[305] _Some races failing_: It was long believed, nor is the belief quite obsolete, that one community can gain only at the expense of another. Sir Thomas Browne says: 'All cannot be happy at once; for because the glory of one state depends upon the ruin of another, there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatness, and all must obey the swing of that wheel, not moved by intelligences, but by the hand of God, whereby all states arise to their zeniths and vertical points according to their predestinated periods.'--_Rel. Med._ i. 17. [306] _Necessity, etc._: Suggested, perhaps, by Horace's _Te semper anteit sæva necessitas_ (_Od._ i. 35). The question of how men can be free in the face of necessity, here associated with Fortune, more than once emerges in the _Comedy_. Dante's belief on the subject was substantially that of his favourite author Boethius, who holds that ultimately 'it is Providence that turns the wheel of all things;' and who says, that 'if you spread your sails to the wind you will be carried, not where you would, but whither you are driven by the gale: if you choose to commit yourself to Fortune, you must endure the manners of your mistress.' [307] _Whom they so often, etc._: Treat with contumely. [308] _The stars, etc._: It is now past midnight, and towards the morning of Saturday, the 26th of March 1300. Only a few hours have been employed as yet upon the journey. [309] _Perse_: 'Perse is a colour between purple and black, but the black predominates' (_Conv._ iv. 20). The hue of the waters of Styx agrees with the gloomy temper of the sinners plunged in them. [310] _The place_: They are now in the Fifth Circle, where the wrathful are punished.