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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 29,
    "slug": "canto-29",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 29",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1430,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 29\n\n\nCanto XXIX\n\nArgument\n\nDante, at the desire of Virgil, proceeds onward to the bridge that\ncrosses the tenth gulf, from whence he hears the cries of the alchemists and\nforgers, who are tormented therein; but not being able to discern anything on\naccount of the darkness, they descend the rock, that bounds this, the last of\nthe compartments in which the eighth circle is divided, and then behold the\nspirits who are afflicted by divers plagues and diseases. Two of them, namely,\nGrifolino of Arezzo, and Capocchio of Siena, are introduced speaking.\n\nSo were mine eyes inebriate with the view\nOf the vast multitude, whom various wounds\nDisfigured, that they long'd to stay and weep.\nBut Virgil roused me: \"What yet gazest on?\nWherefore doth fasten yet thy sight below\nAmong the maim'd and miserable shades?\nThou hast not shown in any chasm beside\nThis weakness. Know, if thou wouldst number them,\nThat two and twenty miles the valley winds\nIts circuit, and already is the moon\nBeneath our feet: the time permitted now\nIs short; and more, not seen, remains to see.\"\n\n\"If thou,\" I straight replied, \"hadst weigh'd the cause,\nFor which I look'd, thou hadst perchance excused\nThe tarrying still.\" My leader part pursued\nHis way, the while I follow'd, answering him,\nAnd adding thus: \"Within that cave I deem,\nWhereon so fixedly I held my ken,\nThere is a spirit dwells, one of my blood,\nWailing the crime that costs him now so dear.\"\n\nThen spake my master: \"Let thy soul no more\nAfflict itself for him. Direct elsewhere\nIts thought, and leave him. At the bridge's foot\nI mark'd how he did point with menacing look\nAt thee, and heard him by the others named\nGeri of Bello.[1] Thou so wholly then\nWert busied with his spirit, who once ruled\nThe towers of Hautefort, that thou lookedst not\nThat way, ere he was gone.\" \"O guide beloved!\n\n[1: \"Geri of Bello.\" A kinsman of the Poet's, who was murdered by one\nof the Sacchetti family. His being placed here, may be considered as a proof\nthat Dante was more impartial in the allotment of his punishments than has\ngenerally been supposed.]\n\nHis violent death yet unavenged,\" said I,\n\"By any, who are partners in his shame,\nMade him contemptuous; therefore, as I think,\nHe pass'd me speechless by; and, doing so,\nHath made me more compassionate his fate.\"\n\nSo we discoursed to where the rock first show'd\nThe other valley, had more light been there,\nE'en to the lowest depth. Soon as we came\nO'er the last cloister in the dismal rounds\nOf Malebolge, and the brotherhood\nWere to our view exposed, then many a dart\nOf sore lament assail'd me, headed all\nWith points of thrilling pity, that I closed\nBoth ears against the volley with mine hands.\n\nAs were the torment, if each lazar - house\nOf Valdichiana,[2] in the sultry time\n'Twixt July and September, with the isle\nSardinia and Maremma's pestilent fen,[3]\nHad heap'd their maladies all in one foss\nTogether; such was here the torment: dire\nThe stench, as issuing streams from fester'd limbs.\n\n[2: The valley through which passes the river Chiana, bounded by\nArezzo, Cortona, Montepulciano, and Chiusi. In the autumn it was formerly\nrendered unwholesome by the stagnation of the water, but has since been\ndrained by the Emperor Leopold II. The Chiana is mentioned as a remarkably\nsluggish stream, in the Paradise, Canto xiii. 21.]\n\n[3: See note to Canto xxv, v. 18.]\n\nWe on the utmost shore of the long rock\nDescended still to leftward. Then my sight\nWas livelier to explore the depth, wherein\nThe minister of the most mighty Lord,\nAll - searching Justice, dooms to punishment\nThe forgers noted on her dread record.\n\nMore rueful was it not methinks to see\nThe nation in Aegina[4] droop, what time\nEach living thing, e'en to the little worm,\nAll fell, so full of malice was the air\n(And afterward, as bards of yore have told,\nThe ancient people were restored anew\nFrom seed of emmets), than was here to see\n\n[4: \"In Aegina.\" He alludes to the fable of the ants changed into\nMyrmidons. - Ovid, Met. lib. vii.]\n\nThe spirits, that languish'd through the murky vale,\nUp - piled on many a stack. Confused they lay,\nOne o'er the belly, o'er the shoulders one\nRoll'd of another; sideling crawl'd a third\nAlong the dismal pathway. Step by step\nWe journey'd on, in silence looking round,\nAnd listening those diseased, who strove in vain\nTo lift their forms. Then two I mark'd, that sat\nPropt 'gainst each other, as two brazen pans\nSet to retain the heat. From head to foot,\nA tetter bark'd them round. Nor saw I e'er\nGroom currying so fast, for whom his lord\nImpatient waited, or himself perchance\nTired with long watching, as of these each one\nPlied quickly his keen nails, through furiousness\nOf ne'er abated pruriency. The crust\nCame down from underneath, in flakes, like scales\nScraped from the bream, or fish of broader mail.\n\n\"O thou! who with thy fingers rendest off\nThy coat of proof,\" thus spake my guide to one,\n\"And sometimes makest tearing pincers of them,\nTell me if any born of Latian land\nBe among these within: so may thy nails\nServe thee for everlasting to this toil.\"\n\n\"Both are of Latium,\" weeping he replied,\n\"Whom tortured thus thou seest: but who art thou\nThat hast inquired of us?\" To whom my guide:\n\"One that descend with this man, who yet lives,\nFrom rock to rock, and show him Hell's abyss.\"\n\nThen started they asunder, and each turn'd\nTrembling toward us, with the rest, whose ear\nThose words redounding struck. To me my liege\nAddress'd him: \"Speak to them whate'er thou list.\"\n\nAnd I therewith began: \"So may no time\nFilch your remembrance from the thoughts of men\nIn the upper world, but after many suns\nSurvive it, as ye tell me, who ye are,\nAnd of what race ye come. Your punishment,\nUnseemly and disgustful in its kind,\nDeter you not from opening thus much to me.\"\n\n\"Arezzo was my dwelling,\"[5] answer'd one,\n\"And me Albero of Siena brought\nTo die by fire: but that, for which I died,\nLeads me not here. True is, in sport I told him,\nThat I had learn'd to wing my flight in air;\nAnd he, admiring much, as he was void\nOf wisdom, will'd me to declare to him\nThe secret of mine art: and only hence,\nBecause I made him not a Daedalus,\nPrevail'd on one supposed his sire to burn me.\nBut Minos to this chasm, last of the ten,\nFor that I practised alchemy on earth,\nHas doom'd me. Him no subterfuge eludes.\"\n\n[5: Grifolino of Arezzo, who promised Albero, son of the Bishop of\nSiena, that he would teach him the art of flying; and, because he did not keep\nhis promise, Albero prevailed on his father to have him burnt for a\nnecromancer.]\n\nThen to the bard I spake: \"Was ever race\nLight as Siena's?[6] Sure not France herself\nCan show a tribe so frivolous and vain.\"\n\n[6: The same imputation is again cast on the Sienese, Purgatory,\nCanto xiii, 141.]\n\nThe other leprous spirit heard my words,\nAnd thus return'd: \"Be Stricca[7] from this charge\nExempted, he who knew so temperately\nTo lay out fortune's gifts; and Niccolo,\nWho first the spice's costly luxury\nDiscover'd in that garden,[8] where such seed\nRoots deepest in the soil; and be that troop\nExempted, with whom Caccia of Asciano\nLavish'd his vineyards and wide - spreading woods,\nAnd his rare wisdom Abbagliato show'd\nA spectacle for all. That thou mayst know\nWho seconds thee against the Sienese\nThus gladly, bend this way thy sharpen'd sight,\nThat well my face may answer to thy ken;\nSo shalt thou see I am Capocchio's ghost,[9]\nWho forged transmuted metals by the power\n\n[7: This is said ironically, Stricca, Niccolo Salimbeni, Caccia of\nAsciano, and Abbagliato, or Meo de' Folcacchieri, belonged to a company of\nprodigal and luxurious youth in Siena, called the \"brigata godereccia.\"\nNiccolo was the inventor of a new manner of using cloves in cookery, and which\nwas termed the \"costuma ricca.\"]\n\n[8: \"In that garden.\" Siena.]\n\n[9: Capocchio of Siena who is said to have been a fellow - student of\nDante's, in natural philosophy.]\n\nOf alchemy; and if I scan thee right,\nThou needs must well remember how I aped\nCreative nature by my subtle art.\"",
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