Poi che la carità del natio loco
mi strinse, raunai le fronde sparte
e rende'le a colui, ch'era già fioco.
Indi venimmo al fine ove si parte
lo secondo giron dal terzo, e dove
si vede di giustizia orribil arte.
A ben manifestar le cose nove,
dico che arrivammo ad una landa
che dal suo letto ogne pianta rimove.
La dolorosa selva l'è ghirlanda
intorno, come 'l fosso tristo ad essa;
quivi fermammo i passi a randa a randa.
Lo spazzo era una rena arida e spessa,
non d'altra foggia fatta che colei
che fu da' piè di Caton già soppressa.
O vendetta di Dio, quanto tu dei
esser temuta da ciascun che legge
ciò che fu manifesto a li occhi mei!
D'anime nude vidi molte gregge
che piangean tutte assai miseramente,
e parea posta lor diversa legge.
Supin giacea in terra alcuna gente,
alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta,
e altra andava continüamente.
Quella che giva 'ntorno era più molta,
e quella men che giacëa al tormento,
ma più al duolo avea la lingua sciolta.
Sovra tutto 'l sabbion, d'un cader lento,
piovean di foco dilatate falde,
come di neve in alpe sanza vento.
Quali Alessandro in quelle parti calde
d'Indïa vide sopra 'l süo stuolo
fiamme cadere infino a terra salde,
per ch'ei provide a scalpitar lo suolo
con le sue schiere, acciò che lo vapore
mei si stingueva mentre ch'era solo:
tale scendeva l'etternale ardore;
onde la rena s'accendea, com' esca
sotto focile, a doppiar lo dolore.
Sanza riposo mai era la tresca
de le misere mani, or quindi or quinci
escotendo da sé l'arsura fresca.
I' cominciai: “Maestro, tu che vinci
tutte le cose, fuor che ' demon duri
ch'a l'intrar de la porta incontra uscinci,
chi è quel grande che non par che curi
lo 'ncendio e giace dispettoso e torto,
sì che la pioggia non par che 'l maturi?”
E quel medesmo, che si fu accorto
ch'io domandava il mio duca di lui,
gridò: “Qual io fui vivo, tal son morto.
Se Giove stanchi 'l suo fabbro da cui
crucciato prese la folgore aguta
onde l'ultimo dì percosso fui;
o s'elli stanchi li altri a muta a muta
in Mongibello a la focina negra,
chiamando 'Buon Vulcano, aiuta, aiuta!'
sì com' el fece a la pugna di Flegra,
e me saetti con tutta sua forza:
non ne potrebbe aver vendetta allegra.”
Allora il duca mio parlò di forza
tanto, ch'i' non l'avea si forte udito:
“O Capaneo, in ciò che non s'ammorza
la tua superbia, se' tu più punito;
nullo martiro, fuor che la tua rabbia,
sarebbe al tuo furor dolor compito.”
Poi si rivolse a me con miglior labbia,
dicendo: “Quei fu l'un d'i sette regi
ch'assiser Tebe; ed ebbe e par ch'elli abbia
Dio in disdegno, e poco par che 'l pregi;
ma, com' io dissi lui, li suoi dispetti
sono al suo petto assai debiti fregi.
Or mi vien dietro, e guarda che non metti,
ancor, li piedi ne la rena arsiccia;
ma sempre al bosco tien li piedi stretti.”
Tacendo divenimmo là 've spiccia
fuor de la selva un picciol fiumicello,
lo cui rossore ancor mi raccapriccia.
Quale del Bulicame esce ruscello
che parton poi tra lor le peccatrici,
tal per la rena giù sen giva quello.
Lo fondo suo e ambo le pendici
fatt' era 'n pietra, e ' margini da lato;
per ch'io m'accorsi che 'l passo era lici.
“Tra tutto l'altro ch'i' t'ho dimostrato,
poscia che noi intrammo per la porta
lo cui sogliare a nessuno è negato,
cosa non fu da li tuoi occhi scorta
notabile com' è 'l presente rio,
che sovra sé tutte fiammelle ammorta.”
Queste parole fuor del duca mio;
per ch'io 'l pregai che mi largisse 'l pasto
di cui largito m'avëa il disio.
“In mezzo mar siede un paese guasto,”
diss' elli allora, “che s'appella Creta,
sotto 'l cui rege fu già 'l mondo casto.
Una montagna v'è che già fu lieta
d'acqua e di fronde, che si chiamò Ida;
or è diserta come cosa vieta.
Rëa la scelse già per cuna fida
del suo figliuolo, e per celarlo meglio,
quando piangea, vi facea far le grida.
Dentro dal monte sta dritto un gran veglio,
che tien volte le spalle inver' Dammiata
e Roma guarda come süo speglio.
La sua testa è di fin oro formata,
e puro argento son le braccia e 'l petto,
poi è di rame infino a la forcata;
da indi in giuso è tutto ferro eletto,
salvo che 'l destro piede è terra cotta;
e sta 'n su quel, più che 'n su l'altro, eretto.
Ciascuna parte, fuor che l'oro, è rotta
d'una fessura che lagrime goccia,
le quali, accolte, fóran quella grotta.
Lor corso in questa valle si diroccia;
fanno Acheronte, Stige e Flegetonta;
poi sen van giù per questa stretta doccia,
infin, là ove più non si dismonta,
fanno Cocito; e qual sia quello stagno
tu lo vedrai, però qui non si conta.”
E io a lui: “Se 'l presente rigagno
si diriva così dal nostro mondo,
perché ci appar pur a questo vivagno?”
Ed elli a me: “Tu sai che 'l loco è tondo;
e tutto che tu sie venuto molto,
pur a sinistra, giù calando al fondo,
non se' ancor per tutto 'l cerchio vòlto;
per che, se cosa n'apparisce nova,
non de' addur maraviglia al tuo volto.”
E io ancor: “Maestro, ove si trova
Flegetonta e Letè? ché de l'un taci,
e l'altro di' che si fa d'esta piova.”
“In tutte tue question certo mi piaci,”
rispuose, “ma 'l bollor de l'acqua rossa
dovea ben solver l'una che tu faci.
Letè vedrai, ma fuor di questa fossa,
là dove vanno l'anime a lavarsi
quando la colpa pentuta è rimossa.”
Poi disse: “Omai è tempo da scostarsi
dal bosco; fa che di retro a me vegne:
li margini fan via, che non son arsi,
e sopra loro ogne vapor si spegne.”
Because the charity of my native place
Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves,
And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.
Then came we to the confine, where disparted
The second round is from the third, and where
A horrible form of Justice is beheld.
Clearly to manifest these novel things,
I say that we arrived upon a plain,
Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;
The dolorous forest is a garland to it
All round about, as the sad moat to that;
There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.
The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
Not of another fashion made than that
Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.
Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou
By each one to be dreaded, who doth read
That which was manifest unto mine eyes!
Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
Who all were weeping very miserably,
And over them seemed set a law diverse.
Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
And some were sitting all drawn up together,
And others went about continually.
Those who were going round were far the more,
And those were less who lay down to their torment,
But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.
O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
As of the snow on Alp without a wind.
As Alexander, in those torrid parts
Of India, beheld upon his host
Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.
Whence he provided with his phalanxes
To trample down the soil, because the vapour
Better extinguished was while it was single;
Thus was descending the eternal heat,
Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder
Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.
Without repose forever was the dance
Of miserable hands, now there, now here,
Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.
"Master," began I, "thou who overcomest
All things except the demons dire, that issued
Against us at the entrance of the gate,
Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not
The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,
So that the rain seems not to ripen him?"
And he himself, who had become aware
That I was questioning my Guide about him,
Cried: "Such as I was living, am I, dead.
If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom
He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,
Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,
And if he wearied out by turns the others
In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,
Vociferating, 'Help, good Vulcan, help!'
Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,
And shot his bolts at me with all his might,
He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance."
Then did my Leader speak with such great force,
That I had never heard him speak so loud:
"O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished
Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;
Not any torment, saving thine own rage,
Would be unto thy fury pain complete."
Then he turned round to me with better lip,
Saying: "One of the Seven Kings was he
Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold
God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;
But, as I said to him, his own despites
Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.
Now follow me, and mind thou do not place
As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,
But always keep them close unto the wood."
Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes
Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.
As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,
The sinful women later share among them,
So downward through the sand it went its way.
The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,
Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;
Whence I perceived that there the passage was.
"In all the rest which I have shown to thee
Since we have entered in within the gate
Whose threshold unto no one is denied,
Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes
So notable as is the present river,
Which all the little flames above it quenches."
These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
That he would give me largess of the food,
For which he had given me largess of desire.
"In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"
Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,
Under whose king the world of old was chaste.
There is a mountain there, that once was glad
With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.
Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made.
A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
His head is fashioned of refined gold,
And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
Then he is brass as far down as the fork.
From that point downward all is chosen iron,
Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
And more he stands on that than on the other.
Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
Which gathered together perforate that cavern.
From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
Then downward go along this narrow sluice
Unto that point where is no more descending.
They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."
And I to him: "If so the present runnel
Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
Why only on this verge appears it to us?"
And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round,
And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
Still to the left descending to the bottom,
Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
Therefore if something new appear to us,
It should not bring amazement to thy face."
And I again: "Master, where shall be found
Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent,
And sayest the other of this rain is made?"
"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
Replied he; "but the boiling of the red
Water might well solve one of them thou makest.
Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
When sin repented of has been removed."
Then said he: "It is time now to abandon
The wood; take heed that thou come after me;
A way the margins make that are not burning,
And over them all vapours are extinguished."
The first tercet concludes the action of the preceding canto. This is a particularly egregious example of the way in which Dante deliberately avoids keeping his canto borders 'neat' (see the note to Inf. XIII.1-3). The following tercet, on the other hand, would have made a 'proper' beginning to the fourteenth canto, marking, as it does, the border between the second ring of the seventh Circle (violence against others) and the third (violence against God). Here we shall witness (as indeed we have done before) the dreadful 'art' of God in carrying out His just revenge upon sinners, in this case those who sinned directly against Him.
The hellscape, featuring impoverished 'vegetation' in the last canto, now is as barren as it can possibly be: nothing can take root in this sand. The retrospective glance reminds us of where we have been in this Circle: Phlegethon, circling the wood, the wood in turn circling the sand (violence against others, against selves, and now against God).
The translation of verse 7, which uses the adjective nove either to mean 'new' or 'strange,' or perhaps both at once, attempts to represent this ambiguity.
That Dante should refer here to Cato the Younger, who committed suicide at Utica (when further opposition by the republican forces led by him against Julius Caesar's army seemed futile) seems to invite a negative judgment on him. Cato, however, will be presented in Purgatorio I and II, in an authorial decision that still baffles commentators, as one of the saved. To refer to him here, a few verses from the wood of the suicides – where Christian readers might normally assume that Cato should be punished – given Dante's plan eventually to reveal his salvation, was a chancy choice for him to have made.
The poet is translating a line from Lucan's Pharsalia describing Cato's heroic decision to lead the remnant of dead Pompey's republican forces across the barren sands of Lybia in an attempt to escape from Caesar, and to do so, not carried by slaves, as Roman generals were wont to be transported, but on foot himself: 'primusque gradus in pulvere ponam' (and I, first among them, shall set my feet upon the sand [Phars. IX.395 – the citation was perhaps first noted by Daniello, comm. to XIV.13-15]). For a treatment of Cato in the context of canto XIV, see Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 47-65.
Dante thus reads Cato's suicide as something other, an act resembling Christ's sacrifice of Himself so that others may be free (for discussion see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 123-31). Now such a view may seem blasphemous (a fitting thought when we turn back, from the opening cantos of Purgatorio, to this passage in the canto of blasphemy), and has caused extraordinary exertion on the part of commentators to 'allegorize' the saved Cato we find in Purgatorio and turn him into an abstract quality rather than an historical being. Dante's text will not permit us such luxury of avoidance. His Cato, a Christian through a process that no one can understand, is saved.
Dante's apostrophe of God's avenging spirit seems particularly apt in a canto dedicated to the punishment of those who directly opposed Him.
This passage is opaque to a first-time reader. Only in retrospect are we able with precision to realize which sinners are alluded to by which postures: those lying supine, the fewest in number, are the blasphemers (and they, because they cursed God, now cry out the loudest); the most numerous class of sinners, moving about incessantly, are the homosexuals, who sinned against nature (canto XV); the sinners who are hunched up are the usurers, who sinned against God's 'grandchild,' art, or industry (canto XVI).
The flakes of fire showering down on all those who were violent against God seem most directly derived from the brimstone and fire rained down upon the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah for their allowance of the practice of homosexuality (Genesis 19:24), as was perhaps first observed by Vellutello (comm. to XIV.28-30).
A clear reference to a line in a sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti, 'Biltà di donna' (A lady's loveliness), in which, describing things beautiful to behold, he refers to 'white snow falling on a windless day' (e bianca neve scender senza venti). While the citation seems certain, it was perhaps only observed by a commentator for the first time in 1905 (by Torraca, comm. to XIV.30), indicating a phenomenon worthy of note: early commentators rarely if ever have read (or, if they have, pay attention to) Dante's vernacular poetic precursors as sources for his verse.
The reference is to an incident related in a letter (falsely) attributed to Alexander the Great, writing to his tutor, Aristotle, from his campaign in India. Dante found the text in Albertus Magnus (Meteor. I.iv.8), a work to which he adverts fairly frequently (see, e.g., the note to Inf. XII.4-10).
Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to XIV.40-42) explains that the 'tresca' is a Neapolitan dance in which a leader touches one part of his or her body with a hand, a gesture imitated by all the other dancers; then, rapidly, the leader touches another part, then another, sometimes using one, sometimes two, hands, each gesture, accelerated in time, being similarly imitated by the rest.
Dante's preface to his question about the identity of the noteworthy personage before them might be compared to the unnecessarily flippant question posed by a student to a teacher who had been caught out in an earlier mistake. There seems to be no other reason for Dante to remind Virgil of his failure to enter the walls of Dis (Inf. VIII.115-117).
Like Farinata, Capaneus (we learn his name from Virgil at XIV.63) is a figure of some greatness (see Inf. X.73, where Farinata is magnanimo [great of soul] – and see Statius, Thebaid XI.1, where Capaneus is referred to as magnanimus); like Farinata, he seems not to be bothered by the pains of hell (see Inf. X.36).
The last verb in the tercet is a matter of debate. As always, in our translation we follow Petrocchi, even when we disagree with him. His reading is marturi, or 'torture'; others prefer the traditional reading, maturi, 'ripen' or 'soften,' a view with which we concur.
Capaneus, though undergoing the pain inflicted by the burning flakes, is alert enough to overhear the two strangers discussing him. Surely his Stoic reserve creates an initial positive impression on the reader.
Capaneus was one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes in aid of Polynices, the son of Oedipus whose twin brother, Eteocles, refused to allow him his turn at ruling. The narrative of the death of Capaneus on the walls of Thebes and his boast against Jupiter are drawn from Statius, Thebaid X.883-939.
As his oratorical flourish begins, the listener tends to admire the courage of his speech. As it continues, it more and more resembles vainglorious boasting. Capaneus may play the role of a stock character in Roman comedy, the miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier. (For Dante's probable awareness of this term see at least Cicero, De amicitia XXVI.98, a passage that almost certainly lies behind the depiction of the flatteries of Thaïs at Inf. XVIII.133-135.) When we study his words we find some disquieting elements in them: alive he was a defamer of the gods, as he is now; he says that Jupiter will not have his revenge against him even if he sends Vulcan in his forge in Mt. Etna into mass production of lightning bolts (as was necessary to quell the insurrection of the giants at the battle of Phlegra [see the further reference at Inf. XXXI.95]). We may reflect that, in the first place, Jupiter (or indeed the true God he would have blasphemed had he known Him) already has his vengeance (one look at supine Capaneus confirms this); in the second, when Jupiter took his revenge at Thebes, it took him but a single bolt to dispatch Capaneus (and Statius says that he was lucky not to live long enough for the second). In short, Capaneus, in his egregious over-confidence, makes something of a fool of himself (see Inf. XXV.15 for confirmation of his prideful opposition to God).
The vehemence of Virgil's outburst against Capaneus, underlined as being his most heated condemnation of a sinner yet (and no other will exceed it), is difficult to explain. A student, Edward Sherline (Princeton '82) some years ago suggested that Virgil, already angered by Dante's wry reminder of his previous insufficiency before the walls of Dis (Inf. XIV.43-45), is now having his revenge on Capaneus, a revenge especially pleasing when Virgil considered what Capaneus was quite effective doing and what he himself had utterly failed to do: besting the defenders of the walls of a hostile city (mere victory of that kind was not enough for Capaneus, who challenged Jupiter himself to combat).
Some readers have objected that blasphemy against Jupiter should be welcomed in a Christian dispensation, not punished. Dante's point is clearly that Capaneus meant to oppose the very principle of divine power, no matter what its name.
The little stream that the travelers now see is the second (and last) body of water that moves across their usual circular path and downward (see Inf. VII.100-108, where the descent from the fourth to the fifth Circle is made alongside a little stream that seems to connect Acheron to Styx). All other gatherings of water have been circles that they had eventually to cross in order to descend. We will soon be able to understand (vv. 115-117) that this particular stream contains waters from Phlegethon that will eventually fall into the frozen Cocytus (heard tumbling down to the eighth Circle at Inf. XVI.1-2). Dante and Virgil apparently do not happen to see the stream that connects Styx to Phlegethon because, as Virgil suggests (Inf. XIV.128-129), their path does not include full circles in a given zone (e.g., their passage along Phlegethon, which covers exactly a semicircle, in Inf. XII). For a lengthy and helpful review of the 'hydraulic system' of hell – which nonetheless remains difficult to understand – see Singleton's comm. to Inferno XIV.121-138.
The Bulicame is a hot spring near Viterbo from which prostitutes, perhaps not allowed to frequent the public baths, made conduits from the source to service their own dwellings.
The passage to the next and deeper zone of the burning sand now lies right before them (it is a necessary expedient, we want to remember, to get Dante across the burning sand); before they can follow it, Virgil will take up the subject of the waters of hell.
Virgil's presentation of the rivers of hell pauses first to create an etiological myth that explains their source. It has two parts, a history of Crete and a description of the statue of an old man that stands inside Mount Ida.
Virgil's first words rely on the passage in the Aeneid (III.104-106) describing Crete, similarly located 'in the middle of the sea' (medio... ponto). It was once 'chaste' when it enjoyed a 'golden age' under Saturn (see Amilacare Iannucci, “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Medieval Italian Literature,” Quaderni d'italianistica 14 [1992], pp. 191-220). for Dante's almost entirely positive treatment of Saturn). But now its mountain, Ida, the site of a sort of classical 'Eden,' rich in water and vegetation, is a waste land; like Eden, it, too, is deserted. Rhea, Saturn's wife, chose it as the cradle for her son, Jupiter. But now 'original sin' seems to have crept into the Golden Age: the crying child needs to be protected (in the original myth, of course, from Saturn himself, who had the unpleasant habit of eating his children so as not to be dethroned by one of them).
That is all we are told. On Crete there was once a Golden Age, but something went awry. Mazzotta (Dante, Poet of the Desert [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979]), p. 29, points out that both Aeneas (Aen. III.104-191) and Paul (Acts 27:7-13) have difficulties in continuing their missions at Crete, which may account for some of the negative feelings that accrue to Crete in this passage. Many commentators refer to the parallel with the similar narrative found in Ovid (Metam. I.89-150), the descent from an age of gold, to one of silver, to one of bronze, and finally to one of iron, when Astraea, justice, is the last of the gods to leave the earth.
Dante's second myth is more of his own devising. While the statue of the old man is closely modelled on that found in Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:31-35), the poet's enclosure of the statue in Ida seems to be essentially his own invention (although commentators suggest the influence of Pliny's account of a body 46 cubits tall, discovered after an earthquake, inside Ida – see (Nat. Hist. VII.xvi.73). But there are 'hydraulic' reasons for putting him and his tears (these are not found in Daniel) there: Dante needs to account for the origin of the rivers of hell. The gran veglio, within the mountain, turns his back on Egypt (Damietta, a city in the Nile delta) and gazes on Rome as though it were his mirror. Interpretations of this detail vary, but it would seem that the movement of temporal rule from the East to Rome would account for this representative of the original political order looking toward its new home. What does he see there? Probably, in Dante's view, his mirror image, since the Empire is totally ineffective. He is putting more weight upon his right foot, formed of baked clay, which most of the early commentators thought represented the corrupt Church; yet an argument can be made that, since the veglio is a figuration of pagan man, the Church would be inappropriately a part of his 'physique.' In Nebuchadnezzar's dream a rock destroys the feet of the statue; for Christian exegetes this rock represents Christ, destroying the Old Man and making the new life possible for mankind.
The waters that collect from all the non-golden and riven parts of the statue gather somewhere beneath it under Mount Ida and force their way into the underworld. For the root of the image of the rivers of hell as tears from the Veglio's eyes in the redeeming blood of Christ on the Cross, flowing into Limbo to redeem Adam, see H. Theodore Silverstein (“The Weeping Statue and Dante's Gran Veglio,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 13 [1931], pp. 165-84) and Anthony Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 58-60. The Old Man is, in this reading, the parodic anticipation of the New Man, the Son of God. As such, he is at once the representation of obdurate denial of the true God and the image of the blaspheming, idolatrous counter-religion that would stand in the place of the true faith. This interpretation, unifying the two major figures of the canto, the Old Man and Capaneus, by seeing the former, too, as representing blasphemy, is Cassell's, pp. 57-65, with bibliography on the question, pp. 140-41. Not all will accept this reading.
And now Virgil can get to his putative main point, the disposition of the rivers of hell. Dante's question in response seems to reveal that he has forgotten what he has seen at the border of Avarice and Wrath (Inf. VII.100-108). See the note to Inferno XIV.76-84, above. On the other hand, Virgil does not make that plain to him. As a result, whether that stream is supposed to be from the same source as this one – the most attractive hypothesis – becomes, at best, moot.
Dante's two questions are meant as an aid to the reader, who may not have realized that the river of blood and what has just now been called 'Phlegethon' for the first time (at Inf. XIV.116) are one and the same. As for Lethe, since it is thought of as being a major fluvial appurtenance of the afterworld, the poet wants to reassure his reader that it has not been forgotten in the watery arrangement of hell but awaits discovery in purgatory.
The coda ties the action back to where it stopped (Inf. XIV.84). The next canto, in fact, will pick up precisely from there (and not here), as though it were the last verse of the canto.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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Poi che la carità del natio loco
mi strinse, raunai le fronde sparte
e rende'le a colui, ch'era già fioco.
Indi venimmo al fine ove si parte
lo secondo giron dal terzo, e dove
si vede di giustizia orribil arte.
A ben manifestar le cose nove,
dico che arrivammo ad una landa
che dal suo letto ogne pianta rimove.
La dolorosa selva l'è ghirlanda
intorno, come 'l fosso tristo ad essa;
quivi fermammo i passi a randa a randa.
Lo spazzo era una rena arida e spessa,
non d'altra foggia fatta che colei
che fu da' piè di Caton già soppressa.
O vendetta di Dio, quanto tu dei
esser temuta da ciascun che legge
ciò che fu manifesto a li occhi mei!
D'anime nude vidi molte gregge
che piangean tutte assai miseramente,
e parea posta lor diversa legge.
Supin giacea in terra alcuna gente,
alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta,
e altra andava continüamente.
Quella che giva 'ntorno era più molta,
e quella men che giacëa al tormento,
ma più al duolo avea la lingua sciolta.
Sovra tutto 'l sabbion, d'un cader lento,
piovean di foco dilatate falde,
come di neve in alpe sanza vento.
Quali Alessandro in quelle parti calde
d'Indïa vide sopra 'l süo stuolo
fiamme cadere infino a terra salde,
per ch'ei provide a scalpitar lo suolo
con le sue schiere, acciò che lo vapore
mei si stingueva mentre ch'era solo:
tale scendeva l'etternale ardore;
onde la rena s'accendea, com' esca
sotto focile, a doppiar lo dolore.
Sanza riposo mai era la tresca
de le misere mani, or quindi or quinci
escotendo da sé l'arsura fresca.
I' cominciai: “Maestro, tu che vinci
tutte le cose, fuor che ' demon duri
ch'a l'intrar de la porta incontra uscinci,
chi è quel grande che non par che curi
lo 'ncendio e giace dispettoso e torto,
sì che la pioggia non par che 'l maturi?”
E quel medesmo, che si fu accorto
ch'io domandava il mio duca di lui,
gridò: “Qual io fui vivo, tal son morto.
Se Giove stanchi 'l suo fabbro da cui
crucciato prese la folgore aguta
onde l'ultimo dì percosso fui;
o s'elli stanchi li altri a muta a muta
in Mongibello a la focina negra,
chiamando 'Buon Vulcano, aiuta, aiuta!'
sì com' el fece a la pugna di Flegra,
e me saetti con tutta sua forza:
non ne potrebbe aver vendetta allegra.”
Allora il duca mio parlò di forza
tanto, ch'i' non l'avea si forte udito:
“O Capaneo, in ciò che non s'ammorza
la tua superbia, se' tu più punito;
nullo martiro, fuor che la tua rabbia,
sarebbe al tuo furor dolor compito.”
Poi si rivolse a me con miglior labbia,
dicendo: “Quei fu l'un d'i sette regi
ch'assiser Tebe; ed ebbe e par ch'elli abbia
Dio in disdegno, e poco par che 'l pregi;
ma, com' io dissi lui, li suoi dispetti
sono al suo petto assai debiti fregi.
Or mi vien dietro, e guarda che non metti,
ancor, li piedi ne la rena arsiccia;
ma sempre al bosco tien li piedi stretti.”
Tacendo divenimmo là 've spiccia
fuor de la selva un picciol fiumicello,
lo cui rossore ancor mi raccapriccia.
Quale del Bulicame esce ruscello
che parton poi tra lor le peccatrici,
tal per la rena giù sen giva quello.
Lo fondo suo e ambo le pendici
fatt' era 'n pietra, e ' margini da lato;
per ch'io m'accorsi che 'l passo era lici.
“Tra tutto l'altro ch'i' t'ho dimostrato,
poscia che noi intrammo per la porta
lo cui sogliare a nessuno è negato,
cosa non fu da li tuoi occhi scorta
notabile com' è 'l presente rio,
che sovra sé tutte fiammelle ammorta.”
Queste parole fuor del duca mio;
per ch'io 'l pregai che mi largisse 'l pasto
di cui largito m'avëa il disio.
“In mezzo mar siede un paese guasto,”
diss' elli allora, “che s'appella Creta,
sotto 'l cui rege fu già 'l mondo casto.
Una montagna v'è che già fu lieta
d'acqua e di fronde, che si chiamò Ida;
or è diserta come cosa vieta.
Rëa la scelse già per cuna fida
del suo figliuolo, e per celarlo meglio,
quando piangea, vi facea far le grida.
Dentro dal monte sta dritto un gran veglio,
che tien volte le spalle inver' Dammiata
e Roma guarda come süo speglio.
La sua testa è di fin oro formata,
e puro argento son le braccia e 'l petto,
poi è di rame infino a la forcata;
da indi in giuso è tutto ferro eletto,
salvo che 'l destro piede è terra cotta;
e sta 'n su quel, più che 'n su l'altro, eretto.
Ciascuna parte, fuor che l'oro, è rotta
d'una fessura che lagrime goccia,
le quali, accolte, fóran quella grotta.
Lor corso in questa valle si diroccia;
fanno Acheronte, Stige e Flegetonta;
poi sen van giù per questa stretta doccia,
infin, là ove più non si dismonta,
fanno Cocito; e qual sia quello stagno
tu lo vedrai, però qui non si conta.”
E io a lui: “Se 'l presente rigagno
si diriva così dal nostro mondo,
perché ci appar pur a questo vivagno?”
Ed elli a me: “Tu sai che 'l loco è tondo;
e tutto che tu sie venuto molto,
pur a sinistra, giù calando al fondo,
non se' ancor per tutto 'l cerchio vòlto;
per che, se cosa n'apparisce nova,
non de' addur maraviglia al tuo volto.”
E io ancor: “Maestro, ove si trova
Flegetonta e Letè? ché de l'un taci,
e l'altro di' che si fa d'esta piova.”
“In tutte tue question certo mi piaci,”
rispuose, “ma 'l bollor de l'acqua rossa
dovea ben solver l'una che tu faci.
Letè vedrai, ma fuor di questa fossa,
là dove vanno l'anime a lavarsi
quando la colpa pentuta è rimossa.”
Poi disse: “Omai è tempo da scostarsi
dal bosco; fa che di retro a me vegne:
li margini fan via, che non son arsi,
e sopra loro ogne vapor si spegne.”
Because the charity of my native place
Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves,
And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.
Then came we to the confine, where disparted
The second round is from the third, and where
A horrible form of Justice is beheld.
Clearly to manifest these novel things,
I say that we arrived upon a plain,
Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;
The dolorous forest is a garland to it
All round about, as the sad moat to that;
There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.
The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
Not of another fashion made than that
Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.
Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou
By each one to be dreaded, who doth read
That which was manifest unto mine eyes!
Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
Who all were weeping very miserably,
And over them seemed set a law diverse.
Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
And some were sitting all drawn up together,
And others went about continually.
Those who were going round were far the more,
And those were less who lay down to their torment,
But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.
O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
As of the snow on Alp without a wind.
As Alexander, in those torrid parts
Of India, beheld upon his host
Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.
Whence he provided with his phalanxes
To trample down the soil, because the vapour
Better extinguished was while it was single;
Thus was descending the eternal heat,
Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder
Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.
Without repose forever was the dance
Of miserable hands, now there, now here,
Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.
"Master," began I, "thou who overcomest
All things except the demons dire, that issued
Against us at the entrance of the gate,
Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not
The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,
So that the rain seems not to ripen him?"
And he himself, who had become aware
That I was questioning my Guide about him,
Cried: "Such as I was living, am I, dead.
If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom
He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,
Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,
And if he wearied out by turns the others
In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,
Vociferating, 'Help, good Vulcan, help!'
Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,
And shot his bolts at me with all his might,
He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance."
Then did my Leader speak with such great force,
That I had never heard him speak so loud:
"O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished
Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;
Not any torment, saving thine own rage,
Would be unto thy fury pain complete."
Then he turned round to me with better lip,
Saying: "One of the Seven Kings was he
Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold
God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;
But, as I said to him, his own despites
Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.
Now follow me, and mind thou do not place
As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,
But always keep them close unto the wood."
Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes
Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.
As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,
The sinful women later share among them,
So downward through the sand it went its way.
The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,
Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;
Whence I perceived that there the passage was.
"In all the rest which I have shown to thee
Since we have entered in within the gate
Whose threshold unto no one is denied,
Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes
So notable as is the present river,
Which all the little flames above it quenches."
These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
That he would give me largess of the food,
For which he had given me largess of desire.
"In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"
Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,
Under whose king the world of old was chaste.
There is a mountain there, that once was glad
With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.
Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made.
A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
His head is fashioned of refined gold,
And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
Then he is brass as far down as the fork.
From that point downward all is chosen iron,
Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
And more he stands on that than on the other.
Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
Which gathered together perforate that cavern.
From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
Then downward go along this narrow sluice
Unto that point where is no more descending.
They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."
And I to him: "If so the present runnel
Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
Why only on this verge appears it to us?"
And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round,
And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
Still to the left descending to the bottom,
Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
Therefore if something new appear to us,
It should not bring amazement to thy face."
And I again: "Master, where shall be found
Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent,
And sayest the other of this rain is made?"
"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
Replied he; "but the boiling of the red
Water might well solve one of them thou makest.
Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
When sin repented of has been removed."
Then said he: "It is time now to abandon
The wood; take heed that thou come after me;
A way the margins make that are not burning,
And over them all vapours are extinguished."
The first tercet concludes the action of the preceding canto. This is a particularly egregious example of the way in which Dante deliberately avoids keeping his canto borders 'neat' (see the note to Inf. XIII.1-3). The following tercet, on the other hand, would have made a 'proper' beginning to the fourteenth canto, marking, as it does, the border between the second ring of the seventh Circle (violence against others) and the third (violence against God). Here we shall witness (as indeed we have done before) the dreadful 'art' of God in carrying out His just revenge upon sinners, in this case those who sinned directly against Him.
The hellscape, featuring impoverished 'vegetation' in the last canto, now is as barren as it can possibly be: nothing can take root in this sand. The retrospective glance reminds us of where we have been in this Circle: Phlegethon, circling the wood, the wood in turn circling the sand (violence against others, against selves, and now against God).
The translation of verse 7, which uses the adjective nove either to mean 'new' or 'strange,' or perhaps both at once, attempts to represent this ambiguity.
That Dante should refer here to Cato the Younger, who committed suicide at Utica (when further opposition by the republican forces led by him against Julius Caesar's army seemed futile) seems to invite a negative judgment on him. Cato, however, will be presented in Purgatorio I and II, in an authorial decision that still baffles commentators, as one of the saved. To refer to him here, a few verses from the wood of the suicides – where Christian readers might normally assume that Cato should be punished – given Dante's plan eventually to reveal his salvation, was a chancy choice for him to have made.
The poet is translating a line from Lucan's Pharsalia describing Cato's heroic decision to lead the remnant of dead Pompey's republican forces across the barren sands of Lybia in an attempt to escape from Caesar, and to do so, not carried by slaves, as Roman generals were wont to be transported, but on foot himself: 'primusque gradus in pulvere ponam' (and I, first among them, shall set my feet upon the sand [Phars. IX.395 – the citation was perhaps first noted by Daniello, comm. to XIV.13-15]). For a treatment of Cato in the context of canto XIV, see Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 47-65.
Dante thus reads Cato's suicide as something other, an act resembling Christ's sacrifice of Himself so that others may be free (for discussion see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 123-31). Now such a view may seem blasphemous (a fitting thought when we turn back, from the opening cantos of Purgatorio, to this passage in the canto of blasphemy), and has caused extraordinary exertion on the part of commentators to 'allegorize' the saved Cato we find in Purgatorio and turn him into an abstract quality rather than an historical being. Dante's text will not permit us such luxury of avoidance. His Cato, a Christian through a process that no one can understand, is saved.
Dante's apostrophe of God's avenging spirit seems particularly apt in a canto dedicated to the punishment of those who directly opposed Him.
This passage is opaque to a first-time reader. Only in retrospect are we able with precision to realize which sinners are alluded to by which postures: those lying supine, the fewest in number, are the blasphemers (and they, because they cursed God, now cry out the loudest); the most numerous class of sinners, moving about incessantly, are the homosexuals, who sinned against nature (canto XV); the sinners who are hunched up are the usurers, who sinned against God's 'grandchild,' art, or industry (canto XVI).
The flakes of fire showering down on all those who were violent against God seem most directly derived from the brimstone and fire rained down upon the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah for their allowance of the practice of homosexuality (Genesis 19:24), as was perhaps first observed by Vellutello (comm. to XIV.28-30).
A clear reference to a line in a sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti, 'Biltà di donna' (A lady's loveliness), in which, describing things beautiful to behold, he refers to 'white snow falling on a windless day' (e bianca neve scender senza venti). While the citation seems certain, it was perhaps only observed by a commentator for the first time in 1905 (by Torraca, comm. to XIV.30), indicating a phenomenon worthy of note: early commentators rarely if ever have read (or, if they have, pay attention to) Dante's vernacular poetic precursors as sources for his verse.
The reference is to an incident related in a letter (falsely) attributed to Alexander the Great, writing to his tutor, Aristotle, from his campaign in India. Dante found the text in Albertus Magnus (Meteor. I.iv.8), a work to which he adverts fairly frequently (see, e.g., the note to Inf. XII.4-10).
Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to XIV.40-42) explains that the 'tresca' is a Neapolitan dance in which a leader touches one part of his or her body with a hand, a gesture imitated by all the other dancers; then, rapidly, the leader touches another part, then another, sometimes using one, sometimes two, hands, each gesture, accelerated in time, being similarly imitated by the rest.
Dante's preface to his question about the identity of the noteworthy personage before them might be compared to the unnecessarily flippant question posed by a student to a teacher who had been caught out in an earlier mistake. There seems to be no other reason for Dante to remind Virgil of his failure to enter the walls of Dis (Inf. VIII.115-117).
Like Farinata, Capaneus (we learn his name from Virgil at XIV.63) is a figure of some greatness (see Inf. X.73, where Farinata is magnanimo [great of soul] – and see Statius, Thebaid XI.1, where Capaneus is referred to as magnanimus); like Farinata, he seems not to be bothered by the pains of hell (see Inf. X.36).
The last verb in the tercet is a matter of debate. As always, in our translation we follow Petrocchi, even when we disagree with him. His reading is marturi, or 'torture'; others prefer the traditional reading, maturi, 'ripen' or 'soften,' a view with which we concur.
Capaneus, though undergoing the pain inflicted by the burning flakes, is alert enough to overhear the two strangers discussing him. Surely his Stoic reserve creates an initial positive impression on the reader.
Capaneus was one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes in aid of Polynices, the son of Oedipus whose twin brother, Eteocles, refused to allow him his turn at ruling. The narrative of the death of Capaneus on the walls of Thebes and his boast against Jupiter are drawn from Statius, Thebaid X.883-939.
As his oratorical flourish begins, the listener tends to admire the courage of his speech. As it continues, it more and more resembles vainglorious boasting. Capaneus may play the role of a stock character in Roman comedy, the miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier. (For Dante's probable awareness of this term see at least Cicero, De amicitia XXVI.98, a passage that almost certainly lies behind the depiction of the flatteries of Thaïs at Inf. XVIII.133-135.) When we study his words we find some disquieting elements in them: alive he was a defamer of the gods, as he is now; he says that Jupiter will not have his revenge against him even if he sends Vulcan in his forge in Mt. Etna into mass production of lightning bolts (as was necessary to quell the insurrection of the giants at the battle of Phlegra [see the further reference at Inf. XXXI.95]). We may reflect that, in the first place, Jupiter (or indeed the true God he would have blasphemed had he known Him) already has his vengeance (one look at supine Capaneus confirms this); in the second, when Jupiter took his revenge at Thebes, it took him but a single bolt to dispatch Capaneus (and Statius says that he was lucky not to live long enough for the second). In short, Capaneus, in his egregious over-confidence, makes something of a fool of himself (see Inf. XXV.15 for confirmation of his prideful opposition to God).
The vehemence of Virgil's outburst against Capaneus, underlined as being his most heated condemnation of a sinner yet (and no other will exceed it), is difficult to explain. A student, Edward Sherline (Princeton '82) some years ago suggested that Virgil, already angered by Dante's wry reminder of his previous insufficiency before the walls of Dis (Inf. XIV.43-45), is now having his revenge on Capaneus, a revenge especially pleasing when Virgil considered what Capaneus was quite effective doing and what he himself had utterly failed to do: besting the defenders of the walls of a hostile city (mere victory of that kind was not enough for Capaneus, who challenged Jupiter himself to combat).
Some readers have objected that blasphemy against Jupiter should be welcomed in a Christian dispensation, not punished. Dante's point is clearly that Capaneus meant to oppose the very principle of divine power, no matter what its name.
The little stream that the travelers now see is the second (and last) body of water that moves across their usual circular path and downward (see Inf. VII.100-108, where the descent from the fourth to the fifth Circle is made alongside a little stream that seems to connect Acheron to Styx). All other gatherings of water have been circles that they had eventually to cross in order to descend. We will soon be able to understand (vv. 115-117) that this particular stream contains waters from Phlegethon that will eventually fall into the frozen Cocytus (heard tumbling down to the eighth Circle at Inf. XVI.1-2). Dante and Virgil apparently do not happen to see the stream that connects Styx to Phlegethon because, as Virgil suggests (Inf. XIV.128-129), their path does not include full circles in a given zone (e.g., their passage along Phlegethon, which covers exactly a semicircle, in Inf. XII). For a lengthy and helpful review of the 'hydraulic system' of hell – which nonetheless remains difficult to understand – see Singleton's comm. to Inferno XIV.121-138.
The Bulicame is a hot spring near Viterbo from which prostitutes, perhaps not allowed to frequent the public baths, made conduits from the source to service their own dwellings.
The passage to the next and deeper zone of the burning sand now lies right before them (it is a necessary expedient, we want to remember, to get Dante across the burning sand); before they can follow it, Virgil will take up the subject of the waters of hell.
Virgil's presentation of the rivers of hell pauses first to create an etiological myth that explains their source. It has two parts, a history of Crete and a description of the statue of an old man that stands inside Mount Ida.
Virgil's first words rely on the passage in the Aeneid (III.104-106) describing Crete, similarly located 'in the middle of the sea' (medio... ponto). It was once 'chaste' when it enjoyed a 'golden age' under Saturn (see Amilacare Iannucci, “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Medieval Italian Literature,” Quaderni d'italianistica 14 [1992], pp. 191-220). for Dante's almost entirely positive treatment of Saturn). But now its mountain, Ida, the site of a sort of classical 'Eden,' rich in water and vegetation, is a waste land; like Eden, it, too, is deserted. Rhea, Saturn's wife, chose it as the cradle for her son, Jupiter. But now 'original sin' seems to have crept into the Golden Age: the crying child needs to be protected (in the original myth, of course, from Saturn himself, who had the unpleasant habit of eating his children so as not to be dethroned by one of them).
That is all we are told. On Crete there was once a Golden Age, but something went awry. Mazzotta (Dante, Poet of the Desert [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979]), p. 29, points out that both Aeneas (Aen. III.104-191) and Paul (Acts 27:7-13) have difficulties in continuing their missions at Crete, which may account for some of the negative feelings that accrue to Crete in this passage. Many commentators refer to the parallel with the similar narrative found in Ovid (Metam. I.89-150), the descent from an age of gold, to one of silver, to one of bronze, and finally to one of iron, when Astraea, justice, is the last of the gods to leave the earth.
Dante's second myth is more of his own devising. While the statue of the old man is closely modelled on that found in Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:31-35), the poet's enclosure of the statue in Ida seems to be essentially his own invention (although commentators suggest the influence of Pliny's account of a body 46 cubits tall, discovered after an earthquake, inside Ida – see (Nat. Hist. VII.xvi.73). But there are 'hydraulic' reasons for putting him and his tears (these are not found in Daniel) there: Dante needs to account for the origin of the rivers of hell. The gran veglio, within the mountain, turns his back on Egypt (Damietta, a city in the Nile delta) and gazes on Rome as though it were his mirror. Interpretations of this detail vary, but it would seem that the movement of temporal rule from the East to Rome would account for this representative of the original political order looking toward its new home. What does he see there? Probably, in Dante's view, his mirror image, since the Empire is totally ineffective. He is putting more weight upon his right foot, formed of baked clay, which most of the early commentators thought represented the corrupt Church; yet an argument can be made that, since the veglio is a figuration of pagan man, the Church would be inappropriately a part of his 'physique.' In Nebuchadnezzar's dream a rock destroys the feet of the statue; for Christian exegetes this rock represents Christ, destroying the Old Man and making the new life possible for mankind.
The waters that collect from all the non-golden and riven parts of the statue gather somewhere beneath it under Mount Ida and force their way into the underworld. For the root of the image of the rivers of hell as tears from the Veglio's eyes in the redeeming blood of Christ on the Cross, flowing into Limbo to redeem Adam, see H. Theodore Silverstein (“The Weeping Statue and Dante's Gran Veglio,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 13 [1931], pp. 165-84) and Anthony Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 58-60. The Old Man is, in this reading, the parodic anticipation of the New Man, the Son of God. As such, he is at once the representation of obdurate denial of the true God and the image of the blaspheming, idolatrous counter-religion that would stand in the place of the true faith. This interpretation, unifying the two major figures of the canto, the Old Man and Capaneus, by seeing the former, too, as representing blasphemy, is Cassell's, pp. 57-65, with bibliography on the question, pp. 140-41. Not all will accept this reading.
And now Virgil can get to his putative main point, the disposition of the rivers of hell. Dante's question in response seems to reveal that he has forgotten what he has seen at the border of Avarice and Wrath (Inf. VII.100-108). See the note to Inferno XIV.76-84, above. On the other hand, Virgil does not make that plain to him. As a result, whether that stream is supposed to be from the same source as this one – the most attractive hypothesis – becomes, at best, moot.
Dante's two questions are meant as an aid to the reader, who may not have realized that the river of blood and what has just now been called 'Phlegethon' for the first time (at Inf. XIV.116) are one and the same. As for Lethe, since it is thought of as being a major fluvial appurtenance of the afterworld, the poet wants to reassure his reader that it has not been forgotten in the watery arrangement of hell but awaits discovery in purgatory.
The coda ties the action back to where it stopped (Inf. XIV.84). The next canto, in fact, will pick up precisely from there (and not here), as though it were the last verse of the canto.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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Poi che la carità del natio loco
mi strinse, raunai le fronde sparte
e rende'le a colui, ch'era già fioco.
Indi venimmo al fine ove si parte
lo secondo giron dal terzo, e dove
si vede di giustizia orribil arte.
A ben manifestar le cose nove,
dico che arrivammo ad una landa
che dal suo letto ogne pianta rimove.
La dolorosa selva l'è ghirlanda
intorno, come 'l fosso tristo ad essa;
quivi fermammo i passi a randa a randa.
Lo spazzo era una rena arida e spessa,
non d'altra foggia fatta che colei
che fu da' piè di Caton già soppressa.
O vendetta di Dio, quanto tu dei
esser temuta da ciascun che legge
ciò che fu manifesto a li occhi mei!
D'anime nude vidi molte gregge
che piangean tutte assai miseramente,
e parea posta lor diversa legge.
Supin giacea in terra alcuna gente,
alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta,
e altra andava continüamente.
Quella che giva 'ntorno era più molta,
e quella men che giacëa al tormento,
ma più al duolo avea la lingua sciolta.
Sovra tutto 'l sabbion, d'un cader lento,
piovean di foco dilatate falde,
come di neve in alpe sanza vento.
Quali Alessandro in quelle parti calde
d'Indïa vide sopra 'l süo stuolo
fiamme cadere infino a terra salde,
per ch'ei provide a scalpitar lo suolo
con le sue schiere, acciò che lo vapore
mei si stingueva mentre ch'era solo:
tale scendeva l'etternale ardore;
onde la rena s'accendea, com' esca
sotto focile, a doppiar lo dolore.
Sanza riposo mai era la tresca
de le misere mani, or quindi or quinci
escotendo da sé l'arsura fresca.
I' cominciai: “Maestro, tu che vinci
tutte le cose, fuor che ' demon duri
ch'a l'intrar de la porta incontra uscinci,
chi è quel grande che non par che curi
lo 'ncendio e giace dispettoso e torto,
sì che la pioggia non par che 'l maturi?”
E quel medesmo, che si fu accorto
ch'io domandava il mio duca di lui,
gridò: “Qual io fui vivo, tal son morto.
Se Giove stanchi 'l suo fabbro da cui
crucciato prese la folgore aguta
onde l'ultimo dì percosso fui;
o s'elli stanchi li altri a muta a muta
in Mongibello a la focina negra,
chiamando 'Buon Vulcano, aiuta, aiuta!'
sì com' el fece a la pugna di Flegra,
e me saetti con tutta sua forza:
non ne potrebbe aver vendetta allegra.”
Allora il duca mio parlò di forza
tanto, ch'i' non l'avea si forte udito:
“O Capaneo, in ciò che non s'ammorza
la tua superbia, se' tu più punito;
nullo martiro, fuor che la tua rabbia,
sarebbe al tuo furor dolor compito.”
Poi si rivolse a me con miglior labbia,
dicendo: “Quei fu l'un d'i sette regi
ch'assiser Tebe; ed ebbe e par ch'elli abbia
Dio in disdegno, e poco par che 'l pregi;
ma, com' io dissi lui, li suoi dispetti
sono al suo petto assai debiti fregi.
Or mi vien dietro, e guarda che non metti,
ancor, li piedi ne la rena arsiccia;
ma sempre al bosco tien li piedi stretti.”
Tacendo divenimmo là 've spiccia
fuor de la selva un picciol fiumicello,
lo cui rossore ancor mi raccapriccia.
Quale del Bulicame esce ruscello
che parton poi tra lor le peccatrici,
tal per la rena giù sen giva quello.
Lo fondo suo e ambo le pendici
fatt' era 'n pietra, e ' margini da lato;
per ch'io m'accorsi che 'l passo era lici.
“Tra tutto l'altro ch'i' t'ho dimostrato,
poscia che noi intrammo per la porta
lo cui sogliare a nessuno è negato,
cosa non fu da li tuoi occhi scorta
notabile com' è 'l presente rio,
che sovra sé tutte fiammelle ammorta.”
Queste parole fuor del duca mio;
per ch'io 'l pregai che mi largisse 'l pasto
di cui largito m'avëa il disio.
“In mezzo mar siede un paese guasto,”
diss' elli allora, “che s'appella Creta,
sotto 'l cui rege fu già 'l mondo casto.
Una montagna v'è che già fu lieta
d'acqua e di fronde, che si chiamò Ida;
or è diserta come cosa vieta.
Rëa la scelse già per cuna fida
del suo figliuolo, e per celarlo meglio,
quando piangea, vi facea far le grida.
Dentro dal monte sta dritto un gran veglio,
che tien volte le spalle inver' Dammiata
e Roma guarda come süo speglio.
La sua testa è di fin oro formata,
e puro argento son le braccia e 'l petto,
poi è di rame infino a la forcata;
da indi in giuso è tutto ferro eletto,
salvo che 'l destro piede è terra cotta;
e sta 'n su quel, più che 'n su l'altro, eretto.
Ciascuna parte, fuor che l'oro, è rotta
d'una fessura che lagrime goccia,
le quali, accolte, fóran quella grotta.
Lor corso in questa valle si diroccia;
fanno Acheronte, Stige e Flegetonta;
poi sen van giù per questa stretta doccia,
infin, là ove più non si dismonta,
fanno Cocito; e qual sia quello stagno
tu lo vedrai, però qui non si conta.”
E io a lui: “Se 'l presente rigagno
si diriva così dal nostro mondo,
perché ci appar pur a questo vivagno?”
Ed elli a me: “Tu sai che 'l loco è tondo;
e tutto che tu sie venuto molto,
pur a sinistra, giù calando al fondo,
non se' ancor per tutto 'l cerchio vòlto;
per che, se cosa n'apparisce nova,
non de' addur maraviglia al tuo volto.”
E io ancor: “Maestro, ove si trova
Flegetonta e Letè? ché de l'un taci,
e l'altro di' che si fa d'esta piova.”
“In tutte tue question certo mi piaci,”
rispuose, “ma 'l bollor de l'acqua rossa
dovea ben solver l'una che tu faci.
Letè vedrai, ma fuor di questa fossa,
là dove vanno l'anime a lavarsi
quando la colpa pentuta è rimossa.”
Poi disse: “Omai è tempo da scostarsi
dal bosco; fa che di retro a me vegne:
li margini fan via, che non son arsi,
e sopra loro ogne vapor si spegne.”
Because the charity of my native place
Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves,
And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.
Then came we to the confine, where disparted
The second round is from the third, and where
A horrible form of Justice is beheld.
Clearly to manifest these novel things,
I say that we arrived upon a plain,
Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;
The dolorous forest is a garland to it
All round about, as the sad moat to that;
There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.
The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
Not of another fashion made than that
Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.
Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou
By each one to be dreaded, who doth read
That which was manifest unto mine eyes!
Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
Who all were weeping very miserably,
And over them seemed set a law diverse.
Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
And some were sitting all drawn up together,
And others went about continually.
Those who were going round were far the more,
And those were less who lay down to their torment,
But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.
O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
As of the snow on Alp without a wind.
As Alexander, in those torrid parts
Of India, beheld upon his host
Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.
Whence he provided with his phalanxes
To trample down the soil, because the vapour
Better extinguished was while it was single;
Thus was descending the eternal heat,
Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder
Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.
Without repose forever was the dance
Of miserable hands, now there, now here,
Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.
"Master," began I, "thou who overcomest
All things except the demons dire, that issued
Against us at the entrance of the gate,
Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not
The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,
So that the rain seems not to ripen him?"
And he himself, who had become aware
That I was questioning my Guide about him,
Cried: "Such as I was living, am I, dead.
If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom
He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,
Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,
And if he wearied out by turns the others
In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,
Vociferating, 'Help, good Vulcan, help!'
Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,
And shot his bolts at me with all his might,
He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance."
Then did my Leader speak with such great force,
That I had never heard him speak so loud:
"O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished
Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;
Not any torment, saving thine own rage,
Would be unto thy fury pain complete."
Then he turned round to me with better lip,
Saying: "One of the Seven Kings was he
Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold
God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;
But, as I said to him, his own despites
Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.
Now follow me, and mind thou do not place
As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,
But always keep them close unto the wood."
Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes
Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.
As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,
The sinful women later share among them,
So downward through the sand it went its way.
The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,
Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;
Whence I perceived that there the passage was.
"In all the rest which I have shown to thee
Since we have entered in within the gate
Whose threshold unto no one is denied,
Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes
So notable as is the present river,
Which all the little flames above it quenches."
These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
That he would give me largess of the food,
For which he had given me largess of desire.
"In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"
Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,
Under whose king the world of old was chaste.
There is a mountain there, that once was glad
With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.
Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made.
A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
His head is fashioned of refined gold,
And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
Then he is brass as far down as the fork.
From that point downward all is chosen iron,
Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
And more he stands on that than on the other.
Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
Which gathered together perforate that cavern.
From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
Then downward go along this narrow sluice
Unto that point where is no more descending.
They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."
And I to him: "If so the present runnel
Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
Why only on this verge appears it to us?"
And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round,
And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
Still to the left descending to the bottom,
Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
Therefore if something new appear to us,
It should not bring amazement to thy face."
And I again: "Master, where shall be found
Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent,
And sayest the other of this rain is made?"
"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
Replied he; "but the boiling of the red
Water might well solve one of them thou makest.
Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
When sin repented of has been removed."
Then said he: "It is time now to abandon
The wood; take heed that thou come after me;
A way the margins make that are not burning,
And over them all vapours are extinguished."
The first tercet concludes the action of the preceding canto. This is a particularly egregious example of the way in which Dante deliberately avoids keeping his canto borders 'neat' (see the note to Inf. XIII.1-3). The following tercet, on the other hand, would have made a 'proper' beginning to the fourteenth canto, marking, as it does, the border between the second ring of the seventh Circle (violence against others) and the third (violence against God). Here we shall witness (as indeed we have done before) the dreadful 'art' of God in carrying out His just revenge upon sinners, in this case those who sinned directly against Him.
The hellscape, featuring impoverished 'vegetation' in the last canto, now is as barren as it can possibly be: nothing can take root in this sand. The retrospective glance reminds us of where we have been in this Circle: Phlegethon, circling the wood, the wood in turn circling the sand (violence against others, against selves, and now against God).
The translation of verse 7, which uses the adjective nove either to mean 'new' or 'strange,' or perhaps both at once, attempts to represent this ambiguity.
That Dante should refer here to Cato the Younger, who committed suicide at Utica (when further opposition by the republican forces led by him against Julius Caesar's army seemed futile) seems to invite a negative judgment on him. Cato, however, will be presented in Purgatorio I and II, in an authorial decision that still baffles commentators, as one of the saved. To refer to him here, a few verses from the wood of the suicides – where Christian readers might normally assume that Cato should be punished – given Dante's plan eventually to reveal his salvation, was a chancy choice for him to have made.
The poet is translating a line from Lucan's Pharsalia describing Cato's heroic decision to lead the remnant of dead Pompey's republican forces across the barren sands of Lybia in an attempt to escape from Caesar, and to do so, not carried by slaves, as Roman generals were wont to be transported, but on foot himself: 'primusque gradus in pulvere ponam' (and I, first among them, shall set my feet upon the sand [Phars. IX.395 – the citation was perhaps first noted by Daniello, comm. to XIV.13-15]). For a treatment of Cato in the context of canto XIV, see Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 47-65.
Dante thus reads Cato's suicide as something other, an act resembling Christ's sacrifice of Himself so that others may be free (for discussion see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 123-31). Now such a view may seem blasphemous (a fitting thought when we turn back, from the opening cantos of Purgatorio, to this passage in the canto of blasphemy), and has caused extraordinary exertion on the part of commentators to 'allegorize' the saved Cato we find in Purgatorio and turn him into an abstract quality rather than an historical being. Dante's text will not permit us such luxury of avoidance. His Cato, a Christian through a process that no one can understand, is saved.
Dante's apostrophe of God's avenging spirit seems particularly apt in a canto dedicated to the punishment of those who directly opposed Him.
This passage is opaque to a first-time reader. Only in retrospect are we able with precision to realize which sinners are alluded to by which postures: those lying supine, the fewest in number, are the blasphemers (and they, because they cursed God, now cry out the loudest); the most numerous class of sinners, moving about incessantly, are the homosexuals, who sinned against nature (canto XV); the sinners who are hunched up are the usurers, who sinned against God's 'grandchild,' art, or industry (canto XVI).
The flakes of fire showering down on all those who were violent against God seem most directly derived from the brimstone and fire rained down upon the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah for their allowance of the practice of homosexuality (Genesis 19:24), as was perhaps first observed by Vellutello (comm. to XIV.28-30).
A clear reference to a line in a sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti, 'Biltà di donna' (A lady's loveliness), in which, describing things beautiful to behold, he refers to 'white snow falling on a windless day' (e bianca neve scender senza venti). While the citation seems certain, it was perhaps only observed by a commentator for the first time in 1905 (by Torraca, comm. to XIV.30), indicating a phenomenon worthy of note: early commentators rarely if ever have read (or, if they have, pay attention to) Dante's vernacular poetic precursors as sources for his verse.
The reference is to an incident related in a letter (falsely) attributed to Alexander the Great, writing to his tutor, Aristotle, from his campaign in India. Dante found the text in Albertus Magnus (Meteor. I.iv.8), a work to which he adverts fairly frequently (see, e.g., the note to Inf. XII.4-10).
Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to XIV.40-42) explains that the 'tresca' is a Neapolitan dance in which a leader touches one part of his or her body with a hand, a gesture imitated by all the other dancers; then, rapidly, the leader touches another part, then another, sometimes using one, sometimes two, hands, each gesture, accelerated in time, being similarly imitated by the rest.
Dante's preface to his question about the identity of the noteworthy personage before them might be compared to the unnecessarily flippant question posed by a student to a teacher who had been caught out in an earlier mistake. There seems to be no other reason for Dante to remind Virgil of his failure to enter the walls of Dis (Inf. VIII.115-117).
Like Farinata, Capaneus (we learn his name from Virgil at XIV.63) is a figure of some greatness (see Inf. X.73, where Farinata is magnanimo [great of soul] – and see Statius, Thebaid XI.1, where Capaneus is referred to as magnanimus); like Farinata, he seems not to be bothered by the pains of hell (see Inf. X.36).
The last verb in the tercet is a matter of debate. As always, in our translation we follow Petrocchi, even when we disagree with him. His reading is marturi, or 'torture'; others prefer the traditional reading, maturi, 'ripen' or 'soften,' a view with which we concur.
Capaneus, though undergoing the pain inflicted by the burning flakes, is alert enough to overhear the two strangers discussing him. Surely his Stoic reserve creates an initial positive impression on the reader.
Capaneus was one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes in aid of Polynices, the son of Oedipus whose twin brother, Eteocles, refused to allow him his turn at ruling. The narrative of the death of Capaneus on the walls of Thebes and his boast against Jupiter are drawn from Statius, Thebaid X.883-939.
As his oratorical flourish begins, the listener tends to admire the courage of his speech. As it continues, it more and more resembles vainglorious boasting. Capaneus may play the role of a stock character in Roman comedy, the miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier. (For Dante's probable awareness of this term see at least Cicero, De amicitia XXVI.98, a passage that almost certainly lies behind the depiction of the flatteries of Thaïs at Inf. XVIII.133-135.) When we study his words we find some disquieting elements in them: alive he was a defamer of the gods, as he is now; he says that Jupiter will not have his revenge against him even if he sends Vulcan in his forge in Mt. Etna into mass production of lightning bolts (as was necessary to quell the insurrection of the giants at the battle of Phlegra [see the further reference at Inf. XXXI.95]). We may reflect that, in the first place, Jupiter (or indeed the true God he would have blasphemed had he known Him) already has his vengeance (one look at supine Capaneus confirms this); in the second, when Jupiter took his revenge at Thebes, it took him but a single bolt to dispatch Capaneus (and Statius says that he was lucky not to live long enough for the second). In short, Capaneus, in his egregious over-confidence, makes something of a fool of himself (see Inf. XXV.15 for confirmation of his prideful opposition to God).
The vehemence of Virgil's outburst against Capaneus, underlined as being his most heated condemnation of a sinner yet (and no other will exceed it), is difficult to explain. A student, Edward Sherline (Princeton '82) some years ago suggested that Virgil, already angered by Dante's wry reminder of his previous insufficiency before the walls of Dis (Inf. XIV.43-45), is now having his revenge on Capaneus, a revenge especially pleasing when Virgil considered what Capaneus was quite effective doing and what he himself had utterly failed to do: besting the defenders of the walls of a hostile city (mere victory of that kind was not enough for Capaneus, who challenged Jupiter himself to combat).
Some readers have objected that blasphemy against Jupiter should be welcomed in a Christian dispensation, not punished. Dante's point is clearly that Capaneus meant to oppose the very principle of divine power, no matter what its name.
The little stream that the travelers now see is the second (and last) body of water that moves across their usual circular path and downward (see Inf. VII.100-108, where the descent from the fourth to the fifth Circle is made alongside a little stream that seems to connect Acheron to Styx). All other gatherings of water have been circles that they had eventually to cross in order to descend. We will soon be able to understand (vv. 115-117) that this particular stream contains waters from Phlegethon that will eventually fall into the frozen Cocytus (heard tumbling down to the eighth Circle at Inf. XVI.1-2). Dante and Virgil apparently do not happen to see the stream that connects Styx to Phlegethon because, as Virgil suggests (Inf. XIV.128-129), their path does not include full circles in a given zone (e.g., their passage along Phlegethon, which covers exactly a semicircle, in Inf. XII). For a lengthy and helpful review of the 'hydraulic system' of hell – which nonetheless remains difficult to understand – see Singleton's comm. to Inferno XIV.121-138.
The Bulicame is a hot spring near Viterbo from which prostitutes, perhaps not allowed to frequent the public baths, made conduits from the source to service their own dwellings.
The passage to the next and deeper zone of the burning sand now lies right before them (it is a necessary expedient, we want to remember, to get Dante across the burning sand); before they can follow it, Virgil will take up the subject of the waters of hell.
Virgil's presentation of the rivers of hell pauses first to create an etiological myth that explains their source. It has two parts, a history of Crete and a description of the statue of an old man that stands inside Mount Ida.
Virgil's first words rely on the passage in the Aeneid (III.104-106) describing Crete, similarly located 'in the middle of the sea' (medio... ponto). It was once 'chaste' when it enjoyed a 'golden age' under Saturn (see Amilacare Iannucci, “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Medieval Italian Literature,” Quaderni d'italianistica 14 [1992], pp. 191-220). for Dante's almost entirely positive treatment of Saturn). But now its mountain, Ida, the site of a sort of classical 'Eden,' rich in water and vegetation, is a waste land; like Eden, it, too, is deserted. Rhea, Saturn's wife, chose it as the cradle for her son, Jupiter. But now 'original sin' seems to have crept into the Golden Age: the crying child needs to be protected (in the original myth, of course, from Saturn himself, who had the unpleasant habit of eating his children so as not to be dethroned by one of them).
That is all we are told. On Crete there was once a Golden Age, but something went awry. Mazzotta (Dante, Poet of the Desert [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979]), p. 29, points out that both Aeneas (Aen. III.104-191) and Paul (Acts 27:7-13) have difficulties in continuing their missions at Crete, which may account for some of the negative feelings that accrue to Crete in this passage. Many commentators refer to the parallel with the similar narrative found in Ovid (Metam. I.89-150), the descent from an age of gold, to one of silver, to one of bronze, and finally to one of iron, when Astraea, justice, is the last of the gods to leave the earth.
Dante's second myth is more of his own devising. While the statue of the old man is closely modelled on that found in Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:31-35), the poet's enclosure of the statue in Ida seems to be essentially his own invention (although commentators suggest the influence of Pliny's account of a body 46 cubits tall, discovered after an earthquake, inside Ida – see (Nat. Hist. VII.xvi.73). But there are 'hydraulic' reasons for putting him and his tears (these are not found in Daniel) there: Dante needs to account for the origin of the rivers of hell. The gran veglio, within the mountain, turns his back on Egypt (Damietta, a city in the Nile delta) and gazes on Rome as though it were his mirror. Interpretations of this detail vary, but it would seem that the movement of temporal rule from the East to Rome would account for this representative of the original political order looking toward its new home. What does he see there? Probably, in Dante's view, his mirror image, since the Empire is totally ineffective. He is putting more weight upon his right foot, formed of baked clay, which most of the early commentators thought represented the corrupt Church; yet an argument can be made that, since the veglio is a figuration of pagan man, the Church would be inappropriately a part of his 'physique.' In Nebuchadnezzar's dream a rock destroys the feet of the statue; for Christian exegetes this rock represents Christ, destroying the Old Man and making the new life possible for mankind.
The waters that collect from all the non-golden and riven parts of the statue gather somewhere beneath it under Mount Ida and force their way into the underworld. For the root of the image of the rivers of hell as tears from the Veglio's eyes in the redeeming blood of Christ on the Cross, flowing into Limbo to redeem Adam, see H. Theodore Silverstein (“The Weeping Statue and Dante's Gran Veglio,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 13 [1931], pp. 165-84) and Anthony Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 58-60. The Old Man is, in this reading, the parodic anticipation of the New Man, the Son of God. As such, he is at once the representation of obdurate denial of the true God and the image of the blaspheming, idolatrous counter-religion that would stand in the place of the true faith. This interpretation, unifying the two major figures of the canto, the Old Man and Capaneus, by seeing the former, too, as representing blasphemy, is Cassell's, pp. 57-65, with bibliography on the question, pp. 140-41. Not all will accept this reading.
And now Virgil can get to his putative main point, the disposition of the rivers of hell. Dante's question in response seems to reveal that he has forgotten what he has seen at the border of Avarice and Wrath (Inf. VII.100-108). See the note to Inferno XIV.76-84, above. On the other hand, Virgil does not make that plain to him. As a result, whether that stream is supposed to be from the same source as this one – the most attractive hypothesis – becomes, at best, moot.
Dante's two questions are meant as an aid to the reader, who may not have realized that the river of blood and what has just now been called 'Phlegethon' for the first time (at Inf. XIV.116) are one and the same. As for Lethe, since it is thought of as being a major fluvial appurtenance of the afterworld, the poet wants to reassure his reader that it has not been forgotten in the watery arrangement of hell but awaits discovery in purgatory.
The coda ties the action back to where it stopped (Inf. XIV.84). The next canto, in fact, will pick up precisely from there (and not here), as though it were the last verse of the canto.
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