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"Thus we from bridge to bridge ... Pass'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place.
"Dante tells us," writes Macaulay, "that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist.
"No, my Piero, I can't afford to have my bel erudito decried; and Florence can't afford it either, with her scholars moulting off her at the early age of forty. Our Phoenix Pico just gone straight to Paradise, as the Frate has informed us; and the incomparable Poliziano, not two months since, gone to well, well, let us hope he is not gone to the eminent scholars in the Malebolge."
He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Three hours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge. Coming to a patch of moonlight, Francois paused there and cut an agile caper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherine every day. "Madame Francois de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable with gusto.
Dante, in his Inferno, has painted to the life their prevailing ideas of futurity; the next world to them contained nothing but successive circles of Malebolge.
We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning. Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante.
Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist.
The boiling pitch in Malebolge was like that in the Venetian arsenal: the mound on which he travelled along the banks of Phlegethon was like that between Ghent and Bruges, but not so large: the cavities where the Simoniacal prelates are confined resemble the Fonts in the Church of John at Florence.
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