They take a secret pathway between the walls and the tormented souls, Virgil first, Dante close behind. Dante asks whether those within the sepulchres may be seen: already all the lids are raised, and none keeps watch. They shall be closed when the dead return from Josaphat with the bodies left above. This part of the cemetery belongs to Epicurus and his followers, who make the spirit die with the body. Here, Virgil says, both the question asked and the wish Dante conceals shall soon be satisfied.
A voice from a vault: O Tuscan, alive through the city of fire, stay awhile. Dante moves closer to his leader. Virgil tells him to turn. Lo, Farinata, uplifted from the girdle up, breast and forehead erect, as in high scorn he held even hell. Virgil thrusts Dante to the tomb's foot and warns him to keep his words clear. Farinata asks what ancestors were his. They were fiercely adverse to his party: twice therefore he scattered them abroad. Driven out, Dante answers, they returned each time, an art Farinata's have not learnt. Then a shade rises high as the chin, looks round for another, and asks in tears where his son is, and wherefore not with Dante. Dante has not come of himself, but conducted by him who waits there, whom perchance Guido thy son had in contempt. How, saidst thou he HAD? No longer lives he? Aware of some delay before the reply, Cavalcante falls supine and appears no more. Farinata changes not his stern countenance, nor moves the neck. If they in this art have shown small skill, that doth torment him more even than this bed. Not yet fifty times shall the queen of this realm relume her aspect ere Dante shall know the full weight of that art. Why is Florence so fell against my kin? The slaughter that coloured Arbia's flood, Dante says. Farinata stood not singly in that affray, but singly he stood when by consent of all Florence had been razed, the one who openly forbade the deed.
Dante asks him to solve a knot. They seem to view beforehand what time leads with him, of the present uninformed. We view as one who hath an evil sight, Farinata answers: plainly objects far remote, but when they approach or actually exist, the intellect wholly fails, except what others bring. Hence all their knowledge shall expire when on futurity the portals close. Remorse-smitten, Dante tells him to say that Guido still is joined to the living, and that the silence was a mind occupied upon that error. Virgil summons him back. Farinata names Frederick and the Lord Cardinal among more than a thousand, and withdraws. Dante ruminates on the words betokening him such ill. Virgil: store what thou hast heard importing harm. When thou shalt stand before her gracious beam, she of thy life the future tenour will unfold. They turn left, leave the wall, and go by a path that strikes a valley which even thus high exhales its noisome steam.
Coming Up in Chapter 11
They leave the wall for a path that strikes a valley already exhaling steam. On a high bank Virgil will make them delay, and map force, fraud, and the lower rings of Hell before they go farther down.
