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  "work": {
    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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      "name": "Divine Comedy",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 24,
    "slug": "canto-24",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 24",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1471,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 24\n\n\nCanto XXIV\n\nArgument\n\nUnder the escort of his faithful master, Dante not without difficulty\nmakes his way out of the sixth gulf; and in the seventh, sees the robbers\ntormented by venomous and pestilent serpents. The soul of Vanni Fucci, who had\npillaged the sacristy of St. James in Pistoia, predicts some calamities that\nimpended over that city, and over the Florentines.\n\nIn the year's early nonage,[1] when the sun\nTempers his tresses in Aquarius' urn,\nAnd now toward equal day the nights recede;\nWhenas the rime upon the earth puts on\nHer dazzling sister's image, but not long\nHer milder sway endures; then riseth up\nThe village hind, whom fails his wintry store,\nAnd looking out beholds the plain around\nAll whiten'd; whence impatiently he smites\nHis thighs, and to his hut returning in,\nThere paces to and fro, wailing his lot,\nAs a discomfited and helpless man;\nThen comes he forth again, and feels new hope\nSpring in his bosom, finding e'en thus soon\nThe world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook,\nAnd forth to pasture drives his little flock:\nSo me my guide dishearten'd, when I saw\nHis troubled forehead; and so speedily\nThat ill was cured; for at the fallen bridge\nArriving, toward me with a look as sweet,\nHe turn'd him back, as that I first beheld\nAt the steep mountain's foot. Regarding well\nThe ruin, and some counsel first maintain'd\nWith his own thought, he opened wide his arm\nAnd took me up. As one, who, while he works,\nComputes his labor's issue, that he seems\nStill to foresee the effect; so lifting me\nUp to the summit of one peak, he fix'd\nHis eye upon another. \"Grapple that,\"\nSaid he, \"but first make proof, if it be such\nAs will sustain thee.\" For one capt with lead\n\n[1: At the latter part of January, when the sun enters Aquarius, and\nthe equinox draws near, when the hoar - frosts in the morning often wear the\nappearance of snow, but are melted by the rising sun.\"]\n\nThis were no journey. Scarcely he, though light,\nAnd I, though onward push'd from crag to crag,\nCould mount. And if the precinct of this coast\nWere not less ample than the last, for him\nI know not, but my strength had surely fail'd.\nBut Malebolge all toward the mouth\nInclining of the nethermost abyss,\nThe site of every valley hence requires,\nThat one side upward slope, the other fall.\n\nAt length the point from whence the utmost stone\nJuts down, we reach'd; soon as to that arrived,\nSo was the breath exhausted from my lungs\nI could no further, but did seat me there.\n\n\"Now needs thy best of man;\" so spake my guide:\n\"For not on downy plumes, nor under shade\nOf canopy reposing, fame is won;\nWithout which whosoe'r consumes his days,\nLeaveth such vestige of himself on earth,\nAs smoke in air or foam upon the wave.\nThou therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness\nBy the mind's effort, in each struggle form'd\nTo vanquish, if she suffer not the weight\nOf her corporeal frame to crush her down.\nA longer ladder yet remains to scale.\nFrom these to have escaped sufficeth not,\nIf well thou note me, profit by my words.\"\n\nI straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent\nThat I in truth did feel me. \"On,\" I cried,\n\"For I am stout and fearless.\" Up the rock\nOur way we held, more rugged than before,\nNarrower, and steeper far to climb. From talk\nI ceased not, as we journey'd, so to seem\nLeast faint; whereat a voice from the other foss\nDid issue forth, for utterance suited ill.\nThough on the arch that crosses there I stood,\nWhat were the words I knew not, but who spake\nSeem'd moved in anger. Down I stoop'd to look;\nBut my quick eye might reach not to the depth\nFor shrouding darkness; wherefore thus I spake:\n\"To the next circle, teacher, bend thy steps,\nAnd from the wall dismount we; for as hence\nI hear and understand not, so I see\nBeneath, and naught discern.\" \"I answer not,\"\nSaid he, \"but by the deed. To fair request\nSilent performance maketh best return.\"\n\nWe from the bridge's head descended, where\nTo the eighth mound it joins; and then, the chasm\nOpening to view, I saw a crowd within\nOf serpents terrible, so strange of shape\nAnd hideous, that remembrance in my veins\nYet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands\nLet Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus,\nPareas and Chelyder be her brood,\nCenchris and Amphisbaena, plagues so dire\nOr in such numbers swarming ne'er she show'd,\nNot with all Ethiopia, and whate'er\nAbove the Erythraean sea is spawn'd.\n\nAmid this dread exuberance of woe\nRan naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear,\nNor hope had they of crevice where to hide,\nOr heliotrope to charm them out of view.\nWith serpents were their hands behind them bound,\nWhich through their reins infix'd the tail and head,\nTwisted in folds before. And lo! on one\nNear to our side, darted an adder up,\nAnd, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,\nTranspierced him. Far more quickly than e'er pen\nWrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and changed\nTo ashes all, pour'd out upon the earth.\nWhen there dissolved he lay, the dust again\nUproll'd spontaneous, and the self - same form\nInstant resumed. So mighty sages tell,\nThe Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years\nHave well - nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith\nRenascent: blade nor herb throughout his life\nHe tastes, but tears of frankincense alone\nAnd odorous amomum: swaths of nard\nAnd myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,\nHe knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd\nTo earth, or through obstruction fettering up\nIn chains invisible the powers of man,\nWho, risen from his trance, gazeth around,\nBewilder'd with the monstrous agony\nHe hath endured, and wildly staring sighs;\nSo stood aghast the sinner when he rose.\n\nOh! how severe God's judgment, that deals out\nSuch blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was,\nMy teacher next inquired; and thus in few\nHe answer'd: \"Vanni Fucci[2] am I call'd,\nNot long since rained down from Tuscany\nTo this dire gullet. Me the bestial life\nAnd not the human pleased, mule that I was,\nWho in Pistoia found my worthy den.\"\n\n[2: Said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of\nLazari in Pistoia, to have robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in\nthat city, and to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege; in\nconsequence of which the latter suffered death.]\n\nI then to Virgil: \"Bid him stir not hence;\nAnd ask what crime did thrust him thither: once\nA man I knew him, choleric and bloody.\"\n\nThe sinner heard and feign'd not, but toward me\nHis mind directing and his face, wherein\nWas dismal shame depictured, thus he spake:\n\"It grieves me more to have been caught by thee\nIn this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than\nWhen I was taken from the other life.\nI have no power permitted to deny\nWhat thou inquirest. I am doom'd thus low\nTo dwell, for that the sacristy by me\nWas rifled of its goodly ornaments,\nAnd with the guilt another falsely charged.\nBut that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,\nSo as thou e'er shalt 'scape this darksome realm,\nOpen thine ears and hear what I forebode.\nReft of the Neri first Pistoia[3] pines;\nThen Florence[4] changeth citizens and laws;\n\n[3: \"In May, 1301, the Bianchi party of Pistoia, with the help of the\nBianchi who ruled Florence, drove out the party of the Neri from the former\nplace, destroying their houses, palaces, and farms.\"]\n\n[4: \"Then Florence.\" \"Soon after the Bianchi wbll be expelled from\nFlorence, the Neri will prevail, and the laws and people will be changed.\"]\n\nFrom Valdimagra,[5] drawn by wrathful Mars,\nA vapor rises, wrapt in turbid mists,\nAnd sharp and eager driveth on the storm\nWith Arrowy hurtling o'er Piceno's field,\nWhence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike\nEach helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground.\nThis have I told, that grief may rend thy heart.\"\n\n[5: Alluding to the victory obtained by the Marquis Morello Malaspina\nof Valdimagra, who put himself at the head of the Neri, and defeated their\nopponents the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon after the\noccurrence related in the preceding note on v. 142. Currado Malaspina is\nintroduced in the eighth Canto of the Purgatory; where it appears, that\nalthough on the present occasion they espoused contrary sides, most important\nfavors were nevertheless conferred by that family on our Poet, at a subsequent\nperiod of his exile, in 1307.]",
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