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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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    {
      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
      "url": "/sources/divine-comedy/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 20,
    "slug": "canto-20",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 20",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1360,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 20\n\n\nCanto XX\n\nArgument\n\nThe Poet relates the punishment of such as presumed, while living, to\npredict future events. It is to have their faces reversed and set the contrary\nway on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before them,\nthey are constrained ever to walk backward. Among these Virgil points out to\nhim Amphiaraus, Tiresias, Aruns, and Manto (from the mention of whom he takes\noccasion to speak of the origin of Mantua), together with several others, who\nhad practised the arts of divination and astrology.\n\nAnd now the verse proceeds to torments new,\nFit argument of this the twentieth strain\nOf the first song, whose awful theme records\nThe spirits whelm'd in woe. Earnest I look'd\nInto the depth, that open'd to my view,\nMoisten'd with tears of anguish, and beheld\nA tribe, that came along the hollow vale,\nIn silence weeping: such their step as walk\nQuires, chanting solemn litanies, on earth.\n\nAs on them more direct mine eye descends,\nEach wonderously seem'd to be reversed\nAt the neck - bone, so that the countenance\nWas from the reins averted; and because\nNone might before him look, they were compell'd\nTo advance with backward gait. Thus one perhaps\nHath been by force of palsy clean transposed,\nBut I ne'er saw it nor believe it so.\n\nNow, reader! think within thyself, so God\nFruit of thy reading give thee! how I long\nCould keep my visage dry, when I beheld\nNear me our form distorted in such guise,\nThat on the hinder parts fallen from the face\nThe tears down - streaming roll'd. Against a rock\nI leant and wept, so that my guide exclaim'd:\n\"What, and art thou, too, witless as the rest?\nHere pity most doth show herself alive,\nWhen she is dead. What guilt exceedeth his,\nWho with Heaven's judgment in his passion strives?\nRaise up thy head, raise up, and see the man\nBefore whose eyes[1] earth gaped in Thebes, when all\nCried out 'Amphiaraus, whither rushest?\nWhy leavest thou the war?' He not the less\nFell ruining far as to Minos down,\nWhose grapple none eludes. Lo! how he makes\nThe breast his shoulders; and who once too far\nBefore him wish'd to see, now backward looks,\nAnd treads reverse his path. Tiresias note,\nWho semblance changed, when woman he became\nOf male, through every limb transform'd; and then\nOnce more behoved him with his rod to strike\nThe two entwining serpents, ere the plumes,\nThat mark'd the better sex, might shoot again.\n\n[1: Amphiaraus, one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes. He is\nsaid to have been swallowed up by an opening of the earth.]\n\n\"Aruns,[2] with rere his belly facing, comes.\nOn Luni's mountains 'midst the marbles white,\nWhere delves Carrara's hind, who wons beneath,\nA cavern was his dwelling, whence the stars\nAnd main - sea whide in boundless view he held.\n\n[2: Said to have dwelt in the mountains of Luni (whence that\nterritory is still called Lunigiana), above Carrara, celebrated for its\nmarble.]\n\n\"The next, whose loosen'd tresses overspread\nHer bosom, which thou seest not (for each hair\nOn that side grows) was Manto, she who search'd\nThrough many regions, and at length her seat\nFix'd in my native land: whence a short space\nMy words detain thy audience. When her sire\nFrom life departed, and in servitude\nThe city dedicate to Bacchus mourn'd,\nLong time she went a wanderer through the world.\nAloft in Italy's delightful land\nA lake there lies, at foot of that proud Alp\nThat o'er the Tyrol locks Germania in,\nIts name Benacus, from whose ample breast\nA thousand springs, methinks, and more, between\nCamonica and Garda, issuing forth,\nWater the Apennine. There is a spot[3]\n\n[3: \"There is a spot.\" Prato di Fame, where the dioceses of Trento,\nVerona, and Brescia meet.]\n\nAt midway of that lake, where he who bears\nOf Trento's flock the pastoral staff, with him\nOf Brescia, and the Veronese, might each\nPassing that way his benediction give.\nA garrison of goodly site and strong\nPeschiera[4] stands, to awe with front opposed\nThe Bergamese and Brescian, whence the shore\nMore slope each way descends. There, whatsoe'er\nBenacus' bosom holds not, tumbling o'er\nDown falls, and winds a river flood beneath\nThrough the green pastures. Soon as in his course\nThe stream makes head, Benacus then no more\nThey call the name, but Mincius, till at last\nReaching Governo, into Po he falls.\nNot far his course hath run, when a wide flat\nIt finds, which overstretching as a marsh\nIt covers, pestilent in summer oft.\nHence journeying, the savage maiden saw\nMidst of the fen a territory waste\nAnd naked of inhabitants. To shun\nAll human converse, here she with her slaves,\nPlying her arts, remain'd, and liv'd, and left\nHer body tenantless. Thenceforth the tribes,\nWho round were scatter'd, gathering to that place,\nAssembled; for its strength was great, enclosed\nOn all parts by the fen. On those dead bones\nThey rear'd themselves a city, for her sake\nCalling it Mantua, who first chose the spot,\nNor ask'd another omen for the name;\nWherein more numerous the people dwelt,\nEre Casalodi's madness[5] by deceit\nWas wronged of Pinamonte. If thou hear\nHenceforth another origin assign'd\nOf that my country, I forewarn thee now,\nThat falsehood none beguile thee of the truth.\"\n\n[4: \"Peschiera.\" A garrison situated to the south of the lake, where\nit empties and forms the Mincius.]\n\n[5: Alberto da Casalodi, in possession of Mantua, was persuaded by\nPinamonte Buonacossi to ingratiate himself with the people by banishing to\ntheir own castles the nobles, who were obnoxious to them. Pinamonte then put\nhimself at the head of the populace, drove out Casalodi and his adherents, and\nobtained the sovereignty for himself.]\n\nI answer'd, \"Teacher, I conclude thy words\nSo certain, that all else shall be to me\nAs embers lacking life. But now of these,\nWho here proceed, instruct me, if thou see\nAny that merit more especial note.\nFor thereon is my mind alone intent.\"\n\nHe straight replied: \"That spirit, from whose cheek\nThe beard sweeps o'er his shoulders brown, what time\nGraecia was emptied of her males, that scarce\nThe cradles were supplied, the seer was he\nIn Aulis, who with Calchas gave the sign\nWhen first to cut the cable. Him they named\nEurypilus: so sings my tragic strain,\nIn which majestic measure well thou know'st,\nWho know'st it all. That other, round the loins\nSo slender of his shape, was Michael Scot,[6]\nPractised in every slight of magic wile.\n\n[6: \"It is not long since there was in this city (Florence) a great\nmaster in necromancy, called Michele Scotto, because he was from Scotland.\"\nBoccaccio, Decameron G. viii. N. 9.]\n\n\"Guido Bonatti[7] see: Asdente mark,[8]\nWho now were willing he had tended still\nThe thread and cordwain, and too late repents.\n\n[7: An astrologer of Forli, on whose skill Guido da Montefeltro, lord\nof that place, so relied, that he is reported never to have gone into battle,\nexcept in the hour recommended to him by Bonatti. Landino and Vellutello speak\nof his book on astrology. Macchiavelli mentions him in the History of\nFlorence, 1. i. p. 24. ed. 1550. \"He flourished about 1230 and 1260. Though a\nlearned astronomer he was seduced by astrology, through which he was greatly\nin favor with many princes.\"]\n\n[8: A shoemaker at Parma, who deserted his business to practice the\narts of divination.]\n\n\"See next the wretches, who the needle left,\nThe shuttle and the spindle, and became\nDiviners: baneful witcheries they wrought\nWith images and herbs. But onward now:\nFor now doth Cain with fork of thorns[9] confine\nOn either hemisphere, touching the wave\nBeneath the towers of Scville. Yesternight\nThe moon was round. Thou mayst remember well:\nFor she good service did thee in the gloom\nOf the deep wood.\" This said, both onward moved.\n\n[9: By Cain and the thorns (\"The Man in the Moon\") the Poet denotes\nthat luminary. The same superstition is alluded to in the Paradise, Canto ii.\n52.]",
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}