{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/dante/in11.htm","path":"chr/dante/in11.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/dante/in11.htm","text":"Sacred Texts\u00a0\n Christianity Index\u00a0\n Divine Comedy Index\u00a0\n Previous: Inferno Canto 10\u00a0\n Next: Inferno Canto 12\u00a0\n \n \n \n Canto XI\n \n \n Argument\n \n \n Dante arrives at the verge of a rocky precipice which encloses the\n seventh circle, where he sees the sepulchre of Anastasius the Heretic; behind\n the lid of which pausing a little, to make himself capable by degrees of\n enduring the fetid smell that steamed upward from the abyss, he is instructed\n by Virgil concerning the manner in which the three following circles are\n disposed, and what description of sinners is punished in each. He then\n inquires the reason why the carnal, the gluttonous, the avaricious and\n prodigal, the wrathful and gloomy, suffer not their punishments within the\n city of Dis. He next asks how the crime of usury is an offence against God;\n and at length the two Poets go toward the place from whence a passage leads\n down to the seventh circle.\n \n \n Upon the utmost verge of a high bank,\n By craggy rocks environ'd round, we came.\n Where woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stow'd:\n And here, to shun the horrible excess\n Of fetid exhalation upward cast\n From the profound abyss, behind the lid\n Of a great monument we stood retired,\n Whereon this scroll I mark'd: \"I have in charge\n Pope Anastasius,[1] whom Photinus drew\n From the right path.\" \"Ere our descent, behoves\n We make delay, that somewhat first the sense,\n To the dire breath accustom'd, afterward\n Regard it not.\" My master thus; to whom\n Answering I spake: \"Some compensation find,\n That the time pass not wholly lost.\" He then:\n \"Lo! how my thoughts e'en to thy wishes tend.\n My son! within these rocks,\" he thus began,\n \"Are three close circles in gradation placed,\n As these which now thou leavest. Each one is full\n Of spirits accurst; but that the sight alone\n Hereafter may suffice thee, listen how\n And for what cause in durance they abide.\n \n \n \n \n [1: By some supposed to have been Anastasius II.; by others, the\n fourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal\n faith, contend that our poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., Emperor of\n the East.]\n \n \n \"Of all malicious act abhorr'd in Heaven,\n The end is injury; and all such end\n Either by force or fraud works other's woe.\n But fraud, because of man's peculiar evil,\n \n \n To God is more displeasing; and beneath,\n The fraudulent are therefore doom'd to endure\n Severer pang. The violent occupy\n All the first circle; and because, to force,\n Three persons are obnoxious, in three rounds,\n Each within other separate, is it framed.\n To God, his neighbor, and himself, by man\n Force may be offer'd; to himself I say,\n And his possessions, as thou soon shalt hear\n At full. Death, violent death, and painful wounds\n Upon his neighbor he inflicts; and wastes,\n By devastation, pillage, and the flames,\n His substance. Slayers, and each one that smites\n In malice, plunderers, and all robbers, hence\n The torment undergo of the first round,\n In different herds. Man can do violence\n To himself and his own blessings: and for this,\n He, in the second round must aye deplore\n With unavailing penitence his crime,\n Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light,\n In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,\n And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.\n To God may force be offer'd, in the heart\n Denying and blaspheming His high power,\n And Nature with her kindly law contemning.\n And thence the inmost round marks with its seal\n Sodom, and Cahors, and all such as speak\n Contemptuously of the Godhead in their hearts.\n \n \n \"Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting,\n May be by man employ'd on one, whose trust\n He wins, or on another, who withholds\n Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way\n Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes.\n Whence in the second circle have their nest,\n Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries,\n Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce\n To lust, or set their honesty at pawn,\n With such vile scum as these. The other way\n Forgets both Nature's general love, and that\n Which thereto added afterward gives birth\n To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle,\n Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis,\n The traitor is eternally consumed.\"\n \n \n I thus: \"Instructor, clearly thy discourse\n Proceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm\n And its inhabitants with skill exact.\n But tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool,\n Whom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives,\n Or who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet,\n Wherefore within the city fire - illumed\n Are not these punish'd, if God's wrath be on them?\n And if it be not, wherefore in such guise\n Are they condemn'd?\" He answer thus return'd:\n \"Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind,\n Not so accustom'd? or what other thoughts\n Possess it? Dwell not in thy memory\n The words, wherein thy ethic page[2] describes\n Three dispositions adverse to Heaven's will,\n Incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness,\n And how incontinence the least offends\n God, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note\n This judgment, and remember who they are,\n Without these walls to vain repentance doom'd,\n Thou shalt discern why they apart are placed\n From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours\n Justice divine on them its vengeance down.\"\n \n \n [2: \"Thy ethic page.\" He refers to Aristotle's Ethics, lib. vii. c.\n 1: \"_____ let it be defined that respecting morals there are three sorts of\n things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness.\"]\n \n \n \"O sun! who healest all imperfect sight,\n Thou so content'st me, when thou solvest my doubt,\n That ignorance not less than knowledge charms.\n Yet somewhat turn thee back,\" I in these words\n Continued,\" where thou said'st, that usury\n Offends celestial Goodness; and this knot\n Perplex'd unravel.\" He thus made reply:\n \"Philosophy, to an attentive ear,\n Clearly points out, not in one part alone,\n How imitative Nature takes her course\n From the celestial mind, and from its art:\n And where her laws[3] the Stagirite unfolds,\n \n \n [3: \"Her laws.\" Aristotle's Physics, lib. ii. c. 2: \"Art imitates\n nature.\"]\n \n \n Not many leaves scann'd o'er, observing well\n Thou shalt discover, that your art on her\n Obsequious follows, as the learner treads\n In his instructor's step; so that your art\n Deserves the name of second in descent\n From God. These two, if thou recall to mind\n Creation's holy book,[4] from the beginning\n Were the right source of life and excellence\n To human - kind. But in another path\n The usurer walks; and Nature in herself\n And in her follower thus he sets at nought,\n Placing elsewhere his hope.[5] But follow now\n My steps on forward journey bent; for now\n The Pisces play with undulating glance\n Along the horizon, and the Wain[6] lies all\n O'er the northwest; and onward there a space\n Is our steep passage down the rocky height.\"\n \n \n [4: \"Creation's holy book.\" Genesis, c. ii. v. 15: \"And the Lord God\n took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep\n it.\" And, Genesis, c. iii. v. 19: \"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat\n bread.\"]\n \n \n [5: \"Placing elsewhere his hope.\" The usurer, trusting in the produce\n of his wealth lent out on usury, despises nature directly, because he does not\n avail himself of her means for maintaining or enriching himself; and\n indirectly, because he does not avail himself of the means which art, the\n follower and imitator of nature, would afford him for the same purposes.]\n \n \n [6: \"The Wain.\" The constellation Bootes, or Charles' Wain.]","title":"In11","type":"page"}