“Who is this that circles our mountain ere death have given him flight, and opens and shuts his eyes at his own will?”[1] “I know not who he is, but I know that he is not alone. Do thou, who art nearer to him, ask him; and sweetly, so that he may speak, accost him.” Thus two spirits, leaning one to the other, discoursed of me there on the right hand, then turned up their faces to speak to me. And one of them said, “O soul that still fixed in thy body goest on toward heaven, for charity console us, and tell us whence thou comest, and who thou art; for thou makest us so marvel at this thy grace, as needs must a thing that never was before.” And I, “Through mid Tuscany there wanders a little stream, that has its rise on Falterona,[2] and a hundred miles of coarse does not suffice it. From thereupon I bring this body. To tell you who I am would be to speak in vain, for my name as yet makes no great sound.” “If I grasp aright thy meaning with my understanding,” then replied to me he who had spoken first, “thou speakest of the Arno.” And the other said to him, “Why did he conceal the name of that river, even as one does of horrible things?” And the shade of whom this was asked, delivered itself thus, “I know not, but truly it is fit that the name of such a valley perish, for from its source (where the rugged mountain chain, from which Pelorus[3] is cut off, is so teeming that in few places it passes beyond that mark), far as there where it gives back in restoration that which heaven dries up of the sea (wherefrom the rivers have what flows in them), virtue is driven away as an enemy by all men, like a snake, either through misfortune of the place, or through evil habit that incites them. Wherefore the inhabitants of the wretched valley have so changed their nature that it seems as though Circe had had them in her feeding. Among foul hogs,[4] more fit for acorns than for other food made for human use, it first directs its poor path. Then, coming down, it finds curs more snarling, than their power warrants,[5] and at them disdainfully it twists its muzzle.[6] It goes on falling, and the more it swells so much the more the accursed and ill-fated ditch finds the dogs becoming wolves.[7] Descending then through many hollow gulfs, it finds foxes[8] so full of fraud, that they fear not that wit may entrap them. Nor will I leave to speak though another hear me: and well it will be for this one if hereafter he mind him of that which a true spirit discloses to me. [1] These words are spoken by Guido del Duca, who is answered by Rinieri de’ Calboli; both of them from the Romagna. [2] One of the highest of the Tuscan Apennines. [3] The north-eastern promontory of Sicily. [4] The people of the Casentino, the upper valley of the Arno. [5] The Aretines. [6] Turning westward. [7] The wolves of Florence. [8] The Pisans.