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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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      "name": "Divine Comedy",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 26,
    "slug": "canto-26",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 26",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1468,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 26\n\n\nCanto XXVI\n\nArgument\n\nRemounting by the steps, down which they have descended to the seventh\ngulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from\nthence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors,\neach flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses,\nthe latter of whom relates the manner of his death.\n\nFlorence, exult! for thou so mightily\nHast thriven, that o'er land and sea thy wings\nThou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.\nAmong the plunderers, such the three I found\nThy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,\nAnd no proud honour to thyself redounds.\n\nBut if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,\nAre of the truth presageful, thou ere long\nShalt feel what Prato[1] (not to say the rest)\nWould fain might come upon thee; and that chance\nWere in good time, if it befell thee now.\nWould so it were, since it must needs befall!\nFor as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.\n\n[1: \"Shalt feel what Prato.\" The Poet prognosticates the calamities\nwhich were soon to befall his native city, and which, he says, even her\nnearest neighbor, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more particularly\npointed at are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over the Arno, in May,\n1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of\nhell and the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives\nwere lost; and a conflagration, that in the following month destroyed more\nthan 1,700 houses. See G. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. lxx. and lxxi.]\n\nWe from the depth departed; and my guide\nRemounting scaled the flinty steps, which late\nWe downward traced, and drew me up the steep.\nPursuing thus our solitary way\n\nAmong the crags and splinters of the rock,\nSped not our feet without the help of hands.\n\nThen sorrow seized me, which e'en now revives,\nAs my thought turns again to what I saw,\nAnd, more than I am wont, I rein and curb\nThe powers of nature in me, lest they run\nWhere Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good\nMy gentle star or something better gave me,\nI envy not myself the precious boon.\n\nAs in that season, when the sun least veils\nHis face that lightens all, what time the fly\nGives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then,\nUpon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees\nFire - flies innumerous spangling o'er the vale,\nVineyard or tilth, where his day - labor lies;\nWith flames so numberless throughout its space\nShone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth\nWas to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs\nThe bears avenged, as its departure saw\nElijah's chariot, when the steeds erect\nRaised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes meanwhile,\nStraining pursued them, till the flame alone,\nUpsoaring like a misty speck, he kenn'd:\nE'en thus along the gulf moves every flame,\nA sinner so enfolded close in each,\nThat none exhibits token of the theft.\n\nUpon the bridge I forward bent to look\nAnd grasp'd a flinty mass, or else had fallen,\nThough push'd not from the height. The guide, who mark'd\nHow I did gaze attentive, thus began:\n\"Within these ardours are the spirits; each\nSwatched in confining fire.\" \"Master! thy word,\"\nI answer'd, \"hath assured me; yet I deem'd\nAlready of the truth, already wish'd\nTo ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes\nSo parted at the summit, as it seem'd\nAscending from that funeral pile[2] where lay\nThe Theban brothers.\" He replied: \"Within,\n\n[2: The flame is said to have divided the bodies of Eteocles and\nPolynices, as if conscious of the enmity that actuated them while living.]\n\nUlysses there and Diomede endure\nTheir penal tortures, thus to vengeance now\nTogether hasting, as erewhile to wrath\nThese in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore\nThe ambush of the horse,[3] that open'd wide\nA portal for the goodly seed to pass,\nWhich sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile\nLament they, whence, of her Achilles 'reft,\nDeidamia yet in death complains.\nAnd there is rued the stratagem that Troy\nOf her Palladium spoil'd\" - \"If they have power\nOf utterance from within these sparks,\" said I,\n\"O master! think my prayer a thousand - fold\nIn repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe\nTo pause till here the horned flame arrive.\nSee, how toward it with desires I bend.\"\n\n[3: The wooden horse that caused Aeneas to quit Troy and seek his\nfortune in Italy, where his descendants founded Rome.]\n\nHe thus: \"Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,\nAnd I accept it therefore; but do thou\nThy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;\nFor I divine thy wish: and they perchance,\nFor they were Greeks,[4] might shun discourse with thee.\"\n\n[4: Perhaps implying arrogance.]\n\nWhen there the flame had come, where time and place\nSeem'd fitting to my guide, he thus began:\n\"O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!\nIf, living, I of you did merit aught,\nWhate'er the measure were of that desert,\nWhen in the world my lofty strain I pour'd,\nMove ye not on, till one of you unfold\nIn what clime death o'ertook him self - destroy'd.\"\n\nOf the old flame forthwith the greater horn\nBegan to roll, murmuring, as a fire\nThat labors with the wind, then to and fro\nWagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,\nThrew out its voice, and spake: \"When I escaped\nFrom Circe, who beyond a circling year\nHad held me near Caieta by her charms,\nEre thus Aeneas yet had named the shore;\nNor fondness for my son, nor reverence\n\nOf my old father, nor return of love,\nThat should have crown'd Penelope with joy,\nCould overcome in me the zeal I had\nTo explore the world, and search the ways of life,\nMan's evil and his virtue. Forth I sail'd\nInto the deep illimitable main,\nWith but one bark, and the small faithful band\nThat yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,\nFar as Marocco, either shore I saw,\nAnd the Sardinian and each isle beside\nWhich round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age\nWere I and my companions, when we came\nTo the strait pass,[5] where Hercules ordain'd\nThe boundaries not to be o'erstepp'd by man.\nThe walls of Seville to my right I left,\nOn the other hand already Ceuta past.\n'O brothers!' I began, 'who to the west\nThrough perils without number now have reach'd;\nTo this the short remaining watch, that yet\nOur senses have to wake, refuse not proof\nOf the unpeopled world, following the track\nOf Phoebus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang:\nYe were not form'd to live the life of brutes,\nBut virtue to pursue and knowledge high.'\nWith these few words I sharpen'd for the voyage\nThe mind of my associates, that I then\nCould scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn\nOur poop we turn'd, and for the witless flight\nMade our oars wings, still gaining on the left.\nEach star of the other pole night now beheld,\nAnd ours so low, that from the ocean floor\nIt rose not. Five times reillumed, as oft\nVanish'd the light from underneath the moon,\nSince the deep way we enter'd, when from far\nAppear'd a mountain dim,[6] loftiest methought\n\n[5: The Strait of Gibraltar.]\n\n[6: The mountain of Purgatory. - Among various opinions respecting\nthe situation of the terrestrial paradise, Peitro Lombardo relates, that \"it\nwas separated by a long space, either of sea or land, from the regions\ninhabited by men, and placed in the ocean, reaching as far as to the luner\ncircle, so that the waters of the deluge did not reach it.\" - Sent. lib. ii.\ndist. 17.]\n\nOf all I e'er beheld. Joy seized us straight;\nBut soon to mourning changed. From the new land\nA whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side\nDid strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl'd her round\nWith all the waves; the fourth time lifted up\nThe poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:\nAnd over us the booming billow closed.\"[7]\n\n[7: \"Closed.\" Venturi refers to Pliny and Solinus for the opinion\nthat Ulysses was the founder of Lisbon, from whence he thinks it was easy for\nthe fancy of a poet to send him on yet further enterprises. The story (which\nit is not unlikely that our author borrowed from some legend of the Middle\nAges) may have taken its rise partly from the obscure oracle returned by the\nghost of Tiresias to Ulysses (eleventh book of the Odyssey), and partly from\nthe fate which there was reason to suppose had befallen some adventurous\nexplorers of the Atlantic Ocean.]",
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