threatening brow
Restrain’d them. When their strife a little ceased,
Of him, who yet was gazing on his wound,
My teacher thus without delay inquired:
“Who was the spirit, from whom by evil hap
Parting, as thou hast told, thou camest to shore?”
“It was the friar Gomita,”[151] he rejoin’d,
“He of Gallura, vessel of all guile,
Who had his master’s enemies in hand,
And used them so that they commend him well.
Money he took, and them at large dismiss’d;
So he reports; and in each other charge
Committed to his keeping play’d the part
Of barterer to the height. With him doth herd
The chief of Logodoro, Michel Zanche.[152]
Sardinia is a theme whereof their tongue
Is never weary. Out! alas! behold
That other, how he grins. More would I say,
But tremble lest he mean to maul me sore.”
Their captain then to Farfarello turning,
Who roll’d his moony eyes in act to strike,
Rebuked him thus: “Off, cursed bird! avaunt!”
“If ye desire to see or hear,” he thus
Quaking with dread resumed, “or Tuscan spirits
Or Lombard, I will cause them to appear.
Meantime let these ill talons bate their fury,
So that no vengeance they may fear from them,
And I, remaining in this self-same place,
Will, for myself but one, make seven appear,
When my shrill whistle shall be heard; for so
Our custom is to call each other up.”
Cagnazzo at that word deriding grinn’d,
Then wagg’d the head and spake: “Hear his device,
Mischievous as he is, to plunge him down.”
Whereto he thus, who fail’d not in rich store
Of nice-wove toils: “Mischief, forsooth, extreme!
Meant only to procure myself more woe.”
No longer Alichino then refrain’d,
But thus, the rest gainsaying, him bespake:
“If thou do cast thee down, I not on foot
Will chase thee, but above the pitch will beat
My plumes. Quit we the vantage ground, and let
The bank be as a shield; that we may see,
If singly thou prevail against us all.”
Now, reader, of new sport expect to hear.
They each one turn’d his eyes to the other shore,
He first, who was the hardest to persuade.
The spirit of Navarre chose well his time,
Planted his feet on land, and at one leap
Escaping, disappointed their resolve.
Them quick resentment stung, but him the most
Who was the cause of failure: in pursuit
He therefore sped, exclaiming, “Thou art caught.”
But little it avail’d; terror outstripp’d
His following flight; the other plunged beneath,
And he with upward pinion raised his breast:
E’en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives
The falcon near, dives instant down, while he
Enraged and spent retires. That mockery
In Calcabrina fury stirr’d, who flew
After him, with desire of strife inflamed;
And, for the barterer had ’scaped, so turn’d
His talons on his comrade. O’er the dyke
In grapple close they join’d; but the other proved
A goshawk able to rend well his foe;
And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat
Was umpire soon between them; but in vain
To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued
Their pennons. Barbariccia, as the rest,
That chance lamenting, four in flight despatch’d
From the other coast, with all their weapons arm’d.
They, to their post on each side speedily
Descending, stretch’d their hooks toward the fiends,
Who flounder’d, inly burning from their scars:
And we departing left them to that broil.
Canto XXIII
Argument.—The enraged Demons pursue Dante, but he is preserved from them by Virgil. On reaching the sixth gulf, he beholds the punishment of the hypocrites; which is, to pace continually round the gulf under the pressure of caps and hoods, that are gilt on the outside, but leaden within. He is addressed by two of these, Catalano and Loderingo, Knights of St. Mary, otherwise called Joyous Friars of Bologna. Caïaphas is seen fixed to a cross on the ground, and lies so stretched along the way, that all tread on him in passing.
In silence and in solitude we went,
One first, the other following his steps,
As minor friars journeying on their road.
The present fray had turn’d my thoughts to muse
Upon old Æsop’s fable,[153] where he
