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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 19,
    "slug": "canto-19",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 19",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1449,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 19\n\n\nCanto XIX\n\nArgument\n\nThey come to the third gulf, wherein are punished those who have been\nguilty of simony. These are fixed with the head downward in certain apertures,\nso that no more of them than the legs appears without, and on the soles of\ntheir feet are seen burning flames. Dante is taken down by his guide into the\nbottom of the gulf; and there finds Pope Nicholas V, whose evil deeds,\ntogether with those of other pontiffs, are bitterly reprehended. Virgil then\ncarries him up again to the arch, which affords them a passage over the\nfollowing gulf.\n\nWoe to thee, Simon Magus! woe to you,\nHis wretched followers! who the things of God,\nWhich should be wedded unto goodness, them,\nRapacious as ye are, do prostitute\nFor gold and silver in adultery.\nNow must the trumpet sound for you, since yours\nIs the third chasm. Upon the following vault\nWe now had mounted, where the rock impends\nDirectly o'er the centre of the foss.\n\nWisdom Supreme! ow wonderful the art,\nWhich Thou dost manifest in Heaven, in earth,\nAnd in the evil world, how just a meed\nAllotting by Thy virtue unto all.\n\nI saw the livid stone, throughout the sides\nAnd in its bottom full of apertures,\nAll equal in their width, and circular each.\nNor ample less nor larger they appear'd\nThan, in Saint John's fair dome[1] of me beloved,\nThose framed to hold the pure baptismal streams,\nOne of the which I brake, some few years past,\nTo save a whelming infant: and be this\nA seal to undeceive whoever doubts\nThe motive of my deed. From out the mouth\nOf every one emerged a sinner's feet,\nAnd of the legs high upward as the calf.\nThe rest beneath was hid. On either foot\nThe soles were burning; whence the flexile joints\nGlanced with such violent motion, as had snapt\n\n[1: The apertures in the rock were of the same dimensions as the\nfonts of St. John the Baptist at Florence, one of which Dante had broken to\nrescue a child that was playing near and fell in. He intimates that his motive\nfor breaking the font had been maliciously represented by his enemies.]\n\nAsunder cords or twisted withes. As flame,\nFeeding on unctuous matter, glides along\nThe surface, scarcely touching where it moves;\nSo here, from heel to point, glided the flames.\n\n\"Master! say who is he, than all the rest\nGlancing in fiercer agony, on whom\nA ruddier flame doth prey?\" I thus inquired.\n\n\"If thou be willing,\" he replied. \"that I\nCarry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,\nHe of himself shall tell thee, and his wrongs.\"\n\nI then: \"As pleases thee, to me is best.\nThou art my lord; and know'st that ne'er I quit\nThy will: what silence hides, that knowest thou.\"\n\nThereat on the fourth pier we came, we turn'd\nAnd on our left descended to the depth,\nA narrow strait, and perforated close.\nNor from his side my leader set me down,\nTill to his orifice he brought, whose limb\nQuivering express'd his pang. \"Whoe'er thou art,\nSad spirit! thus reversed, and as a stake\nDriven in the soil,\" - I in these words began;\n\"If thou be able, utter forth thy voice.\"\n\nThere stood I like the friar, that doth shrive\nA wretch for murder doom'd, who, e'en when fix'd,\nCalleth him back, whence death awhile delays.\n\nHe shouted: \"Ha! already standest there?\nAlready standest there, O Boniface![2]\nBy many a year the writing play'd me false.\nSo early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,\nFor which thou fearedst not in guile to take\nThe lovely lady, and then mangle her?\"\n\n[2: The spirit mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII (who was then alive,\nand not expected to arrive so soon, a prophecy predicting the death of that\npope at a later period. Boniface died in 1303.]\n\nI felt as those who, piercing not the drift\nOf answer made them, stand as if exposed\nIn mockery, nor know what to reply;\nWhen Virgil thus admonish'd: \"Tell him quick,\n'I am not he, not he whom thou believest.'\"\n\nAnd I, as was enjoin'd me, straight replied.\n\nThat heard, the spirit all did wrench his feet,\nAnd, sighing, next in woeful accent spake:\n\"What then of me requirest? If to know\nSo much imports thee, who I am, that thou\nHast therefore down the bank descended, learn\nThat in the mighty mantle I was robed,[3]\nAnd of a she - bear was indeed the son,\nSo eager to advance my whelps, that there\nMy having in my purse above I stow'd,\nAnd here myself. Under my head are dragg'd\nThe rest, my predecessors in the guilt\nOf simony. Stretch'd at their length, they lie\nAlong an opening in the rock. 'Midst them\nI also low shall fall, soon as he comes,\nFor whom I took thee, when so hastily\nI question'd. But already longer time\nHath past, since my soles kindled, and I thus\nUpturn'd have stood, than is his doom to stand\nPlanted with fiery feet. For after him,\nOne yet of deeds more ugly shall arrive,\nFrom forth the west, a shepherd without law,[4]\nFated a cover both his form and mine.\nHe a new Jason[5] shall be call'd, of whom\nIn Maccabees we read; and favor such\nAs to that priest his King indulgent show'd,\nShall be of France's monarch[6] shown to him.\"\n\n[3: Nicholas III of the Orsini family, whom the Poet therefore calls\n\"figliuol dell' orsa,\" \"son of the she - bear.\" He died in 1281.]\n\n[4: Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, who succeeded to the\npontificate in 1305, as Clement V. He transferred the Holy See to Avignon in\n1308 (where it remained till 1376), and died in 1314.]\n\n[5: \"But after the death of Seleucus, when Antiochus, called\nEpiphanes, took the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias, labored to be high -\npriest, promising unto the king, by intercession, three hundred and threescore\ntalents of silver, and of another revenue eighty talents.\" - Maccab. b. ii.\nch. iv, 7,8.]\n\n[6: Philip IV. See G. Villani, lib. viii. c. lxxx.]\n\nI know not if I here too far presumed,\nBut in this strain I answer'd: \"Tell me now\nWhat treasures from Saint Peter at the first\nOur Lord demanded, when he put the keys\nInto his charge? Surely he ask'd no more\nBut 'Follow me!' Nor Peter,[7] nor the rest,\n\n[7: Acts of the Apostles, ch. i. 26.]\n\nOr gold or silver of Matthias took,\nWhen lots were cast upon the forfeit place\nOf the condemned soul.[8] Abide thou then;\nThy punishment of right is merited:\nAnd look thou well to that ill - gotten coin,\nWhich against Charles[9] thy hardihood inspired.\nIf reverence of the keys restrain'd me not,\nWhich thou in happier time didst hold, I yet\nSeverer speech might use. Your avarice\nO'ercasts the world with mourning, under foot\nTreading the good, and raising bad men up.\nOf shepherds like to you, the Evangelist\nWas ware, when her, who sits upon the waves,\nWith kings in filthy whoredom he beheld;\nShe who with seven heads tower'd at her birth,\nAnd from ten horns her proof of glory drew,\nLong as her spouse in virtue took delight.\nOf gold and silver ye have made your god,\nDiffering wherein from the idolater,\nBut that he worships one, a hundred ye?\nAh, Constantine![10] to how much ill gave birth,\nNot thy conversion, but that plenteous dower,\nWhich the first wealthy Father gain'd from thee.\"\n\n[8: \"The condemned soul.\" Judas.]\n\n[9: Nicholas III was enraged against Charles I, King of Sicily,\nbecause he rejected with scorn his proposition for an alliance between their\nfamilies. See G. Villani, Hist., lib. iii.]\n\n[10: He alludes to the pretended gift of the Lateran by Constantine\nto Sylvester, of which Dante himself seems to imply a doubt, in his treatise\n\"De Monarchia.\"]\n\nMeanwhile, as thus I sung, he, whether wrath\nOr conscience smote him, violent upsprang\nSpinning on either sole. I do believe\nMy teacher well was pleased, with so composed\nA lip he listen'd ever to the sound\nOf the true words I utter'd. In both arms\nHe caught, and, to his bosom lifting me,\nUpward retraced the way of his descent.\n\nNor weary of his weight, he press'd me close,\nTill to the summit of the rock we came,\nOur passage from the fourth to the fifth pier.\nHis cherish'd burden there gently he placed\n\nUpon the rugged rock and steep, a path\nNot easy for the clambering goat to mount.\n\nThence to my view another vale appear'd.",
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