nScarce any other could admittance find.\nThe faith I bore to my high charge was such,\nIt cost me the life - blood that warm'd my veins.\nThe harlot, who ne'er turn'd her gloating eyes\nFrom Caesar's household, common vice and pest\nOf courts, 'gainst me inflamed the minds of all;\nAnd to Augustus they so spread the flame,\nThat my glad honours changed to bitter woes.\nMy soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought\nRefuge in death from scorn, and I became,\nJust as I was, unjust toward myself.\nBy the new roots, which fix this stem, I swear,\nThat never faith I broke my liege lord,\nWho merited such honour; and of you,\nIf any to the world indeed return,\nClear he from wrong my memory, that lies\nYet prostrate under envy's cruel blow.\"\n\n[2: \"I it was.\" Piero delle Vigne, a native of Capua, who from a low\ncondition raised himself, by his eloquence and legal knowledge, to the office\nof Chancellor to the Emperor Frederick II. The courtiers, envious of his\nexalted situation, forged letters to make Frederick believe that he held a\nsecret and traitorous intercourse with the Pope, who was then at enmity with\nthe Emperor. He was cruelly condemned to lose his eyes. Driven to despair by\nhis unmerited calamity he dashed out his brains against the walls of a church,\nin the year 1245.]\n\nFirst somewhat pausing, till the mournful words\nWere ended, then to me the bard began:\n\"Lose not the time; but speak, and of him ask,\nIf more thou wish to learn.\" Whence I replied:\n\"Question thou him again of whatsoe'er\nWill, as thou think'st, content me; for no power\nHave I to ask, such pity is at my heart.\"\n\nHe thus resumed: \"So may he do for thee\nFreely what thou entreatest, as thou yet\nBe pleased, imprison'd spirit! to declare,\nHow in these gnarled joints the soul is tied;\nAnd whether any ever from such frame\nBe loosen'd, if thou canst, that also tell.\"\n\nThereat the trunk breathed hard, and the wind soon\nChanged into sounds articulate like these:\n\"Briefly ye shall be answer'd. When departs\nThe fierce soul from the body, by itself\nThence torn asunder, to the seventh gulf\nBy Minos doom'd, into the wood it falls,\nNo place assign'd, but wheresoever chance\nHurls it; there sprouting, as a grain of spelt,\nIt rises to a sapling, growing thence\nA savage plant. The harpies, on its leaves\nThen feeding, cause both pain, and for the pain\nA vent to grief. We, as the rest, shall come\nFor our own spoils, yet not so that with them\nWe may again be clad; for what a man\nTakes from himself it is not just he have.\nHere we perforce shall drag them; and throughout\nThe dismal glade our bodies shall be hung,\nEach on the wild thorn of his wretched shade.\"\n\nAttentive yet to listen to the trunk\nWe stood, expecting further speech, when us\nA noise surprised; as when a man perceives\nThe wild boar and the hunt approach his place\nOf station'd watch, who of the beasts and boughs\nLoud rustling round him hears. And lo! there came\nTwo naked, torn with briers, in headlong flight,\nThat they before them broke each fan o' th' wood.\n\"Haste now,\" the foremost cried, \"now haste thee, death!\"\nThe other, as seem'd, impatient of delay,\nExclaiming, \"Lano![3] not so bent for speed\nThy sinews, in the lists of Toppo's field.\"\nAnd then, for that perchance no longer breath\nSufficed him, of himself and of a bush\nOne group he made. Behind them was the wood\nFull of black female mastiffs, gaunt and fleet,\nAs greyhounds that have newly slipt the leash.\nOn him, who squatted down, they stuck their fangs,\nAnd having rent him piecemeal bore away\nThe tortured limbs. My guide then seized my hand,\nAnd led me to the thicket, which in vain\nMourn'd through its bleeding wounds: \"O Giacomo\nOf Sant' Andrea![4] what avails it thee,\"\nIt cried, \"that of me thou hast made thy screen?\nFor thy ill life, what blame on me recoils?\n\n[3: Lano, a Siennese, who being reduced by prodigality to a state of\nextreme want, found his existence no longer supportable; and having been sent\nby his countrymen on a military expedition to assist the Florentines against\nthe Aretini, took that opportunity of exposing himself to certain death, in\nthe engagement which took place at Toppo, near Arezzo. See G. Villani, Hist.\nlib. vii. c. cxix.]\n\n[4: Jacopo da Sant' Andrea, a Paduan, who, having wasted his property\nin the most wanton acts of profusion, killed himself in despair.]\n\nWhen o'er it he had paused, my master spake:\n\"Say who wast thou, that at so many points\nBreathest out with blood thy lamentable speech?\"\n\nHe answer'd: \"O ye spirits! arrived in time\nTo spy the shameful havoc that from me\nMy leaves hath sever'd thus, gather them up,\nAnd at the foot of their sad parent - tree\nCarefully lay them. In that city[5] I dwelt,\nWho for the Baptist her first patron changed,\nWhence he for this shall cease not with his art\nTo work her woe: and if there still remain'd not\nOn Arno's passage some faint glimpse of him,\nThose citizens, who rear'd once more her walls\nUpon the ashes left by Attila,\nHad labor'd without profit of their toil.\nI slung the fatal noose[6] from my own roof.\"\n\n[5: \"_____ Florence, that city which changed her first patron Mars\nfor St. John the Baptist.\"]\n\n[6: \"I slung the fatal noose.\" We are not informed who this suicide\nwas; some calling him Rocco de' Mozzi, and others Lotto degli Agli.]",
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