CANTOS XXI.-XXIII.

57

The Malebranche of Florence.

twelve Blacks. 'One name may recall the face of one of them, another may refer to some habit or custom of another. . . . There may be some corroboration of his idea, Rossetti thinks, in the fact that at the time of the entrance of the Cardinal into Florence Manno Branca was Podestà; and from his name people may have got to call the magistrates under his sway Malebranche. If one remembers that the gonfaloniere di giustizia, or corporal of the city, at that time was Jacopo Ricci, one may be able to understand how the corporal of the band of ten demons came to be called Barbariccia. If one remembers that one of the Priori at the same time was one of the Raffacani, one may see from whence was bestowed on Hell the gift of the demon Graffiacane. Rubicante pazzo may have been the nickname of Pazzin' de' Pazzi, who may have been rubicund in the face, with red hair.' As Dr. Moore says, 'it might well result that, in spite of its present obscurity, the whole travesty might have been transparently obvious and irresistibly telling when the names and incidents were fresh in men's minds."1 The most interesting thing, however, about this ingenious conjecture is the significance it would give to Dante's own danger in this Moat. When we remember how Virgil at the outset hid him among the rocks of the bridge; how the moment he appeared the fiends tried to get him into their hands; and finally how he had to save himself from their malice by flight: it is difficult to believe that

1 Vernon's Readings, ii. 180-181; Moore's Studies in Dante, 2nd Series, 231-235.

CANTOS XXI.-XXIII.

Dante is not describing the plots of his enemies in
Florence to seize and punish him for this same sin of 57
Barratry, the very sin, he here declares, of which

they themselves are guilty. For example, it has been why Dante
asked why Dante did not return to Florence and did not face
face this charge: is not his absence proof of his
guilt? The answer which I understand him to give
in the story of his adventures with the demons is
that he had no hope of justice. The men who sought
to get him into their hands were, like these fiends,
so cruel and treacherous as to be beyond the reach
of reason. From such intensity of malice the only
wisdom, even for an innocent man, is concealment
and flight. Hence it is that Virgil, who is Reason
personified, counsels him to hide, and at last is
forced to snatch him up and flee from his pursuers.
This flight is neither cowardice nor an acknow-
ledgment of guilt, but simple prudence. Dante
knew only too well that there is a fiendish depth of
malignity, dead to every appeal of pity, reason, and
justice, which it is certain death to face.

XXIII. 58

CHAPTER XXI

CIRCLE VIII.-MALEBOLGE: THE FRAUDULENT

Bolgia VI. Hypocrites

CANTOS THE Moat into which Virgil had flung himself and XXIV. 60 his companion with such headlong haste to escape the fiends, turned out to be that of the Hypocrites:

The Procession of Hypocrites.

A painted people there below we found,

Who went about with steps exceeding slow,

Weeping, and in their look wearied and overcome.1

The 'painted' probably refers to their faces; and some regard their very weeping and slowness of pace as part of their old hypocrisy carried on into eternity. This, however, is doubtful, since both the slowness and the tears are sufficiently accounted for by the garments which they wear-gowns with great hoods hanging over their eyes. Dante compares

them to those worn by the monks of Cologne. The story runs that the monks of the Abbey of Cologne in their pride petitioned the Pope for liberty 'to wear scarlet robes, with silver girdles and spurs. The Pope, considering their pride and presumption, ordered instead that they should wear extremely

1 Inf. xxiii. 58-60.

common robes, fashioned like an ashen-grey hair

CANTOS XXIII. 58

shirt, very long, and so ample that they dragged XXIV. 60 along on the ground behind them." Dante clothes these souls in this exaggerated monk's gown because it is the appropriate garb of men who use religion as a cloak. But the chief peculiarity of the mantles of these hypocrites is that while outwardly they were so brightly gilded that they dazzled the eyes, inwardly they were of lead, and so heavy

That Frederick used to put them on of straw.

The reference is to a tradition-said, however, to have no foundation-that the Emperor Frederick II. punished traitors by wrapping them in lead, and then exposing them to a heated furnace until the lead melted. Dante means that for weight Frederick's mantles were but straw in comparison.

the Painted

Gilded Cloak.

The idea of this cloak of gilded lead, as Toynbee Symbolism of points out, was probably suggested by a curious Face and the etymology of the word hypocrite which was commonly accepted in the Middle Ages. According to the Latin Dictionary of Uguccione de' Bagni of Pisa, a grammarian of the twelfth century, hypocrita or ypocrita is derived from yper, above, and crisis, gold.2 Although the etymology is false, the symbolism is obvious and true. The painted faces and the gilded cloaks are plain signs of that hypocrisy which our Lord described when He compared the Pharisees to 'whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones,

1 Vernon's Readings, ii. 239 n.

2 Dante Studies and Researches, p. 107. Uguccione's Derivations is mentioned only once-Conv. iv. 6.

CANTOS XXIII. 58XXIV. 60

The Cloak of
Lead.

and of all uncleanness.' Dante's meaning is that
when a man spends a lifetime in keeping up a fair
outward show of piety and virtue, he cannot cast
it off at will; it grows into the 'habit' of his soul,
its garment of eternity. It might be thought that
when a hypocrite enters a world where imposition
is no longer possible, his punishment would be the
stripping away of the gilded cloak of pious pro-
fession and the revelation of the long-hidden cor-
ruption; but Dante touches a more awful lesson
when he clothes him in his own hypocrisy as in an
eternal robe. The falseness has grown so much
part and parcel of his very soul that he cannot cast
it off even in a world where all hope of imposing on
others is vain. Although all the souls in this Moat
see through one another and know that all are
false, not one lays aside the gilded cloak in conse-
quence: their doom
is to wear it even among
their fellow-hypocrites. They have acted a part so
long that they have lost for ever the power of being
themselves.

But while all understand the painted face and the gilded cloak, few know the terrible symbolism of the crushing leaden weight under which the souls creep so slowly, weeping as they go. It means the almost intolerable burden of living a false life, the weariness of always acting a part, always keeping up the show of goodness. There is nothing more exhausting than to have a reputation for piety without the strength of true piety to sustain the reputation. Many a pious hypocrite would almost welcome even detection at times, simply because it