{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/divine-comedy/inferno/canto-28.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
      "url": "/sources/divine-comedy/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 28,
    "slug": "canto-28",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 28",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1692,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 28\n\n\nCanto XXVIII\n\nArgument\n\nThey arrive in the ninth gulf, where the sowers of scandal, schismatics,\nand heretics, are seen with their limbs maimed or divided in different ways.\nAmong these the Poet finds Mohammed, Piero da Medicina, Curio, Mosca, and\nBertrand de Born.\n\nWho, e'en in words unfetter'd, might at full\nTell of the wounds and blood that now I saw,\nThough he repeated oft the tale? No tongue\nSo vast a theme could equal, speech and thought\nBoth impotent alike. If in one band\nCollected, stood the people all, who e'er\nPour'd on Apulia's happy soil their blood,\nSlain by the Trojans, and in that long war,[1]\nWhen of the rings the measured booty made\nA pile so high, as Rome's historian writes\nWho errs not; with the multitude, that felt\nThe griding force of Guiscard's Norman steel,[2]\n\n[1: The war of Hannibal in Italy.]\n\n[2: Robert Guiscard, conqueror of Naples, died 1110. See Paradise,\nCanto xviii.]\n\nAnd those the rest,[3] whose bones are gather'd yet\nAt Ceperano, there where treachery\nBranded the Apulian name, or where beyond\nThy walls, O Tagliacozzo,[4] without arms\nThe old Alardo conquer'd; and his limbs\nOne were to show transpierced, another his\nClean lopt away; a spectacle like this\nWere but a thing of naught, to the hideous sight\nOf the ninth chasm. A rundlet, that hath lost\nIts middle or side stave, gapes not so wide\nAs one I mark'd, torn from the chin throughout\nDown to the hinder passage: 'twixt the legs\nDangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay\nOpen to view, and wretched ventricle,\nThat turns the englutted aliment to dross.\n\n[3: The army of Manfredi, which, through the treachery of the Apulian\ntroops, was overcome by Charles of Anjou in 1265. See the Purgatory, Canto\niii.]\n\n[4: \"O Tagliacozzo.\" He alludes to the victory which Charles gained\nover Conradino, by the sage advice of the Sieur de Valeri, in 1268.]\n\nWhilst eagerly I fix on him my gaze,\nHe eyed me, with his hands laid his breast bare,\nAnd cried, \"Now mark how I do rip me: lo!\nHow is Mohammed mangled: before me\nWalks Ali[5] weeping, from the chin his face\nCleft to the forelock; and the others all,\nWhom here thou seest, while they lived, did sow\nScandal and schism, and therefore thus are rent.\nA fiend is here behind, who with his sword\nHacks us thus cruelly, slivering again\nEach of this ream, when we have compast round\nThe dismal way; for first our gashes close\nEre we repass before him. But, say who\nArt thou, that standest musing on the rock,\nHaply so lingering to delay the pain\nSentenced upon thy crimes.\" \"Him death not yet,\"\nMy guide rejoin'd, \"hath overta'en, nor sin\nConducts to torment; but, that he may make\nFull trial of your state, I who am dead\nMust through the depths of Hell, from orb to orb\nConduct him. Trust my words; for they are true.\"\n\n[5: The disciple of Mohammed.]\n\nMore than a hundred spirits, when that they heard,\nStood in the foss to mark me through amaze\nForgetful of their pangs. \"Thou, who perchance\nShalt shortly view the sun, this warning thou\nBear to Dolcino:[6] bid him, if he wish not\nHere soon to follow me, that with good store\nOf food he arm him, lest imprisoning snows\nYield him a victim to Novara's power;\nNo easy conquest else\": with foot upraised\nFor stepping, spake Mohammed, on the ground\nThen fix'd it to depart. Another shade,\nPierced in the throat, his nostrils mutilate\nE'en from beneath the eyebrows, and one ear\nLopt off, who, with the rest, through wonder stood\nGazing, before the rest advanced, and bared\nHis wind - pipe, that without was all o'ersmear'd\nWith crimson stain. \"O thou!\" said he, \"whom sin\nCondemns not, and whom erst (unless too near\nResemblance do deceive me) I aloft\nHave seen on Latian ground, call thou to mind\nPiero of Medicina,[7] if again\nReturning, thou behold'st the pleasant land[8]\nThat from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo;\nAnd there instruct the twain,[9] whom Fano boasts\nHer worthiest sons, Guido and Angelo,\n\n[6: \"Dolcino.\" In 1305, a friar, called Dolcino, who belonged to no\nregular order, contrived to raise in Novara, in Lombardy, a large company of\nthe meaner sort of people, declaring himself to be a true apostle of Christ\nand promulgating a community of property and of wives, with many other such\nheretical doctrines. He blamed the Pope, cardinals, and other prelates of the\nholy Church, for not observing their duty, nor leading the angelic life, and\naffirmed that he ought to be pope. He was followed by more than three thousand\nmen and women, who lived promiscuously on the mountains together, like beasts,\nand, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by depredation and\nrapine. After two years, many were struck with compunction at the dissolute\nlife they led, and his sect was much diminished; and, through failure of food\nand the severity of the snows, he was taken by the people of Novara, and\nburnt, with Margarita, his companion, and many others, whom he had seduced.]\n\n[7: \"Medicina.\" A place in the territory of Bologna. Piero fomented\ndissensions among the inhabitants of that city, and among the leaders of the\nneighboring states.]\n\n[8: Lombardy.]\n\n[9: \"The twain.\" Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano, two of\nthe worthiest and most distinguished citizens of Fano, were invited by\nMalatestino da Rimini to an entertainment, on pretence that he had some\nimportant business to transact with them; and, according to instructions given\nby him, they were drowned in their passage near Cattolica, between Rimini and\nFano.]\n\nThat if 'tis given us here to scan aright\nThe future, they out of life's tenement\nShall be cast forth, and whelm'd under the waves\nNear to Cattolica, through perfidy\nOf a fell tyrant. 'Twixt the Cyprian isle\nAnd Balearic, ne'er hath Neptune seen\nAn injury so foul, by pirates done,\nOr Argive crew of old. That one - eyed traitor\n(Whose realm there is a spirit here were fain\nHis eye had still lack'd sight of) them shall bring\nTo conference with him, then so shape his end\nThat they shall need not 'gainst Focara's wind[10]\nOffer up vow nor prayer.\" I answering thus:\n\"Declare, as thou dost wish that I above\nMay carry tidings of thee, who is he,\nIn whom that sight doth wake such sad remembrance.\"\n\n[10: \"Focara's wind.\" Focara is a mountain, from which a wind blows\nthat is peculiarly dangerous to the navigators of that coast.]\n\nForthwith he laid his hand on the cheek - bone\nOf one, his fellow - spirit, and his jaws\nExpanding, cried: \"Lo! this is he I wot of:\nHe speaks not for himself: the outcast this,\nWho overwhelm'd the doubt in Caesar's mind,[11]\nAffirming that delay to men prepared\nWas ever harmful.\" Oh! how terrified\nMethought was Curio, from whose throat was cut\nThe tongue, which spake that hardy word. Then one,\nMaim'd of each hand, uplifted in the gloom\nThe bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots\nSullied his face, and cried: \"Remember thee\nOf Mosca[12] too; I who, alas! exclaim'd,\n\n[11: \"The doubt in Caesar's mind.\" Curio, whose speech (according to\nLucan) determined Julius Caesar to proceed when he had arrived at Rimini (the\nancient Ariminum), and doubted whether he should prosecute the civil war.]\n\n[12: \"Mosca.\" Buondelmonte was engaged to marry a lady of the Amidei\nfamily, but broke his promise, and united himself to one of the Donati. This\nwas so much resented by the former, that a meeting of themselves and their\nkinsmen was held, to consider of the best means of revenging the insult. Mosca\ndegli Uberti, or de' Lamberti, persuaded them to resolve on the assassination\nof Buondelmonte, exclaiming to them, \"the thing once done, there is an end.\"\nThis counsel and its effects were the source of many terrible calamities to\nthe State of Florence. \"This murder,\" says G. Villani, lib. v. cap. xxxviii,\n\"was the cause and beginning of the accursed Guelf and Ghibelline parties in\nFlorence.\" It happened in 1215. See the Paradise, Canto xvi. 139.]\n\n'The deed once done, there is an end,' that proved\nA seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.\"\n\nI added: \"Ay, and death to thine own tribe.\"\n\nWhence, heaping woe on woe, he hurried off,\nAs one grief - stung to madness. But I there\nStill linger'd to behold the troop, and saw\nThing, such as I may fear without more proof\nTo tell of, but that conscience makes me firm,\nThe boon companion, who her strong breastplate\nBuckles on him, that feels no guilt within,\nAnd bids him on and fear not. Without doubt\nI saw, and yet it seems to pass before me,\nA headless trunk, that even as the rest\nOf the sad flock paced onward. By the hair\nIt bore the sever'd member, lantern - wise\nPendent in hand, which look'd at us, and said,\n\"Woe's me!\" The spirit lighted thus himself;\nAnd two there were in one, and one in two.\nHow that may be, he knows who ordereth so.\n\nWhen at the bridge's foot direct he stood,\nHis arm aloft he rear'd, thrusting the head\nFull in our view, that nearer we might hear\nThe words, which thus it utter'd: \"Now behold\nThis grievous torment, thou, who breathing go'st\nTo spy the dead: behold, if any else\nBe terrible as this. And, that on earth\nThou mayst bear tidings of me, know that I\nAm Bertrand,[13] he of Born, who gave King John\nThe counsel mischievous. Father and son\nI set at mutual war. For Absalom\nAnd David more did not Ahitophel,\nSpurring them on maliciously to strife.\nFor parting those so closely knit, my brain\nParted, alas! I carry from its source,\nThat in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law\nOf retribution fiercely works in me.\"\n\n[13: \"Bertrand.\" Bertrand de Born, Vicomte de Hautefort, near\nPerigueux in Guienne, who incited John to rebel against his father, Henry II\nof England. Bertrand holds a distinguished place among the Provencal poets.]",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}