Dante Book II Canto XXIV Scene II

 Scene II

 

Cacus, a Centaur who once stole cattle from Hercules. He stole Hercules’ cattle and dragged them by the tails into his cave so that their hoof prints would lead in the other direction, away from the cave. One of the cattle bellowed, Hercules heard the sound, and he came running to the cave. There was Cacus who barred the doorway.

“You may not enter the lair of mine,” Cacus warned Hercules. “I will defend what is mine.”

“How can what taken by thieving yours to own. I will not only enter your lair; I will destroy it.” Hercules climbed the slopes and tore off the mountain of its peak before he hurled down boulders to kill Cacus.

Such was the wrath of Hercules on the thief, and in turn, then, Cacus arrives to punish Vanni Fucci. He was seen carrying many snakes on his back, including a fire-spitting dragon.

The other serpents on seeing the Centaur call slithered towards Vanni. They did not bite Vanni but held him at bay. Casus reached down and directed the serpents he brought to strike Vanni in turns.

“Whatever he may turn into, cursed him with more.” Casus exerted the wrath of God.

Virgil saw the punishment and felt sympathy for Vanni.

“He is punished with every turn. His turns are never-ending. Such a sad thing for the snake.”

“Snake? There are no snakes here. Only serpents.” Dante explained. “Snakes are the creatures of God like the lion or the mouse. The snake held a purpose to the living realm but not a serpent. The serpent is the evolution of the snake and it shall reside in Hel. It held the only venom in its fangs, and brought the living to Hell.”

“You are unforgiving, poet.” Virgil snapped in. “Snakes held venom to defend themselves, or to paralyze their prey. You likened the snakes with venom to the creatures of Hell but you are wrong. We are all creatures of God but the ones of us who moved to do sin evolved into serpents. Unlike snakes that shed their skins to grow, serpents never did. They fatten with the same skin.”

“You are right, Virgil. I was taken in by Vanni. He is truly a serpent. He won’t shed his sin at all.” Dante looked at the sinner there who was made to suffer the bites upon each transformation. “I don’t approve of thieves. They take what others had toiled with their hard works.”

“Poet, have you read of the ‘To a mouse’? Let me narrate it to you.” Virgil spoke of the plight of the mouse seen by the farmer who had razed the other’s home.

“To a Mouse” Summary

It was November of 1785, and the speaker has just accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest with his plow.

The speaker addresses the mouse as a small, sleek, huddled, frightened little animal and notices how scared she is. He tells her that she doesn’t need to try and scurry away in such a rush—he has no desire to chase and attack her with a deadly plow-scraper.

He also tells her that he is sorry that humankind has come to dominate the earth and its creatures and has ruined the harmony that naturally ought to exist between people and animals. This domination makes it understandable that the mouse would be frightened of the speaker, even though he is a needy, vulnerable creature just as the mouse is.

The speaker knows that the mouse sometimes steals food from his stores, but asks whether that should matter—the poor mouse has to stay alive after all! The occasional ear of corn from a large bundle is a small thing to ask. The speaker counts himself lucky to have what is leftover and will never suffer because of what the mouse takes.

Then the speaker turns his attention to the mouse’s little nest, which is destroyed; its weak walls are being blown around by the wind. Unfortunately, there is no more grass left for the mouse to use to build a new nest, for the biting, bitter December winds are already starting to blow, meaning that winter is coming.

The mouse, the speaker sees, realized that the fields were empty and that the dangerous season of winter was approaching, and had hoped to live comfortably in its nest, sheltered from the winds—until the destructive plow crashed right through its home.

The speaker reflects that the tiny dwelling made of leaves and shorn plants took a great deal of exhausting effort for the mouse to build. Now, after all that work, the mouse is left without any home to shelter it through the winter’s sleet, rain, and frost.

But the mouse is not the only creature to realize that planning for the future can sometimes prove to be useless. Even the most carefully made plans, created by animals or by humans alike, often go wrong. When that happens, the planner experiences sorrow and distress instead of the happiness he expected.

The mouse is lucky, however, compared to the speaker. The mouse is affected only by the present moment. But, the speaker exclaims, he can look back into the past at painful memories. He can also look forward to the future and, although he cannot know for certain what it will bring, he can anticipate and be afraid of what might happen.

(https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/robert-burns/to-a-mouse)

“The mouse is not a thief but many of us claimed it to be. The land we occupied was theirs.” Virgil looked at the sinners below. “Not all of them may deserve this.”

“If it was so, then when we complete our task, we can be the farmer for those who are mice and not rats. And Vanni is a rat. He deserved what was there.” Dante then took to the bridge to cross over.