{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/dante/in30.htm","path":"chr/dante/in30.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/dante/in30.htm","text":"Sacred Texts\u00a0\n Christianity Index\u00a0\n Divine Comedy Index\u00a0\n Previous: Inferno Canto 29\u00a0\n Next: Inferno Canto 31\u00a0\n \n \n \n Canto XXX\n \n \n Argument\n \n \n In the same gulf, other kinds of impostors, as those who have\n counterfeited the persons of others, or debased the current coin, or deceived\n by speech under false pretences, are described as suffering various diseases.\n Sinon of Troy and Adamo of Brescia mutually reproach each other with their\n several impostures.\n \n \n What time resentment burn'd in Juno's breast\n From Semele against the Theban blood,\n As more than once in dire mischance was rued;\n Such fatal frenzy seized on Athamas,\n That he his spouse beholding with a babe\n Laden on either arm, \"Spread out,\" he cried,\n \"The meshes, that I take the lioness\n And the young lions at the pass:\" then forth\n Stretch'd he his merciless talons, grasping one,\n One helpless innocent, Learchus named,\n Whom swinging down he dash'd upon a rock;\n And with her other burden, self - destroy'd,\n The hapless mother plunged. And when the pride\n Of all presuming Troy fell from its height,\n By fortune overwhelm'd, and the old king\n With his realm perish'd; then did Hecuba,\n A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw\n Polyxena first slaughter'd, and her son,\n Her Polydorus, on the wild sea - beach\n Next met the mourner's view, then reft of sense\n Did she run barking even as a dog;\n Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul.\n But ne'er the Furies, or of Thebes, or Troy,\n With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads\n Infixing in the limbs of man or beast,\n As now two pale and naked ghosts I saw,\n That gnarling wildly scamper'd, like the swine\n Excluded from his stye. One reach'd Capocchio,\n And in the neck - joint sticking deep his fangs,\n Dragg'd him, that, o'er the solid pavement rubb'd\n His belly stretch'd out prone. The other shape,\n He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake:\n \"That sprite of air is Schicchi;[1] in like mood\n Of random mischief vents he still his spite.\"\n \n \n \n \n [1: Gianni Schicchi, of the family of Cavalcanti, possessed such a\n faculty of molding his features to the resemblance of others, that he was\n employed by Simon Donati to personate Buoso Donati, then recently deceased,\n and to make a will, leaving Simon his heir; for which service he was\n remunerated with a mare of extraordinary value, here called \"the lady of the\n herd.\"]\n \n \n To whom I answering: \"Oh! as thou dost hope\n The other may not flesh its jaws on thee,\n Be patient to inform us, who it is,\n Ere it speed hence.\" - \"That is the ancient soul\n Of wretched Myrrha,\" he replied, \"who burn'd\n With most unholy flame for her own sire,\n And a false shape assuming, so perform'd\n The deed of sin; e'en as the other there,\n That onward passes, dared to counterfeit\n Donati's features, to feign'd testament\n The seal affixing, that himself might gain,\n For his own share, the lady of the herd.\"\n \n \n \n \n When vanish'd the two furious shades, on whom\n Mine eye was held, I turn'd it back to view\n The other cursed spirits. One I saw\n In fashion like a lute, had but the groin\n Been sever'd where it meets the forked part.\n Swoln dropsy, disproportioning the limbs\n With ill - converted moisture, that the paunch\n Suits not the visage, open'd wide his lips,\n Gasping as in the hectic man for drought,\n One toward the chin, the other upward curl'd.\n \n \n \"O ye! who in this world of misery,\n Wherefore I know not, are exempt from pain,\"\n Thus he began, \"attentively regard\n Adamo's woe.[2] When living, full supply\n Ne'er lack'd me of what most I coveted;\n One drop of water now, alas! I crave.\n The rills, that glitter down the grassy slopes\n \n \n [2: Adamo of Brescia, at the instigation of Guido, Alessandro, and\n their brother Aghiunlfo, lords of Romena, counterfeited the coin of Florence;\n for which crime he was burnt.]\n \n \n Of Casentino,[3] making fresh and soft\n The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream,\n Stand ever in my view; and not in vain;\n For more the pictured semblance dries me up,\n Much more than the disease, which makes the flesh\n Desert these shrivel'd cheeks. So from the place,\n Where I transgress'd, stern justice urging me,\n Takes means to quicken more my laboring sighs.\n There is Romena, where I falsified\n The metal with the Baptist's form imprest,\n For which on earth I left my body burnt.\n But if I here might see the sorrowing soul\n Of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,\n For Branda's limpid spring[4] I would not change\n The welcome sight. One is e'en now within,\n If truly the mad spirits tell, that round\n Are wandering. But wherein besteads me that?\n My limbs are fetter'd. Were I but so light,\n That I each hundred years might move one inch,\n I had set forth already on this path,\n Seeking him out amidst the shapeless crew,\n Although eleven miles it wind, not less\n Than half of one across. They brought me down\n Among this tribe; induced by them, I stamp'd\n The florens with three carats of alloy.[5]\n \n \n [3: Romena, a part of Casentino.]\n \n \n [4: A fountain at Siena.]\n \n \n [5: The floren was a coin that ought to have had twenty - four carats\n of pure gold. Villani relates that it was first used at Florence in 1252, an\n era of great prosperity for the republic; before which time their most\n valuable coinage was of silver.]\n \n \n \"Who are that abject pair,\" I next inquired,\n \"That closely bounding thee upon thy right\n Lie smoking, like a hand in winter steep'd\n In the chill stream?\" - \"When to this gulf I dropp'd,\"\n He answer'd, \"here I found them; since that hour\n They have not turn'd, nor ever shall, I ween,\n Till time hath run his course. One is that dame,\n The false accuser[6] of the Hebrew youth;\n Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy.\n Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out,\n In such a cloud upsteam'd.\" When that he heard,\n \n \n [6: Potiphar's wife.]\n \n \n One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly named,\n With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch,\n That like a drum resounded: but forthwith\n Adamo smote him on the face, the blow\n Returning with his arm, that seem'd as hard.\n \n \n \"Though my o'er weighty limbs have ta'en from me\n The power to move,\" said he, \"I have an arm\n At liberty for such employ.\" To whom\n Was answer'd: \"When thou wentest to the fire,\n Thou hadst it not so ready at command;\n Then readier when it coin'd the impostor gold.\"\n \n \n And thus the dropsied: \"Ay, now speak'st thou true:\n But there thou gavest not such true testimony,\n When thou wast question'd of the truth, at Troy.\"\n \n \n \"If I spake false, thou falsely stamp'dst the coin,\"\n Said Sinon; \"I am here for but one fault,\n And thou for more than any imp beside.\"\n \n \n \"Remember,\" he replied, \"O perjured one!\n The horse remember, that did teem with death;\n And all the world be witness to thy guilt.\"\n \n \n \"To thine,\" return'd the Greek, \"witness the thirst\n Whence thy tongue cracks, witness the fluid mound\n Rear'd by thy belly up before thine eyes,\n A mass corrupt.\" To whow the coiner thus:\n \"Thy mouth gapes wide as ever to let pass\n Its evil saying. Me if thirst assails,\n Yet I am stuft with moisture. Thou art parch'd:\n Pains rack thy head: no urging wouldst thou need\n To make thee lap Narcissus' mirror up.\"\n \n \n I was all fix'd to listen, when my guide\n Admonish'd: \"Now beware. A little more,\n And I do quarrel with thee.\" I perceived\n How angrily he spake, and toward him turn'd\n With shame so poignant, as remember'd yet\n Confounds me. As a man that dreams of harm\n Befallen him, dreaming wishes it a dream,\n And that which is, desires as if it were not;\n Such then was I, who, wanting power to speak,\n Wish'd to excuse myself, and all the while\n Excused me, though unweeting that I did.\n \n \n \"More grievous fault than thine has been, less shame,\"\n My master cried, \"might expiate. Therefore cast\n All sorrow from thy soul; and if again\n Chance bring thee, where like conference is held,\n Think I am ever at thy side. To hear\n Such wrangling is a joy for vulgar minds.\"","title":"In30","type":"page"}