CANTOS

XVI. 91

that no outward cord can of itself restrain the XVII. 78 motions of sin. Nevertheless, it is plain that at this point in his pilgrimage he is very far from having reached that perfect inward freedom of which St. Paul speaks: 'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.' What has made this cord unnecessary is but a cord of another kind-the terror inspired by the punishments he has just witnessed. After seeing the awful issues of such sins and the terrible judgments of God upon them, no external cord of restraint is necessary. Scartazzini, indeed, suggests that if Dante ever in his youth really contemplated renouncing the world and withdrawing into a cloister, he may in later life have regretted this casting away of the cord. He seems to think that this renunciation of the cloister, if it could be proved, would be found to be the key to many of the leading passages of the poem, as, for example, Dante's self-reproaches when he stands in the presence of Beatrice on the top of Mount Purgatory.1 It is difficult to believe that this suggestion is of much value. Dante threw away the cord and made no attempt to take it again. It is true, indeed, that in the Convito he praises Sir Lancelot and 'our most noble Italian Guido da Montefeltro' for devoting themselves in their old age to the religious life, instead of running presumptuously into the port of death with sails full set. The context shows, however, that the religious life does not necessarily mean the cloister.2 At all events, Dante never 1 Companion to Dante, p. 200.

2 Conv. iv. 28: And it is not possible to excuse any one [from the religious life] because of the bond of matrimony, which holds good in

sought to resume the cord which he here threw off. Once again, indeed, he did gird himself, but it is with a rush, whose meek bending before the waves is the natural symbol of humility under the chastisement of the waters of God's redeeming discipline.1 And he thus girds himself with the humility of penitence, because he is about to climb the Mount of Liberty, to gain that inner freedom of the purified soul which needs no cords of external restraint, but is a law unto itself. This inner freedom is reached on the top of the Mount of Purification, where Virgil says to Dante:

'Free, upright, and healthy is thy will,

And error were it not to do its prompting;
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre.'2

'Crown and mitre,' king and priest, final authority
over himself in things temporal and spiritual alike.
It is impossible to imagine a man who had this lofty
ideal of inner freedom ever seriously regretting the
casting away of any cord of external restraint,-he
could only regard it as a necessary step to the attain-
ment of the 'royal law' of liberty.

old age; because not he alone turns to religion who makes himself in habit and life like St. Benedict and St. Augustine and St. Francis and St. Dominic, but also it is possible to turn to a good and true religion whilst remaining in matrimony, for God wishes nothing religious of us but the heart. And therefore St. Paul says to the Romans: "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

1 Purg. i. 94-105.

2 Purg. xxvii. 140-142.

CANTOS
XVI. 91-
XVII. 78

CHAPTER XVI

CANTOS XVII. 79XVIII

Geryon :
Guardian and
Symbol of the
Circle of
Fraud.

CIRCLE VIII.-MALEBOLGE: THE FRAUDULENT

Bolgia I. Betrayers of Women
Bolgia II. Flatterers

IN answer to the signal of the cord, Geryon, the
Guardian of the Eighth Circle, came swimming up
through the thick air of the abyss like a diver from
the bottom of the sea-a form so marvellous that
Dante hesitates to describe it, lest he should not be
believed. In heathen mythology Geryon is a monster
of three heads and bodies; according to Virgil, Æneas
saw 'the three-bodied shade' sitting in the mouth of
Hades in company with Gorgons, Harpies, and other
monsters. He is sometimes identified with a King
of the Balearic Isles, and it was one of the labours
of Hercules to drive away his oxen. There is nothing
in the classical myths which quite explains why
Dante makes Geryon the personification of Fraud;
but in the Middle Ages there seems to have existed
a legend that his custom was to invite strangers into
his house and then rob and slay them. Dante, while
discarding the three-bodied form of mythology, pre-
serves the triplicity of the monster by uniting in
1 En. vi. 289.

him man, brute, and reptile, each of which is symbolic of some aspect of Fraud.

'The face was as the face of a just man,

Its semblance outwardly was so benign.'1

For perfect fraud nothing is so useful as this look of benignant justice-the open countenance, the frank and honest eye, the brow on which integrity sits. It disarms suspicion and creates trust, until the paws behind have time to clutch and the scorpion tail to sting. The idea of the just face is much the same as that indicated by the direction in which the travellers have to turn to reach the monster-to the right, one of the few times in Hell. This may certainly mean, as it is usually understood, that in our encounters with Fraud our only safety lies in keeping to the right,-the path of rectitude; and the 'ten steps' which they take in this direction to meet the monster may be symbolic of the ten commandments. This would not exclude the further idea that it was not by accident Geryon settled to their right on the margin of the chasm: the moral suggestion is that the Spirit of Fraud disarms suspicion by approaching those it hopes to make its victims on the side of righteousness.

Beneath the human head were 'two paws, hairy unto the armpits'-obvious symbols of the brute violence and cruelty which lurk behind the just benignant face, ready to seize their victim. Lower still, behind the brute lies the reptile, a serpent's tail with the sting of a scorpion-emblem of the

1 Inf. xvii. 10, 11.

CANTOS XVII. 79XVIII

Man, Brute, and Reptile.

XVII. 79

CANTOS evil wisdom of the serpent, the low crawling cunXVIII ning with which Fraud entangles its victims, and the deadly poison with which it strikes them from behind. It is to be noticed, too, that the monster keeps his serpent-tail as far as possible out of sight:

'And that uncleanly image of Fraud

Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
But on the border did not drag its tail.'1

...

In

This it prudently kept unseen, 'quivering in the
void' below. The general conception is taken partly
from the locusts of the Apocalypse: 'Their faces
were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the
hair of women. And they had tails like unto
scorpions, and they had stings in their tails.'
mediæval art, the Satan who tempted Eve is fre-
quently represented as a serpent with a human face.
'The whole figure,' says Hettinger, 'is typical of
the beginning, the middle, and the end of fraud.
For the impostor seeks to captivate his victim by
his gracious aspect, whilst he winds his coils around
him, and at last darts out the fatal sting.' Nor does
this complete the symbolism:

'The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
Depicted o'er with knots and little shields.
With colours more, groundwork and broidery,
Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.'3

The reference to Arachne, the Lydian maiden whom
Athene changed into a spider, may give the clue to
the idea. As a spider weaves its web to entangle its

1 Inf. xvii. 7-9.

2 Rev. ix. 7, 8, 10.

3 Inf. xvii. 14-18.