“Ecco la fiera con la coda aguzza,
che passa i monti e rompe i muri e l'armi!
Ecco colei che tutto 'l mondo appuzza!”
Sì cominciò lo mio duca a parlarmi;
e accennolle che venisse a proda,
vicino al fin d'i passeggiati marmi.
E quella sozza imagine di froda
sen venne, e arrivò la testa e 'l busto,
ma 'n su la riva non trasse la coda.
La faccia sua era faccia d'uom giusto,
tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle,
e d'un serpente tutto l'altro fusto;
due branche avea pilose insin l'ascelle;
lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste
dipinti avea di nodi e di rotelle.
Con più color, sommesse e sovraposte
non fer mai drappi Tartari né Turchi,
né fuor tai tele per Aragne imposte.
Come talvolta stanno a riva i burchi,
che parte sono in acqua e parte in terra,
e come là tra li Tedeschi lurchi
lo bivero s'assetta a far sua guerra,
così la fiera pessima si stava
su l'orlo ch'è di pietra e 'l sabbion serra.
Nel vano tutta sua coda guizzava,
torcendo in sù la venenosa forca
ch'a guisa di scorpion la punta armava.
Lo duca disse: “Or convien che si torca
la nostra via un poco insino a quella
bestia malvagia che colà si corca.”
Però scendemmo a la destra mammella,
e diece passi femmo in su lo stremo,
per ben cessar la rena e la fiammella.
E quando noi a lei venuti semo,
poco più oltre veggio in su la rena
gente seder propinqua al loco scemo.
Quivi 'l maestro “Acciò che tutta piena
esperienza d'esto giron porti,”
mi disse, “va, e vedi la lor mena.
Li tuoi ragionamenti sian là corti;
mentre che torni, parlerò con questa,
che ne conceda i suoi omeri forti.”
Così ancor su per la strema testa
di quel settimo cerchio tutto solo
andai, dove sedea la gente mesta.
Per li occhi fora scoppiava lor duolo;
di qua, di là soccorrien con le mani
quando a' vapori, e quando al caldo suolo:
non altrimenti fan di state i cani
or col ceffo or col piè, quando son morsi
o da pulci o da mosche o da tafani.
Poi che nel viso a certi li occhi porsi,
ne' quali 'l doloroso foco casca,
non ne conobbi alcun; ma io m'accorsi
che dal collo a ciascun pendea una tasca
ch'avea certo colore e certo segno,
e quindi par che 'l loro occhio si pasca.
E com' io riguardando tra lor vegno,
in una borsa gialla vidi azzurro
che d'un leone avea faccia e contegno.
Poi, procedendo di mio sguardo il curro,
vidine un'altra come sangue rossa,
mostrando un'oca bianca più che burro.
E un che d'una scrofa azzurra e grossa
segnato avea lo suo sacchetto bianco,
mi disse: “Che fai tu in questa fossa?
Or te ne va; e perché se' vivo anco,
sappi che 'l mio vicin Vitalïano
sederà qui dal mio sinistro fianco.
Con questi Fiorentin son padoano:
spesse fïate mi 'ntronan li orecchi
gridando: 'Vegna 'l cavalier sovrano,
che recherà la tasca con tre becchi!'”
Qui distorse la bocca e di fuor trasse
la lingua, come bue che 'l naso lecchi.
E io, temendo no'l più star crucciasse
lui che di poco star m'avea 'mmonito,
torna'mi in dietro da l'anime lasse.
Trova' il duca mio ch'era salito
già su la groppa del fiero animale,
e disse a me: “Or sie forte e ardito.
Omai si scende per sì fatte scale;
monta dinanzi, ch'i' voglio esser mezzo,
sì che la coda non possa far male.”
Qual è colui che sì presso ha 'l riprezzo
de la quartana, c'ha già l'unghie smorte,
e triema tutto pur guardando 'l rezzo,
tal divenn' io a le parole porte;
ma vergogna mi fé le sue minacce,
che innanzi a buon segnor fa servo forte.
I' m'assettai in su quelle spallacce;
sì volli dir, ma la voce non venne
com' io credetti: “Fa che tu m'abbracce.”
Ma esso, ch'altra volta mi sovvenne
ad altro forse, tosto ch'i' montai
con le braccia m'avvinse e mi sostenne;
e disse: “Gerïon, moviti omai:
le rote larghe, e lo scender sia poco;
pensa la nova soma che tu hai.”
Come la navicella esce di loco
in dietro in dietro, sì quindi si tolse;
e poi ch'al tutto si sentì a gioco,
là 'v' era 'l petto, la coda rivolse,
e quella tesa, come anguilla, mosse,
e con le branche l'aere a sé raccolse.
Maggior paura non credo che fosse
quando Fetonte abbandonò li freni,
per che 'l ciel, come pare ancor, si cosse;
né quando Icaro misero le reni
sentì spennar per la scaldata cera,
gridando il padre a lui “Mala via tieni!”
che fu la mia, quando vidi ch'i' era
ne l'aere d'ogne parte, e vidi spenta
ogne veduta fuor che de la fera.
Ella sen va notando lenta lenta;
rota e discende, ma non me n'accorgo
se non che al viso e di sotto mi venta.
Io sentia già da la man destra il gorgo
far sotto noi un orribile scroscio,
per che con li occhi 'n giù la testa sporgo.
Allor fu' io più timido a lo stoscio,
però ch'i' vidi fuochi e senti' pianti;
ond' io tremando tutto mi raccoscio.
E vidi poi, ché nol vedea davanti,
lo scendere e 'l girar per li gran mali
che s'appressavan da diversi canti.
Come 'l falcon ch'è stato assai su l'ali,
che sanza veder logoro o uccello
fa dire al falconiere “Omè, tu cali!”
discende lasso onde si move isnello,
per cento rote, e da lunge si pone
dal suo maestro, disdegnoso e fello;
così ne puose al fondo Gerïone
al piè al piè de la stagliata rocca,
e, discarcate le nostre persone,
si dileguò come da corda cocca.
"Behold the monster with the pointed tail,
Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,
Behold him who infecteth all the world."
Thus unto me my Guide began to say,
And beckoned him that he should come to shore,
Near to the confine of the trodden marble;
And that uncleanly image of deceit
Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
But on the border did not drag its tail.
The face was as the face of a just man,
Its semblance outwardly was so benign,
And of a serpent all the trunk beside.
Two paws it had, hairy unto the armpits;
The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
Depicted o'er with nooses and with shields.
With colours more, groundwork or broidery
Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.
As sometimes wherries lie upon the shore,
That part are in the water, part on land;
And as among the guzzling Germans there,
The beaver plants himself to wage his war;
So that vile monster lay upon the border,
Which is of stone, and shutteth in the sand.
His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
Contorting upwards the envenomed fork,
That in the guise of scorpion armed its point.
The Guide said: "Now perforce must turn aside
Our way a little, even to that beast
Malevolent, that yonder coucheth him."
We therefore on the right side descended,
And made ten steps upon the outer verge,
Completely to avoid the sand and flame;
And after we are come to him, I see
A little farther off upon the sand
A people sitting near the hollow place.
Then said to me the Master: "So that full
Experience of this round thou bear away,
Now go and see what their condition is.
There let thy conversation be concise;
Till thou returnest I will speak with him,
That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders."
Thus farther still upon the outermost
Head of that seventh circle all alone
I went, where sat the melancholy folk.
Out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe;
This way, that way, they helped them with their hands
Now from the flames and now from the hot soil.
Not otherwise in summer do the dogs,
Now with the foot, now with the muzzle, when
By fleas, or flies, or gadflies, they are bitten.
When I had turned mine eyes upon the faces
Of some, on whom the dolorous fire is falling,
Not one of them I knew; but I perceived
That from the neck of each there hung a pouch,
Which certain colour had, and certain blazon;
And thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding.
And as I gazing round me come among them,
Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw
That had the face and posture of a lion.
Proceeding then the current of my sight,
Another of them saw I, red as blood,
Display a goose more white than butter is.
And one, who with an azure sow and gravid
Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,
Said unto me: "What dost thou in this moat?
Now get thee gone; and since thou'rt still alive,
Know that a neighbour of mine, Vitaliano,
Will have his seat here on my left-hand side.
A Paduan am I with these Florentines;
Full many a time they thunder in mine ears,
Exclaiming, 'Come the sovereign cavalier,
He who shall bring the satchel with three goats;'"
Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.
And fearing lest my longer stay might vex
Him who had warned me not to tarry long,
Backward I turned me from those weary souls.
I found my Guide, who had already mounted
Upon the back of that wild animal,
And said to me: "Now be both strong and bold.
Now we descend by stairways such as these;
Mount thou in front, for I will be midway,
So that the tail may have no power to harm thee."
Such as he is who has so near the ague
Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
And trembles all, but looking at the shade;
Even such became I at those proffered words;
But shame in me his menaces produced,
Which maketh servant strong before good master.
I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;
I wished to say, and yet the voice came not
As I believed, "Take heed that thou embrace me."
But he, who other times had rescued me
In other peril, soon as I had mounted,
Within his arms encircled and sustained me,
And said: "Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;
The circles large, and the descent be little;
Think of the novel burden which thou hast."
Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,
Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;
And when he wholly felt himself afloat,
There where his breast had been he turned his tail,
And that extended like an eel he moved,
And with his paws drew to himself the air.
A greater fear I do not think there was
What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;
Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks
Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,
His father crying, "An ill way thou takest!"
Than was my own, when I perceived myself
On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished
The sight of everything but of the monster.
Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly;
Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only
By wind upon my face and from below.
I heard already on the right the whirlpool
Making a horrible crashing under us;
Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.
Then was I still more fearful of the abyss;
Because I fires beheld, and heard laments,
Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.
I saw then, for before I had not seen it,
The turning and descending, by great horrors
That were approaching upon divers sides.
As falcon who has long been on the wing,
Who, without seeing either lure or bird,
Maketh the falconer say, "Ah me, thou stoopest,"
Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly,
Thorough a hundred circles, and alights
Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;
Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom,
Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock,
And being disencumbered of our persons,
He sped away as arrow from the string.
Virgil's description of Geryon (not identified by name until Inf. XVII.97) reflects his triple nature in classical literature. In the tradition known to Dante, he enticed strangers to be his guests, only to kill and eat them. He was eventually killed by Hercules. In the Aeneid he is twice identified with the number three: he is described as forma tricorporis umbrae (the form of the three-bodied shade – Aen. VI.289 ) and again as tergemini... Geryonae (triple Geryon – Aen. VIII.202). Ovid (Heroides IX.92) says that 'in tribus unus erat' (he was one in three). In classical literature he is sometimes referred to as the king of three Iberian islands – which may account for his tripleness. For review of the many classical texts that contain reference to Geryon see Scartazzini, comm. to XVII.1. And see the studies of Proto (“Gerione,” Giornale dantesco 8 [1900], pp. 65-105.), Pasquini (Il canto di Gerione,“ Atti e memorie dell'Arcadia 4 [1967], pp. 346-68), and Armour (”I Monstra e Mirabilia del mondo ai tempi di Dante,“ in I ”monstra“ nell'”Inferno“ dantesco: tradizione e simbologie [Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997], pp. 151-53.) 'Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description – followed by Solinus – of a strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30) which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's' (Grandgent, Note to Inf. XVII). All these threes find an answer in the three destructive action verbs describing him in this first tercet. This embodiment of fraud (he is the 'foul effigy of fraud' at Inf. XVII.7) is thus presented as the counterfeit of Christ, three-in-one rather than one-in-three. The very words that introduce this numerically central canto of Inferno, 'Ecco la fiera' (Behold the beast), would seem to echo the familiar tag for Christ, Ecce homo (Behold the man [John 19:5]), as a student at Dartmouth College (Sarah LaBudde '84) suggested some years ago.
The positive words that accompany this description, invoking justice and benignity, remind us of the absence of such qualities in hell. Now they appear, but only as the masks for Fraud. The realm of Violence here will show us its last set of sinners, the usurers, men identified by bestial devices hanging from their throats; this first tip of the iceberg of Fraud is in the form of a huge beast, his bestial and reptilian parts at first mainly hidden in the void, with the fair face of a man. The last book in the Christian scripture tells of similar creatures, the locusts of destruction that will be loosed upon the world who have faces like the faces of men and tails like the tails of scorpions, with stingers in them (Apoc. 9:7; 9:10), as was perhaps first noted in Berthier's commentary (to vv. 10-13).
The 'tattooed' body of Geryon looms in eerie beauty until the resemblance to the similarly 'painted' leopard of Inferno I.42 (referred to again at Inf. XVI.108) suggests that we can understand both these creatures as embodiments of the sins of fraud (see Durling and Martinez on these verses (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). And the concluding reference to Arachne (Ovid, Metam. VI.5-145), that world-class weaver turned into a spider, whose metamorphosed beguiling art has a purpose: the entrapment of flies. Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), ad loc., calls attention to Rossetti's remarks (comm. to Inf. XVII.7-12), in which he interprets the shape of the serpent as a sort of history of the process of fraud: 'Fraud begins its work by inspiring trust (the face of a just man); then weaves its deceit (the serpentine trunk); and at last strikes its final blow (the pointed tail).'
As for the word sommesse at verse 17 (here translated 'warp and woof'), Toynbee, offering a different understanding in his note 'Dante's References to Tartar Cloths', Dante Studies and Researches (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 [1902], pp. 115-20), suggests that it describes 'not woven designs, but embroidered or appliqué patterns' (p. 117).
The two similes identify the posture of Geryon in terms of homely images, a boat drawn up to shore, a beaver fishing with its tail. (Beavers were reputed to use their tails as bait, eventually grasping the fish thereby attracted with their paws.) Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) pointed out that hyperactive Teutonic appetite was a matter of note as far back as in the histories of Tacitus.
Their descent to the right causes some commentators to think that the travelers have changed direction, as they did in the Circle of heresy; what they have done is merely what they have done before, all across the ring of the violent against nature; that is, they are moving downward toward the center. They have not changed their essential leftward course on this occasion, either.
For only the second time in the poem Virgil leaves Dante alone (see Inf. VIII.106-111). And now, for the first time, he is allowed to visit a group of sinners unguided. Virgil's decision to let him do so probably tells us that he believes the protagonist already proof against the danger or attraction of usury. Further, on both occasions we have come to the end of a large area of hell, first Incontinence and now Violence. For the idea that the infernal voyage is divided into five segments, in each of which the protagonist moves through cycles of unworthy fear and improper sympathy until he reaches firmness against an entire category of sin, see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's ”Commedia“ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 301-7, with addendum in Hollander, ”The Tragedy of Divination in Inferno XX,“ in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 168-69. For an unusual approach to the problem of the ordering of the sins of hell, see Ferrante, ”Malebolge (Inf. XVIII-XXX) as the Key to the Structure of Dante's Inferno,“ Romance Philology 20 (1967), pp. 456-66). She also happens to argue for a five-part division of hell, but on different grounds and with mainly differing result.
Having learned that the homosexuals were punished by continual movement, reflective of their agitated lives, the reader now finds the third set of the violent against God sitting in place (and thereby undergoing precisely the punishment that the violent against nature dreaded). Usurers, we may understand, have caused money to race from hand to hand, but were themselves stationary, unmoved movers hunched over their desks in the pursuit of gain. We are in the third and final zone of the third ring of the seventh Circle. Like the first, it is located at a margin of that Circle (see Inf. XIV.12).
The usurers, rendered unrecognizable by the burning (and by the degrading nature of their sin, which is a sin against God's 'grandchild,' industry, yet is also a sin against His child, nature, because it makes money 'copulate') have their only identity in the coats-of-arms that they have hanging from their necks, fastened loose enough so that they themselves can see them. Their identities are made known to an observer by these devices, but they would rather seem to be gazing on their 'real' selves, the money that used to fill their purses, than on their escutcheons.
This device indicates the Gianfigliazzi family of Florence, Black Guelphs. Exactly which member of the family is not known, but perhaps Dante was happy to leave the door open to the widest possible speculation.
The arms of the Obriachi family, Florentine Ghibellines. Once again commentators have proposed various individuals, but without a victorious candidate emerging.
The 'star' among the usurers, the only one with a speaking part, is, most commentators believe, Reginaldo degli Scrovegni, the only non-Florentine in the little group of identified sinners. He was from Padua and was a usurer on a major scale. A penitential desire to make up for paternal usurious practice reputedly moved his son, Arrigo, to endow the construction of the Scrovegni Chapel, its walls devoted to Giotto's frescoes, one of the most beautiful interior spaces in the Western world.
Reginaldo's discourtesy to Dante is matched by his envious report that his fellow Paduan (and fellow usurer, still alive as late as 1307), Vitaliano del Dente (there is some disagreement as to his exact identity among the commentators) will join him here one of these days.
Mocking his Florentine companions in usury, Reginaldo reports that they, too, are awaiting a townsman, the 'king of the usurers' of Dante's day (and alive until 1310), Giovanni Buiamonte, a Ghibelline.
Reginaldo's animalistic, sub-verbal facial gesture in response to the reported conversations of his companions conveys some of the self-enclosed anti-social nature of these sinners. They really did not care for anything but money. Dante, having been warned by Virgil to return quickly (and the whole scene has a rushed urgency about it), heads back toward Virgil – and Geryon.
This little narrative (vv. 43-78) of Dante's first (and last) 'solo' adventure in the Inferno is carried out with a striking mixture of brief understatement and the only vivid colors we find in the cantica, as Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991) points out in her commentary to v. 63. The quick spareness of the narration allows the poet to give us five personages in this brief space. And for all the brightness of the color on the devices that we see, the net effect is of an enervated attachment, not so much as to wealth as to the lonely pursuit of infinite gathering. They are thirteenth-century precursors of George Eliot's Silas Marner.
The 'stairs' to which Virgil refers are monstrous creatures, as he looks ahead to their means of conveyance over the great gaps in walkable terrain that they will face at Cocytus (Inf. XXXI.142-143, Antaeus will be their 'stairs' then) and at the center of the Earth (Inf. XXXIV.73-75, where Satan's legs will be the ladder Virgil climbs to begin to draw Dante up from hell).
Virgil's commands to Geryon, coupled with the monster's instantaneous disappearance once his tour of duty is ended, make the reader realize that Virgil has used extraordinarily persuasive arguments to tame this beast. His having sent Dante away also reminds us of the time he left his charge alone but in sight of his temporary yet crushing defeat at the hands of the demons at the walls of Dis. This time he first gets his pupil out of viewing range and then, we do not know how, manages to control a most difficult demon and turn him into the first helicopter. If Dante is the main learner in Inferno, Virgil learns a few things himself.
The extraordinary journey put fear into our hero, which he now may compare to that felt by classical precursors who failed on similar flights. As Brownlee points out, Phaeton (his story is found in Ovid, Metam. II.47-324) dropped the reins of his heavenly chariot as a result of his terror upon looking at the constellation Scorpio, while Dante mounts on the scorpion-tailed Geryon in order to accomplish his flight. See Kevin Brownlee, ”Phaeton's Fall and Dante's Ascent,“ Dante Studies 102 (1984), p. 136.
The 'scorching' of the sky, the path of Phaeton's fall, is the Milky Way. For Dante's dissimilarity to Phaeton see the note to Inferno XXVI.19-24.
Icarus (Ovid, Metam. VIII.183-235), on a second extraordinary flight that failed, did not obey the instructions of his father, Daedalus, trying instead to turn a voyage home into a trip through the galaxy. If the protagonist then thought of these two precursors, he must have thought that he, too, might die for his temerity; the poet, however, making the analogies now, sees the comic resolution of a voyage that might have turned tragic except for the fact that this voyager had God on his side.
This, perhaps the single most melodramatic and implausible narrative passage in the Comedy, is accomplished with considerable art. Dante, his face at first pushed up against the body of the beast, sees nothing. He feels the wind on his face, hears the torrent below, finally gets his eyes into play and sees the flames of lower hell, hears the cries of the damned, and finally, now that he is able to look, realizes the pattern of his descending flight from the 'approach' of the circling and rising hellscape.
The simile introduces falconry to the poem; references to this sport of hunting with birds will reappear several times (e.g., Inf. XXI.130-132, Purg. XIV.148-151, Purg. XIX.61-66, Par. XVIII.45, Par. XIX.34-36). The similetic falcon, like Geryon an unwilling worker, has come down before finishing his mission (to catch a bird or be summoned home by the falconer's lure); to compound his bad birdmanship, he does not even land on his master's arm, but far afield. Geryon, on the other hand, while equally rebellious, does complete his flight as his master (Virgil) had ordered. The simile, now that the fearsome flight is over, has a way of making Geryon less terrifying than he was, comparing him to a small bird of prey. At this midpoint of the Comedy we have a provisional comic ending, with Dante safe and sound exactly halfway there. (For Dante's distinctions between tragedy and comedy see the note to Inf. XX.112-114.) The last two verses of the canto, however, give Geryon a last moment of terrifying will and power.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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“Ecco la fiera con la coda aguzza,
che passa i monti e rompe i muri e l'armi!
Ecco colei che tutto 'l mondo appuzza!”
Sì cominciò lo mio duca a parlarmi;
e accennolle che venisse a proda,
vicino al fin d'i passeggiati marmi.
E quella sozza imagine di froda
sen venne, e arrivò la testa e 'l busto,
ma 'n su la riva non trasse la coda.
La faccia sua era faccia d'uom giusto,
tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle,
e d'un serpente tutto l'altro fusto;
due branche avea pilose insin l'ascelle;
lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste
dipinti avea di nodi e di rotelle.
Con più color, sommesse e sovraposte
non fer mai drappi Tartari né Turchi,
né fuor tai tele per Aragne imposte.
Come talvolta stanno a riva i burchi,
che parte sono in acqua e parte in terra,
e come là tra li Tedeschi lurchi
lo bivero s'assetta a far sua guerra,
così la fiera pessima si stava
su l'orlo ch'è di pietra e 'l sabbion serra.
Nel vano tutta sua coda guizzava,
torcendo in sù la venenosa forca
ch'a guisa di scorpion la punta armava.
Lo duca disse: “Or convien che si torca
la nostra via un poco insino a quella
bestia malvagia che colà si corca.”
Però scendemmo a la destra mammella,
e diece passi femmo in su lo stremo,
per ben cessar la rena e la fiammella.
E quando noi a lei venuti semo,
poco più oltre veggio in su la rena
gente seder propinqua al loco scemo.
Quivi 'l maestro “Acciò che tutta piena
esperienza d'esto giron porti,”
mi disse, “va, e vedi la lor mena.
Li tuoi ragionamenti sian là corti;
mentre che torni, parlerò con questa,
che ne conceda i suoi omeri forti.”
Così ancor su per la strema testa
di quel settimo cerchio tutto solo
andai, dove sedea la gente mesta.
Per li occhi fora scoppiava lor duolo;
di qua, di là soccorrien con le mani
quando a' vapori, e quando al caldo suolo:
non altrimenti fan di state i cani
or col ceffo or col piè, quando son morsi
o da pulci o da mosche o da tafani.
Poi che nel viso a certi li occhi porsi,
ne' quali 'l doloroso foco casca,
non ne conobbi alcun; ma io m'accorsi
che dal collo a ciascun pendea una tasca
ch'avea certo colore e certo segno,
e quindi par che 'l loro occhio si pasca.
E com' io riguardando tra lor vegno,
in una borsa gialla vidi azzurro
che d'un leone avea faccia e contegno.
Poi, procedendo di mio sguardo il curro,
vidine un'altra come sangue rossa,
mostrando un'oca bianca più che burro.
E un che d'una scrofa azzurra e grossa
segnato avea lo suo sacchetto bianco,
mi disse: “Che fai tu in questa fossa?
Or te ne va; e perché se' vivo anco,
sappi che 'l mio vicin Vitalïano
sederà qui dal mio sinistro fianco.
Con questi Fiorentin son padoano:
spesse fïate mi 'ntronan li orecchi
gridando: 'Vegna 'l cavalier sovrano,
che recherà la tasca con tre becchi!'”
Qui distorse la bocca e di fuor trasse
la lingua, come bue che 'l naso lecchi.
E io, temendo no'l più star crucciasse
lui che di poco star m'avea 'mmonito,
torna'mi in dietro da l'anime lasse.
Trova' il duca mio ch'era salito
già su la groppa del fiero animale,
e disse a me: “Or sie forte e ardito.
Omai si scende per sì fatte scale;
monta dinanzi, ch'i' voglio esser mezzo,
sì che la coda non possa far male.”
Qual è colui che sì presso ha 'l riprezzo
de la quartana, c'ha già l'unghie smorte,
e triema tutto pur guardando 'l rezzo,
tal divenn' io a le parole porte;
ma vergogna mi fé le sue minacce,
che innanzi a buon segnor fa servo forte.
I' m'assettai in su quelle spallacce;
sì volli dir, ma la voce non venne
com' io credetti: “Fa che tu m'abbracce.”
Ma esso, ch'altra volta mi sovvenne
ad altro forse, tosto ch'i' montai
con le braccia m'avvinse e mi sostenne;
e disse: “Gerïon, moviti omai:
le rote larghe, e lo scender sia poco;
pensa la nova soma che tu hai.”
Come la navicella esce di loco
in dietro in dietro, sì quindi si tolse;
e poi ch'al tutto si sentì a gioco,
là 'v' era 'l petto, la coda rivolse,
e quella tesa, come anguilla, mosse,
e con le branche l'aere a sé raccolse.
Maggior paura non credo che fosse
quando Fetonte abbandonò li freni,
per che 'l ciel, come pare ancor, si cosse;
né quando Icaro misero le reni
sentì spennar per la scaldata cera,
gridando il padre a lui “Mala via tieni!”
che fu la mia, quando vidi ch'i' era
ne l'aere d'ogne parte, e vidi spenta
ogne veduta fuor che de la fera.
Ella sen va notando lenta lenta;
rota e discende, ma non me n'accorgo
se non che al viso e di sotto mi venta.
Io sentia già da la man destra il gorgo
far sotto noi un orribile scroscio,
per che con li occhi 'n giù la testa sporgo.
Allor fu' io più timido a lo stoscio,
però ch'i' vidi fuochi e senti' pianti;
ond' io tremando tutto mi raccoscio.
E vidi poi, ché nol vedea davanti,
lo scendere e 'l girar per li gran mali
che s'appressavan da diversi canti.
Come 'l falcon ch'è stato assai su l'ali,
che sanza veder logoro o uccello
fa dire al falconiere “Omè, tu cali!”
discende lasso onde si move isnello,
per cento rote, e da lunge si pone
dal suo maestro, disdegnoso e fello;
così ne puose al fondo Gerïone
al piè al piè de la stagliata rocca,
e, discarcate le nostre persone,
si dileguò come da corda cocca.
"Behold the monster with the pointed tail,
Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,
Behold him who infecteth all the world."
Thus unto me my Guide began to say,
And beckoned him that he should come to shore,
Near to the confine of the trodden marble;
And that uncleanly image of deceit
Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
But on the border did not drag its tail.
The face was as the face of a just man,
Its semblance outwardly was so benign,
And of a serpent all the trunk beside.
Two paws it had, hairy unto the armpits;
The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
Depicted o'er with nooses and with shields.
With colours more, groundwork or broidery
Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.
As sometimes wherries lie upon the shore,
That part are in the water, part on land;
And as among the guzzling Germans there,
The beaver plants himself to wage his war;
So that vile monster lay upon the border,
Which is of stone, and shutteth in the sand.
His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
Contorting upwards the envenomed fork,
That in the guise of scorpion armed its point.
The Guide said: "Now perforce must turn aside
Our way a little, even to that beast
Malevolent, that yonder coucheth him."
We therefore on the right side descended,
And made ten steps upon the outer verge,
Completely to avoid the sand and flame;
And after we are come to him, I see
A little farther off upon the sand
A people sitting near the hollow place.
Then said to me the Master: "So that full
Experience of this round thou bear away,
Now go and see what their condition is.
There let thy conversation be concise;
Till thou returnest I will speak with him,
That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders."
Thus farther still upon the outermost
Head of that seventh circle all alone
I went, where sat the melancholy folk.
Out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe;
This way, that way, they helped them with their hands
Now from the flames and now from the hot soil.
Not otherwise in summer do the dogs,
Now with the foot, now with the muzzle, when
By fleas, or flies, or gadflies, they are bitten.
When I had turned mine eyes upon the faces
Of some, on whom the dolorous fire is falling,
Not one of them I knew; but I perceived
That from the neck of each there hung a pouch,
Which certain colour had, and certain blazon;
And thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding.
And as I gazing round me come among them,
Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw
That had the face and posture of a lion.
Proceeding then the current of my sight,
Another of them saw I, red as blood,
Display a goose more white than butter is.
And one, who with an azure sow and gravid
Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,
Said unto me: "What dost thou in this moat?
Now get thee gone; and since thou'rt still alive,
Know that a neighbour of mine, Vitaliano,
Will have his seat here on my left-hand side.
A Paduan am I with these Florentines;
Full many a time they thunder in mine ears,
Exclaiming, 'Come the sovereign cavalier,
He who shall bring the satchel with three goats;'"
Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.
And fearing lest my longer stay might vex
Him who had warned me not to tarry long,
Backward I turned me from those weary souls.
I found my Guide, who had already mounted
Upon the back of that wild animal,
And said to me: "Now be both strong and bold.
Now we descend by stairways such as these;
Mount thou in front, for I will be midway,
So that the tail may have no power to harm thee."
Such as he is who has so near the ague
Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
And trembles all, but looking at the shade;
Even such became I at those proffered words;
But shame in me his menaces produced,
Which maketh servant strong before good master.
I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;
I wished to say, and yet the voice came not
As I believed, "Take heed that thou embrace me."
But he, who other times had rescued me
In other peril, soon as I had mounted,
Within his arms encircled and sustained me,
And said: "Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;
The circles large, and the descent be little;
Think of the novel burden which thou hast."
Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,
Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;
And when he wholly felt himself afloat,
There where his breast had been he turned his tail,
And that extended like an eel he moved,
And with his paws drew to himself the air.
A greater fear I do not think there was
What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;
Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks
Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,
His father crying, "An ill way thou takest!"
Than was my own, when I perceived myself
On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished
The sight of everything but of the monster.
Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly;
Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only
By wind upon my face and from below.
I heard already on the right the whirlpool
Making a horrible crashing under us;
Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.
Then was I still more fearful of the abyss;
Because I fires beheld, and heard laments,
Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.
I saw then, for before I had not seen it,
The turning and descending, by great horrors
That were approaching upon divers sides.
As falcon who has long been on the wing,
Who, without seeing either lure or bird,
Maketh the falconer say, "Ah me, thou stoopest,"
Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly,
Thorough a hundred circles, and alights
Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;
Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom,
Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock,
And being disencumbered of our persons,
He sped away as arrow from the string.
Virgil's description of Geryon (not identified by name until Inf. XVII.97) reflects his triple nature in classical literature. In the tradition known to Dante, he enticed strangers to be his guests, only to kill and eat them. He was eventually killed by Hercules. In the Aeneid he is twice identified with the number three: he is described as forma tricorporis umbrae (the form of the three-bodied shade – Aen. VI.289 ) and again as tergemini... Geryonae (triple Geryon – Aen. VIII.202). Ovid (Heroides IX.92) says that 'in tribus unus erat' (he was one in three). In classical literature he is sometimes referred to as the king of three Iberian islands – which may account for his tripleness. For review of the many classical texts that contain reference to Geryon see Scartazzini, comm. to XVII.1. And see the studies of Proto (“Gerione,” Giornale dantesco 8 [1900], pp. 65-105.), Pasquini (Il canto di Gerione,“ Atti e memorie dell'Arcadia 4 [1967], pp. 346-68), and Armour (”I Monstra e Mirabilia del mondo ai tempi di Dante,“ in I ”monstra“ nell'”Inferno“ dantesco: tradizione e simbologie [Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997], pp. 151-53.) 'Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description – followed by Solinus – of a strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30) which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's' (Grandgent, Note to Inf. XVII). All these threes find an answer in the three destructive action verbs describing him in this first tercet. This embodiment of fraud (he is the 'foul effigy of fraud' at Inf. XVII.7) is thus presented as the counterfeit of Christ, three-in-one rather than one-in-three. The very words that introduce this numerically central canto of Inferno, 'Ecco la fiera' (Behold the beast), would seem to echo the familiar tag for Christ, Ecce homo (Behold the man [John 19:5]), as a student at Dartmouth College (Sarah LaBudde '84) suggested some years ago.
The positive words that accompany this description, invoking justice and benignity, remind us of the absence of such qualities in hell. Now they appear, but only as the masks for Fraud. The realm of Violence here will show us its last set of sinners, the usurers, men identified by bestial devices hanging from their throats; this first tip of the iceberg of Fraud is in the form of a huge beast, his bestial and reptilian parts at first mainly hidden in the void, with the fair face of a man. The last book in the Christian scripture tells of similar creatures, the locusts of destruction that will be loosed upon the world who have faces like the faces of men and tails like the tails of scorpions, with stingers in them (Apoc. 9:7; 9:10), as was perhaps first noted in Berthier's commentary (to vv. 10-13).
The 'tattooed' body of Geryon looms in eerie beauty until the resemblance to the similarly 'painted' leopard of Inferno I.42 (referred to again at Inf. XVI.108) suggests that we can understand both these creatures as embodiments of the sins of fraud (see Durling and Martinez on these verses (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). And the concluding reference to Arachne (Ovid, Metam. VI.5-145), that world-class weaver turned into a spider, whose metamorphosed beguiling art has a purpose: the entrapment of flies. Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), ad loc., calls attention to Rossetti's remarks (comm. to Inf. XVII.7-12), in which he interprets the shape of the serpent as a sort of history of the process of fraud: 'Fraud begins its work by inspiring trust (the face of a just man); then weaves its deceit (the serpentine trunk); and at last strikes its final blow (the pointed tail).'
As for the word sommesse at verse 17 (here translated 'warp and woof'), Toynbee, offering a different understanding in his note 'Dante's References to Tartar Cloths', Dante Studies and Researches (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 [1902], pp. 115-20), suggests that it describes 'not woven designs, but embroidered or appliqué patterns' (p. 117).
The two similes identify the posture of Geryon in terms of homely images, a boat drawn up to shore, a beaver fishing with its tail. (Beavers were reputed to use their tails as bait, eventually grasping the fish thereby attracted with their paws.) Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) pointed out that hyperactive Teutonic appetite was a matter of note as far back as in the histories of Tacitus.
Their descent to the right causes some commentators to think that the travelers have changed direction, as they did in the Circle of heresy; what they have done is merely what they have done before, all across the ring of the violent against nature; that is, they are moving downward toward the center. They have not changed their essential leftward course on this occasion, either.
For only the second time in the poem Virgil leaves Dante alone (see Inf. VIII.106-111). And now, for the first time, he is allowed to visit a group of sinners unguided. Virgil's decision to let him do so probably tells us that he believes the protagonist already proof against the danger or attraction of usury. Further, on both occasions we have come to the end of a large area of hell, first Incontinence and now Violence. For the idea that the infernal voyage is divided into five segments, in each of which the protagonist moves through cycles of unworthy fear and improper sympathy until he reaches firmness against an entire category of sin, see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's ”Commedia“ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 301-7, with addendum in Hollander, ”The Tragedy of Divination in Inferno XX,“ in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 168-69. For an unusual approach to the problem of the ordering of the sins of hell, see Ferrante, ”Malebolge (Inf. XVIII-XXX) as the Key to the Structure of Dante's Inferno,“ Romance Philology 20 (1967), pp. 456-66). She also happens to argue for a five-part division of hell, but on different grounds and with mainly differing result.
Having learned that the homosexuals were punished by continual movement, reflective of their agitated lives, the reader now finds the third set of the violent against God sitting in place (and thereby undergoing precisely the punishment that the violent against nature dreaded). Usurers, we may understand, have caused money to race from hand to hand, but were themselves stationary, unmoved movers hunched over their desks in the pursuit of gain. We are in the third and final zone of the third ring of the seventh Circle. Like the first, it is located at a margin of that Circle (see Inf. XIV.12).
The usurers, rendered unrecognizable by the burning (and by the degrading nature of their sin, which is a sin against God's 'grandchild,' industry, yet is also a sin against His child, nature, because it makes money 'copulate') have their only identity in the coats-of-arms that they have hanging from their necks, fastened loose enough so that they themselves can see them. Their identities are made known to an observer by these devices, but they would rather seem to be gazing on their 'real' selves, the money that used to fill their purses, than on their escutcheons.
This device indicates the Gianfigliazzi family of Florence, Black Guelphs. Exactly which member of the family is not known, but perhaps Dante was happy to leave the door open to the widest possible speculation.
The arms of the Obriachi family, Florentine Ghibellines. Once again commentators have proposed various individuals, but without a victorious candidate emerging.
The 'star' among the usurers, the only one with a speaking part, is, most commentators believe, Reginaldo degli Scrovegni, the only non-Florentine in the little group of identified sinners. He was from Padua and was a usurer on a major scale. A penitential desire to make up for paternal usurious practice reputedly moved his son, Arrigo, to endow the construction of the Scrovegni Chapel, its walls devoted to Giotto's frescoes, one of the most beautiful interior spaces in the Western world.
Reginaldo's discourtesy to Dante is matched by his envious report that his fellow Paduan (and fellow usurer, still alive as late as 1307), Vitaliano del Dente (there is some disagreement as to his exact identity among the commentators) will join him here one of these days.
Mocking his Florentine companions in usury, Reginaldo reports that they, too, are awaiting a townsman, the 'king of the usurers' of Dante's day (and alive until 1310), Giovanni Buiamonte, a Ghibelline.
Reginaldo's animalistic, sub-verbal facial gesture in response to the reported conversations of his companions conveys some of the self-enclosed anti-social nature of these sinners. They really did not care for anything but money. Dante, having been warned by Virgil to return quickly (and the whole scene has a rushed urgency about it), heads back toward Virgil – and Geryon.
This little narrative (vv. 43-78) of Dante's first (and last) 'solo' adventure in the Inferno is carried out with a striking mixture of brief understatement and the only vivid colors we find in the cantica, as Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991) points out in her commentary to v. 63. The quick spareness of the narration allows the poet to give us five personages in this brief space. And for all the brightness of the color on the devices that we see, the net effect is of an enervated attachment, not so much as to wealth as to the lonely pursuit of infinite gathering. They are thirteenth-century precursors of George Eliot's Silas Marner.
The 'stairs' to which Virgil refers are monstrous creatures, as he looks ahead to their means of conveyance over the great gaps in walkable terrain that they will face at Cocytus (Inf. XXXI.142-143, Antaeus will be their 'stairs' then) and at the center of the Earth (Inf. XXXIV.73-75, where Satan's legs will be the ladder Virgil climbs to begin to draw Dante up from hell).
Virgil's commands to Geryon, coupled with the monster's instantaneous disappearance once his tour of duty is ended, make the reader realize that Virgil has used extraordinarily persuasive arguments to tame this beast. His having sent Dante away also reminds us of the time he left his charge alone but in sight of his temporary yet crushing defeat at the hands of the demons at the walls of Dis. This time he first gets his pupil out of viewing range and then, we do not know how, manages to control a most difficult demon and turn him into the first helicopter. If Dante is the main learner in Inferno, Virgil learns a few things himself.
The extraordinary journey put fear into our hero, which he now may compare to that felt by classical precursors who failed on similar flights. As Brownlee points out, Phaeton (his story is found in Ovid, Metam. II.47-324) dropped the reins of his heavenly chariot as a result of his terror upon looking at the constellation Scorpio, while Dante mounts on the scorpion-tailed Geryon in order to accomplish his flight. See Kevin Brownlee, ”Phaeton's Fall and Dante's Ascent,“ Dante Studies 102 (1984), p. 136.
The 'scorching' of the sky, the path of Phaeton's fall, is the Milky Way. For Dante's dissimilarity to Phaeton see the note to Inferno XXVI.19-24.
Icarus (Ovid, Metam. VIII.183-235), on a second extraordinary flight that failed, did not obey the instructions of his father, Daedalus, trying instead to turn a voyage home into a trip through the galaxy. If the protagonist then thought of these two precursors, he must have thought that he, too, might die for his temerity; the poet, however, making the analogies now, sees the comic resolution of a voyage that might have turned tragic except for the fact that this voyager had God on his side.
This, perhaps the single most melodramatic and implausible narrative passage in the Comedy, is accomplished with considerable art. Dante, his face at first pushed up against the body of the beast, sees nothing. He feels the wind on his face, hears the torrent below, finally gets his eyes into play and sees the flames of lower hell, hears the cries of the damned, and finally, now that he is able to look, realizes the pattern of his descending flight from the 'approach' of the circling and rising hellscape.
The simile introduces falconry to the poem; references to this sport of hunting with birds will reappear several times (e.g., Inf. XXI.130-132, Purg. XIV.148-151, Purg. XIX.61-66, Par. XVIII.45, Par. XIX.34-36). The similetic falcon, like Geryon an unwilling worker, has come down before finishing his mission (to catch a bird or be summoned home by the falconer's lure); to compound his bad birdmanship, he does not even land on his master's arm, but far afield. Geryon, on the other hand, while equally rebellious, does complete his flight as his master (Virgil) had ordered. The simile, now that the fearsome flight is over, has a way of making Geryon less terrifying than he was, comparing him to a small bird of prey. At this midpoint of the Comedy we have a provisional comic ending, with Dante safe and sound exactly halfway there. (For Dante's distinctions between tragedy and comedy see the note to Inf. XX.112-114.) The last two verses of the canto, however, give Geryon a last moment of terrifying will and power.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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“Ecco la fiera con la coda aguzza,
che passa i monti e rompe i muri e l'armi!
Ecco colei che tutto 'l mondo appuzza!”
Sì cominciò lo mio duca a parlarmi;
e accennolle che venisse a proda,
vicino al fin d'i passeggiati marmi.
E quella sozza imagine di froda
sen venne, e arrivò la testa e 'l busto,
ma 'n su la riva non trasse la coda.
La faccia sua era faccia d'uom giusto,
tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle,
e d'un serpente tutto l'altro fusto;
due branche avea pilose insin l'ascelle;
lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste
dipinti avea di nodi e di rotelle.
Con più color, sommesse e sovraposte
non fer mai drappi Tartari né Turchi,
né fuor tai tele per Aragne imposte.
Come talvolta stanno a riva i burchi,
che parte sono in acqua e parte in terra,
e come là tra li Tedeschi lurchi
lo bivero s'assetta a far sua guerra,
così la fiera pessima si stava
su l'orlo ch'è di pietra e 'l sabbion serra.
Nel vano tutta sua coda guizzava,
torcendo in sù la venenosa forca
ch'a guisa di scorpion la punta armava.
Lo duca disse: “Or convien che si torca
la nostra via un poco insino a quella
bestia malvagia che colà si corca.”
Però scendemmo a la destra mammella,
e diece passi femmo in su lo stremo,
per ben cessar la rena e la fiammella.
E quando noi a lei venuti semo,
poco più oltre veggio in su la rena
gente seder propinqua al loco scemo.
Quivi 'l maestro “Acciò che tutta piena
esperienza d'esto giron porti,”
mi disse, “va, e vedi la lor mena.
Li tuoi ragionamenti sian là corti;
mentre che torni, parlerò con questa,
che ne conceda i suoi omeri forti.”
Così ancor su per la strema testa
di quel settimo cerchio tutto solo
andai, dove sedea la gente mesta.
Per li occhi fora scoppiava lor duolo;
di qua, di là soccorrien con le mani
quando a' vapori, e quando al caldo suolo:
non altrimenti fan di state i cani
or col ceffo or col piè, quando son morsi
o da pulci o da mosche o da tafani.
Poi che nel viso a certi li occhi porsi,
ne' quali 'l doloroso foco casca,
non ne conobbi alcun; ma io m'accorsi
che dal collo a ciascun pendea una tasca
ch'avea certo colore e certo segno,
e quindi par che 'l loro occhio si pasca.
E com' io riguardando tra lor vegno,
in una borsa gialla vidi azzurro
che d'un leone avea faccia e contegno.
Poi, procedendo di mio sguardo il curro,
vidine un'altra come sangue rossa,
mostrando un'oca bianca più che burro.
E un che d'una scrofa azzurra e grossa
segnato avea lo suo sacchetto bianco,
mi disse: “Che fai tu in questa fossa?
Or te ne va; e perché se' vivo anco,
sappi che 'l mio vicin Vitalïano
sederà qui dal mio sinistro fianco.
Con questi Fiorentin son padoano:
spesse fïate mi 'ntronan li orecchi
gridando: 'Vegna 'l cavalier sovrano,
che recherà la tasca con tre becchi!'”
Qui distorse la bocca e di fuor trasse
la lingua, come bue che 'l naso lecchi.
E io, temendo no'l più star crucciasse
lui che di poco star m'avea 'mmonito,
torna'mi in dietro da l'anime lasse.
Trova' il duca mio ch'era salito
già su la groppa del fiero animale,
e disse a me: “Or sie forte e ardito.
Omai si scende per sì fatte scale;
monta dinanzi, ch'i' voglio esser mezzo,
sì che la coda non possa far male.”
Qual è colui che sì presso ha 'l riprezzo
de la quartana, c'ha già l'unghie smorte,
e triema tutto pur guardando 'l rezzo,
tal divenn' io a le parole porte;
ma vergogna mi fé le sue minacce,
che innanzi a buon segnor fa servo forte.
I' m'assettai in su quelle spallacce;
sì volli dir, ma la voce non venne
com' io credetti: “Fa che tu m'abbracce.”
Ma esso, ch'altra volta mi sovvenne
ad altro forse, tosto ch'i' montai
con le braccia m'avvinse e mi sostenne;
e disse: “Gerïon, moviti omai:
le rote larghe, e lo scender sia poco;
pensa la nova soma che tu hai.”
Come la navicella esce di loco
in dietro in dietro, sì quindi si tolse;
e poi ch'al tutto si sentì a gioco,
là 'v' era 'l petto, la coda rivolse,
e quella tesa, come anguilla, mosse,
e con le branche l'aere a sé raccolse.
Maggior paura non credo che fosse
quando Fetonte abbandonò li freni,
per che 'l ciel, come pare ancor, si cosse;
né quando Icaro misero le reni
sentì spennar per la scaldata cera,
gridando il padre a lui “Mala via tieni!”
che fu la mia, quando vidi ch'i' era
ne l'aere d'ogne parte, e vidi spenta
ogne veduta fuor che de la fera.
Ella sen va notando lenta lenta;
rota e discende, ma non me n'accorgo
se non che al viso e di sotto mi venta.
Io sentia già da la man destra il gorgo
far sotto noi un orribile scroscio,
per che con li occhi 'n giù la testa sporgo.
Allor fu' io più timido a lo stoscio,
però ch'i' vidi fuochi e senti' pianti;
ond' io tremando tutto mi raccoscio.
E vidi poi, ché nol vedea davanti,
lo scendere e 'l girar per li gran mali
che s'appressavan da diversi canti.
Come 'l falcon ch'è stato assai su l'ali,
che sanza veder logoro o uccello
fa dire al falconiere “Omè, tu cali!”
discende lasso onde si move isnello,
per cento rote, e da lunge si pone
dal suo maestro, disdegnoso e fello;
così ne puose al fondo Gerïone
al piè al piè de la stagliata rocca,
e, discarcate le nostre persone,
si dileguò come da corda cocca.
"Behold the monster with the pointed tail,
Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,
Behold him who infecteth all the world."
Thus unto me my Guide began to say,
And beckoned him that he should come to shore,
Near to the confine of the trodden marble;
And that uncleanly image of deceit
Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
But on the border did not drag its tail.
The face was as the face of a just man,
Its semblance outwardly was so benign,
And of a serpent all the trunk beside.
Two paws it had, hairy unto the armpits;
The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
Depicted o'er with nooses and with shields.
With colours more, groundwork or broidery
Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.
As sometimes wherries lie upon the shore,
That part are in the water, part on land;
And as among the guzzling Germans there,
The beaver plants himself to wage his war;
So that vile monster lay upon the border,
Which is of stone, and shutteth in the sand.
His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
Contorting upwards the envenomed fork,
That in the guise of scorpion armed its point.
The Guide said: "Now perforce must turn aside
Our way a little, even to that beast
Malevolent, that yonder coucheth him."
We therefore on the right side descended,
And made ten steps upon the outer verge,
Completely to avoid the sand and flame;
And after we are come to him, I see
A little farther off upon the sand
A people sitting near the hollow place.
Then said to me the Master: "So that full
Experience of this round thou bear away,
Now go and see what their condition is.
There let thy conversation be concise;
Till thou returnest I will speak with him,
That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders."
Thus farther still upon the outermost
Head of that seventh circle all alone
I went, where sat the melancholy folk.
Out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe;
This way, that way, they helped them with their hands
Now from the flames and now from the hot soil.
Not otherwise in summer do the dogs,
Now with the foot, now with the muzzle, when
By fleas, or flies, or gadflies, they are bitten.
When I had turned mine eyes upon the faces
Of some, on whom the dolorous fire is falling,
Not one of them I knew; but I perceived
That from the neck of each there hung a pouch,
Which certain colour had, and certain blazon;
And thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding.
And as I gazing round me come among them,
Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw
That had the face and posture of a lion.
Proceeding then the current of my sight,
Another of them saw I, red as blood,
Display a goose more white than butter is.
And one, who with an azure sow and gravid
Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,
Said unto me: "What dost thou in this moat?
Now get thee gone; and since thou'rt still alive,
Know that a neighbour of mine, Vitaliano,
Will have his seat here on my left-hand side.
A Paduan am I with these Florentines;
Full many a time they thunder in mine ears,
Exclaiming, 'Come the sovereign cavalier,
He who shall bring the satchel with three goats;'"
Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.
And fearing lest my longer stay might vex
Him who had warned me not to tarry long,
Backward I turned me from those weary souls.
I found my Guide, who had already mounted
Upon the back of that wild animal,
And said to me: "Now be both strong and bold.
Now we descend by stairways such as these;
Mount thou in front, for I will be midway,
So that the tail may have no power to harm thee."
Such as he is who has so near the ague
Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
And trembles all, but looking at the shade;
Even such became I at those proffered words;
But shame in me his menaces produced,
Which maketh servant strong before good master.
I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;
I wished to say, and yet the voice came not
As I believed, "Take heed that thou embrace me."
But he, who other times had rescued me
In other peril, soon as I had mounted,
Within his arms encircled and sustained me,
And said: "Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;
The circles large, and the descent be little;
Think of the novel burden which thou hast."
Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,
Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;
And when he wholly felt himself afloat,
There where his breast had been he turned his tail,
And that extended like an eel he moved,
And with his paws drew to himself the air.
A greater fear I do not think there was
What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;
Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks
Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,
His father crying, "An ill way thou takest!"
Than was my own, when I perceived myself
On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished
The sight of everything but of the monster.
Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly;
Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only
By wind upon my face and from below.
I heard already on the right the whirlpool
Making a horrible crashing under us;
Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.
Then was I still more fearful of the abyss;
Because I fires beheld, and heard laments,
Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.
I saw then, for before I had not seen it,
The turning and descending, by great horrors
That were approaching upon divers sides.
As falcon who has long been on the wing,
Who, without seeing either lure or bird,
Maketh the falconer say, "Ah me, thou stoopest,"
Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly,
Thorough a hundred circles, and alights
Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;
Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom,
Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock,
And being disencumbered of our persons,
He sped away as arrow from the string.
Virgil's description of Geryon (not identified by name until Inf. XVII.97) reflects his triple nature in classical literature. In the tradition known to Dante, he enticed strangers to be his guests, only to kill and eat them. He was eventually killed by Hercules. In the Aeneid he is twice identified with the number three: he is described as forma tricorporis umbrae (the form of the three-bodied shade – Aen. VI.289 ) and again as tergemini... Geryonae (triple Geryon – Aen. VIII.202). Ovid (Heroides IX.92) says that 'in tribus unus erat' (he was one in three). In classical literature he is sometimes referred to as the king of three Iberian islands – which may account for his tripleness. For review of the many classical texts that contain reference to Geryon see Scartazzini, comm. to XVII.1. And see the studies of Proto (“Gerione,” Giornale dantesco 8 [1900], pp. 65-105.), Pasquini (Il canto di Gerione,“ Atti e memorie dell'Arcadia 4 [1967], pp. 346-68), and Armour (”I Monstra e Mirabilia del mondo ai tempi di Dante,“ in I ”monstra“ nell'”Inferno“ dantesco: tradizione e simbologie [Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1997], pp. 151-53.) 'Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description – followed by Solinus – of a strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30) which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's' (Grandgent, Note to Inf. XVII). All these threes find an answer in the three destructive action verbs describing him in this first tercet. This embodiment of fraud (he is the 'foul effigy of fraud' at Inf. XVII.7) is thus presented as the counterfeit of Christ, three-in-one rather than one-in-three. The very words that introduce this numerically central canto of Inferno, 'Ecco la fiera' (Behold the beast), would seem to echo the familiar tag for Christ, Ecce homo (Behold the man [John 19:5]), as a student at Dartmouth College (Sarah LaBudde '84) suggested some years ago.
The positive words that accompany this description, invoking justice and benignity, remind us of the absence of such qualities in hell. Now they appear, but only as the masks for Fraud. The realm of Violence here will show us its last set of sinners, the usurers, men identified by bestial devices hanging from their throats; this first tip of the iceberg of Fraud is in the form of a huge beast, his bestial and reptilian parts at first mainly hidden in the void, with the fair face of a man. The last book in the Christian scripture tells of similar creatures, the locusts of destruction that will be loosed upon the world who have faces like the faces of men and tails like the tails of scorpions, with stingers in them (Apoc. 9:7; 9:10), as was perhaps first noted in Berthier's commentary (to vv. 10-13).
The 'tattooed' body of Geryon looms in eerie beauty until the resemblance to the similarly 'painted' leopard of Inferno I.42 (referred to again at Inf. XVI.108) suggests that we can understand both these creatures as embodiments of the sins of fraud (see Durling and Martinez on these verses (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). And the concluding reference to Arachne (Ovid, Metam. VI.5-145), that world-class weaver turned into a spider, whose metamorphosed beguiling art has a purpose: the entrapment of flies. Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), ad loc., calls attention to Rossetti's remarks (comm. to Inf. XVII.7-12), in which he interprets the shape of the serpent as a sort of history of the process of fraud: 'Fraud begins its work by inspiring trust (the face of a just man); then weaves its deceit (the serpentine trunk); and at last strikes its final blow (the pointed tail).'
As for the word sommesse at verse 17 (here translated 'warp and woof'), Toynbee, offering a different understanding in his note 'Dante's References to Tartar Cloths', Dante Studies and Researches (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 [1902], pp. 115-20), suggests that it describes 'not woven designs, but embroidered or appliqué patterns' (p. 117).
The two similes identify the posture of Geryon in terms of homely images, a boat drawn up to shore, a beaver fishing with its tail. (Beavers were reputed to use their tails as bait, eventually grasping the fish thereby attracted with their paws.) Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) pointed out that hyperactive Teutonic appetite was a matter of note as far back as in the histories of Tacitus.
Their descent to the right causes some commentators to think that the travelers have changed direction, as they did in the Circle of heresy; what they have done is merely what they have done before, all across the ring of the violent against nature; that is, they are moving downward toward the center. They have not changed their essential leftward course on this occasion, either.
For only the second time in the poem Virgil leaves Dante alone (see Inf. VIII.106-111). And now, for the first time, he is allowed to visit a group of sinners unguided. Virgil's decision to let him do so probably tells us that he believes the protagonist already proof against the danger or attraction of usury. Further, on both occasions we have come to the end of a large area of hell, first Incontinence and now Violence. For the idea that the infernal voyage is divided into five segments, in each of which the protagonist moves through cycles of unworthy fear and improper sympathy until he reaches firmness against an entire category of sin, see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's ”Commedia“ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 301-7, with addendum in Hollander, ”The Tragedy of Divination in Inferno XX,“ in Studies in Dante (Ravenna: Longo, 1980), pp. 168-69. For an unusual approach to the problem of the ordering of the sins of hell, see Ferrante, ”Malebolge (Inf. XVIII-XXX) as the Key to the Structure of Dante's Inferno,“ Romance Philology 20 (1967), pp. 456-66). She also happens to argue for a five-part division of hell, but on different grounds and with mainly differing result.
Having learned that the homosexuals were punished by continual movement, reflective of their agitated lives, the reader now finds the third set of the violent against God sitting in place (and thereby undergoing precisely the punishment that the violent against nature dreaded). Usurers, we may understand, have caused money to race from hand to hand, but were themselves stationary, unmoved movers hunched over their desks in the pursuit of gain. We are in the third and final zone of the third ring of the seventh Circle. Like the first, it is located at a margin of that Circle (see Inf. XIV.12).
The usurers, rendered unrecognizable by the burning (and by the degrading nature of their sin, which is a sin against God's 'grandchild,' industry, yet is also a sin against His child, nature, because it makes money 'copulate') have their only identity in the coats-of-arms that they have hanging from their necks, fastened loose enough so that they themselves can see them. Their identities are made known to an observer by these devices, but they would rather seem to be gazing on their 'real' selves, the money that used to fill their purses, than on their escutcheons.
This device indicates the Gianfigliazzi family of Florence, Black Guelphs. Exactly which member of the family is not known, but perhaps Dante was happy to leave the door open to the widest possible speculation.
The arms of the Obriachi family, Florentine Ghibellines. Once again commentators have proposed various individuals, but without a victorious candidate emerging.
The 'star' among the usurers, the only one with a speaking part, is, most commentators believe, Reginaldo degli Scrovegni, the only non-Florentine in the little group of identified sinners. He was from Padua and was a usurer on a major scale. A penitential desire to make up for paternal usurious practice reputedly moved his son, Arrigo, to endow the construction of the Scrovegni Chapel, its walls devoted to Giotto's frescoes, one of the most beautiful interior spaces in the Western world.
Reginaldo's discourtesy to Dante is matched by his envious report that his fellow Paduan (and fellow usurer, still alive as late as 1307), Vitaliano del Dente (there is some disagreement as to his exact identity among the commentators) will join him here one of these days.
Mocking his Florentine companions in usury, Reginaldo reports that they, too, are awaiting a townsman, the 'king of the usurers' of Dante's day (and alive until 1310), Giovanni Buiamonte, a Ghibelline.
Reginaldo's animalistic, sub-verbal facial gesture in response to the reported conversations of his companions conveys some of the self-enclosed anti-social nature of these sinners. They really did not care for anything but money. Dante, having been warned by Virgil to return quickly (and the whole scene has a rushed urgency about it), heads back toward Virgil – and Geryon.
This little narrative (vv. 43-78) of Dante's first (and last) 'solo' adventure in the Inferno is carried out with a striking mixture of brief understatement and the only vivid colors we find in the cantica, as Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991) points out in her commentary to v. 63. The quick spareness of the narration allows the poet to give us five personages in this brief space. And for all the brightness of the color on the devices that we see, the net effect is of an enervated attachment, not so much as to wealth as to the lonely pursuit of infinite gathering. They are thirteenth-century precursors of George Eliot's Silas Marner.
The 'stairs' to which Virgil refers are monstrous creatures, as he looks ahead to their means of conveyance over the great gaps in walkable terrain that they will face at Cocytus (Inf. XXXI.142-143, Antaeus will be their 'stairs' then) and at the center of the Earth (Inf. XXXIV.73-75, where Satan's legs will be the ladder Virgil climbs to begin to draw Dante up from hell).
Virgil's commands to Geryon, coupled with the monster's instantaneous disappearance once his tour of duty is ended, make the reader realize that Virgil has used extraordinarily persuasive arguments to tame this beast. His having sent Dante away also reminds us of the time he left his charge alone but in sight of his temporary yet crushing defeat at the hands of the demons at the walls of Dis. This time he first gets his pupil out of viewing range and then, we do not know how, manages to control a most difficult demon and turn him into the first helicopter. If Dante is the main learner in Inferno, Virgil learns a few things himself.
The extraordinary journey put fear into our hero, which he now may compare to that felt by classical precursors who failed on similar flights. As Brownlee points out, Phaeton (his story is found in Ovid, Metam. II.47-324) dropped the reins of his heavenly chariot as a result of his terror upon looking at the constellation Scorpio, while Dante mounts on the scorpion-tailed Geryon in order to accomplish his flight. See Kevin Brownlee, ”Phaeton's Fall and Dante's Ascent,“ Dante Studies 102 (1984), p. 136.
The 'scorching' of the sky, the path of Phaeton's fall, is the Milky Way. For Dante's dissimilarity to Phaeton see the note to Inferno XXVI.19-24.
Icarus (Ovid, Metam. VIII.183-235), on a second extraordinary flight that failed, did not obey the instructions of his father, Daedalus, trying instead to turn a voyage home into a trip through the galaxy. If the protagonist then thought of these two precursors, he must have thought that he, too, might die for his temerity; the poet, however, making the analogies now, sees the comic resolution of a voyage that might have turned tragic except for the fact that this voyager had God on his side.
This, perhaps the single most melodramatic and implausible narrative passage in the Comedy, is accomplished with considerable art. Dante, his face at first pushed up against the body of the beast, sees nothing. He feels the wind on his face, hears the torrent below, finally gets his eyes into play and sees the flames of lower hell, hears the cries of the damned, and finally, now that he is able to look, realizes the pattern of his descending flight from the 'approach' of the circling and rising hellscape.
The simile introduces falconry to the poem; references to this sport of hunting with birds will reappear several times (e.g., Inf. XXI.130-132, Purg. XIV.148-151, Purg. XIX.61-66, Par. XVIII.45, Par. XIX.34-36). The similetic falcon, like Geryon an unwilling worker, has come down before finishing his mission (to catch a bird or be summoned home by the falconer's lure); to compound his bad birdmanship, he does not even land on his master's arm, but far afield. Geryon, on the other hand, while equally rebellious, does complete his flight as his master (Virgil) had ordered. The simile, now that the fearsome flight is over, has a way of making Geryon less terrifying than he was, comparing him to a small bird of prey. At this midpoint of the Comedy we have a provisional comic ending, with Dante safe and sound exactly halfway there. (For Dante's distinctions between tragedy and comedy see the note to Inf. XX.112-114.) The last two verses of the canto, however, give Geryon a last moment of terrifying will and power.
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