The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri (best smutty novels .txt) đ
- Author: Dante Alighieri
Book online «The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri (best smutty novels .txt) đ». Author Dante Alighieri
They gape for air, with flattâring hopes tâ abate
Their raging flames, but that augments their heat.
No bed, no covâring can the wretches bear,
But on the ground, exposed to open air,
They lie, and hope to find a pleasing coolness there.
The suffâring earth, with that oppression curst,
Returns the heat which they imparted first
âź
âHere one, with fainting steps, does slowly creep
Oâer heaps of dead, and straight augments the heap;
Another, while his strength and tongue prevailed,
Bewails his friend, and falls himself bewailed;
This with imploring looks surveys the skies,
The last dear office of his closing eyes,
But finds the Heavâns implacable, and dies.â
The birth of the Myrmidons, âwho still retain the thrift of ants, though now transformed to men,â is thus given in the same book:â â
âAs many ants the numârous branches bear,
The same their labor, and their frugal care;
The branches too alike commotion found,
And shook thâ industrious creatures on the ground,
Who by degrees (what âs scarce to be believed)
A nobler form and larger bulk received,
And on the earth walked an unusual pace,
With manly strides, and an erected face;
Their numârous legs, and former color lost,
The insects could a human figure boast.â
â©
Latian, or Italian; any one of the Latin race. â©
The speaker is a certain Griffolino, an alchemist of Arezzo, who practised upon the credulity of Albert, a natural son of the Bishop of Siena. For this he was burned; but was âcondemned to the last Bolgia of the ten for alchemy.â â©
The inventor of the Cretan labyrinth. Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII:â â
âGreat Daedalus of Athens was the man
Who made the draught, and formed the wondrous plan.â
Not being able to find his way out of the labyrinth, he made wings for himself and his son Icarus, and escaped by flight. â©
Speaking of the people of Siena, Forsyth, Italy, 532, says:â â
âVain, flighty, fanciful, they want the judgment and penetration of their Florentine neighbors; who, nationally severe, call a nail without a head chiodo Sanese. The accomplished Signora Rinieri told me, that her father, while Governor of Siena, was once stopped in his carriage by a crowd at Florence, where the mob, recognizing him, called out: âLasciate passare il Governatore deâ matti.â A native of Siena is presently known at Florence; for his very walk, being formed to a hilly town, detects him on the plain.â
â©
The persons here mentioned gain a kind of immortality from Danteâs verse. The Stricca, or Baldastricca, was a lawyer of Siena; and NiccolĂČ dei Salimbeni, or Bonsignori, introduced the fashion of stuffing pheasants with cloves, or, as Benvenuto says, of roasting them at a fire of cloves. Though Dante mentions them apart, they seem, like the two others named afterwards, to have been members of the Brigtita Spendereccia, or Prodigal Club, of Siena, whose extravagances are recorded by Benvenuto da Imola. This club consisted of âtwelve very rich young gentlemen, who took it into their heads to do things that would make a great part of the world wonder.â Accordingly each contributed eighteen thousand golden florins to a common fund, amounting in all to two hundred and sixteen thousand florins. They built a palace, in which each member had a splendid chamber, and they gave sumptuous dinners and suppers; ending their banquets sometimes by throwing all the dishes, table-ornaments, and knives of gold and silver out of the window. âThis silly institution,â continues Benvenuto, âlasted only ten months, the treasury being exhausted, and the wretched members became the fable and laughingstock of all the world.â
In honor of this club, Folgore da San Geminiano, a clever poet of the day (1260), wrote a series of twelve convivial sonnets, one for each month of the year, with Dedication and Conclusion. A translation of these sonnets may be found in D. G. Rossettiâs Early Italian Poets. The Dedication runs as follows:â â
âUnto the blithe and lordly Fellowship,
(I know not where, but wheresoeâer, I know,
Lordly and blithe,) be greeting; and thereto,
Dogs, hawks, and a full purse wherein to dip;
Quails struck iâ the flight; nags mettled to the whip;
Hart-hounds, hare-hounds, and blood-hounds even so;
And oâer that realm, a crown for NiccolĂČ,
Whose praise in Siena springs from lip to lip.
Tingoccio, Atuin di Togno, and AncaiĂ n,
Bartolo, and Mugaro, and Faënot,
Who well might pass for children of King Ban,
Courteous and valiant more than Lancelotâ â
To each, God speed! How worthy every man
To hold high tournament in Camelot.â
â©
âThis Capocchio,â says the Ottimo, âwas a very subtle alchemist; and because he was burned for practising alchemy in Siena, he exhibits his hatred to the Sienese, and gives us to understand that the author knew him.â â©
In this Canto the same Bolgia is continued, with different kinds of Falsifiers. â©
Athamas, king of Thebes and husband of Ino, daughter of Cadmus. His madness is thus described by Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, Eusdenâs Tr.:â â
âNow Athamas cries out, his reason fled,
âHere, fellow-hunters, let the toils be spread.
I saw a lioness, in quest of food,
With her two young, run roaring in this wood.â
Again the fancied savages were seen,
As throâ his palace still he chased his queen;
Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child
Stretched little arms, and on its father smiledâ â
A father now no moreâ âwho now begun
Around his head to whirl his giddy son,
And, quite insensible to natureâs call,
The helpless infant flung against the wall.
The same mad poison in the mother wrought;
Young Melicerta in her arms she caught,
And with disordered tresses, howling, flies,
âO Bacchus, EvĂŽe, Bacchus!â loud she cries.
The name of Bacchus Juno laughed to hear,
And said, âThy foster-god has cost thee dear.â
A rock there stood, whose side the beating waves
Had long consumed, and hollowed into caves.
The head shot forwards in a bending steep,
And cast a dreadful covert oâer the deep.
The wretched Ino, on destruction bent,
Climbed up the cliffâ âsuch strength her fury lent:
Thence with her guiltless boy, who wept in vain,
At one
Comments (0)