Dante Book 1 Canto XII Scene I

 Canto XII

The Seventh Circle: Violence I

Scene 1

 

Indeed, it was the mountains they came up once they left the Circle, but like most peaks, it was a place of desolation that life could not exist there with the harsh winds and temperate of the cold and seen was the series of streams that had made its way into the mountain core where the fallen rocks were the sign of the mountain defeat to the water.

“I think we have reached the next circle; Circle Seven,” Virgil spoke to Dante. “It’s another harsh land but one which we have to traverse past.”

“Have you been to the River Trent on the isle?” Virgil asked of Dante. “The river is known for its dramatic flooding after the raging storms and spring snowmelt. The muddy shade of red in the water like here.” The largest known flood was the Candlemas flood of February 1795, which followed eight weeks of harsh winter weather, rivers froze which meant mills were unable to grind corn, and then followed a rapid thaw. Due to the size of the flood and the ice entrained in the flow, nearly every bridge along the Trent was badly damaged or washed away.”

“Why are we talking of a river on the isle?” Dante was baffled.

“Its significance was that the river was ever-changing in its direction; it meanders to the course of nature with the melting glaciers, and its desecration what was in its way. Here this place resembles its fury, ever having its course and even the manmade structures could not hold its might against the river. It will flow to the lower plains with its fury.”

“See those breaks in the mountain there where the river flows through, we will take it to the other side,” Virgil told Dante. They went forward, and at narrow places, Dante had to move the rocks whereas Virgil been of a soul just past it as if it was not there.

“You can float past it?” Dante asked.

“I appear to do so. I was not aware of my form. I was too preoccupied to see that which lies beyond.” Virgil turned to look at Dante. “You are still living and may need to create your path.”

Dante heaved a rock and pushed it aside for the rock weighed more than he could carry.

“Where are we again?” Dante asked.

“I believed it to be the beginning of Circle Seven; the punishment pits of the violent against thy neighbors; the tyrants, the warmongers, and the robbers. See the water in the stream; its shade of red denotes the blood that they have taken in their journey. Their souls are in that stream, wallowing beneath the surface and see the boils on the surface, it's boiling them in it. It boils to their level of the sins they committed.”

“I don’t feel the heat,” Dante said.

“You are the sinner who caused the blood to be here. Maybe as a volunteer of the Army, you may have killed ---- had you ever?” Virgil asked.

“I am afraid not. I will not take another person’s life. I shoot wide and far but never on a living person.” Dante admitted. “I am…”

“A pacifist perhaps or you had not the courage to do it?” Virgil laughed. “You should not have volunteer, Dante.”

“I had my reasons.” Dante defended his choice.

“So do all of us but theirs was to be punished here. Life journey is about choices, and they made theirs as you did.” Virgil smiled. He was to continue when he saw the unique creature that traversed through the rocks.

“Halt the two of you!” Dante and Virgil saw before them a herd of horses but of the upper Man’s form from the neck. They were named Centaurs; fabled creatures in the ancient text and considered as fierce warriors then.  On their upper form, the Centaur held the upper limbs and the head of Man, with its ability to speak. The Centaur held the better of Man’s physique and facial expression with the billowing of their hair to the rear like the mane of the horse.

“I am Chiron, Guardian of the entrance to the Circle. We patrol the mountain and the streams to prevent any souls from going to and from the stream in the Circle.” The one who addressed the two was a fine breed, standing higher than Dante’s height by more than half and his limbs resembled that of the arms of Man, held a bow with an arrow notched on the string.

“State your reason, the lost soul.” Chiron looked at Virgil. You were here and yet you left without our knowledge.”

“I am ---" Dante cut in but was silenced.

“Speak naught here, living soul. I can tell you are not one of us but still breathing. We can tell when we heard you move the rocks when it was the streamflow that may do it. I will not hear you for you are not wanted. Return to your realm now.”

“I ---” Dante tried to explain his journey and an arrow whizzed past his left ear.

“I say to thee silence or my next arrow will sever your vocal cords.” Chiron caution Dante.

“He is not of us. Who am I addressing and with whom does he ride with?” Virgil stepped forth to ask.

“I am Chiron, and he is Nessus, who was sent here when he insulted Deianira.”

Deianira was a Calydonian princess in Greek mythology whose name translated as "man-destroyer"^[4] or "destroyer of her husband". She was the wife of Heracles and, in late Classical accounts, his unwitting murderer, killing him with the poisoned shirt of Nessus. The central story about Deianira concerns the Tunic of Nessus.

The wild centaur named Nessus attempted to kidnap or rape Deianira as he was ferrying her across the river Euenos, but she was rescued by Heracles, who shot the centaur with a poisoned arrow. As he lay dying, Nessus persuaded Deianira to take a sample of his blood, telling her that a part of it mixed with olive oil would ensure that Heracles would never again be unfaithful.

The others were named and then Chiron turned to Virgil.

“Have you noticed how the one who walks behind moves what he touches? That is not how the dead goes about.”

“It is true he lives; in his necessity. I alone must lead him through this valley. Fate brings him here, not of curiosity. From Virgil explained on Dante. “But in the name of the Power by which I go, this sunken way across the floor of Hell, assign us one of your troop whom we may follow, that he may guide us to the ford, and there carry across on his back the one I lead, for he is not a spirit to move through the air.”

“How am to know that you had spoken is the truth and not lies of the sinners to gain passage on?” Chiron asked.

“Would a sinner not tremble at your sight, standing high and mighty over them? I am not and he is not of them. We stand by our words to complete the journey we set out to do.” Virgil added to his reasoning. “I doubt you want to have doubted the intention of our creator.”

Chiron took faith in those words and called on Nessus to guide Dante and Virgil.

“Go with them, and guide them, and turn back any others that would contest their passage.” With that Chiron rode off with the others. Nessus turned his body and gallop on while Dante and Virgil followed behind keeping pace.

Along the bank of the scalding purple river in which the shrieking wraiths were boiled and dyed. Some stood up to their lashes in that torrent, and as we passed them the huge Centaur said. “These were the kings of bloodshed and despoilment. Here they pay for their ferocity. That is Alexander. And Dionysius, who brought long years of grief to Sicily. That brow you see with the hair as black as night is Azzolino; and that beside him, the blonde, is Opizzo da Esti, who had his mortal light blown out by his stepson.”

 Virgil turned towards Dante but the other read his mind.

“Let him be the teacher now, and I will listen.”

Further on, the Centaur stopped beside a group of spirits steeped as far as the throat In the race of boiling blood, and there Dante recognized one of the souls.

“That one before God’s altar pierced a heart still honored on the Thames.” (William E. Gladstone (1809-1898) politician and several times Prime Minister. He anchored his conviction, among other things, upon three verses of the twelfth Canto of Hell in which the poet mentions the year 1271 assassination of Henry Duke of Cornwall, nephew of King Richard III. He was stabbed to death in church, during the Elevation, by Guy of Montfort, Duke of Leicester. The horrendous murder caused a widespread outcry at the time and, according to the chronicler of the time Giovanni Villani, the victim’s ripped-out heart was first put, still bleeding, into a golden cup which was hence placed «on a column on top of London bridge over the Thames». Extract https://www.dantepoliglotta.it/introduction-19/?lang=en)

Along the stream of blood, where the level fell to cover only the feet of the damned, and there we crossed the ford to the next level of deeper Hell.

“Just as you see the boiling stream grow shallow along this side,” The Centaur said to them while they rested by the bank, “I would have you know that on the other, the bottom sinks anew. Deep and deeper still until it comes again in a full circle for that is where the tyrant's stew. It is there that Holy Justice spends its wrath on those like Sextus and Pyrrhus through eternity.”

Sextus Roscius was accused of patricide (killing your father). This was the worst crime to commit in Rome and was punishable by death.

A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. A Pyrrhic victory takes a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress. The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC destroyed much of his forces, but the tactical victory forced the end of his campaign. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory).

“Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo, those two assassins who for many years stalked the highways, bloody and abhorred.” Nessus then looked away. “They deserved their punishment.”

And with that, he came to the ford in the stream.

“Cross here. The water is shallow here. Go and don’t ever return.” Nessus told Virgil. “It may be myself you may meet and I am not as civil as Chiron.”