And where her laws3 the Stagyrite unfolds,
Not many leaves scann’d o’er, observing well
Thou shalt discover, that your art on her
Obsequious follows, as the learner treads
In his instructor’s step, so that your art
Deserves the name of second in descent
From God. These two, if thou recall to mind
Creation’s holy book,4 from the beginning
Were the right source of life and excellence
To human kind. But in another path
The usurer walks; and Nature in herself
And in her follower thus he sets at nought,
Placing elsewhere his hope.5 But follow now
My steps on forward journey bent; for now
The Pisces play with undulating glance
Along the’ horizon, and the Wain6 lies all
O’er the north-west; and onward there a space
Is our steep passage down the rocky height.”
Footnotes
1 By some supposed to have been Anastasius II.; by others, the fourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that our poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., Emperor of the East.
2 “Thy ethic page.” He refers to Aristotle’s Ethics, lib. vii. c. 1: “———let it be defined that respecting morals there are three sorts of things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness.”
3 “Her laws.” Aristotle’s Physics, lib. ii. c. 2: “Art imitates nature.”
4 “Creation’s holy book.” Genesis, c. ii. v. 15: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it.” And, Genesis, c. iii. v. 19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”
5 “Placing elsewhere his hope.” The usurer, trusting in the produce of his wealth lent out on usury, despises nature directly, because he does not avail himself of her means for maintaining or enriching himself; and indirectly, because he does not avail himself of the means which art, the follower and imitator of nature, would afford him for the same purposes.
6 “The Wain.” The constellation Boötes, or Charles’s Wain.
Canto XII
ARGUMENT.—Descending by a very rugged way into the seventh circle, where the violent are punished, Dante and his leader find it guarded by the Minotaur; whose fury being pacified by Virgil, they step downward from crag to crag; till, drawing near the bottom, they descry a river of blood, wherein are tormented such as have committed violence against their neighbor. At these, when they strive to emerge from the blood, a troop of Centaurs, running along the side of the river, aim their arrows; and three of their band opposing our travellers at the foot of the steep, Virgil prevails so far that one consents to carry them both across the stream; and on their passage, Dante is informed by him of the course of the river, and of those that are punished therein.
THE place where to descend the precipice
We came, was rough as Alp, and on its verge
Such object lay, as every eye would shun.
As is that ruin, which Adice’s stream1
On this side Trento struck, should’ring the wave,
Or loos’d by earthquake or for lack of prop;
For from the mountain’s summit, whence it mov’d
To the low level, so the headlong rock
Is shiver’d, that some passage it might give
To him who from above would pass; e’en such
Into the chasm was that descent: and there
At point of the disparted ridge lay stretch’d
The infamy of Crete,2 detested brood
Of the feign’d heifer:3 and at sight of us
It gnaw’d itself, as one with rage distract.
To him my guide exclaim’d: “Perchance thou deem’st
The King of Athens4 here, who, in the world
Above, thy death contriv’d. Monster! avaunt!
He comes not tutor’d by thy sister’s art,5
But to behold your torments is he come.”
Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side; so saw I plunge
The Minotaur; whereat the sage exclaim’d:
“Run to the passage! while he storms, ’t is well
That thou descend.” Thus down our road we took
Through those dilapidated crags, that oft
Mov’d underneath my feet, to weight like theirs
Unus’d. I pond’ring went, and thus he spake:
“Perhaps thy thoughts are of this ruin’d steep,
Guarded by the brute violence, which I
Have vanquish’d now. Know then, that when I erst
Hither descended to the nether hell,
This rock was not yet fallen. But past doubt
(If well I mark) not long ere He arrived,6
Who carried off from Dis the mighty spoil
Of the highest circle, then through all its bounds
Such trembling seiz’d the deep concave and foul,
I thought the universe was thrill’d with love,
Whereby,