The next, as wishing he could use more haste; 'Not thus, O Lano,[428] thee thy legs bested 120 When one at Toppo's tournament thou wast.' Then, haply wanting breath, aside he stepped, Merged with a bush on which himself he cast. Behind them through the forest onward swept A pack of dogs, black, ravenous, and fleet, Like greyhounds from their leashes newly slipped. In him who crouched they made their teeth to meet, And, having piecemeal all his members rent, Haled them away enduring anguish great. Grasping my hand, my Escort forward went 130 And led me to the bush which, all in vain, Through its ensanguined openings made lament. 'James of St. Andrews,'[429] it we heard complain; 'What profit hadst thou making me thy shield? For thy bad life doth blame to me pertain?' Then, halting there, this speech my Master held: 'Who wast thou that through many wounds dost sigh, Mingled with blood, words big with sorrow swelled?' 'O souls that hither come,' was his reply, 'To witness shameful outrage by me borne, 140 Whence all my leaves torn off around me lie, Gather them to the root of this drear thorn. My city[430] for the Baptist changed of yore Her former patron; wherefore, in return, He with his art will make her aye deplore; And were it not some image doth remain Of him where Arno's crossed from shore to shore, Those citizens who founded her again On ashes left by Attila,[431] had spent Their labour of a surety all in vain. 150 In my own house[432] I up a gibbet went.' FOOTNOTES: [418] _A forest_: The second round of the Seventh Circle consists of a belt of tangled forest, enclosed by the river of blood, and devoted to suicides and prodigals. [419] _Corneto and Cecina_: Corneto is a town on the coast of what used to be the States of the Church; Cecina a stream not far south of Leghorn. Between them lies the Maremma, a district of great natural fertility, now being restored again to cultivation, but for ages a neglected and poisonous wilderness. [420] _Harpies_: Monsters with the bodies of birds and the heads of women. In the _Æneid_ iii., they are described as defiling the feast of which the Trojans were about to partake on one of the Strophades--islands of the Ægean; and on that occasion the prophecy was made that Æneas and his followers should be reduced to eat their tables ere they acquired a settlement in Italy. Here the Harpies symbolise shameful waste and disgust with life. [421] _Will prove, etc._: The things seen by Dante are to make credible what Virgil tells (_Æn._ iii.) of the blood and piteous voice that issued from the torn bushes on the tomb of Polydorus.