xxvi. 13) by the projecting stones which now supply them with the means

of descent. It is a disputed point how far they do descend. Clearly it is further than merely from the bridge to the lower level of the wall dividing the Seventh from the Eighth Bolgia; but not so far as to the ground of the moat. Most likely the stones jut forth at the angle formed by the junction of the bridge and the rocky wall. On one of the lowest of these they find a standing-place whence they can see clearly what is in the Bolgia.

[640] _Heliotrope_: A stone supposed to make the bearer of it invisible.

[641] _Their hands, etc._: The sinners in this Bolgia are the thieves, not the violent robbers and highwaymen but those crime involves a betrayal of trust. After all their cunning thefts they are naked now; and, though here is nothing to steal, hands are firmly bound behind them.

[642] _The ashes, etc._: The sufferings of the thieves, if looked closely into, will be found appropriate to their sins. They would fain but cannot steal themselves away, and in addition to the constant terror of being found out they are subject to pains the essence of which consists in the deprivation--the theft from them--of their unsubstantial bodies, which are all that they now have to lose. In the case of this victim the deprivation is only temporary.

[643] _The Phoenix_: Dante here borrows very directly from Ovid (_Metam._ xv.).

[644] _Vanni Fucci_: Natural son of a Pistoiese noble and a poet of some merit, who bore a leading part in the ruthless feuds of Blacks and Whites which distracted Pistoia towards the close of the thirteenth century.

[645] _And ask, etc._: Dante wishes to find out why Fucci is placed among the thieves, and not in the circle of the violent. The question is framed so as to compel confession of a crime for which the sinner had not been condemned in life; and he flushes with rage at being found among the cowardly thieves.

[646] _I'm plunged, etc._: Fucci was concerned in the theft of treasure from the Cathedral Church of St. James at Pistoia. Accounts vary as to the circumstances under which the crime was committed, and as to who suffered for it. Neither is it certainly known when Fucci died, though his recent arrival in the Bolgia agrees with the view that he was still active on the side of the Blacks in the last year of the century. In the fierceness of his retort to Dante we have evidence of their old acquaintance and old enmity.

[647] _Lest thou shouldst joy_: Vanni, a _Nero_ or Black, takes his revenge for being found here by Dante, who was, as he knew, associated with the _Bianchi_ or Whites, by prophesying an event full of disaster to these.

[648] _Every Bianco, etc._: The Blacks, according to Villani (viii. 45), were driven from Pistoia in May 1301. They took refuge in Florence, where their party, in the following November under the protection of Charles of Valois, finally gained the upper hand, and began to persecute and expel the Whites, among whom was Dante. Mars, the god of war, or, more probably, the planet of war, draws a vapour from the valley of the Magra, a small stream which flows into the Mediterranean on the northern confine of Tuscany. This vapour is said to signify Moroello Malaspina, a noble of that district and an active leader of the Blacks, who here figure as murky clouds. The Campo Piceno is the country west of Pistoia. There Moroello bursts on his foes like a lightning-flash out of its cloud. This seems to refer to a pitched battle that should have happened soon after the Blacks recovered their strength; but the chroniclers tell of none such, though some of the commentators do. The fortress of Seravalle was taken from the Pistoiese, it is true, in 1302, and Moroello is said to have been the leader of the force which starved it into submission. He was certainly present at the great siege of Pistoia in 1305, when the citizens suffered the last rigours of famine.--This prophecy by Fucci recalls those by Farinata and Ciacco.