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    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 32,
    "slug": "canto-32",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 32",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1571,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 32\n\n\nCanto XXXII\n\nArgument\n\nThis Canto treats of the first, and, in part, of the second of those\nrounds, into which the ninth and last, or frozen circle, is divided. In the\nformer, called Caina, Dante finds Camiccione de' Pazzi, who gives him an\naccount of other sinners who are there punished; and in the next, named\nAntenora, he hears in like manner from Bocca degli Abbati who his fellow -\nsufferers are.\n\nCould I command rough rhymes and hoarse, to suit\nThat hole of sorrow o'er which every rock\nHis firm abutment rears, then might the vein\nOf fancy rise full springing: but not mine\nSuch measures, and with faltering awe I touch\nThe mighty theme; for to describe the depth\nOf all the universe, is no emprise\nTo jest with, and demands a tongue not used\nTo infant babbling. But let them assist\nMy song, the tuneful maidens, by whose aid\nAmphion wall'd in Thebes; so with the truth\nMy speech shall best accord. Oh ill - starr'd folk,\nBeyond all others wretched! who abide\nIn such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words\nTo speak of, better had ye here on earth\nBeen flocks, or mountain goats. As down we stood\nIn the dark pit beneath the giants' feet,\nBut lower far than they, and I did gaze\nStill on the lofty battlement, a voice\nBespake me thus: \"Look how thou walkest. Take\nGood heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads\nOf thy poor brethren.\" Thereupon I turn'd,\nAnd saw before and underneath my feet\nA lake, whose frozen surface liker seem'd\nTo glass than water. Not so thick a veil\nIn winter e'er hath Austrian Danube spread\nO'er his still course, nor Tanais far remote\nUnder the chilling sky. Roll'd o'er that mass\nHad Tabernich or Pietrapana[1] fallen,\nNot e'en its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog\nCroaking above the wave, what time in dreams\nThe village gleaner oft pursues her toil,\nSo, to where modest shame appears, thus low\nBlue pinch'd and shrined in ice the spirits stood,\nMoving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.\nHis face each downward held; their mouth the cold,\nTheir eyes express'd the dolour of their heart.\n\n[1: Tabernich or Pietrapana.\" The one a mountain in Sclavonia, the\nother in that tract of country called the Garfagnana, not far from Lucca.]\n\nA space I look'd around, then at my feet\nSaw two so strictly join'd, that of their head\nThe very hairs were mingled. \"Tell me ye,\nWhose bosoms thus together press,\" said I,\n\"Who are ye?\" At that sound their necks they bent;\nAnd when their looks were lifted up to me,\nStraightway their eyes, before all moist within,\nDistill'd upon their lips, and the frost bound\nThe tears betwixt those orbs, and held them there.\nPlank unto plank hath never cramp closed up\nSo stoutly. Whence, like two enraged goats,\nThey clash'd together: them such fury seized.\n\nAnd one, from whom the cold both ears had reft,\nExclaim'd, still looking downward: \"Why on us\nDost speculate so long? If thou wouldst know\nWho are these two,[2] the valley, whence his wave\nBisenzio slopes, did for its master own\nTheir sire Alberto, and next him themselves.\nThey from one body issued: and throughout\nCaina thou mayst search, nor find a shade\nMore worthy in congealment to be fix'd;\nNot him,[3] whose breast and shadow Arthur's hand\nAt that one blow dissever'd; not Focaccia,[4]\n\n[2: Alessandro and Napoleone, sons of Alberto Alberti, who murdered\neach other. They were proprietors of the valley of Falterona, where the\nBisenzio rises, falling into the Arno six miles from Florence.]\n\n[3: Mordred, son of King Arthur. In the romance of Lancelot of the\nLake, Arthur, having discovered the traitorous intentions of his son, pierces\nhim through with his lance, so that the sunbeam passes through the body.]\n\n[4: Focaccia of Cancellieri (the Pistoian family), whose atrocious\nact of revenge against his uncle is said to have given rise to the parties,\nBianchi and Neri, in the year 1300.]\n\nNo, not this spirit, whose o'erjutting head\nObstructs my onward view; he bore the name\nOf Mascheroni:[5] Tuscan if thou be,\nWell knowest who he was. And to cut short\nAll further question, in my form behold\nWhat once was Camiccione.[6] I await\nCarlino[7] here my kinsman, whose deep guilt\nShall wash out mine.\" A thousand visages\nThen mark'd I, which the keen and eager cold\nHad shaped into a doggish grin; whence creeps\nA shivering horror o'er me, at the thought\nOf those frore shallows. While we journey'd on\nToward the middle, at whose point unites\nAll heavy substance, and I trembling went\nThrough that eternal chillness, I know not\nIf will it were, or destiny, or chance,\nBut, passing 'midst the heads, my foot did strike\nWith violent blow against the face of one.\n\n[5: Sassol Mascheroni, a Florentine, who murdered his uncle.]\n\n[6: Camiccione de' Pazzi of Valdarno, by whom his kinsman Ubertino\nwas treacherously put to death.]\n\n[7: \"Carlino.\" One of the same family. He betrayed the Castel di\nPiano Travigne, in Valdarno, to the Florentines, after the refugees of the\nBianca and Ghibelline party had defended it against a siege for twenty - nine\ndays, in the summer of 1302.]\n\n\"Wherefore dost bruise me?\" weeping the exclaim'd;\n\"Unless thy errand be some fresh revenge\nFor Montaperto,[8] wherefore troublest me?\"\n\n[8: The defeat of the Guelfi at Montaperto through the treachery of\nBocca degli Abbati, who, during the engagement, cut off the hand of Giacopo\ndel Vacca de' Pazzi, the Florentine standard - bearer.]\n\nI thus: \"Instructor, now await me here,\nThat I through him may rid me of my doubt:\nThenceforth what haste thou wilt.\" The teacher paused\nAnd to that shade I spake, who bitterly\nStill cursed me in his wrath. \"What art thou, speak,\nThat railest thus on others?\" He replied:\n\"Now who art thou, that smiting others' cheeks,\nThrough Antenora[9] roamest, with such force\nAs were past sufferance, wert thou living still?\"\n\n[9: So called from Antenor, who, according to Dictys Cretensis (de\nBello Troj. lib. v.) and Dares Phrygius (De Excidio Trojae) betrayed Troy his\ncountry,\" Lombardi.]\n\n\"And I am living, to thy joy perchance,\"\nWas my reply, \"if fame be dear to thee,\nThat with the rest I may thy name enrol.\"\n\n\"The contrary of what I covet most,\"\nSaid he, \"thou tender'st: hence! nor vex me more.\nIll knowest thou to flatter in this vale.\"\n\nThen seizing on his hinder scalp I cried\"\n\"Name thee, or not a hair shall tarry here.\"\n\n\"Rend all away,\" he answer'd, \"yet for that\nI will not tell, nor show thee, who I am,\nThough at my head thou pluck a thousand times.\"\n\nNow I had grasp'd his tresses, and stript off\nMore than one tuft, he barking, with his eyes\nDrawn in and downward, when another cried,\n\"What ails thee, Bocca? Sound not loud enough\nThy chattering teeth, but thou must bark outright?\nWhat devil wrings thee?\" - \"Now,\" said I, \"be dumb,\nAccursed traitor! To thy shame, of thee\nTrue tidings will I bear.\" - \"Off!\" he replied;\n\"Tell what thou list: but, as thou 'scape from hence,\nTo speak of him whose tongue hath been so glib,\nForget not: here he wails the Frenchman's gold.\n'Him of Duera,'[10] Thou canst say, 'I mark'd,\nWhere the starved sinners pine.' If thou be ask'd\nWhat other shade was with them, at thy side\nIs Beccaria,[11] whose red gorge distain'd\nThe biting axe of Florence. Further on,\nIf I misdeem not, Soldanieri,[12] bides,\nWith Ganellon,[13] and Tribaldello,[14] him\nWho oped Faenza when the people slept.\"\n\n[10: Buoso of Cremona, of the family of Duera, bribed by Guy de\nMontfort to leave a pass between Piedmont and Parma, with the defence of which\nhe had been intrusted by the Ghibellines, open to the army of Charles of\nAnjou, A. D. 1265, at which the people of Cremona were so enraged that they\nextirpated the whole family. G. Villani.]\n\n[11: Abbot of Vallombrosa, Pope's legate at Florence, beheaded for\nhis intrigues with the Ghibellines.]\n\n[12: \"Gianni Soldanieri,\" says Villani, Hist. lib. vii. c. xiv., \"put\nhimself at the head of the people, in the hopes of rising into power, not\naware that the result would be mischief to the Ghibelline party, and his own\nruin.\" - A. D. 1266.]\n\n[13: The betrayer of Charlemain, mentioned by Archbishop Turpin. He\nis a type of treachery with the poets of the Middle Ages.]\n\n[14: Tribaldello de' Manfredi, bribed to betray the city of Faenza,\n1282.]\n\nWe now had left him, passing on our way,\nWhen I beheld two spirits by the ice\nPent in one hollow, that the head of one\n\nWas cowl unto the other; and as bread\nIs raven'd up through hunger, the uppermost\nDid so apply his fangs to the other's brain,\nWhere the spine joins it. Not more furiously\nOn Menalippus' temples Tydeus gnaw'd,\nThan on that skull and on its garbage he.\n\n\"O thou! who show'st so beastly sign of hate\n'Gainst him thou prey'st on, let me hear,\" said I,\n\"The cause, on such condition, that if right\nWarrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are,\nAnd what the color of his sinning was,\nI may repay thee in the world above,\nIf that, wherewith I speak, be moist so long.\"",
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