I hope. The old courtly romance may well be thought of as happening in the dim ancient days. The apology, of course, comes after the fact: one does the possible then argues for justification, and there probably is none.

134. that book, and he who wrote it, was a pander: “Galeotto,” the Italian word for “pander,” is also the Italian rendering of the name of Gallehault, who in the French Romance Dante refers to here, urged Lancelot and Guinevere on to love.

Canto VI

CIRCLE THREE

The Gluttons

Dante recovers from his swoon and finds himself in the THIRD CIRCLE. A great storm of putrefaction falls incessantly, a mixture of stinking snow and freezing rain, which forms into a vile slush underfoot. Everything about this Circle suggests a gigantic garbage dump. The souls of the damned lie in the icy paste, swollen and obscene, and CERBERUS, the ravenous three-headed dog of Hell, stands guard over them, ripping and tearing them with his claws and teeth.

These are the GLUTTONS. In life they made no higher use of the gifts of God than to wallow in food and drink, producers of nothing but garbage and offal. Here they lie through all eternity, themselves like garbage, half-buried in fetid slush, while Cerberus slavers over them as they in life slavered over their food.

As the Poets pass, one of the speakers sits up and addresses Dante. He is CIACCO, THE HOG, a citizen of Dante’s own Florence. He recognizes Dante and asks eagerly for news of what is happening there. With the foreknowledge of the damned, Ciacco then utters the first of the political prophecies that are to become a recurring theme of the Inferno. The Poets then move on toward the next Circle, at the edge of which they encounter the monster Plutus.

My senses had reeled from me out of pity
for the sorrow of those kinsmen and lost lovers.
Now they return, and waking gradually,

I see new torments and new souls in pain
about me everywhere. Wherever I turn
away from grief I turn to grief again.

I am in the Third Circle of the torments.
Here to all time with neither pause nor change
the frozen rain of Hell descends in torrents.

Huge hailstones, dirty water, and black snow
pour from the dismal air to putrefy
the putrid slush that waits for them below.

Here monstrous Cerberus, the ravening beast,
howls through his triple throats like a mad dog
over the spirits sunk in that foul paste. (15)

His eyes are red, his beard is greased with phlegm,
his belly is swollen, and his hands are claws
to rip the wretches and flay and mangle them.

And they, too, howl like dogs in the freezing storm,
turning and turning from it as if they thought
one naked side could keep the other warm.

When Cerberus discovered us in that swill
his dragon-jaws yawed wide, his lips drew back
in a grin of fangs. No limb of him was stilL

My Guide bent down and seized in either fist
a clod of the stinking dirt that festered there
and flung them down the gullet of the beast.

As a hungry cur will set the echoes raving
and then fall still when he is thrown a bone,
all of his clamor being in his craving, (30)

so the three ugly heads of Cerberus,
whose yowling at those wretches deafened them,
choked on their putrid sops and stopped their fuss.

We made our way across the sodden mess
of souls the rain beat down, and when our steps
fell on a body, they sank through emptiness.

All those illusions of being seemed to lie
drowned in the slush; until one wraith among them
sat up abruptly and called as I passed by:

“O you who are led this journey through the shade
of Hell’s abyss, do you recall this face?
You had been made before I was unmade.”

And I: “Perhaps the pain you suffer here
distorts your image from my recollection.
I do not know you as you now appear.” (45)

And he to me: “Your own city, so rife
with hatred that the bitter cup flows over
was mine too in that other, clearer life.

Your citizens nicknamed me Ciacco, The Hog:
gluttony was my offense, and for it
I lie here rotting like a swollen log.

Nor am I lost in this alone; all these
you see about you in this painful death
have wallowed in the same indecencies.”

I answered him: “Ciacco, your agony
weighs on my heart and calls my soul to tears;
but tell me, if you can, what is to be

for the citizens of that divided state,
and whether there are honest men among them,
and for what reasons we are torn by hate.“ (60)

And he then: “After many words given and taken
it shall come to blood; White shall rise over Black
and rout the dark lord’s force, battered and shaken.

Then it shall come to pass within three suns
that the fallen shall arise, and by the power
of one now gripped by many hesitations

Black shall ride on White for many years,
loading it down with burdens and oppressions
and humbling of proud names and helpless tears.

Two are honest, but none will heed them. There,
pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues
men know and heed, a Babel of despair.”

Here he broke off his mournful prophecy.
And I to him: “Still let me urge you on
to speak a little further and instruct me: (75)

Farinata and Tegghiaio, men of good blood,
Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, Mosca,
and the others who set their hearts on doing good—

where are they now whose high deeds might be-gem
the crown of kings? I long to know their fate.
Does Heaven soothe or Hell envenom them?”

And he: “They lie below in a blacker lair.
A heavier guilt draws them to greater pain.
If you descend so far you may see them there.

But when you move again among the living,
oh speak my name to the memory of men!
Having answered all, I say no more.” And giving

his head a shake, he looked up at my face
cross-eyed, then bowed his head and fell away
among the other blind souls of that place. (90)

And my Guide to me: “He will not wake again
until the angel trumpet sounds the day
on which the host shall come to judge all men.

Then shall each soul before the seat of Mercy
return to its sad grave and flesh and form
to hear the edict of Eternity.”

So we picked our slow way among the shades
and the filthy rain, speaking of life to come.
“Master,” I said, “when the great clarion fades

into the voice of thundering Omniscience,
what of these agonies? Will they be the same,
or more, or less, after the final sentence?”

And he to me: “Look to your science again
where it is written: the more a thing is perfect
the more it feels of pleasure and of pain. (105)

As for these souls, though they can never soar
to true perfection, still in the new time
they will be nearer it than they were before.”

And so we walked the rim of the great ledge
speaking of pain and joy, and of much more
that I will not repeat, and reached the edge

where the descent begins. There, suddenly,
we came on Plutus, the great enemy.

Notes

13. Cerberus: In classical mythology Cerberm appears as a three-headed dog. His master was Pluto, king of the Underworld.