left to wish to save his brethren from coming into his place of torment; but this unnatural soul welcomes the deeper damnation of his kinsman because by comparison it makes his own sin appear trivial and pardonable.1 Inf. xxxii. 67-72. CANTOS XXXI.XXXII. 69 CHAPTER XXVII CIRCLE IX.-THE LAKE OF COCYTUS: TRAITORS XXXII. 70 Second Ring- II. Antenora: Traitors to their Country CANTOS At this point Dante passes on into the Ring of XXXIII. 90 Antenora, in which Traitors to their Country are frozen up to the neck in ice, probably a little deeper than the souls in the Caïna. And here he comes upon a group composed for the most part of men infamous throughout Italy for their treachery in the terrible feuds of Guelphs and Ghibellines. He had scarcely entered it when-by 'will, or destiny, or chance,' he knew not which-his foot struck violently against the face of one of the wretches, who not unnaturally broke out into angry remonstrances: Bocca degli Weeping he growled: Why dost thou trample me? The reference to Montaperti, the disastrous battle CANTOS XXXIII. 90 XXXII. 70 side. It is obvious that from the first he suspects who this soul is. While the battle was in progress, this Bocca degli Abati rode up behind Jacopo de' Pazzi, the Guelph standard-bearer, and struck off with his sword the hand which held the banner of his party; and when the Guelphs saw their standard fall, they broke and fled. Although Dante had abandoned the party to which his ancestors belonged, so base an act of treachery against it stirred him into a passion of indignation. Suspecting who he was, he offers him-ironically perhaps-fame on earth, if he will disclose his name. The traitor, like all the rest in this Circle, knowing only too well that fame on earth meant infamy, of which he had enough already, orders Dante away-he wants to be pestered no more. Whereupon follows one of the strangest incidents in Hell: Dante falls upon him Dante's Indignation. almost literally tooth and nail, seizes him 'by the scalp behind,' and threatens savagely that he will not leave a hair on his head if he do not straightway yield up his name. Already, indeed, he has torn out several handfuls, when a soul close by, annoyed by the 'barking' of the tortured wretch, cries out, 'What ails thee, Bocca? Is it not enough to clatter with thy jaws, But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?' Dante has now got his name in spite of him, and tells the accursed traitor' that he will shame him on earth with the news of where he found him. In justice, however, to Bocca, it must be remembered CANTOS that he did not belong to the Guelph party, nor was XXXIII. 90 he at this battle altogether with his will. Being a Ghibelline, the Guelphs were afraid to leave him and other members of his party behind in Florence, lest they should take advantage of their absence to foment discords. They therefore compelled them to go with them to the war against Siena. Naturally their sympathies were with the other side, among whom were many of their own party who had been banished from Florence. When Bocca struck off the hand of the Guelph standard-bearer, and with his Ghibelline friends rode over to the enemy, doubtless there was treachery in the act, but it was not treachery to his own party. We might even ask whether the real treachery would not have been to remain on the Guelph side and fight against the Ghibelline party to which he belonged. Perhaps it was just some such doubt as this that Dante asked Virgil to give him time to solve.1 Buoso da Enraged at being identified, Bocca takes his revenge by naming the traitors in his neighbourhood, beginning with him who had revealed his secret. To Dante, 'Begone,' he answered, and tell what thou wilt; Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt. He weepeth here the silver of the French. The reference is to Buoso da Duera, a Ghibelline of 1 Inf. xxxii. 73-111. See Napier's Florentine History, Bk. 1. chap. X. Bocca was believed to have betrayed the Guelphs. Charles of Anjou having been invited by the Pope to wrest the kingdom of Naples from Manfred, son of Frederick II., sent an army into Italy from the North under Count Guy de Montfort. Manfred ordered the Ghibellines of Lombardy to oppose its passage, nevertheless it reached the city of Parma without striking a blow. This was attributed to the treachery of this Buoso da Duera, one of the leaders of the Ghibelline forces. 'It is said,' writes Villani, 'that one Master Buoso, of the house of da Duera, of Cremona, for money which he received from the French, gave counsel in such wise that the host of Manfred was not there to contest the pass, as had been arranged, wherefor the people of Cremona afterwards destroyed the said family of the Duera in fury." Dante, who saw in the intervention of France the ruin of his country, must have regarded this act of treachery with peculiar detestation; and he may be pardoned if it added a touch of personal bitterness to his hatred to remember that the ruin of his own fortunes began with the interference in Florentine politics of another French prince, Charles of Valois, whose only weapon was 'the lance with which Judas jousted." 1 2 CANTOS XXXIII. 90 XXXII. 70 Bocca names four other traitors in his immediate Four other Traitors. neighbourhood: 'If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there, Thou hast beside thee him of Beccheria, Whose gorget Florence slit asunder. 1 Villani, vii. 4; Inf. xxxii. 112-117. 2 Purg. xx. 70-78. |