[The Book of the Epic by Helene A. Guerber]@TWC D-Link book
The Book of the Epic

INTRODUCTION
162/305

Appalled by the sighs and wailings around him, Dante questions Virgil, who directs him to break off a twig.

No sooner has he done so than he sees blood trickle from the break and hears a voice reproach him for his cruelty.
Thus Dante learns that the inmate of this tree was once private secretary to Frederick II, and that, having fallen into unmerited disgrace, he basely took refuge in suicide.

This victim's words have barely died away when the blast of a horn is heard, and two naked forms are seen fleeing madly before a huntsman and a pack of mastiffs.
The latter, pouncing upon one victim, tears him to pieces, while Dante shudders at this sight.

Meantime Virgil explains that the culprit was a young spendthrift, and that huntsman and hounds represent the creditors whose pursuit he tried to escape by killing himself.
_Canto XIV._ Leaving this ghastly forest, Dante is led to the third division of this circle, a region of burning sands, where hosts of naked souls lie on the ground, blistered and scathed by the rain of fire and vainly trying to lessen their pain by thrashing themselves with their hands.

One figure, the mightiest among them, alone seems indifferent to the burning rain, and, when Dante inquires who this may be, Virgil returns it is Capaneus (one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes[17]), who, in his indomitable pride, taunted Jupiter and was slain by his thunder-bolt.
Treading warily to avoid the burning sands, Virgil and his disciple cross a ruddy brook which flows straight down from Mount Ida in Crete, where it rises at the foot of a statue whose face is turned toward Rome.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books