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Dante’s Inferno
This is to broaden
your literary scope. This is FICTION. The Bible is TRUTH. Don’t ever forget
that.
Daddy Loves You ….
When I had
journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.
Ah, it is
hard to speak of what it was,
that savage forest, dense and difficult,
which even in recall renews my fear:
so
bitter-death is hardly more severe!
But to retell the good discovered there,
I'll also tell the other things I saw.
I cannot
clearly say how I had entered
the wood; I was so full of sleep just at
the point where I abandoned the true path.
But when
I'd reached the bottom of a hill-
it rose along the boundary of the valley
that had harassed my heart with so much fear-
I looked
on high and saw its shoulders clothed
already by the rays of that same planet
which serves to lead men straight along all roads.
At this my
fear was somewhat quieted;
for through the night of sorrow I had spent,
the lake within my heart felt terror present.
And just
as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from sea to shore, turns back
to watch the dangerous waters he has quit,
so did my
spirit, still a fugitive,
turn back to look intently at the pass
that never has let any man survive.
I let my
tired body rest awhile.
Moving again, I tried the lonely slope-
my firm foot always was the one below.
And almost
where the hillside starts to rise-
look there!-a leopard, very quick and lithe,
a leopard covered with a spotted hide.
He did not
disappear from sight, but stayed;
indeed, he so impeded my ascent
that I had often to turn back again.
The time
was the beginning of the morning;
the sun was rising now in fellowship
with the same stars that had escorted it
when
Divine Love first moved those things of beauty;
so that the hour and the gentle season
gave me good cause for hopefulness on seeing
that beast
before me with his speckled skin;
but hope was hardly able to prevent
the fear I felt when I beheld a lion.
His head
held high and ravenous with hunger-
even the air around him seemed to shudder-
this lion seemed to make his way against me.
And then a
she-wolf showed herself; she seemed
to carry every craving in her leanness;
she had already brought despair to many.
The very
sight of her so weighted me
with fearfulness that I abandoned hope
of ever climbing up that mountain slope.
Even as he
who glories while he gains
will, when the time has come to tally loss,
lament with every thought and turn despondent,
so was I
when I faced that restless beast
which, even as she stalked me, step by step
had thrust me back to where the sun is speechless.
While I
retreated down to lower ground,<
before my eyes there suddenly appeared
one who seemed faint because of the long silence.
When I saw
him in that vast wilderness,
"Have pity on me," were the words I cried
"whatever you may be-a shade, a man."
He
answered me: "Not man; I once was man.
Both of my parents came from Lombardy,
and both claimed Mantua as native city.
And I was
born, though late, sub Julio, and
lived in Rome under the good Augustus- the
season of the false and lying gods.
I was a
poet, and I sang the righteous
son of Anchises who had come from
Troy when flames destroyed the pride of Ilium.
But why do
you return to wretchedness?
Why not climb up the mountain of delight,
the origin and cause of every joy?"
"And
are you then that Virgil, you the fountain
that freely pours so rich a stream of speech?" I
answered him with shame upon my brow.
"O
light and honor of all other poets, may my
long study and the intense love that made me
search your volume serve me now.
You are my
master and my author, you-
the only one from whom my writing drew the
noble style for which I have been honored.
You see
the beast that made me turn aside;
help me, o famous sage, to stand against her, for
she has made my blood and pulses shudder."
"It
is another path that you must take,"
he answered when he saw my tearfulness,
"if you would leave this savage wilderness;
the beast
that is the cause of your outcry
allows no man to pass along her track, but
blocks him even to the point of death;
her nature
is so squalid, so malicious
that she can never sate her greedy will;
when she has fed, she's hungrier than ever.
She mates
with many living souls and shall
yet mate with many more, until the Greyhound
arrives, inflicting painful death on her.
That Hound
will never feed on land or pewter,
but find his fare in wisdom, love, and virtue; his
place of birth shall be between two felts.
He will
restore low-lying Italy for which
the maid Camilla died of wounds, and
Nisus, Turnus, and Euryalus.
And he
will hunt that beast through every city
until he thrusts her back again to Hell from
which she was first sent above by envy.
Therefore,
I think and judge it best for you
to follow me, and I shall guide you, taking
you from this place through an eternal place,
where you
shall hear the howls of desperation
and see the ancient spirits in their pain, as each
of them laments his second death;
-and you
shall see those souls who are content
within the fire, for they hope to reach-
whenever that may be-the blessed people.
If you
would then ascend as high as these,
a soul more worthy than I am will guide
you I'll leave you in her care when I depart,
because
that Emperor who reigns above,
since I have been rebellious to His law,
will not allow me entry to His city.
He governs
everywhere, but rules from there;
there is His city, His high capital: o happy
those He chooses to be there!"
And I
replied: "O poet-by that God whom
you had never come to know-I beg you, that I
may flee this evil and worse evils,
to lead me
to the place of which you spoke,
that I may see the gateway of Saint Peter and
those whom you describe as sorrowful."
Then he
set out, and I moved on behind him.
The day
was now departing; the dark
released the living beings of the earth
from work and weariness; and I myself
alone
prepared to undergo the battle both
of the journeying and of the pity, which
memory, mistaking not, shall show.
O Muses, o
high genius, help me
now; o memory that set down what I
saw, here shall your excellence reveal itself!
I started:
"Poet, you who are my guide,
see if the force in me is strong enough
before you let me face that rugged pass.
You say
that he who fathered Sylvius,
while he was still corruptible, had journeyed
into the deathless world with his live body.
For, if
the Enemy of every evil was
courteous to him, considering all he would
cause and who and what he was,
that does
not seem incomprehensible,
since in the empyrean heaven he was chosen
to father honored Rome and her empire;
and if the
truth be told, Rome and her realm
were destined to become the sacred place, the
seat of the successor of great Peter.
And
through the journey you ascribe to him,
he came to learn of things that were to bring his
victory and, too, the papal mantle.
Later the
Chosen Vessel travelled there,
to bring us back assurance of that faith with
which the way to our salvation starts.
But why
should I go there? Who sanctions it?
For I am not Aeneas, am not Paul;
nor I nor others think myself so worthy.
Therefore,
if I consent to start this journey,
I fear my venture may be wild and empty.
You're wise; you know far more than what I say."
And just
as he who unwills what he wills
and shifts what he intends to seek new ends
so that he's drawn from what he had begun,
so was I
in the midst of that dark land,
because, with all my thinking, I annulled
the task I had so quickly undertaken.
"If I
have understood what you have
said,"replied the shade of that great-hearted
one, "your soul has been assailed by cowardice,
which
often weighs so heavily on a man-
distracting him from honorable trials- as
phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.
That you
may be delivered from this fear,
I'll tell you why I came and what I heard
when I first felt compassion for your pain.
I was
among those souls who are suspended;
a lady called to me, so blessed, so lovely
that I implored to serve at her command.
Her eyes
surpassed the splendor of the star's;
and she began to speak to me-so gently and
softly-with angelic voice. She said:
'O spirit
of the courteous Mantuan,
whose fame is still a presence in the world
and shall endure as long as the world lasts,
my friend,
who has not been the friend of fortune,
is hindered in his path along that lonely
hillside; he has been turned aside by terror.
From all
that I have heard of him in Heaven,
he is, I fear, already so astray
that I have come to help him much too late.
Go now;
with your persuasive word, with all
that is required to see that he escapes, bring
help to him, that I may be consoled.
For I am
Beatrice who send you on; I
come from where I most long to return;
Love prompted me, that Love which makes me speak.
When once
again I stand before my Lord,
then I shall often let Him hear your praises.'
Now Beatrice was silent. I began:
'O Lady of
virtue, the sole reason why
the human race surpasses all that lies
beneath the heaven with the smallest spheres,
so welcome
is your wish, that even if
it were already done, it would seem tardy;
all you need do is let me know your will.
But tell
me why you have not been more prudent-
descending to this center, moving from
that spacious place where you long to return?'
'Because
you want to fathom things so deeply,
I now shall tell you promptly,' she replied,
'why I am not afraid to enter here.
One ought
to be afraid of nothing other
than things possessed of power to do us harm,
but things innocuous need not be feared.
God, in
His graciousness, has made me so
that this, your misery, cannot touch me;
I can withstand the fires flaming here.
In Heaven
there's a gentle lady-one
who weeps for the distress toward which I send you,
so that stern judgment up above is shattered.
And it was
she who called upon Lucia,
requesting of her: "Now your faithful one
has need of you, and I commend him to you."
Lucia,
enemy of every cruelty,
arose and made her way to where I was,
sitting beside the venerable Rachel.
She said:
"You, Beatrice, true praise of God,
why have you not helped him who loves you so
that-for your sake-he's left the vulgar crowd?
Do you not
hear the anguish in his cry?
Do you not see the death he wars against
upon that river ruthless as the sea?"
No one
within this world has ever been so
quick to seek his good or flee his harm as
I-when she had finished speaking thus-
to come below,
down from my blessed station;
I trusted in your honest utterance,
which honors you and those who've listened to you.'
When she
had finished with her words to me,
she turned aside her gleaming, tearful eyes,
which only made me hurry all the more.
And, just
as she had wished, I came to you:
I snatched you from the path of the fierce beast
that barred the shortest way up the fair mountain.
What is it
then? Why, why do you resist?
Why does your heart host so much cowardice?
Where are your daring and your openness
as long as
there are three such blessed women
concerned for you within the court of Heaven
and my words promise you so great a good?"
As little
flowers, which the chill of night has
bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes
grow straight and open fully on their stems,
so did 1,
too, with my exhausted force;
and such warm daring rushed into my heart
that I-as one who has been freed-began:
"O
she, compassionate, who has helped me!
And you who, courteous, obeyed so quickly
the true words that she had addressed to you!
You, with
your words, have so disposed my heart
to longing for this journey-I return
to what I was at first prepared to do.
Now go; a
single will fills both of us:
you are my guide, my governor, my master."
These were my words to him; when he advanced
I entered
on the steep and savage path.
THROUGH ME
THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.
JUSTICE
URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;
MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME
NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.
These
words-their aspect was obscure-I read
inscribed above a gateway, and I said:
"Master, their meaning is difficult for me."
And he to
me, as one who comprehends:
"Here one must leave behind all hesitation;
here every cowardice must meet its death.
For we
have reached the place of which I spoke,
where you will see the miserable
those who have lost the good of the intellect."
And when,
with gladness in his face, he placed
his hand upon my own, to comfort me,
he drew me in among the hidden things.
Here sighs
and lamentations and loud cries
were echoing across the starless air,
so that, as soon as I set out, I wept.
Strange
utterances, horrible pronouncements,
accents of anger, words of suffering,
and voices shrill and faint, and beating hands-
all went
to make a tumult that will whirl
forever through that turbid, timeless air,
like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.
And I-my
head oppressed by horror-said:
"Master, what is it that I hear? Who are
those people so defeated by their pain?"
And he to
me: "This miserable way
is taken by the sorry souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.
They now
commingle with the coward angels,
the company of those who were not rebels
nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.
The
heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,
have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them-
even the wicked cannot glory in them."
And I:
"What is it, master, that oppresses
these souls, compelling them to wail so loud?"
He answered: "I shall tell you in few words.
Those who
are here can place no hope in death,
and their blind life is so abject that they
are envious of every other fate.
The world
will let no fame of theirs endure;
both justice and compassion must disdain them;
let us not talk of them, but look and pass."
And I,
looking more closely, saw a banner
that, as it wheeled about, raced on-so quick
that any respite seemed unsuited to it.
Behind
that banner trailed so long a file
of people-I should never have believed
that death could have unmade so many souls.
After I
had identified a few,
I saw and recognized the shade of him
who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.
At once I
understood with certainty:
this company contained the cowardly,
hateful to God and to His enemies.
These
wretched ones, who never were alive,
went naked and were stung again, again
by horseflies and by wasps that circled them.
The
insects streaked their faces with their blood,
which, mingled with their tears, fell at their feet,
where it was gathered up by sickening worms.
And then,
looking beyond them, I could see
a crowd along the bank of a great river;
at which I said: "Allow me now to know
who are
these people-master-and what law
has made them seem so eager for the crossing,
as I can see despite the feeble light."
And he to
me: "When we have stopped along
the melancholy shore of Acheron,
then all these matters will be plain to you."
At that,
with eyes ashamed, downcast, and fearing
that what I said had given him offense,
I did not speak until we reached the river.
And here,
advancing toward us, in a boat,
an aged man-his hair was white with years-
was shouting: "Woe to you, corrupted souls!
Forget
your hope of ever seeing Heaven:
I come to lead you to the other shore,
to the eternal dark, to fire and frost.
And you approaching
there, you living soul,
keep well away from these-they are the dead."
But when he saw I made no move to go,
he said:
"Another way and other harbors-
not here-will bring you passage to your shore:
a lighter craft will have to carry you."
My guide
then: "Charon, don't torment yourself:
our passage has been willed above, where One
can do what He has willed; and ask no more."
Now
silence fell upon the wooly cheeks
of Charon, pilot of the livid marsh,
whose eyes were ringed about with wheels of flame.
But all
those spirits, naked and exhausted,
had lost their color, and they gnashed their teeth
as soon as they heard Charon's cruel words;
they
execrated God and their own parents
and humankind, and then the place and time
of their conception's seed and of their birth.
Then they
forgathered, huddled in one throng,
weeping aloud along that wretched shore
which waits for all who have no fear of God.
The demon
Charon, with his eyes like embers,
by signaling to them, has all embark;
his oar strikes anyone who stretches out.
As, in the
autumn, leaves detach themselves,
first one and then the other, till the bough
sees all its fallen garments on the ground,
similarly,
the evil seed of Adam
descended from the shoreline one by one,
when signaled, as a falcon-called-will come.
So do they
move across the darkened waters;
even before they reach the farther shore,
new ranks already gather on this bank.
"My
son," the gracious master said to me,
"those who have died beneath the wrath of God,
all these assemble here from every country;
and they
are eager for the river crossing
because celestial justice spurs them on,
so that their fear is turned into desire.
No good
soul ever takes its passage here;
therefore, if Charon has complained of you,
by now you can be sure what his words mean."
And after
this was said, the darkened plain
quaked so tremendously-the memory
of terror then, bathes me in sweat again.
A
whirlwind burst out of the tear-drenched earth,
a wind that crackled with a bloodred light,
a light that overcame all of my senses;
and like a
man whom sleep has seized, I fell.
The heavy
sleep within my head was smashed
by an enormous thunderclap, so that
I started up as one whom force awakens;
I stood
erect and turned my rested eyes
from side to side, and I stared steadily
to learn what place it was surrounding me.
In truth I
found myself upon the brink
of an abyss, the melancholy valley
containing thundering, unending wailings.
That
valley, dark and deep and filled with mist,
is such that, though I gazed into its pit,
I was unable to discern a thing.
"Let
us descend into the blind world now,"
the poet, who was deathly pale, began;
"I shall go first and you will follow me."
But I,
who'd seen the change in his complexion,
said: "How shall I go on if you are frightened,
you who have always helped dispel my doubts?"
And he to
me: "The anguish of the people
whose place is here below, has touched my face
with the compassion you mistake for fear.
Let us go
on, the way that waits is long."
So he set out, and so he had me enter
on that first circle girdling the abyss.
Here, for
as much as hearing could discover,
there was no outcry louder than the sighs
that caused the everlasting air to tremble.
The sighs
arose from sorrow without torments,
out of the crowds-the many multitudes-
of infants and of women and of men.
The kindly
master said: "Do you not ask
who are these spirits whom you see before you?
I'd have you know, before you go ahead,
they did
not sin; and yet, though they have merits,
that's not enough, because they lacked baptism,
the portal of the faith that you embrace.
And if
they lived before Christianity,
they did not worship God in fitting ways;
and of such spirits I myself am one.
For these
defects, and for no other evil,
we now are lost and punished just with this:
we have no hope and yet we live in longing."
Great
sorrow seized my heart on hearing him,
for I had seen some estimable men
among the souls suspended in that limbo.
"Tell
me, my master, tell me, lord." I then
began because I wanted to be certain
of that belief which vanquishes all errors,
"did
any ever go-by his own merit
or others'- from this place toward blessedness?"
And he, who understood my covert speech,
replied:
"I was new-entered on this state
when I beheld a Great Lord enter here;
the crown he wore, a sign of victory.
He carried
off the shade of our first father,
of his son Abel, and the shade of Noah,
of Moses, the obedient legislator,
of father
Abraham, David the king,
of Israel, his father, and his sons,
and Rachel, she for whom he worked so long,
and many
others-and He made them blessed;
and I should have you know that, before them,
there were no human souls that had been saved."
We did not
stay our steps although he spoke;
we still continued onward through the wood-
the wood, I say, where many spirits thronged.
Our path
had not gone far beyond the point
where I had slept, when I beheld a fire
win out against a hemisphere of shadows.
We still
were at a little distance from it,
but not so far I could not see in part
that honorable men possessed that place.
"O
you who honor art and science both,
who are these souls whose dignity has kept
their way of being, separate from the rest?"
And he to
me: "The honor of their name,
which echoes up above within your life,
gains Heaven's grace, and that advances them."
Meanwhile
there was a voice that I could hear:
"Pay honor to the estimable poet;
his shadow, which had left us, now returns."
After that
voice was done, when there was silence,
I saw four giant shades approaching us;
in aspect, they were neither sad nor joyous.
My kindly
master then began by saying:
"Look well at him who holds that sword in hand
who moves before the other three as lord.
That shade
is Homer, the consummate poet;
the other one is Horace, satirist;
the third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.
Because
each of these spirits shares with me
the name called out before by the lone voice,
they welcome me-and, doing that, do well."
And so I
saw that splendid school assembled
led by the lord of song incomparable,
who like an eagle soars above the rest.
Soon after
they had talked a while together,
they turned to me, saluting cordially;
and having witnessed this, my master smiled;
and even
greater honor then was mine,
for they invited me to join their ranks-
I was the- sixth among such intellects.
So did we
move along and toward the light,
talking of things about which silence here
is just as seemly as our speech was there.
We reached
the base of an exalted castle,:
encircled seven times by towering walls,
defended all around by a fair stream.
We forded
this as if upon hard ground;
I entered seven portals with these sages;
we reached a meadow of green flowering plants.
The people
here had eyes both grave and slow;
their features carried great authority;
they spoke infrequently, with gentle voices.
We drew
aside to one part of the meadow
an open place both high and filled with light,
and we could see all those who were assembled.
Facing me
there, on the enameled green,
great-hearted souls were shown to me and I
still glory in my having witnessed them.
I saw
Electra with her many comrades,
among whom I knew Hector and Aeneas,
and Caesar, in his armor, falcon-eyed.
I saw
Camilla and Penthesilea
and, on the other side, saw King Latinus,
who sat beside Lavinia, his daughter.
I saw that
Brutus who drove Tarquin out,
Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,
and, solitary, set apart, Saladin.
When I had
raised my eyes a little higher,
I saw the master of the men who know
seated in philosophic family.
There all
look up to him, all do him honor:
there I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
closest to him, in front of all the rest;
Democritus,
who ascribes the world to chance,
Diogenes, Empedocles, and Zeno,
and Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus;
I saw the
good collector of medicinals,
I mean Dioscorides; and I saw Orpheus,
and Tully, Linus, moral Seneca;
and Euclid
the geometer, and Ptolemy,
Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna,
Averroes, of the great Commentary.
I cannot
here describe them all in full;
my ample theme impels me onward so:
what's told is often less than the event.
The
company of six divides in two;
my knowing guide leads me another way,
beyond the quiet, into trembling air.
And I have
reached a part where no thing gleams.
So I
descended from the first enclosure
down to the second circle, that which girdles
less space but grief more great, that goads to weeping.
There
dreadful Minos stands, gnashing his teeth:
examining the sins of those who enter,
he judges and assigns as his tail twines.
I mean
that when the spirit born to evil
appears before him, it confesses all;
and he, the connoisseur of sin, can tell
the depth
in Hell appropriate to it;
as many times as Minos wraps his tail
around himself, that marks the sinner's level.
Always
there is a crowd that stands before him:
each soul in turn advances toward that judgment;
they speak and hear, then they are cast below.
Arresting
his extraordinary task,
Minos, as soon as he had seen me, said:
"O you who reach this house of suffering,
be careful
how you enter, whom you trust;
the gate is wide, but do not be deceived!"
To which my guide replied: "But why protest?
Do not
attempt to block his fated path:
our passage has been willed above, where One
can do what He has willed; and ask no more."
Now notes
of desperation have begun
to overtake my hearing; now I come
where mighty lamentation beats against me.
I reached
a place where every light is muted,
which bellows like the sea beneath a tempest,
when it is battered by opposing winds.
The
hellish hurricane, which never rests,
drives on the spirits with its violence:
wheeling and pounding, it harasses them.
When they
come up against the ruined slope,
then there are cries and wailing and lament,
and there they curse the force of the divine.
I learned
that those who undergo this torment
are damned because they sinned within the flesh,
subjecting reason to the rule of lust.
And as, in
the cold season, starlings' wings
bear them along in broad and crowded ranks
so does that blast bear on the guilty spirits:
now here,
now there, now down, now up, it drives them.
There is no hope that ever comforts them-
no hope for rest and none for lesser pain.
And just
as cranes in flight will chant their lays,
arraying their long file across the air,
so did the shades I saw approaching, borne
by that
assailing wind, lament and moan;
so that I asked him: "Master, who are those
who suffer punishment in this dark air?"
"The
first of those about whose history
you want to know," my master then told me
"once ruled as empress over many nations.
Her vice
of lust became so customary
that she made license licit in her laws
to free her from the scandal she had caused.
She is
Semiramis, of whom we read
that she was Ninus' wife and his successor:
she held the land the Sultan now commands.
That other
spirit killed herself for love,
and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus;
the wanton Cleopatra follows next.
See Helen,
for whose sake so many years
of evil had to pass; see great Achilles,
who finally met love-in his last battle.
See Paris,
Tristan . . ."-and he pointed out
and named to me more than a thousand shades
departed from our life because of love.
No sooner
had I heard my teacher name
the ancient ladies and the knights, than pity
seized me, and I was like a man astray.
My first
words: "Poet, I should willingly
speak with those two who go together there
and seem so lightly carried by the wind."
And he to
me: "You'll see when they draw closer
to us, and then you may appeal to them
by that love which impels them. They will come."
No sooner
had the wind bent them toward us
than I urged on my voice: "O battered souls
if One does not forbid it, speak with us."
Even as
doves when summoned by desire,
borne forward by their will, move through the air
with wings uplifted, still, to their sweet nest,
those
spirits left the ranks where Dido suffers
approaching us through the malignant air;
so powerful had been my loving cry.
"O
living being, gracious and benign,
who through the darkened air have come to visit
our souls that stained the world with blood, if He
who rules
the universe were friend to us
then we should pray to Him to give you peace
for you have pitied our atrocious state.
Whatever
pleases you to hear and speak
will please us, too, to hear and speak with you,
now while the wind is silent, in this place.
The land where
I was born lies on that shore
to which the Po together with the waters
that follow it descends to final rest.
Love, that
can quickly seize the gentle heart,
took hold of him because of the fair body
taken from me-how that was done: still wounds me.
Love, that
releases no beloved from loving
took hold of me so strongly through his beauty
that, as you see, it has not left me yet.
Love led
the two of us unto one death.
Caina waits for him who took our life."
These words were borne across from them to us.
When I had
listened to those injured souls,
I bent my head and held it low until
the poet asked of me: "What are you thinking?"
When I
replied, my words began: "Alas,
how many gentle thoughts, how deep a longing,
had led them to the agonizing pass!"
Then I
addressed my speech again to them,
and I began: "Francesca, your afflictions
move me to tears of sorrow and of pity.
But tell
me, in the time of gentle sighs,
with what and in what way did Love allow you
to recognize your still uncertain longings?"
And she to
me: "There is no greater sorrow
than thinking back upon a happy time
in misery-and this your teacher knows.
Yet if you
long so much to understand
the first root of our love, then I shall tell
my tale to you as one who weeps and speaks.
One day,
to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot-how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time
and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we
had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all
his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more."
And while
one spirit said these words to me,
the other wept, so that-because of pity-
I fainted, as if I had met my death.
And then I
fell as a dead body falls.
Upon my
mind's reviving-it had closed
on hearing the lament of those two kindred,
since sorrow had confounded me completely-
I see new
sufferings, new sufferers
surrounding me on every side, wherever
I move or turn about or set my eyes.
I am in
the third circle, filled with cold,
unending, heavy, and accursed rain;
its measure and its kind are never changed.
Gross
hailstones, water gray with filth, and snow
come streaking down across the shadowed air;
the earth, as it receives that shower, stinks.
Over the
souls of those submerged beneath
that mess, is an outlandish, vicious beast,
his three throats barking, doglike: Cerberus.
His eyes
are bloodred; greasy, black, his beard;
his belly bulges, and his hands are claws;
his talons tear and flay and rend the shades.
That
downpour makes the sinners howl like dogs;
they use one of their sides to screen the other-
those miserable wretches turn and turn.
When
Cerberus, the great worm, noticed us,
he opened wide his mouths, showed us his fangs;
there was no part of him that did not twitch.
My guide
opened his hands to their full span,
plucked up some earth, and with his fists filled full
he hurled it straight into those famished jaws.
Just as a
dog that barks with greedy hunger
will then fall quiet when he gnaws his food,
intent and straining hard to cram it in,
so were
the filthy faces of the demon
Cerberus transformed-after he'd stunned
the spirits so, they wished that they were deaf.
We walked
across the shades on whom there thuds
that heavy rain, and set our soles upon
their empty images that seem like persons.
And all
those spirits lay upon the ground,
except for one who sat erect as soon
as he caught sight of us in front of him.
"O
you who are conducted through this Hell,"
he said to me, "recall me, if you can;
for you, before I was unmade, were made."
And l to
him: "It is perhaps your anguish
that snatches you out of my memory,
so that it seems that I have never seen you.
But tell
me who you are, you who are set
in such a dismal place, such punishment-
if other pains are more, none's more disgusting."
And he to
me: "Your city-one so full
of envy that its sack has always spilled-
that city held me in the sunlit life.
The name
you citizens gave me was Ciacco;
and for the damning sin of gluttony,
as you can see, I languish in the rain.
And I, a
wretched soul, am not alone,
for all of these have this same penalty
for this same sin." And he said nothing more.
I answered
him: "Ciacco, your suffering
so weights on me that I am forced to weep;
but tell me, if you know, what end awaits
the
citizens of that divided city;
is any just man there? Tell me the reason
why it has been assailed by so much schism."
And he to
me: "After long controversy,
they'll come to blood; the party of the woods
will chase the other out with much offense.
But then,
within three suns, they too must fall;
at which the other party will prevail,
using the power of one who tacks his sails.
This party
will hold high its head for long
and heap great weights upon its enemies,
however much they weep indignantly.
Two men
are just, but no one listens to them.
Three sparks that set on fire every heart
are envy, pride, and avariciousness."
With this,
his words, inciting tears, were done;
and I to him: "I would learn more from you;
I ask you for a gift of further speech:
Tegghiaio,
Farinata, men so worthy,
Arrigo, Mosca, Jacopo Rusticucci,
and all the rest whose minds bent toward the good,
do tell me
where they are and let me meet them
for my great longing drives me on to learn
if Heaven sweetens or Hell poisons them."
And he:
"They are among the blackest souls;
a different sin has dragged them to the bottom;
if you descend so low, there you can see them.
But when
you have returned to the sweet world,
I pray, recall me to men's memory:
I say no more to you, answer no more."
Then his
straight gaze grew twisted and awry;
he looked at me awhile, then bent his head;
he fell as low as all his blind companions.
And my
guide said to me: "He'll rise no more
until the blast of the angelic trumpet
upon the coming of the hostile Judge:
each one
shall see his sorry tomb again
and once again take on his flesh and form,
and hear what shall resound eternally."
So did we
pass across that squalid mixture
of shadows and of rain, our steps slowed down,
talking awhile about the life to come.
At which I
said: "And after the great sentence-
o master-will these torments grow, or else
be less, or will they be just as intense?"
And he to
me: "Remember now your science,
which says that when a thing has more perfection,
so much the greater is its pain or pleasure.
Though
these accursed sinners never shall
attain the true perfection, yet they can
expect to be more perfect then than now."
We took
the circling way traced by that road;
we said much more than I can here recount;
we reached the point that marks the downward slope.
Here we
found Plutus, the great enemy.
"Pape
Satan, Pape Satan aleppe!"
so Plutus, with his grating voice, began.
The gentle sage, aware of everything,
said reassuringly,
"Don't let your fear
defeat you; for whatever power he has,
he cannot stop our climbing down this crag."
Then he
turned back to Plutus' swollen face
and said to him: "Be quiet, cursed wolf!
Let your vindictiveness feed on yourself.
His is no
random journey to the deep:
it has been willed on high, where Michael took
revenge upon the arrogant rebellion."
As sails
inflated by the wind collapse,
entangled in a heap, when the mast cracks,
so that ferocious beast fell to the ground.
Thus we made
our way down to the fourth ditch,
to take in more of that despondent shore
where all the universe's ill is stored.
Justice of
God! Who has amassed as many
strange tortures and travails as I have seen?
Why do we let our guilt consume us so?
Even as
waves that break above Charybdis,
each shattering the other when they meet,
so must the spirits here dance their round dance.
Here, more
than elsewhere, I saw multitudes
to every side of me; their howls were loud
while, wheeling weights, they used their chests to push.
They
struck against each other; at that point,
each turned around and, wheeling back those weights,
cried out: "Why do you hoard?" "Why do you squander?'
So did
they move around the sorry circle
from left and right to the opposing point;
again, again they cried their chant of scorn;
and so,
when each of them had changed positions,
he circled halfway back to his next joust.
And I, who felt my heart almost pierced through,
requested:
"Master, show me now what shades
are these and tell me if they all were clerics-
those tonsured ones who circle on our left."
And he to
me: "All these, to left and right
were so squint-eyed of mind in the first life-
no spending that they did was done with measure.
Their
voices bark this out with clarity
when they have reached the two points of the circle
where their opposing guilts divide their ranks.
These to
the left-their heads bereft of hair-
were clergymen, and popes and cardinals,
within whom avarice works its excess."
And I to
him: "Master, among this kind
I certainly might hope to recognize
some who have been bespattered by these crimes."
And he to
me: "That thought of yours is empty:
the undiscerning life that made them filthy
now renders them unrecognizable.
For all
eternity they'll come to blows:
these here will rise up from their sepulchers
with fists clenched tight; and these, with hair cropped close.
Ill giving
and ill keeping have robbed both
of the fair world and set them to this fracas-
what that is like, my words need not embellish.
Now you
can see, my son, how brief's the sport
of all those goods that are in Fortune's care,
for which the tribe of men contend and brawl;
for all
the gold that is or ever was6
beneath the moon could never offer rest
to even one of these exhausted spirits."
"Master,"
I asked of him, "now tell me too:6,
this Fortune whom you've touched upon just now-
what's she, who clutches so all the world's goods?"
And he to
me: "O unenlightened creatures,
how deep-the ignorance that hampers you!
I want you to digest my word on this.
Who made
the heavens and who gave them guides
was He whose wisdom transcends everything;
that every part may shine unto the other,
He had the
light apportioned equally;
similarly, for wordly splendors, He
ordained a general minister and guide
to shift,
from time to time, those empty goods
from nation unto nation, clan to clan,
in ways that human reason can't prevent;
just so,
one people rules, one languishes,
obeying the decision she has given,
which, like a serpent in the grass, is hidden.
Your
knowledge cannot stand against her force;
for she foresees and judges and maintains
her kingdom as the other gods do theirs.
The
changes that she brings are without respite:
it is necessity that makes her swift;
and for this reason, men change state so often.
She is the
one so frequently maligned
even by those who should give praise to her-
they blame her wrongfully with words of scorn.
But she is
blessed and does not hear these things;
for with the other primal beings, happy,
she turns her sphere and glories in her bliss.
But now
let us descend to greater sorrow,
for every star that rose when I first moved
is setting now; we cannot stay too long."
We crossed
the circle to the other shore;
we reached a foaming watercourse that spills
into a trench formed by its overflow.
That
stream was even darker than deep purple;
and we, together with those shadowed waves,
moved downward and along a strange pathway.
When it
has reached the foot of those malign
gray slopes, that melancholy stream descends,
forming a swamp that bears the name of Styx.
And I, who
was intent on watching it,
could make out muddied people in that slime,
all naked and their faces furious.
These
struck each other not with hands alone,
but with their heads and chests and with their feet,
and tore each other piecemeal with their teeth.
The kindly
master told me: "Son, now see
the souls of those whom anger has defeated;
and I should also have you know for certain
that underneath
the water there are souls
who sigh and make this plain of water bubble,
as your eye, looking anywhere, can tell.
Wedged in
the slime, they say: 'We had been sullen
in the sweet air that's gladdened by the sun;
we bore the mist of sluggishness in us:
now we are
bitter in the blackened mud.'
This hymn they have to gurgle in their gullets,
because they cannot speak it in full words."
And so,
between the dry shore and the swamp,
we circled much of that disgusting pond,
our eyes upon the swallowers of slime.
We came at
last upon a tower's base.
I say,
continuing, that long before
we two had reached the foot of that tall tower
our eyes had risen upward, toward its summit
because of
two small flames that flickered there,
while still another flame returned their signal
so far off it was scarcely visible.
And I
turned toward the sea of all good sense
I said: "What does this mean? And what reply
comes from that other fire? Who kindled it?"
And he to
me: "Above the filthy waters
you can already see what waits for us
if it's not hid by vapors from the marsh."
Bowstring
has not thrust from itself an arrow
that ever rushed as swiftly through the air
as did the little bark that at that moment
I saw as
it skimmed toward us on the water
a solitary boatman at its helm.
I heard him howl: "Now you are caught, foul soul!"
"O
Phlegyas, Phlegyas, such a shout is useless
this time," my master said; "we're yours no longer
than it will take to cross the muddy sluice."
And just
as one who hears some great deception
was done to him, and then resents it, so
was Phlegyas when he had to store his anger.
My guide
preceded me into the boat.
Once he was in, he had me follow him;
there seemed to be no weight until I boarded.
No sooner
were my guide and I embarked
than off that ancient prow went, cutting water
more deeply than it does when bearing others.
And while
we steered across the stagnant channel,
before me stood a sinner thick with mud,
saying: "Who are you, come before your time?"
And I to
him: "I've come, but I don't stay;
but who are you, who have become so ugly?"
He answered: "You can see-I'm one who weeps."
And I to
him: "In weeping and in grieving,
accursed spirit, may you long remain;
though you're disguised by filth, I know your name."
Then he
stretched both his hands out toward the boat,
at which my master quickly shoved him back
saying: "Be off there with the other dogs!"
That done,
he threw his arms around my neck
and kissed my face and said: "Indignant soul,
blessed is she who bore you in her womb!
When in
the world, he was presumptuous;
there is no good to gild his memory,
and so his shade down here is hot with fury.
How many
up above now count themselves
great kings, who'll wallow here like pigs in slime,_
leaving behind foul memories of their crimes!"
And I:
"O master, I am very eager
to see that spirit soused within this broth
before we've made our way across the lake."
And he to
me: "Before the other shore
comes into view, you shall be satisfied;
to gratify so fine a wish is right."
Soon after
I had heard these words, I saw
the muddy sinners so dismember him
that even now I praise and thank God for it.
They all
were shouting: "At Filippo Argenti!"
At this, the Florentine, gone wild with spleen,
began to turn his teeth against himself.
We left
him there; I tell no more of him.
But in my ears so loud a wailing pounded
that I lean forward, all intent to see.
The kindly
master said: "My son, the city
that bears the name of Dis is drawing near,
with its grave citizens, its great battalions."
I said:
"I can already see distinctly-
master-the mosques that gleam within the valley,
as crimson as if they had just been drawn
out of the
fire." He told me: "The eternal
flame burning there appears to make them red,
as you can see, within this lower Hell."
So we
arrived inside the deep-cut trenches
that are the moats of this despondent land:
the ramparts seemed to me to be of iron.
But not
before we'd ranged in a wide circuit
did we approach a place where that shrill pilot
shouted: "Get out; the entrance way is here."
About the
gates I saw more than a thousand-
who once had rained from Heaven-and they cried
in anger: "Who is this who, without death,
can
journey through the kingdom of the dead?"
And my wise master made a sign that said
he wanted to speak secretly to them.
Then they
suppressed-somewhat-their great disdain
and said: "You come alone; let him be gone-
for he was reckless, entering this realm.
Let him
return alone on his mad road-
or try to, if he can, since you, his guide
across so dark a land, you are to stay."
Consider,
reader, my dismay before
the sound of those abominable words:
returning here seemed so impossible.
"O my
dear guide, who more than seven times
has given back to me my confidence
and snatched me from deep danger that had menaced,
do not
desert me when I'm so undone;
and if they will not let us pass beyond,
let us retrace our steps together, quickly."
These were
my words; the lord who'd led me there
replied: "Forget your fear, no one can hinder
our passage; One so great has granted it.
But you
wait here for me, and feed and comfort
your tired spirit with good hope, for I
will not abandon you in this low world."
So he goes
on his way; that gentle father
has left me there to wait and hesitate,
for yes and no contend within my head.
I could
not hear what he was telling them;
but he had not been long with them when each
ran back into the city, scrambling fast.
And these,
our adversaries, slammed the gates
in my lord's face; and he remained outside,
then, with slow steps, turned back again to me.
His eyes
turned to the ground, his brows deprived
of every confidence, he said with sighs:
"See who has kept me from the house of sorrow!'
To me he
added: "You-though I am vexed-
must not be daunted; I shall win this contest,
whoever tries-within-to block our way.
This
insolence of theirs is nothing new;
they used it once before and at a gate
less secret-it is still without its bolts-
the place
where you made out the fatal text;
and now, already well within that gate,
across the circles-and alone-descends
the one
who will unlock this realm for us."
The color
cowardice displayed in me
when I saw that my guide was driven back,
made him more quickly mask his own new pallor.
He stood
alert, like an attentive listener,
because his eye could hardly journey far
across the black air and the heavy fog.
"We
have to win this battle," he began,
"if not. . . But one so great had offered help.
How slow that someone s coming seems to me!"
But I saw
well enough how he had covered
his first words with the words that followed after-
so different from what he had said before;
nevertheless,
his speech made me afraid,
because I drew out from his broken phrase
a meaning worse-perhaps-than he'd intended.
"Does
anyone from the first circle, one
whose only punishment is crippled hope,
ever descend so deep in this sad hollow?"
That was
my question. And he answered so:
"It is quite rare for one of us to go
along the way that I have taken now.
But I, in
truth, have been here once before:
that savage witch Erichtho, she who called
the shades back to their bodies, summoned me.
My flesh
had not been long stripped off when she
had me descend through all the rings of Hell,
to draw a spirit back from Judas' circle.
That is
the deepest and the darkest place,
the farthest from the heaven that girds all:
so rest assured, I know the pathway well.
This swamp
that breeds and breathes the giant stench
surrounds the city of the sorrowing,
which now we cannot enter without anger."
And he
said more, but I cannot remember
because my eyes had wholly taken me
to that high tower with the glowing summit
where, at
one single point, there suddenly
stood three infernal Furies flecked with blood,
who had the limbs of women and their ways
but wore,
as girdles, snakes of deepest green;
small serpents and horned vipers formed their hairs,
and these were used to bind their bestial temples.
And he,
who knew these handmaids well-they served
the Queen of never-ending lamentation-
said: "Look at the ferocious Erinyes!
That is
Megaera on the left, and she
who weeps upon the right, that is Allecto;
Tisiphone's between them." He was done.
Each Fury
tore her breast with taloned nails;
each, with her palms, beat on herself and wailed
so loud that 1, in fear, drew near the poet.
"Just
let Medusa come; then we shall turn
him into stone," they all cried, looking down;
"we should have punished Theseus' assault."
"Turn
round and keep your eyes shut fast, for should
the Gorgon show herself and you behold her,
never again would you return above,"
my master
said; and he himself turned me
around,and, not content with just my hands,
used his as well to cover up my eyes.
O you
possessed of sturdy intellects,
observe the teaching that is hidden here
beneath the veil of verses so obscure.
And now,
across the turbid waves, there passed
a reboantic fracas-horrid sound,
enough to make both of the shorelines quake:
a sound
not other than a wind's when, wild
because it must contend with warmer currents,
it strikes against the forest without let,
shattering,
beating down, bearing off branches,
as it moves proudly, clouds of dust before it,
and puts to flight both animals and shepherds.
He freed
my eyes and said: "Now let your optic
nerve turn directly toward that ancient foam,
there where the mist is thickest and most acrid."
As frogs
confronted by their enemy,
the snake, will scatter underwater till
each hunches in a heap along the bottom,
so did the
thousand ruined souls I saw
take flight before a figure crossing Styx
who walked as if on land and with dry soles.
He thrust
away the thick air from his face,
waving his left hand frequently before him;
that seemed the only task that wearied him.
I knew
well he was Heaven's messenger,
and I turned toward my master; and he made
a sign that I be still and bow before him.
How full
of high disdain he seemed to me!
He came up to the gate, and with a wand,
he opened it, for there was no resistance.
"O
you cast out of Heaven, hated crowd,"
were his first words upon that horrid threshold,
"why do you harbor this presumptuousness?
Why are
you so reluctant to endure
that Will whose aim can never be cut short,
and which so often added to your hurts?
What good
is it to thrust against the fates?
Your Cerberus, if you remember well,
for that, had both his throat and chin stripped clean."
At that he
turned and took the filthy road,
and did not speak to us, but had the look
of one who is obsessed by other cares
than those
that press and gnaw at those before him;
and we moved forward, on into the city,
in safety, having heard his holy words.
We made
our way inside without a struggle;
and I, who wanted so much to observe
the state of things that such a fortress guarded,
as soon as
I had entered, looked about.
I saw, on every side, a spreading plain
of lamentation and atrocious pain.
Just as at
Arles, where Rhone becomes a marsh,
just as at Pola, near Quarnero's gulf,
that closes Italy and bathes its borders,
the
sepulchers make all the plain uneven,
so they did here on every side, except
that here the sepulchers were much more harsh;
for flames
were scattered through the tombs, and these
had kindled all of them to glowing heat;
no artisan could ask for hotter iron.
The lid of
every tomb was lifted up,
and from each tomb such sorry cries arose
as could come only from the sad and hurt.
And I:
"Master, who can these people be
who, buried in great chests of stone like these,
must speak by way of sighs in agony?"
And he to
me: "Here are arch-heretics
and those who followed them, from every sect;
those tombs are much more crowded than you think.
Here, like
has been ensepulchered with like;
some monuments are heated more, some less."
And then he turned around and to his right;
we passed
between the torments and high walls.
Now, by a
narrow path that ran between
those torments and the ramparts of the city,
my master moves ahead, I following.
"O
highest virtue, you who lead me through
these circles of transgression, at your will,
do speak to me, and satisfy my longings.
Can those
who lie within the sepulchers
be seen? The lids-in fact-have all been lifted;
no guardian is watching over them."
And he to
me: "They'll all be shuttered up
when they return here from Jehosaphat
together with the flesh they left above.
Within
this region is the cemetery
of Epicurus and his followers,
all those who say the soul dies with the body.
And so the
question you have asked of me
will soon find satisfaction while we're here,
as will the longing you have hid from me."
And I:
"Good guide, the only reason I
have hid my heart was that I might speak briefly
and you, long since, encouraged me in this."
"O
Tuscan, you who pass alive across
the fiery city with such seemly words,
be kind enough to stay your journey here.
Your
accent makes it clear that you belong
among the natives of the noble city
I may have dealt with too vindictively."
This sound
had burst so unexpectedly
out of one sepulcher that, trembling, I
then drew a little closer to my guide.
But he
told me: "Turn round! What are you doing?
That's Farinata who has risen there-
you will see all of him from the waist up."
My eyes
already were intent on his;
and up he rose-his forehead and his chest-
as if he had tremendous scorn for Hell.
My
guide-his hands encouraging and quick-
thrust me between the sepulchers toward him,
saying: "Your words must be appropriate."
When I'd
drawn closer to his sepulcher,
he glanced at me, and as if in disdain,
he asked of me: "Who were your ancestors?"
Because I
wanted so to be compliant,
I hid no thing from him: I told him all.
At this he lifted up his brows a bit,
then said:
"They were ferocious enemies
of mine and of my parents and my party,
so that I had to scatter them twice over."
"If
they were driven out," I answered him,
"they still returned, both times, from every quarter;
but yours were never quick to learn that art."
At this
there rose another shade alongside,
uncovered to my sight down to his chin;
I think that he had risen on his knees.
He looked
around me, just as if he longed
to see if I had come with someone else;
but then, his expectation spent, he said
in tears:
"If it is your high intellect
that lets you journey here, through this blind prison,
where is my son? Why is he not with you?"
I
answered: "My own powers have not brought me;
he who awaits me there, leads me through here
perhaps to one your Guido did disdain."
His words,
the nature of his punishment-
these had already let me read his name;
therefore, my answer was so fully made.
Then
suddenly erect, he cried: "What's that:
He 'did disdain'? He is not still alive?
The sweet light does not strike against his eyes?"
And when
he noticed how I hesitated
a moment in my answer, he fell back-
supine-and did not show himself again.
But that
great-hearted one, the other shade
at whose request I'd stayed, did not change aspect
or turn aside his head or lean or bend;
and taking
up his words where-he'd left off,
"If they were slow," he said, "to learn that art,
that is more torment to me than this bed.
And yet
the Lady who is ruler here
will not have her face kindled fifty times
before you learn how heavy is that art.
And so may
you return to the sweet world,
tell me: why are those citizens so cruel
against my kin in all of their decrees?"
To which I
said: "The carnage, the great bloodshed2
that stained the waters of the Arbia red
have led us to such prayers in our temple."
He sighed
and shook his head, then said: "In that,0
I did not act alone, but certainly
I'd not have joined the others without cause.
But where
I was alone was there where alle
the rest would have annihilated Florence,
had I not interceded forcefully."
"Ah,
as I hope your seed may yet find peace,"
I asked, "so may you help me to undo
the knot that here has snarled my course of thought.
It seems,
if I hear right, that you can see
beforehand that which time is carrying,
but you're denied the sight of present things."
"We
see, even as men who are farsighted,
those things," he said, "that are remote from us;
the Highest Lord allots us that much light.
But when
events draw near or are, our minds
are useless; were we not informed by others,
we should know nothing of your human state.
So you can
understand how our awareness
will die completely at the moment when
the portal of the future has been shut."
Then, as
if penitent for my omission,
I said: "Will you now tell that fallen man
his son is still among the living ones;
and if, a
while ago, I held my tongue
before his question, let him know it was
because I had in mind the doubt you've answered."
And now my
master was recalling me;
so that, more hurriedly, I asked the spirit
to name the others who were there with him.
He said:
"More than a thousand lie with me:
the second Frederick is but one among them,
as is the Cardinal; I name no others."
With that,
he hid himself; and pondering
the speech that seemed to me so menacing,
I turned my steps to meet the ancient poet.
He moved
ahead, and as we made our way,
he said to me: "Why are you so dismayed?"
I satisfied him, answering him fully.
And then
that sage exhorted me: "Remember
the words that have been spoken here against you.
Now pay attention," and he raised his finger;
"when
you shall stand before the gentle splendor
of one whose gracious eyes see everything,
then you shall learn-from her-your lifetime's journey."
Following
that, his steps turned to the left,
leaving the wall and moving toward the middle
along a path that strikes into a valley
whose
stench, as it rose up, disgusted us.
Along the
upper rim of a high bank
formed by a ring of massive broken boulders,
we came above a crowd more cruelly pent.
And here,
because of the outrageous stench
thrown up in excess by that deep abyss,
we drew back till we were behind the lid
of a great
tomb, on which I made out this,
inscribed: "I hold Pope Anastasius,
enticed to leave the true path by Photinus."
"It
would be better to delay descent
so that our senses may grow somewhat used
to this foul stench; and then we can ignore it."
So said my
master, and I answered him:
"Do find some compensation, lest this time
be lost." And he: "You see, I've thought of that."
"My
son, within this ring of broken rocks,"
he then began, "there are three smaller circles;
like those that you are leaving, they range down.
Those
circles are all full of cursed spirits;
so that your seeing of them may suffice,
learn now the how and why of their confinement.
Of every
malice that earns hate in Heaven,
injustice is the end; and each such end
by force or fraud brings harm to other men.
However,
fraud is man's peculiar vice;
God finds it more displeasing-and therefore,
the fraudulent are lower, suffering more.
The
violent take all of the first circle;
but since one uses force against three persons,
that circle's built of three divided rings.
To God and
to one's self and to one's neighbor-
I mean, to them or what is theirs-one can
do violence, as you shall now hear clearly.
Violent
death and painful wounds may be
inflicted on one's neighbor; his possessions
may suffer ruin, fire, and extortion;
thus,
murderers and those who strike in malice,
as well as plunderers and robbers-these,
in separated ranks, the first ring racks.
A man can
set violent hands against
himself or his belongings; so within
the second ring repents, though uselessly,
whoever
would deny himself your world,
gambling away, wasting his patrimony,
and weeping where he should instead be happy.
One can be
violent against the Godhead,
one's heart denying and blaspheming Him
and scorning nature and the good in her;
so, with
its sign, the smallest ring has sealed
both Sodom and Cahors and all of those
who speak in passionate contempt of God.
Now fraud,
that eats away at every conscience,
is practiced by a man against another
who trusts in him, or one who has no trust.
This latter
way seems only to cut off
the bond of love that nature forges; thus,
nestled within the second circle are:
hypocrisy
and flattery, sorcerers,
and falsifiers, simony, and theft,
and barrators and panders and like trash.
But in the
former way of fraud, not only
the love that nature forges is forgotten, but
added love that builds a special trust;
thus, in
the tightest circle, where there is
the universe's center, seat of Dis,
all traitors are consumed eternally."
"Master,
your reasoning is clear indeed,"
I said; "it has made plain for me the nature
of this pit and the population in it.
But tell
me: those the dense marsh holds, or those ;
driven before the wind, or those on whom
rain falls, or those who clash with such harsh tongues,
why are
they not all punished in the city;
of flaming red if God is angry with them?
And if He's not, why then are they tormented?"
And then
to me, "Why does your reason wander
so far from its accustomed course?" he said.
"Or of what other things are you now thinking?
Have you
forgotten, then. the words with which
your Ethics treats of those three dispositions
that strike at Heaven's will: incontinence
and malice
and mad bestiality?
And how the fault that is the least condemned
and least offends God is incontinence?
If you
consider carefully this judgment
and call to mind the souls of upper Hell,
who bear their penalties outside this city,
you'll see
why they have been set off from these
unrighteous ones, and why, when heaven's vengeance
hammers at them, it carries lesser anger."
"O
sun that heals all sight that is perplexed,
when I ask you, your answer so contents
that doubting pleases me as much as knowing.
Go back a
little to that point," I said,
"where you told me that usury offends
divine goodness; unravel now that knot."
"Philosophy,
for one who understands,
points out, and not in just one place," he said,
"how nature follows-as she takes her course-
the Divine
Intellect and Divine Art;
and if you read your Physics carefully,
not many pages from the start, you'll see
that when
it can, your art would follow nature,
just as a pupil imitates his master;
so that your art is almost God's grandchild.
From these
two, art and nature, it is fitting,
if you recall how Genesis begins,
for men to make their way, to gain their living;
and since
the usurer prefers another
pathway , he scorns both nature in herself
and art her follower; his hope is elsewhere.
But follow
me, for it is time to move;
the Fishes glitter now on the horizon
all the Wain is spread out over Caurus;
only
beyond, can one climb down the cliff."
The place
that we had reached for our descent
along the bank was alpine; what reclined
upon that bank would, too, repel all eyes.
Just like
the toppled mass of rock that struck-
because of earthquake or eroded props
the Adige on its flank, this side of Trent,
where from
the mountain top from which it thrust
down to the plain, the rock is shattered so
that it permits a path for those above:
such was
the passage down to that ravine.
And at the edge above the cracked abyss,
there lay outstretched the infamy of Crete,
conceived
within the counterfeited cow;
and, catching sight of us, he bit himself
like one whom fury devastates within.
Turning to
him, my sage cried out: "Perhaps
you think this is the Duke of Athens here,
who, in the world above, brought you your death.
Be off,
you beast; this man who comes has not
been tutored by your sister; all he wants
in coming here is to observe your torments."
Just as
the bull that breaks loose from its halter
the moment it receives the fatal stroke,
and cannot run but plunges back and forth,
so did I
see the Minotaur respond;
and my alert guide cried: "Run toward the pass;
it's better to descend while he's berserk."
And so we
made our way across that heap
of stones, which often moved beneath my feet
because my weight was somewhat strange for them.
While
climbing down, I thought. He said: "You wonder,
perhaps, about that fallen mass, watched over
by the inhuman rage I have just quenched.
Now I
would have you know: the other time
that I descended into lower Hell,
this mass of boulders had not yet collapsed;
but if I
reason rightly, it was just
before the coming of the One who took
from Dis the highest circle's splendid spoils
that, on
all sides, the steep and filthy valley
had trembled so, I thought the universe
felt love (by which, as some believe, the world
has often
been converted into chaos);
and at that moment, here as well as elsewhere,
these ancient boulders toppled, in this way.
But fix
your eyes below, upon the valley,
for now we near the stream of blood, where those
who injure others violently, boil."
O blind
cupidity and insane anger,
which goad us on so much in our short life,
then steep us in such grief eternally!
I saw a
broad ditch bent into an arc
so that it could embrace all of that plain,
precisely as my guide had said before;
between
itand the base of the embankment
raced files of Centaurs who were armed with arrows,
as, in the world above, they used to hunt.
On seeing
us descend, they all reined in;
and, after they had chosen bows and shafts,
three of their number moved out from their ranks;
and still
far off, one cried: "What punishment
do you approach as you descend the slope?
But speak from there; if not, I draw my bow."
My master
told him: "We shall make reply
only to Chiron, when we reach his side;
your hasty will has never served you well."
Then he
nudged me and said: "That one is Nessus,
who died because of lovely Deianira
and of himself wrought vengeance for himself.
And in the
middle,- gazing at his chest,
is mighty Chiron, tutor of Achilles;
the third is Pholus, he who was so frenzied.
And many
thousands wheel around the moat,
their arrows aimed at any soul that thrusts
above the blood more than its guilt allots."
By now we
had drawn near those agile beasts;
Chiron drew out an arrow; with the notch,
he parted his beard back upon his jaws.
When he'd
uncovered his enormous mouth,
he said to his companions: "Have you noticed
how he who walks behind moves what he touches?
Dead soles
are not accustomed to do that."
And my good guide-now near the Centaur's chest,
the place where his two natures met-replied:
"He
is indeed alive, and so alone
it falls to me to show him the dark valley.
Necessity has brought him here, not pleasure.
For she
who gave me this new task was one
who had just come from singing halleluiah:
he is no robber; I am not a thief.
But by the
Power that permits my steps
to journey on so wild a path, give us
one of your band, to serve as our companion;
and let
him show us where to ford the ditch,
and let him bear this man upon his back,
for he's no spirit who can fly through air."
Then
Chiron wheeled about and right and said
to Nessus: "Then, return and be their guide;
if other troops disturb you, fend them off."
Now, with
our faithful escort, we advanced
along the bloodred, boiling ditch's banks,
beside the piercing cries of those who boiled.
I saw some
who were sunk up to their brows,
and that huge Centaur said: "These are the tyrants
who plunged their hands in blood and plundering.
Here they
lament their ruthless crimes; here are
both Alexander and the fierce Dionysius,
who brought such years of grief to Sicily.
That brow
with hair so black is Ezzelino;
that other there, the blonde one, is Obizzo
of Este, he who was indeed undone,
within the
world above, by his fierce son."
Then I turned to the poet, and he said:
"Now let him be your first guide, me your second."
A little
farther on, the Centaur stopped
above a group that seemed to rise above
the boiling blood as far up as their throats.
He pointed
out one shade, alone, apart,
and said: "Within God's bosom, he impaled
the heart that still drips blood upon the Thames."
Then I
caught sight of some who kept their heads
and even their full chests above the tide;
among them-many whom I recognized.
And so the
blood grew always shallower
until it only scorched the feet; and here
we found a place where we could ford the ditch.
"Just
as you see that, on this side, the brook
continually thins," the Centaur said,
"so I should have you know the rivulet,
along the
other side, will slowly deepen
its bed, until it reaches once again
the depth where tyranny must make lament.
And there
divine justice torments Attila
he who was such a scourge upon the earth,
and Pyrrhus, Sextus; to eternity
it milks
the tears that boiling brook unlocks
from Rinier of Corneto, Rinier Pazzo,
those two who waged such war upon the highroads."
Then he
turned round and crossed the ford again.
Nessus had
not yet reached the other bank
when we began to make our way across
a wood on which no path had left its mark.
No green
leaves in that forest. only black:
no branches straight and smooth, but knotted, gnarled;
no fruits were there, but briers bearing poison.
Even those
savage beasts that roam between
Cecina and Corneto, beasts that hate
tilled lands, do not have holts so harsh and dense.
This is
the nesting place of the foul Harpies,
who chased the Trojans from the Strophades
with sad foretelling of their future trials.
Their
wings are wide, their necks and faces human;
their feet are taloned, their great bellies feathered;
they utter their laments on the strange trees.
And my
kind master then instructed me:
"Before you enter farther know that now
you are within the second ring and shall
be here
until you reach the horrid sand;
therefore look carefully; you'll see such things
as would deprive my speech of all belief."
From every
side I heard the sound of cries,
but I could not see any source for them,
so that, in my bewilderment, I stopped.
I think
that he was thinking that I thought
so many voices moaned among those trunks
from people who had been concealed from us.
Therefore
my master said: "If you would tear
a little twig from any of these plants,
the thoughts you have will also be cut off."
Then I
stretched out my hand a little way
and from a great thornbush snapped off a branch,
at which its trunk cried out: "Why do you tear me?"
And then,
when it had grown more dark with blood, :
it asked again: "Why do you break me off?
Are you without all sentiment of pity?
We once
were men and now are arid stumps:
your hand might well have shown us greater mercy
had we been nothing more than souls of serpents."
As from a
sapling log that catches fire
along one of its ends, while at the other
it drips and hisses with escaping vapor,
so from
that broken stump issued together
both words and blood; at which I let the branch
fall, and I stood like one who is afraid.
My sage
said: "Wounded soul, if, earlier,
he had been able to believe what he
had only glimpsed within my poetry,
then he
would not have set his hand against you;
but its incredibility made me
urge him to do a deed that grieves me deeply.
But tell
him who you were, so that he may,
to make amends, refresh your fame within
the world above, where he can still return."
To which
the trunk: "Your sweet speech draws me so
that I cannot be still; and may it not
oppress you, if I linger now in talk.
I am the
one who guarded both the keys
of Frederick's heart and turned them, locking and
unlocking them with such dexterity
that none
but I could share his confidence;
and I was faithful to my splendid office,
so faithful that I lost both sleep and strength.
The whore
who never turned her harlot's eyes
away from Caesar's dwelling, she who is
the death of all and vice of every court,
inflamed
the minds of everyone against me;
and those inflamed, then so inflamed Augustus
that my delighted honors turned to sadness.
My mind,
because of its disdainful temper,
believing it could flee disdain through death,
made me unjust against my own just self.
I swear to
you by the peculiar roots
of this thornbush, I never broke my faith
with him who was so worthy-with my lord.
If one of
you returns into the world,
then let him help my memory, which still
lies prone beneath the battering of envy."
The poet
waited briefly, then he said
to me: "Since he is silent, do not lose
this chance, but speak and ask what you would know."
And I:
"Do you continue; ask of him
whatever you believe I should request;
I cannot, so much pity takes my heart."
Then he
began again: "Imprisoned spirit,
so may this man do freely what you ask,
may it please you to tell us something more
of how the
soul is bound into these knots;
and tell us, if you can, if any one
can ever find his freedom from these limbs."
At this
the trunk breathed violently, then
that wind became this voice: "You shall be answered
promptly. When the savage spirit quits
the body
from which it has torn itself,
then Minos sends it to the seventh maw.
It falls into the wood, and there's no place
to which
it is allotted, but wherever
fortune has flung that soul, that is the space
where, even as a grain of spelt, it sprouts.
It rises
as a sapling, a wild plant;
and then the Harpies, feeding on its leaves,
cause pain and for that pain provide a vent.
Like other
souls, we shall seek out the flesh
that we have left, but none of us shall wear it;
it is not right for any man to have
what he
himself has cast aside. We'll drag
our bodies here; they'll hang in this sad wood,
each on the stump of its vindictive shade."
And we
were still intent upon the trunk-
believing it had wanted to say more-
when we were overtaken by a roar,
just as
the hunter is aware of chase
and boar as they draw near his post-he hears
the beasts and then the branches as they crack.
And there
upon the left were two who, scratched
and naked, fled so violently that they
tore away each forest bough they passed.
The one in
front: "Now come, death, quickly come!"
The other shade, who thought himself too slow,
was shouting after him: "Lano, your legs
were not
so nimble at the jousts of Toppo!"
And then, perhaps because he'd lost his breath,
he fell into one tangle with a bush.
Behind
these two, black bitches filled the wood,
and they were just as eager and as swift
as greyhounds that have been let off their leash.
They set
their teeth in him where he had crouched;
and, piece by piece, those dogs dismembered him
and carried off his miserable limbs.
Then he
who was my escort took my hand;
he led me to the lacerated thorn
that wept in vain where it was bleeding, broken.
"O
Jacopo," it said, "da Santo Andrea,
what have you gained by using me as screen?
Am I to blame for your indecent life?"
When my
good master stood beside that bush,
he said: "Who were you, who through many wounds
must breathe with blood your melancholy words?"
And he to
us: "O spirits who have come
to witness the outrageous laceration
that leaves so many of my branches torn,
collect
them at the foot of this sad thorn.
My home was in the city whose first patron
gave way to John the Baptist; for this reason,
he'll
always use his art to make it sorrow;
and if-along the crossing of the Arno-
some effigy of Mars had not remained,
those
citizens who afterward rebuilt
their city on the ashes that Attila
had left to them, would have travailed in vain.
I made-of
my own house-my gallows place."
Love of
our native city overcame me;
I gathered up the scattered boughs and gave
them back to him whose voice was spent already.
From there
we reached the boundary that divides
the second from the third ring-and the sight
of a dread work that justice had devised.
To make
these strange things clear, I must explain
that we had come upon an open plain
that banishes all green things from its bed.
The wood
of sorrow is a garland round it,
just as that wood is ringed by a sad channel;
here, at the very edge, we stayed our steps.
The ground
was made of sand, dry and compact,
a sand not different in kind from that
on which the feet of Cato had once tramped.
O
vengeance of the Lord, how you should be
dreaded by everyone who now can read
whatever was made manifest to me!
I saw so
many flocks of naked souls,
all weeping miserably, and it seemed that
they were ruled by different decrees.
Some lay
upon the ground, flat on their backs;
some huddled in a crouch, and there they sat;
and others moved about incessantly.
The
largest group was those who walked about,
the smallest, those supine in punishment;
but these had looser tongues to tell their torment.
Above that
plain of sand, distended flakes
of fire showered down; their fall was slow-
as snow descends on alps when no wind blows.
Just like
the flames that Alexander saw
in India's hot zones, when fires fell,
intact and to the ground, on his battalions,
for
which-wisely-he had his soldiers tramp
the soil to see that every fire was spent
before new flames were added to the old;
so did the
never-ending heat descend;
with this, the sand was kindled just as tinder
on meeting flint will flame-doubling the pain.
The dance
of wretched hands was never done;
now here, now there, they tried to beat aside
the fresh flames as they fell. And I began
to speak:
"My master, you who can defeat
all things except for those tenacious demons
who tried to block us at the entryway,
who is
that giant there, who does not seem
to heed the singeing-he who lies and scorns
and scowls, he whom the rains can't seem to soften?"
And he
himself, on noticing that I
was querying my guide about him, cried:
"That which I was in life, I am in death.
Though
Jove wear out the smith from whom he took,
in wrath, the keen-edged thunderbolt with which
on my last day I was to be transfixed;
or if he
tire the others, one by one,
in Mongibello, at the sooty forge,
while bellowing: 'O help, good Vulcan, help!'-
just as he
did when there was war at Phlegra-
and casts his shafts at me with all his force,
not even then would he have happy vengeance."
Then did
my guide speak with such vehemence
as I had never heard him use before:
"O Capaneus, for your arrogance
that is
not quenched, you're punished all the more:
no torture other than your own madness
could offer pain enough to match your wrath."
But then,
with gentler face he turned to me
and said: "That man was one of seven kings
besieging Thebes; he held-and still, it seems,
holds-God
in great disdain, disprizing Him;
but as I told him now, his maledictions
sit well as ornaments upon his chest.
Now follow
me and-take care-do not set
your feet upon the sand that's burning hot,
but always keep them back, close to the forest."
In silence
we had reached a place where flowed
a slender watercourse out of the wood-
a stream whose redness makes me shudder still.
As from
the Bulicame pours a brook
whose waters then are shared by prostitutes,
so did this stream run down across the sand.
Its bed
and both its banks were made of stone,
together with the slopes along its shores,
so that I saw our passageway lay there.
"Among
all other things that I have shown you
since we first made our way across the gate
whose threshold is forbidden to no one,
no thing
has yet been witnessed by your eyes
as notable as this red rivulet,
which quenches every name that burns above it.
These
words were spoken by my guide; at this,
I begged him to bestow the food for which
he had already given me the craving.
"A
devastated land lies in midsea,
a land that is called Crete," he answered me.
"Under its king the world once lived chastely.
Within
that land there was a mountain blessed
with leaves and waters, and they called it Ida;
but it is withered now like some old thing.
It once
was chosen as a trusted cradle
by Rhea for her son; to hide him better,
when he cried out, she had her servants clamor.
Within the
mountain is a huge Old Man,
who stands erect-his back turned toward Damietta-
and looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
The Old
Man's head is fashioned of fine gold,
the purest silver forms his arms and chest,
but he is made of brass down to the cleft;
below that
point he is of choicest iron
except for his right foot, made of baked clay;
and he rests more on this than on the left.
Each part
of him, except the gold, is cracked;
and down that fissure there are tears that drip;
when gathered, they pierce through that cavern's floor
and,
crossing rocks into this valley, form
the Acheron and Styx and Phlegethon;
and then they make their way down this tight channel,
and at the
point past which there's no descent,
they form Cocytus; since you are to see
what that pool is, I'll not describe it here."
And I
asked him: "But if the rivulet
must follow such a course down from our world,
why can we see it only at this boundary?"
And he to
me: "You know this place is round;
and though the way that you have come is long,
and always toward the left and toward the bottom,
you still
have not completed all the circle:
so that, if something new appears to us,
it need not bring such wonder to your face."
And I
again: "Master, where's Phlegethon
and where is Lethe? You omit the second
and say this rain of tears has formed the first."
"I'm
pleased indeed," he said, "with all your questions;
yet one of them might well have found its answer
already-when you saw the red stream boiling.
You shall
see Lethe, but past this abyss,
there where the spirits go to cleanse themselves
when their repented guilt is set aside."
Then he
declared: "The time has come to quit
this wood; see that you follow close behind me;
these margins form a path that does not scorch,
and over
them, all flaming vapor is quenched."
Now one of
the hard borders bears us forward;
the river mist forms shadows overhead
and shields the shores and water from the fire.
Just as
between Wissant and Bruges, the Flemings,
in terror of the tide that floods toward them,
have built a wall of dykes to daunt the sea;
and as the
Paduans, along the Brenta,
build bulwarks to defend their towns and castles
before the dog days fall on Carentana;
just so
were these embankments, even though
they were not built so high and not so broad,
whoever was the artisan who made them.
By now we
were so distant from the wood
that I should not have made out where it was-
not even if I'd turned around to look-
when we
came on a company of spirits
who made their way along the bank; and each
stared steadily at us, as in the dusk,
beneath
the new moon, men look at each other.
They knit their brows and squinted at us-just
as an old tailor at his needle's eye.
And when
that family looked harder, I
was recognized by one, who took me by
the hem and cried out: "This is marvelous!"
That
spirit having stretched his arm toward me,
I fixed my eyes upon his baked, brown features,
so that the scorching of his face could not
prevent my
mind from recognizing him;
and lowering my face to meet his face,
I answered him: "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?"
And he:
"My son, do not mind if Brunetto
Latino lingers for a while with you
and lets the file he's with pass on ahead."
I said:
"With all my strength I pray you, stay;
and if you'd have me rest awhile with you,
I shall, if that please him with whom I go."
"O
son," he said, "whoever of this flock
stops but a moment, stays a hundred years
and cannot shield himself when fire strikes.
Therefore
move on; below-but close-I'll follow;
and then I shall rejoin my company,
who go lamenting their eternal sorrows."
I did not
dare to leave my path for his
own level; but I walked with head bent low
as does a man who goes in reverence.
And he
began: "What destiny or chance
has led you here below before your last
day came, and who is he who shows the way?"
"There,
in the sunlit life above," I answered,
"before my years were full, I went astray
within a valley. Only yesterday
at dawn I
turned my back upon it-but
when I was newly lost, he here appeared,
to guide me home again along this path."
And he to
me: "If you pursue your star,
you cannot fail to reach a splendid harbor,
if in fair life, I judged you properly;
and if I
had not died too soon for this,
on seeing Heaven was so kind to you,
I should have helped sustain you in your work.
But that
malicious, that ungrateful people
come down, in ancient times, from Fiesole-
still keeping something of the rock and mountain-
for your
good deeds, will be your enemy:
and there is cause-among the sour sorbs,
the sweet fig is not meant to bear its fruit.
The world
has long since called them blind, a people
presumptuous, avaricious, envious;
be sure to cleanse yourself of their foul ways.
Your
fortune holds in store such honor for you,
one party and the other will be hungry
for you-but keep the grass far from the goat.
For let
the beasts of Fiesole find forage
among themselves, and leave the plant alone-
if still, among their dung, it rises up-
in which
there lives again the sacred seed
of those few Romans who remained in Florence
when such a nest of wickedness was built."
"If
my desire were answered totally,"
I said to Ser Brunetto, "you'd still be
among, not banished from, humanity.
Within my
memory is fixed-and now
moves me-your dear, your kind paternal image
when, in the world above, from time to time
you taught
me how man makes himself eternal;
and while I live, my gratitude for that
must always be apparent in my words.
What you
have told me of my course, I write;
I keep it with another text, for comment
by one who'll understand, if I may reach her.
One thing
alone I'd have you plainly see:
so long as I am not rebuked by conscience,
I stand prepared for Fortune, come what may.
My ears
find no new pledge in that prediction;
therefore, let Fortune turn her wheel as she
may please, and let the peasant turn his mattock."
At this,
my master turned his head around
and toward the right, and looked at me and said:
"He who takes note of this has listened well."
But
nonetheless, my talk with Ser Brunetto
continues, and I ask of him who are
his comrades of repute and excellence.
And he to
me: "To know of some is good;
but for the rest, silence is to be praised;
the time we have is short for so much talk.
In brief,
know that my company has clerics
and men of letters and of fame-and all
were stained by one same sin upon the earth.
That sorry
crowd holds Priscian and Francesco
d'Accorso; and among them you can see,
if you have any longing for such scurf,
the one
the Servant of His Servants sent
from the Arno to the Bacchiglione's banks,
and there he left his tendons strained by sin.
I would
say more; but both my walk and words
must not be longer, for-beyond-I see
new smoke emerging from the sandy bed.
Now people
come with whom I must not be.
Let my Tesoro, in which I still live,
be precious to you; and I ask no more."
And then
he turned and seemed like one of those
who race across the fields to win the green
cloth at Verona; of those runners, he
appeared
to be the winner, not the loser.
No sooner
had I reached the place where one
could hear a murmur, like a beehive's hum,
of waters as they fell to the next circle,
when,
setting out together, three shades ran,
leaving another company that passed
beneath the rain of bitter punishment.
They came
toward us, and each of them cried out:
"Stop, you who by your clothing seem to be
someone who comes from our indecent country!"
Ah me,
what wounds I saw upon their limbs,
wounds new and old, wounds that the flames seared in!
It pains me still as I remember it.
When they
cried out, my master paid attention;
he turned his face toward me and then he said:
"Now wait: to these one must show courtesy.
And were
it not the nature of this place
for shafts of fire to fall, I'd say that haste
was seemlier for you than for those three."
As soon as
we stood still, they started up
their ancient wail again; and when they reached us,
they formed a wheel, all three of them together.
As
champions, naked, oiled, will always do,
each studying the grip that serves him best
before the blows and wounds begin to fall,
while
wheeling so, each one made sure his face
was turned to me, so that their necks opposed
their feet in one uninterrupted flow.
And,
"If the squalor of this shifting sand,
together with our baked and barren features,
makes us and our requests contemptible,"
one said,
"then may our fame incline your mind
to tell us who you are, whose living feet
can make their way through Hell with such assurance.
He in
whose steps you see me tread, although
he now must wheel about both peeled and naked,
was higher in degree than you believe:
he was a
grandson of the good Gualdrada,
and Guido Guerra was his name; in life his sword and
his good sense accomplished much.
The other
who, behind me, tramples sand-
Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, one whose voice
should have been heeded in the world above.
And I, who
share this punishment with them,
was Jacopo Rusticucci; certainly,
more than all else, my savage wife destroyed me."
If I'd had
shield and shelter from the fire,
I should have thrown myself down there among them-
I think my master would have sanctioned that;
but since
that would have left me burned and baked,
my fear won out against the good intention
that made me so impatient to embrace them.
Then I
began: "Your present state had fixed
not scorn but sorrow in me-and so deeply
that it will only disappear slowly-
as soon as
my lord spoke to me with words
that made me understand what kind of men
were coming toward us, men of worth like yours.
For I am
of your city; and with fondness,
I've always told and heard the others tell
of both your actions and your honored names.
I leave
the gall and go for the sweet apples
that I was promised by my truthful guide;
but first I must descend into the center."
"So
may your soul long lead your limbs and may
your fame shine after you," he answered then,
"tell us if courtesy and valor still
abide
within our city as they did
when we were there, or have they disappeared
completely; for Guiglielmo Borsiere,
who only
recently has come to share
our torments, and goes there with our companions,
has caused us much affliction with his words "
"Newcomers
to the city and quick gains
have brought excess and arrogance to you,
o Florence, and you weep for it already!"
So I cried
out with face upraised; the three
looked at each other when they heard my answer
as men will stare when they have heard the truth.
"If
you can always offer a reply
so readily to others," said all three,
"then happy you who speak, at will, so clearly.
So, if you
can escape these lands of darkness
and see the lovely stars on your return,
when you repeat with pleasure, 'I was there,'
be sure
that you remember us to men."
At this they broke their wheel; and as they fled,
their swift legs seemed to be no less than wings.
The time
it took for them to disappear-
more brief than time it takes to say "amen";
and so, my master thought it right to leave.
I followed
him. We'd. only walked a little
when roaring water grew so near to us
we hardly could have heard each other speak.
And even
as the river that is first
to take its own course eastward from Mount Viso,
along the left flank of the Apennines
(which up
above is called the Acquacheta,
before it spills into its valley bed
and flows without that name beyond Forli),
reverberates
above San Benedetto
dell'Alpe as it cascades in one leap,
where there is space enough to house a thousand;
so did we
hear that blackened water roar
as it plunged down a steep and craggy bank,
enough to deafen us in a few hours.
Around my
waist I had a cord as girdle,
and with it once I thought I should be able
to catch the leopard with the painted hide.
And after
I had loosened it completely,
just as my guide commanded me to do,
I handed it to him, knotted and coiled.
At this,
he wheeled around upon his right
and cast it, at some distance from the edge,
straight down into the depth of the ravine.
"And
surely something strange must here reply,"
I said within myself, "to this strange sign-
the sign my master follows with his eye."
Ah, how
much care men ought to exercise
with those whose penetrating intellect
can see our thoughts-not just our outer act!
He said to
me: "Now there will soon emerge
what I await and what your thought has conjured:
it soon must be discovered to your sight."
Faced with
that truth which seems a lie, a man
should always close his lips as long as he can-
to tell it shames him, even though he's blameless;
but here I
can't be still; and by the lines
of this my Comedy, reader, I swear-
and may my verse find favor for long years-
that
through the dense and darkened air I saw
a figure swimming, rising up, enough
to bring amazement to the firmest heart,
like one
returning from the waves where he
went down to loose an anchor snagged upon
a reef or something else hid in the sea,
who
stretches upward and draws in his feet.
"Behold
the beast who bears the pointed tail,
who crosses mountains, shatters weapons, walls!
Behold the one whose stench fills all the world!"
So did my
guide begin to speak to me,
and then he signaled him to come ashore
close to the end of those stone passageways.
And he
came on, that filthy effigy
of fraud, and landed with his head and torso
but did not draw his tail onto the bank.
The face
he wore was that of a just man,
so gracious was his features' outer semblance;
and all his trunk, the body of a serpent;
he had two
paws, with hair up to the armpits;
his back and chest as well as both his flanks
had been adorned with twining knots and circlets.
No Turks
or Tartars ever fashioned fabrics
more colorful in background and relief,
nor had Arachne ever loomed such webs.
As boats
will sometimes lie along the shore,
with part of them on land and part in water,
and just as there, among the guzzling Germans,
the beaver
sets himself when he means war,
so did that squalid beast lie on the margin
of stone that serves as border for the sand.
And all
his tail was quivering in the void
while twisting upward its envenomed fork,
which had a tip just like a scorpions
My guide
said: "Now we'd better bend our path
a little, till we reach as far as that
malicious beast which crouches over there."
Thus we
descended on the right hand side
and moved ten paces on the stony brink
in order to avoid the sand and fire.
When we
had reached the sprawling beast, I saw-
a little farther on, upon the sand-
some sinners sitting near the fissured rock.
And here
my master said to me: "So that
you may experience this ring in full,
go now, and see the state in which they are.
But keep
your conversation with them brief;
till you return, I'll parley with this beast,
to see if he can lend us his strong shoulders."
So I went
on alone and even farther
along the seventh circle's outer margin,
to where the melancholy people sat.
Despondency
was bursting from their eyes;
this side, then that, their hands kept fending off,
at times the flames, at times the burning soil:
not
otherwise do dogs in summer-now
with muzzle, now with paw-when they are bitten
by fleas or gnats or by the sharp gadfly.
When I had
set my eyes upon the faces
of some on whom that painful fire falls,
I recognized no one; but I did notice
that from
the neck of each a purse was hung
that had a special color and an emblem,
and their eyes seemed to feast upon these pouches.
Looking
about-when I had come among them-
I saw a yellow purse with azure on it
that had the face and manner of a lion.
Then, as I
let my eyes move farther on,
I saw another purse that was bloodred,
and it displayed a goose more white than butter.
And one
who had an azure, pregnant sow
inscribed as emblem on his white pouch, said
to me: "What are you doing in this pit?
Now you be
off; and since you're still alive,
remember that my neighbor Vitaliano
shall yet sit here, upon my left hand side.
Among
these Florentines, I'm Paduan;
I often hear them thunder in my ears,
shouting, 'Now let the sovereign cavalier,
the one
who'll bring the purse with three goats, come!'"
At this he slewed his mouth, and then he stuck
his tongue out, like an ox that licks its nose.
And I,
afraid that any longer stay
might anger him who'd warned me to be brief,
made my way back from those exhausted souls.
I found my
guide, who had already climbed
upon the back of that brute animal,
and he told me: "Be strong and daring now,
for our
descent is by this kind of stairs:
you mount in front; I want to be between,
so that the tail can't do you any harm."
As one who
feels the quartan fever near
and shivers, with his nails already blue,
the sight of shade enough to make him shudder,
so I
became when I had heard these words;
but then I felt the threat of shame, which makes
a servant-in his kind lord's presence-brave.
I settled
down on those enormous shoulders;
I wished to say (and yet my voice did not
come as I thought): "See that you hold me tight."
But he
who-other times, in other dangers-
sustained me, just as soon as I had mounted,
clasped me within his arms and propped me up,
and said:
"Now, Geryon, move on; take care
to keep your circles wide, your landing slow;
remember the new weight you're carrying."
Just like
a boat that, starting from its moorings,
moves backward, backward, so that beast took off;
and when he felt himself completely clear,
he turned
his tail to where his chest had been
and, having stretched it, moved it like an eel,
and with his paws he gathered in the air.
I do not
think that there was greater fear
in Phaethon when he let his reins go free-
for which the sky, as one still sees, was scorched-
nor in
poor Icarus when he could feel ,
his sides unwinged because the wax was melting,
his father shouting to him, "That way's wrong!"
than was
in me when, on all sides, I saw
that I was in the air, and everything
had faded from my sight-except the beast.
Slowly,
slowly, swimming, he moves on;
he wheels and he descends, but I feel only
the wind upon my face and the wind rising.
Already,
on our right, I heard the torrent
resounding, there beneath us, horribly,
so that I stretched my neck and looked below.
Then I was
more afraid of falling off,
for I saw fires and I heard laments, -
at which I tremble, crouching, and hold fast.
And now I
saw what I had missed before:
his wheeling and descent-because great torments
were drawing closer to us on all sides.
Just as a
falcon long upon the wing-
who, seeing neither lure nor bird, compels
the falconer to cry, "Ah me, you fall!"-
descends,
exhausted, in a hundred circles,
where he had once been swift, and sets himself,
embittered and enraged, far from his master;
such, at
the bottom of the jagged rock,
was Geryon, when he had set us down.
And once our weight was lifted from his back,
he
vanished like an arrow from a bow.
There is a
place in Hell called Malebolge,
made all of stone the color of crude iron,
as is the wall that makes its way around it.
Right in
the middle of this evil field
is an abyss, a broad and yawning pit,
whose structure I shall tell in its due place.
The belt,
then, that extends between the pit
and that hard, steep wall's base is circular;
its bottom has been split into ten valleys.
Just as,
where moat on moat surrounds a castle
in order to keep guard upon the walls,
the ground they occupy will form a pattern,
so did the
valleys here form a design;
and as such fortresses have bridges running
right from their thresholds toward the outer bank,
so here,
across the banks and ditches, ridges
ran from the base of that rock wall until
the pit that cuts them short and joins them all.
This was
the place in which we found ourselves
when Geryon had put us down; the poet
held to the left, and I walked at his back.
Upon the
right I saw new misery,
I saw new tortures and new torturers,
filling the first of Malebolge's moats.
Along its
bottom, naked sinners moved,
to our side of the middle, facing us;
beyond that, they moved with us, but more quickly-
as, in the
year of Jubilee, the Romans,
confronted by great crowds, contrived a plan
that let the people pass across the bridge,
for to one
side went all who had their eyes
upon the Castle, heading toward St. Peter's,
and to the other, those who faced the Mount.
Both left
and right, along the somber rock,
I saw horned demons with enormous whips,
who lashed those spirits cruelly from behind.
Ah,:how
their first strokes made those sinners lift
their heels! Indeed no sinner waited for
a second stroke to fall-or for a third.
And as I
moved ahead, my eyes met those
of someone else, and suddenly I said:
"I was not spared the sight of him before."
And so I
stayed my steps, to study him;
my gentle guide had stopped together with me
and gave me leave to take a few steps back.
That
scourged soul thought that he could hide himself a
by lowering his face; it helped him little,
for I said: "You, who cast your eyes upon
the
ground, if these your features are not false,
must be Venedico Caccianemico;
but what brings you to sauces so piquant?"
And he to
me: "I speak unwillingly;
but your plain speech, that brings the memory
of the old world to me, is what compels me;
For it was
I who led Ghisolabella
to do as the Marquis would have her do-
however they retell that filthy tale.
I'm not
the only Bolognese who weeps here;
indeed, this place is so crammed full of us
that not so many tongues have learned to say
sipa
between the Savena and Reno;
if you want faith and testament of that,
just call to mind our avaricious hearts."
And as he
spoke, a demon cudgeled him
with his horsewhip and cried: "Be off, you pimp,
there are no women here for you to trick."
I joined
my escort once again; and then
with but few steps, we came upon a place
where, from the bank, a rocky ridge ran out.
We climbed
quite easily along that height;
and turning right upon its jagged back,
we took our leave of those eternal circlings.
When we
had reached the point where that ridge opens
below to leave a passage for the lashed,
my guide said: "Stay, and make sure that the sight
of still
more ill-born spirits strikes your eyes,
for you have not yet seen their faces, since
they have been moving in our own direction."
From the
old bridge we looked down at the ranks
of those approaching from the other side;
they too were driven onward by the lash.
And my
good master, though I had not asked,
urged me: "Look at that mighty one who comes
and does not seem to shed a tear of pain:
how he
still keeps the image of a king!
That shade is Jason, who with heart and head
deprived the men of Colchis of their ram.
He made a
landfall on the isle of Lemnos
after its women, bold and pitiless,
had given all their island males to death.
With
polished words and love signs he took in
Hypsipyle, the girl whose own deception
had earlier deceived the other women.
And he
abandoned her, alone and pregnant;
such guilt condemns him to such punishment;
and for Medea, too, revenge is taken.
With him
go those who cheated so: this is
enough for you to know of that first valley
and of the souls it clamps within its jaws."
We were
already where the narrow path
reaches and intersects the second bank
and serves as shoulder for another bridge.
We heard
the people whine in the next pouch
and heard them as they snorted with their snouts;
we heard them use their palms to beat themselves.
And
exhalations, rising from below,
stuck to the banks, encrusting them with mold,
and so waged war against both eyes and nose.
The bottom
is so deep, we found no spot
to see it from, except by climbing up
the arch until the bridge's highest point.
This was
the place we reached; the ditch beneath
held people plunged in excrement that seemed
as if it had been poured from human privies.
And while
my eyes searched that abysmal sight,
I saw one with a head so smeared with shit,
one could not see if he were lay or cleric.
He howled:
"Why do you stare more greedily
at me than at the others who are filthy?"
And I: "Because, if I remember right,
I have
seen you before, with your hair dry;
and so l eye you more than all: you are
Alessio Interminei of Lucca."'
Then he
continued, pounding on his pate:
"I am plunged here because of flatteries-
of which my tongue had such sufficiency."
At which
my guide advised me: "See you thrust
your head a little farther to the front,
so that your eyes can clearly glimpse the face
of that
besmirched, bedraggled harridan
who scratches at herself with shit-filled nails, and
now she crouches, now she stands upright.
That is
Thais, the harlot who returned
her lover's question, 'Are you very grateful
to me?' by saying, 'Yes, enormously.'"
And now
our sight has-had its fill of this."
O Simon
Magus! O his sad disciples!
Rapacious ones, who take the things of Cod,
that ought to be the brides of Righteousness,
and make
them fornicate for gold and silver!
The time has come to let the trumpet sound
for you; your place is here in this third pouch.
We had
already reached the tomb beyond
and climbed onto the ridge, where its high point
hangs just above the middle of the ditch.
O Highest
Wisdom, how much art you show
in heaven, earth, and this sad world below,
how just your power is when it allots!
Along the
sides and down along the bottom,
I saw that livid rock was perforated:
the openings were all one width and round.
They did
not seem to me less broad or more
than those that in my handsome San Giovanni
were made to serve as basins for baptizing;
and one of
these, not many years ago,
I broke for someone who was drowning in it:
and let this be my seal to set men straight.
Out from
the mouth of each hole there emerged
a sinner's feet and so much of his legs
up to the thigh; the rest remained within.
Both soles
of every sinner were on fire;
their joints were writhing with such violence,
they would have severed withes and ropes of grass.
As flame
on oily things will only stir
along the outer surface, so there, too,
that fire made its way from heels to toes.
"Master,"
I said, "who is that shade who suffers
and quivers more than all his other comrades,
that sinner who is licked by redder flames?"
And he to
me: "If you would have me lead
you down along the steepest of the banks,
from him you'll learn about his self and sins."
And I:
"What pleases you will please me too:
you are my lord; you know I do not swerve
from what you will, you know what is unspoken."
At this we
came upon the fourth embankment;
we turned and, keeping to the left, descended
into the narrow, perforated bottom.
My good
lord did not let me leave his side
until he'd brought me to the hole that held
that sinner who lamented with his legs.
"Whoever
you may be, dejected soul,
whose head is downward, planted like a pole,"
my words began, "do speak if you are able."
I stood as
does the friar who confesses
the foul assassin who, fixed fast, head down,
calls back the friar, and so delays his death;
and he
cried out: "Are you already standing,
already standing there, o Boniface?
The book has lied to me by several years.
Are you so
quickly sated with the riches
for which you did not fear to take by guile
the Lovely Lady, then to violate her?"
And I
became like those who stand as if
they have been mocked, who cannot understand
what has been said to them and can't respond.
But Virgil
said: "Tell this to him at once:
'I am not he-not whom you think I am.'"
And I replied as I was told to do.
At this
the spirit twisted both his feet,
and sighing and with a despairing voice,
he said: "What is it, then, you want of me?
If you
have crossed the bank and climbed so far
to find out who I am, then know that I
was one of those who wore the mighty mantle,
and surely
was a son of the she-bear,
so eager to advance the cubs that I
pursed wealth above while here I purse myself.
Below my
head there is the place of those
who took the way of simony before me;
and they are stuffed within the clefts of stone.
I, too,
shall yield my place and fall below
when he arrives, the one for whom I had
mistaken you when I was quick to question.
But I have
baked my feet a longer time,
have stood like this, upon my head, than he
is to stand planted here with scarlet feet:
for after
him, one uglier in deeds
will come, a lawless shepherd from the west,
worthy to cover him and cover me.
He'll be a
second Jason, of whom we read
in Maccabees; and just as Jason's king
was soft to him, so shall the king of France
be soft to
this one." And I do not know
if I was too rash here-I answered so:
"Then tell me now, how much gold did our Lord
ask that
Saint Peter give to him before
he placed the keys within his care? Surely
the only thing he said was: 'Follow me.'
And Peter
and the others never asked
for gold or silver when they chose Matthias
to take the place of the transgressing soul.
Stay as
you are, for you are rightly punished
and guard with care the money got by evil
that made you so audacious against Charles.
And were
it not that I am still prevented
by reverence for those exalted keys
that you had held within the happy life,
I'd utter
words much heavier than these,
because your avarice afflicts the world:
it tramples on the good, lifts up the wicked.
You,
shepherds, the Evangelist had noticed
when he saw her who sits upon the waters
and realized she fornicates with kings,
she who
was born with seven heads and had
the power and support of the ten horns,
as long as virtue was her husband's pleasure.
You've
made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
how are you different from idolaters,
save that they worship one and you a hundred?
Ah,
Constantine, what wickedness was born-
and not from your conversion-from the dower
that you bestowed upon the first rich father!"
And while
I sang such notes to him-whether
it was his indignation or his conscience
that bit him-he kicked hard with both his soles.
I do
indeed believe it pleased my guide:
he listened always with such satisfied
expression to the sound of those true words.
And then
he gathered me in both his arms
and, when he had me fast against his chest,
where he climbed down before, climbed upward now;
nor did he
tire of clasping me until
he brought me to the summit of the arch
that crosses from the fourth to the fifth rampart.
And here
he gently set his burden down-
gently because the ridge was rough and steep,
and would have been a rugged pass for goats.
From there
another valley lay before me.
I must
make verses of new punishment
and offer matter now for Canto Twenty
of this first canticle-of the submerged.
I was
already well prepared to stare
below, into the depth that was disclosed,
where tears of anguished sorrow bathed the ground;
and in the
valley's circle I saw souls
advancing, mute and weeping, at the pace
that, in our world, holy processions take.
As I
inclined my head still more, I saw
that each, amazingly, appeared contorted
between the chin and where the chest begins;
they had
their faces twisted toward their haunches
and found it necessary to walk backward,
because they could not see ahead of them.
Perhaps
the force of palsy has so fully
distorted some, but that I've yet to see,
and I do not believe that that can be.
May God so
let you, reader, gather fruit
from what you read; and now think for yourself
how I could ever keep my own face dry
when I
beheld our image so nearby
and so awry that tears, down from the eyes,
bathed the buttocks, running down the cleft.
Of course
I wept, leaning against a rock
along that rugged ridge, so that my guide
told me: "Are you as foolish as the rest?
Here pity
only lives when it is dead
for who can be more impious than he
who links God's judgment to passivity?
Lift, lift
your head and see the one for whom
the earth was opened while the Thebans watched,
so that they all cried: 'Amphiaraus,
where are
you rushing? Have you quit the fight?'
Nor did he interrupt his downward plunge
to Minos, who lays hands on every sinner.
See how
he's made a chest out of his shoulders;
and since he wanted so to see ahead,
he looks behind and walks a backward path.
And see
Tiresias, who changed his mien
when from a man he turned into a woman,
so totally transforming all his limbs
that then
he had to strike once more upon
the two entwining serpents with his wand
before he had his manly plumes again.
And Aruns
is the one who backs against
the belly of Tiresias-Aruns who,
in Luni's hills, tilled by the Carrarese,
who live
below, had as his home, a cave
among white marbles, from which he could gaze
at stars and sea with unimpeded view.
And she
who covers up her breasts-which you
can't see-with her disheveled locks, who keeps
all of her hairy parts to the far side,
was Manto,
who had searched through many lands,
then settled in the place where I was born;
on this, I'd have you hear me now a while.
When
Manto's father took his leave of life,
and Bacchus' city found itself enslaved,
she wandered through the world for many years.
High up,
in lovely Italy, beneath
the Alps that shut in Germany above
Tirolo, lies a lake known as Benaco.
A thousand
springs and more, I think, must flow
out of the waters of that lake to bathe
Pennino, Garda, Val Camonica.
And at its
middle is a place where three-
the bishops of Verona, Brescia, Trento-
may bless if they should chance to come that way.
Peschiera,
strong and handsome fortress, built
to face the Brescians and the Bergamasques
stands where the circling shore is at its lowest.
There, all
the waters that cannot be held
within the bosom of Benaco fall,
to form a river running through green meadows.
No sooner
has that stream begun to flow
than it is called the Mincio, not Benaco-
until Governolo, where it joins the Po.
It's not
flowed far before it finds flat land;
and there it stretches out to form a fen
that in the summer can at times be fetid.
And when
she passed that way, the savage virgin
saw land along the middle of the swamp,
untilled and stripped of its inhabitants.
And there,
to flee all human intercourse,
she halted with her slaves to ply her arts;
and there she lived, there left her empty body.
And afterward,
the people of those parts
collected at that place, because the marsh-
surrounding it on all sides-made it strong.
They built
a city over her dead bones;
and after her who first had picked that spot,
they called it Mantua-they cast no lots.
There once
were far more people in its walls,
before the foolishness of Casalodi
was tricked by the deceit of Pinamonte.
Therefore,
I charge you, if you ever hear
a different tale of my town's origin,
do not let any falsehood gull the truth."
And I:
"O master, that which you have spoken
convinces me and so compels my trust
that others' words would only be spent coals.
But tell
me if among the passing souls
you see some spirits worthy of our notice,
because my mind is bent on that alone."
Then he to
me: "That shade who spreads his beard
down from his cheeks across his swarthy shoulders-
when Greece had been so emptied of its males
that
hardly any cradle held a son,
he was an augur; and at Aulis, he
and Calchas set the time to cut the cables.
His name's
Eurypylus; a certain passage
of my high tragedy has sung it so;
you know that well enough, who know the whole.
That other
there, his flanks extremely spare,
was Michael Scot, a man who certainly
knew how the game of magic fraud was played.
See there
Guido Bonatti; see Asdente,
who now would wish he had attended to
his cord and leather, but repents too late.
See those
sad women who had left their needle,
shuttle, and spindle to become diviners;
they cast their spells with herbs and effigies
But let us
go; Cain with his thorns already
is at the border of both hemispheres
and there, below Seville, touches the sea.
Last night
the moon was at its full; you should
be well aware of this, for there were times
when it did you no harm in the deep wood."
These were
his words to me; meanwhile we journeyed.
We came
along from one bridge to another,
talking ef things my Comedy is not
concerned to sing. We held fast to the summit,
then
stayed our steps to spy the other cleft
of Malebolge and other vain laments.
I saw that it was wonderfully dark.
As in the
arsenal of the Venetians,
all winter long a stew of sticky pitch
boils up to patch their sick and tattered ships
that
cannot sail (instead of voyaging,
some build new keels, some tow and tar the ribs
of hulls worn out by too much journeying;
some
hammer at the prow, some at the stern,
and some make oars, and some braid ropes and cords;
one mends the jib, another, the mainsail);
so, not by
fire but by the art of God,
below there boiled a thick and tarry mass
that covered all the banks with clamminess.
I saw it,
but l could not see within it;
no thing was visible but boiling bubbles,
the swelling of the pitch; and then it settled.
And while
I watched below attentively,
my guide called out to me: "Take care! Take care!"
And then, from where I stood, he drew me near.
I turned
around as one who is impatient
to see what he should shun but is dashed down
beneath the terror he has undergone,
who does
not stop his flight and yet would look.
And then in back of us I saw a black
demon as he came racing up the crags.
Ah, he was
surely barbarous to see!
And how relentless seemed to me his acts!
His wings were open and his feet were lithe;
across his
shoulder, which was sharp and high,
he had slung a sinner, upward from the thighs;
in front, the demon gripped him by the ankles.
Then from
our bridge, he called: "O Malebranche,
I've got an elder of Saint Vita for you!
Shove this one under-I'll go back for more-
his city
is well furnished with such stores;
there, everyone's a grafter but Bonturo;
and there-for cash-they'll change a no to yes."
He threw
the sinner down, then wheeled along
The stony cliff: no mastiff's ever been
unleashed with so much haste to chase a thief.
The sinner
plunged, then surfaced, black with pitch:
but now the demons, from beneath the bridge,
shouted: "the sacred Face has no place here;
here we
swim differently than in the Serchio;
if you don't want to feel our grappling hooks,
don't try to lift yourself above that ditch."
They
pricked him with a hundred prongs and more,
then taunted: "Here one dances under cover,
so try to grab your secret graft below."
The demons
did the same as any cook
who has his urchins force the meat with hooks
deep down into the pot, that it not float.
Then my
good master said to me: "Don't let
those demons see that you are here; take care
to crouch behind the cover of a crag.
No matter
what offense they offer me,
don't be afraid; I know how these things go-
I've had to face such fracases before."
When this
was said, he moved beyond the bridgehead.
And on the sixth embankment, he had need
to show his imperturbability.
With the
same frenzy, with the brouhaha
of dogs, when they beset a poor wretch who
then stops dead in his tracks as if to beg,
so, from
beneath the bridge, the demons rushed
against my guide with all their prongs, but
he called out: "Can't you forget your savagery!
Before you
try to maul me, just let one
of all your troop step forward. Hear me out,
and then decide if I am to be hooked."
At this
they howled, "Let Malacoda go!"
And one of them moved up-the others stayed-
and as he came, he asked: "How can he win?"
"O
Malacoda, do you think I've come,"
my master answered him, "already armed-
as you can see -against your obstacles,
without
the will of God and helpful fate?
Let us move on; it is the will of Heaven
for me to show this wild way to another."
At this
the pride of Malacoda fell;
his prong dropped to his feet. He told his fellows:
"Since that's the way things stand, let us not wound him."
My guide
then spoke to me: "O you, who crouch,
bent low among the bridge's splintered rocks,
you can feel safe-and now return to me."
At this I
moved and quickly came to him.
The devils had edged forward, all of them;
I feared that they might fail to keep their word:
just so, I
saw the infantry when they
marched out, under safe conduct, from Caprona;
they trembled when they passed their enemies.
My body
huddled closer to my guide;
I did not let the demons out of sight;
the looks they cast at us were less than kind.
They bent
their hooks and shouted to each other:
"And shall I give it to him on the rump?"
And all of them replied, "Yes, let him have it!"
But
Malacoda, still in conversation
with my good guide, turned quickly to his squadron
and said: "Be still, Scarmiglione, still!"
To us he
said: "There is no use in going
much farther on this ridge, because the sixth
bridge-at the bottom there-is smashed to bits.
Yet if you
two still want to go ahead,
move up and walk along this rocky edge;
nearby, another ridge will form a path.
Five hours
from this hour yesterday, one
thousand and two hundred sixty-six years passed
since that roadway was shattered here.
I'm
sending ten of mine out there to see
if any sinner lifts his head for air;
go with my men-there is no malice in them."
"Step
forward, Alichino and Calcabrina,"
he then began to say, "and you, Cagnazzo;
and Barbariccia, who can lead the ten.
Let
Libicocco go, and Draghignazzo
and tusky Ciriatto and Graffiacane
and Farfarello and mad Rubicante.
Search all
around the clammy stew of pitch;
keep these two safe and sound till the next ridge
that rises without break across the dens."
"Ah me!
What is this, master, that I see?"
I said. "Can't we do without company? If
you know how to go, I want no escort.
If you are
just as keen as usual,
can't you see how those demons grind their teeth?
Their brows are menacing, they promise trouble."
And he to
me: "I do not want you frightened:
just let them gnash away as they may wish;
they do it for the wretches boiled in pitch."
They
turned around along the left hand bank:
but first each pressed his tongue between his teeth
as signal for their leader, Barbariccia.
And he had
made a trumpet of his ass.
Before
this I've seen horsemen start to march
and open the assault and muster ranks
and seen them, too, at times beat their retreat;
and on
your land, o Aretines, I've seen
rangers and raiding parties galloping,
the clash of tournaments, the rush of jousts,
now done
with trumpets, now with bells, and now
with drums, and now with signs from castle walls,
with native things and with imported ware;
but never
yet have I seen horsemen or
seen infantry or ship that sails by signal
of land or star move to so strange a bugle!
We made
our way together with ten demons:
ah, what ferocious company! And yet
"in church with saints, with rotters in the tavern."
But I was
all intent upon the pitch,
to seek out every feature of the pouch
and of the people who were burning in it.
Just as
the dolphins do, when with arched back,
they signal to the seamen to prepare
for tempest, that their vessel may be spared,
so here
from time to time, to ease his torment,
some sinner showed his back above the surface,
then hid more quickly than a lightning flash.
And just
as on the margin of a ditch,
frogs crouch, their snouts alone above the water,
so as to hide their feet and their plump flesh,
so here on
every side these sinners crouched;
but faster than a flash, when Barbariccia
drew near, they plunged beneath the boiling pitch.
I saw-my
heart still shudders in recall-
one who delayed, just as at times a frog
is left behind while others dive below;
and
Graffiacane, who was closest to him,
then hooked him by his pitch entangled locks
and hauled him up; he seemed to me an otter.
By now I
knew the names of all those demons-
I'd paid attention when the fiends were chosen;
I'd watched as they stepped forward one by one.
"O
Rubicante, see you set your talons
right into him, so you can flay his flesh!"
So did those cursed ones cry out together.
And I:
"My master, if you can, find out
what is the name of that unfortunate
who's fallen victim to his enemies."
My guide,
who then drew near that sinner's side,
asked him to tell his birthplace. He replied:
"My homeland was the kingdom of Navarre.
My mother,
who had had me by a wastrel,
destroyer of himself and his possessions,
had placed me in the service of a lord.
Then I was
in the household of the worthy
King Thibault; there I started taking graft;
with this heat I pay reckoning for that."
And
Ciriatto, from whose mouth there bulged
to right and left two tusks like a wild hog's,
then let him feel how one of them could mangle.
The mouse
had fallen in with evil cats;
but Barbariccia clasped him in his arms
and said: "Stand off there, while I fork him fast."
And
turning toward my master then, he said:
"Ask on, if you would learn some more from him
before one of the others does him in."
At which
my guide: "Now tell: among the sinners
who hide beneath the pitch, are any others
Italian?" And he: "I have just left
one who
was nearby there; and would I were
still covered by the pitch as he is hidden,
for then I'd have no fear of hook or talon."
And
Libicocco said, "We've been too patient!"
and, with his grapple, grabbed him by the arm
and, ripping, carried off a hunk of flesh.
But
Draghignazzo also looked as if
to grab his legs; at which, their captain wheeled
and threatened all of them with raging looks.
When
they'd grown somewhat less tumultuous,
without delay my guide asked of that one
who had his eyes still fixed upon his wound:
"Who
was the one you left to come ashore-
unluckily-as you just said before?"
He answered: "Fra Gomita of Gallura,
who was a
vessel fit for every fraud;
he had his master's enemies in hand,
but handled them in ways that pleased them all.
He took
their gold and smoothly let them off,
as he himself says; and in other matters,
he was a sovereign, not a petty, swindler.
His
comrade there is Don Michele Zanche
of Logodoro; and their tongues are never
too tired to talk of their Sardinia.
Ah me, see
that one there who grinds his teeth!
If I were not afraid, I'd speak some more,
but he is getting set to scratch my scurf."
And their
great marshal, facing Farfarello-
who was so hot to strike he rolled his eyes,
said: "Get away from there, you filthy bird!"
"If
you perhaps would like to see or hear,"
that sinner, terrified, began again,
"Lombards or Tuscans, I can fetch you some;
but let
the Malebranche stand aside
so that my comrades need not fear their vengeance.
Remaining in this very spot, I shall,
although
alone, make seven more appear
when I have whistled, as has been our custom
when one of us has managed to get out."
At that,
Cagnazzo lifted up his snout
and shook his head, and said: "Just listen to
that trick by which he thinks he can dive back!"
To this,
he who was rich in artifice
replied: "Then I must have too many tricks,
if I bring greater torment to my friends."
This was
too much for Alichino and,
despite the others, he cried out: "If you
dive back, I shall not gallop after you
but beat
my wings above the pitch; we'll leave
this height; with the embankment as a screen,
we'll see if you-alone can handle us."
O you who
read, hear now of this new sport:
each turned his eyes upon the other shore,
he first who'd been most hesitant before.
The
Navarrese, in nick of time, had planted
his feet upon the ground; then in an instant
he jumped and freed himself from their commander.
At this
each demon felt the prick of guilt,
and most, he who had led his band to blunder;
so he took off and shouted: "You are caught!"
But this
could help him little; wings were not
more fast than fear; the sinner plunged right under;
the other, flying up, lifted his chest:
not
otherwise the wild duck when it plunges
precipitously, when the falcon nears
and then-exhausted, thwarted-flies back up.
But
Calcabrina, raging at the trick,
flew after Alichino; he was keen
to see the sinner free and have a brawl;
and once
the Navarrese had disappeared,
he turned his talons on his fellow demon
and tangled with him just above the ditch.
But
Alichino clawed him well-he was
indeed a full-grown kestrel; and both fell
into the middle of the boiling pond.
The heat
was quick to disentangle them,
but still there was no way they could get out;
their wings were stuck, enmeshed in glue-like pitch.
And
Barbariccia, grieving with the rest,
sent four to fly out toward the other shore
with all their forks, and speedily enough
on this
side and on that they took their posts;
and toward those two-stuck fast, already cooked
beneath that crust-they stretched their grappling hooks.
We left
them still contending with that mess.
Silent,
alone, no one escorting us,
we made our way-one went before, one after-
as Friars Minor when they walk together.
The
present fracas made me think of Aesop-
that fable where he tells about the mouse
and frog; for "near" and "nigh" are not more close
than are
that fable and this incident,
if you compare with care how each begins
and then compare the endings that they share.
And even
as one thought springs from another,
so out of that was still another born,
which made the fear I felt before redouble.
I thought:
"Because of us, they have been mocked,
and this inflicted so much hurt and scorn
that I am sure they feel deep indignation.
If anger's
to be added to their malice,
they'll hunt us down with more ferocity
than any hound whose teeth have trapped a hare."
I could
already feel my hair curl up
from fear, and I looked back attentively,
while saying: "Master, if you don't conceal
yourself
and me at once-they terrify me,
those Malebranche; they are after us;
I so imagine them, I hear them now."
And he to
me: "Were I a leaded mirror,
I could not gather in your outer image
more quickly than I have received your inner.
For even
now your thoughts have joined my own;
in both our acts and aspects we are kin-
with both our minds I've come to one decision.
If that
right bank is not extremely steep,
we can descend into the other moat
and so escape from the imagined chase."
He'd hardly
finished telling me his plan
when I saw them approach with outstretched wings,
not too far off, and keen on taking us.
My guide
snatched me up instantly, just as
the mother who is wakened by a roar
and catches sight of blazing flames beside her,
will lift
her son and run without a stop-
she cares more for the child than for herself-
not pausing even to throw on a shift;
and down
the hard embankment's edge-his back
lay flat along the sloping rock that closes
one side of the adjacent moat-he slid.
No water
ever ran so fast along
a sluice to turn the wheels of a land mill,
not even when its flow approached the paddles,
as did my
master race down that embankment
while bearing me with him upon his chest,
just like a son, and not like a companion.
His feet
had scarcely reached the bed that lies
along the deep below, than those ten demons
were on the edge above us; but there was
nothing to
fear; for that High Providence
that willed them ministers of the fifth ditch,
denies to all of them the power to leave it.
Below that
point we found a painted people,
who moved about with lagging steps, in circles,
weeping, with features tired and defeated.
And they
were dressed in cloaks with cowls so low
they fell before their eyes, of that same cut
that's used to make the clothes for Cluny's monks.
Outside,
these cloaks were gilded and they dazzled;
but inside they were all of lead, so heavy
that Frederick's capes were straw compared to them.
A tiring
mantle for eternity!
We turned again, as always, to the left,
along with them, intent on their sad weeping;
but with
their weights that weary people paced
so slowly that we found ourselves among
new company each time we took a step.
At which I
told my guide: "Please try to find
someone whose name or deed I recognize;
and while we walk, be watchful with your eyes."
And one
who'd taken in my Tuscan speech
cried out behind us: "Stay your steps, o you
who hurry so along this darkened air!
Perhaps
you'll have from me that which you seek."
At which my guide turned to me, saying: "Wait,
and then continue, following his pace."
I stopped,
and I saw two whose faces showed
their minds were keen to be with me; but both
their load and the tight path forced them to slow.
When they
came up, they looked askance at me
a long while, and they uttered not a word
until they turned to one another, saying:
"The
throbbing of his throat makes this one seem
alive; and if they're dead, what privilege lets
them appear without the heavy mantle?"
Then they
addressed me: "Tuscan, you who come
to this assembly of sad hypocrites,
do not disdain to tell us who you are."
I
answered: "Where the lovely Arno flows,
there I was born and raised, in the great city;
I'm with the body I have always had.
But who are
you, upon whose cheeks I see
such tears distilled by grief? And let me know
what punishment it is that glitters so."
And one of
them replied: "The yellow cloaks
are of a lead so thick, their heaviness
makes us, the balances beneath them, creak.
We both
were Jovial Friars, and Bolognese;
my name was Catalano, Loderingo
was his, and we were chosen by your city
together,
for the post that's usually
one man's, to keep the peace; and what we were
is still to be observed around Gardingo."
I then began,
"O Friars, your misdeeds . . . "
but said no more, because my eyes had caught
one crucified by three stakes on the ground.
When he
saw me, that sinner writhed all over,
and he breathed hard into his beard with sighs;
observing that, Fra Catalano said
to me:
"That one impaled there, whom you see,
counseled the Pharisees that it was prudent
to let one man-and not one nation-suffer.
Naked, he
has been stretched across the path,
as you can see, and he must feel the weight
of anyone who passes over him.
Like
torment, in this ditch, afflicts both his
father-in-law and others in that council,
which for the Jews has seeded so much evil."
Then I saw
Virgil stand amazed above
that one who lay stretched out upon a cross
so squalidly in his eternal exile.
And he
addressed the friar in this way:
"If it does not displease you-if you may-
tell us if there's some passage on the right
that would
allow the two of us to leave
without our having to compel black angels
to travel to this deep, to get us out."
He
answered: "Closer than you hope, you'll find
a rocky ridge that stretches from the great
round wall and crosses all the savage valleys,
except
that here it's broken-not a bridge.
But where its ruins slope along the bank
and heap up at the bottom, you can climb."
My leader
stood a while with his head bent,
then said: "He who hooks sinners over there
gave us a false account of this affair."
At which
the Friar: "In Bologna, I
once heard about the devil's many vices-
they said he was a liar and father of lies."
And then
my guide moved on with giant strides,
somewhat disturbed, with anger in his eyes;
at this I left those overburdened spirits,
while
following the prints of his dear feet.
In that
part of the young year when the sun
begins to warm its locks beneath Aquarius
and nights grow shorter, equaling the days,
when
hoarfrost mimes the image of his white
sister upon the ground-but not for long,
because the pen he uses is not sharp-
the farmer
who is short of fodder rises
and looks and sees the fields all white, at which
he slaps his thigh, turns back into the house,
and here
and there complains like some poor wretch
who doesn't know what can be done, and then
goes out again and gathers up new hope
on seeing
that the world has changed its face
in so few hours, and he takes his staff
and hurries out his flock of sheep to pasture.
So did my
master fill me with dismay
when I saw how his brow was deeply troubled,
yet then the plaster soothed the sore as quickly:
for soon
as we were on the broken bridge,
my guide turned back to me with that sweet manner
I first had seen along the mountain's base.
And he
examined carefully the ruin;
then having picked the way we would ascend,
he opened up his arms and thrust me forward.
And just
as he who ponders as he labors,
who's always ready for the step ahead,
so, as he lifted me up toward the summit
of one
great crag, he'd see another spur,
saying: "That is the one you will grip next,
but try it first to see if it is firm."
That was
no path for those with cloaks of lead,
for he and I-he, light; I, with support-
could hardly make it up from spur to spur.
And were
it not that, down from this enclosure,
the slope was shorter than the bank before,
I cannot speak for him, but I should surely
have been
defeated. But since Malebolge
runs right into the mouth of its last well,
the placement of each valley means it must
have one
bank high and have the other short;
and so we reached, at length, the jutting where
the last stone of the ruined bridge breaks off.
The breath
within my lungs was so exhausted
from climbing, I could not go on; in fact,
as soon as I had reached that stone, I sat.
"Now
you must cast aside your laziness,"
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who
spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore,
get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it.
A longer
ladder still is to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have understood, now profit from it."
Then I
arose and showed myself far better
equipped with breath than I had been before:
"Go on, for I am strong and confident."
We took
our upward way upon the ridge,
with crags more jagged, narrow, difficult,
and much more steep than we had crossed before.
I spoke as
we went on, not to seem weak;
at this, a voice came from the ditch beyond-
a voice that was not suited to form words.
I know not
what he said, although I was
already at the summit of the bridge
that crosses there; and yet he seemed to move.
I had bent
downward, but my living eyes
could not see to the bottom through that dark;
at which I said: "O master, can we reach
the other
belt? Let us descend the wall,
for as I hear and cannot understand, so l
see down but can distinguish nothing."
"The
only answer that I give to you
is doing it," he said. "A just request
is to be met in silence, by the act."
We then
climbed down the bridge, just at the end
where it runs right into the eighth embankment,
and now the moat was plain enough to me;
and there
within I saw a dreadful swarm
of serpents so extravagant in form-
remembering them still drains my blood from me.
Let Libya
boast no more about her sands;
for if she breeds chelydri, jaculi,
cenchres with amphisbaena, pareae,
she never
showed-with all of Ethiopia
or all the land that borders the Red Sea-
so many, such malignant, pestilences.
Among this
cruel and depressing swarm,
ran people who were naked, terrified,
with no hope of a hole or heliotrope.
Their
hands were tied behind by serpents; these
had thrust their head and tail right through the loins,
and then were knotted on the other side.
And-there!-a
serpent sprang with force at one
who stood upon our shore, transfixing him
just where the neck and shoulders form a knot.
No o or i
has ever been transcribed
so quickly as that soul caught fire and burned
and, as he fell, completely turned to ashes;
and when
he lay, undone, upon the ground,
the dust of him collected by itself
and instantly returned to what it was:
just so,
it is asserted by great sages,
that, when it reaches its five-hundredth year,
the phoenix dies and then is born again;
lifelong
it never feeds on grass or grain,
only on drops of incense and amomum;
its final winding sheets are nard and myrrh.
And just
as he who falls, and knows not how-
by demon's force that drags him to the ground
or by some other hindrance that binds man-
who, when
he rises, stares about him, all
bewildered by the heavy anguish he
has suffered, sighing as he looks around;
so did
this sinner stare when he arose.
Oh, how severe it is, the power of God
that, as its vengeance, showers down such blows!
My guide
then asked that sinner who he was;
to this he answered: "Not long since, I rained
from Tuscany into this savage maw.
Mule that
I was, the bestial life pleased me
and not the human; I am Vanni Fucci,
beast; and the den that suited me-Pistoia."
And I to
Virgil: "Tell him not to slip
away, and ask what sin has thrust him here;
I knew him as a man of blood and anger."
The sinner
heard and did not try to feign
but turned his mind and face, intent, toward me;
and coloring with miserable shame,
he said:
"I suffer more because you've caught me
in this, the misery you see, than I
suffered when taken from the other life.
I can't
refuse to answer what you ask:
I am set down so far because I robbed
the sacristy of its fair ornaments,
and
someone else was falsely blamed for that.
But lest this sight give you too much delight,
if you can ever leave these lands of darkness,
open your
ears to my announcement, hear:
Pistoia first will strip herself of Blacks,
then Florence will renew her men and manners.
From Val
di Magra, Mars will draw a vapor
which turbid clouds will try to wrap; the clash
between them will be fierce, impetuous,
a tempest,
fought upon Campo Piceno,
until that vapor, vigorous, shall crack
the mist, and every White be struck by it.
And I have
told you this to make you grieve."
When he
had finished with his words, the thief
raised high his fists with both figs cocked and cried:
"Take that, o God; I square them off for you!"
From that
time on, those serpents were my friends,
for one of them coiled then around his neck,
as if to say, "I'll have you speak no more";
another
wound about his arms and bound him
again and wrapped itself in front so firmly,
he could not even make them budge an inch.
Pistoia,
ah, Pistoia, must you last:
why not decree your self-incineration,
since you surpass your seed in wickedness?
Throughout
the shadowed circles of deep Hell,
I saw no soul against God so rebel,
not even he who fell from Theban walls.
He fled
and could not say another word;
and then I saw a Centaur full of anger,
shouting: "Where is he, where's that bitter one?"
I do not
think Maremma has the number
of snakes that Centaur carried on his haunch
until the part that takes our human form.
Upon his
shoulders and behind his nape
there lay a dragon with its wings outstretched;
it sets ablaze all those it intercepts.
My master
said: "That Centaur there is Cacus,
who often made a lake of blood within
a grotto underneath Mount Aventine.
He does
not ride the same road as his brothers
because he stole-and most deceitfully-
from the great herd nearby; his crooked deeds
ended
beneath the club of Hercules,
who may have given him a hundred blows-
but he was not alive to feel the tenth."
While he
was talking so, Cacus ran by
and, just beneath our ledge, three souls arrived;
but neither I nor my guide noticed them
until they
had cried out: "And who are you?"
At this the words we shared were interrupted,
and we attended only to those spirits.
I did not
recognize them, but it happened,
as chance will usually bring about,
that one of them called out the other's name,
exclaiming:
"Where was Cianfa left behind?"
At this, so that my guide might be alert,
I raised my finger up from chin to nose.
If,
reader, you are slow now to believe
what I shall tell, that is no cause for wonder
for I who saw it hardly can accept it.
As I kept
my eyes fixed upon those sinners,
a serpent with six feet springs out against
one of the three, and clutches him completely.
It gripped
his belly with its middle feet,
and with its forefeet grappled his two arms;
and then it sank its teeth in both his cheeks;
it
stretched its rear feet out along his thighs
and ran its tail along between the two,
then straightened it again behind his loins.
No ivy
ever gripped a tree so fast
as when that horrifying monster clasped
and intertwined the other's limbs with its.
Then just
as if their substance were warm wax,
they stuck together and they mixed their colors,
so neither seemed what he had been before;
just as,
when paper's kindled, where it still
has not caught flame in full, its color's dark
though not yet black, while white is dying off.
The other
two souls stared, and each one cried:
"Ah me, Agnello, how you change! Just see,
you are already neither two nor one''
Then two
heads were already joined in one,
when in one face where two had been dissolved,
two intermingled shapes appeared to us.
Two arms
came into being from four lengths;
the thighs and legs, the belly and the chest
became such limbs as never had been seen.
And every
former shape was canceled there:
that perverse image seemed to share in both-
and none; and so, and slowly, it moved on.
Just as
the lizard, when it darts from hedge
to hedge, beneath the dog days' giant lash,
seems, if it cross one's path, a lightning flash,
so seemed
a blazing little serpent moving
against the bellies of the other two,
as black and livid as a peppercorn.
Attacking
one of therm, it pierced right through
the part where we first take our nourishment;
and then it fell before him at full length.
The one it
had transfixed stared but said nothing;
in fact he only stood his ground and yawned
as one whom sleep or fever has undone.
The
serpent stared at him, he at the serpent;
one through his wound, the other through his mouth
were smoking violently; their smoke met.
Let Lucan
now be silent, where he sings
of sad Sabellus and Nasidius,
and wait to hear what flies off from my bow.
Let Ovid
now be silent, where he tells
of Cadmus, Arethusa; if his verse
has made of one a serpent, one a fountain,
I do not
envy him; he never did
transmute two natures, face to face, so that
both forms were ready to exchange their matter.
These were
the ways they answered to each other:
the serpent split its tail into a fork;
the wounded sinner drew his steps together.
The legs
and then the thighs along with them
so fastened to each other that the juncture
soon left no sign that was discernible.
Meanwhile
the cleft tail took upon itself
the form the other gradually lost;
its skin grew soft, the other's skin grew hard.
I saw the
arms that drew in at his armpits ant
also saw the monster's two short feet
grow long for just as much as those were shortened.
The
serpent's hind feet, twisted up together,
became the member that man hides; just as
the wretch put out two hind paws from his member.
And while
the smoke veils each with a new color,
and now breeds hair upon the skin of one,
just as it strips the hair from off the other,
the one
rose up, the other fell; and yet
they never turned aside their impious eyelamps,
beneath which each of them transformed his snout:
he who
stood up drew his back toward the temples,
and from the excess matter growing there
came ears upon the cheeks that had been bare;
whatever
had not been pulled back but kept,
superfluous, then made his face a nose
and thickened out his lips appropriately.
He who was
lying down thrust out his snout;
and even as the snail hauls in its horns,
he drew his ears straight back into his head;
his
tongue, which had before been whole and fit
for speech, now cleaves; the other's tongue, which had
been forked, now closes up; and the smoke stops.
The soul
that had become an animal,
now hissing, hurried off along the valley;
the other one, behind him, speaks and spits.
And then
he turned aside his new-made shoulders
and told the third soul: "I'd have Buoso run
on all fours down this road, as I have done."
And so I
saw the seventh ballast change
and rechange; may the strangeness plead for me
if there's been some confusion in my pen.
And though
my eyes were somewhat blurred, my mind
bewildered, those three sinners did not flee
so secretly that I could not perceive
Puccio
Sciancato clearly, he who was
the only soul who'd not been changed among the
three companions we had met at first;
the other
one made you, Gaville, grieve.
Be joyous,
Florence, you are great indeed,
for over sea and land you beat your wings;
through every part of Hell your name extends!
Among the
thieves I found five citizens
of yours-and such, that shame has taken me;
with them, you can ascend to no high honor.
But if the
dreams dreamt close to dawn are true,
then little time will pass before you feel
what Prato and the others crave for you.
Were that
already come, it would not be
too soon-and let it come, since it must be!
As I grow older, it will be more heavy.
We left
that deep and, by protruding stones
that served as stairs for our descent before,
my guide climbed up again and drew me forward;
and as we
took our solitary path
among the ridge's jagged spurs and rocks,
our feet could not make way without our hands.
It grieved
me then and now grieves me again
when I direct my mind to what I saw;
and more than usual, I curb my talent,
that it
not run where virtue does not guide;
so that, if my kind star or something better
has given me that gift, I not abuse it.
As many as
the fireflies the peasant
(while resting on a hillside in the season
when he who lights the world least hides his face),
just when
the fly gives way to the mosquito,
sees glimmering below, down in the valley,
there where perhaps he gathers grapes and tills-
so many
were the flames that glittered in
the eighth abyss; I made this out as soon
as I had come to where one sees the bottom.
Even as he
who was avenged by bears
saw, as it left, Elijah's chariot-
its horses rearing, rising right to heaven-
when he
could not keep track of it except
by watching one lone flame in its ascent,
just like a little cloud that climbs on high:
so,
through the gullet of that ditch, each flame
must make its way; no flame displays its prey,
though every flame has carried off a sinner.
I stood
upon the bridge and leaned straight out
to see; and if I had not gripped a rock,
I should have fallen off-without a push.
My guide,
who noted how intent I was,
told me: "Within those fires there are souls;
each one is swathed in that which scorches him."
"My
master," I replied, "on hearing you,
I am more sure; but I'd already thought
that it was so, and I had meant to ask:
Who is
within the flame that comes so twinned
above that it would seem to rise out of
the pyre Eteocles shared with his brother?"
He
answered me: "Within that flame, Ulysses
and Diomedes suffer; they, who went
as one to rage, now share one punishment.
And there,
together in their flame, they grieve
over the horse's fraud that caused a breach-
the gate that let Rome's noble seed escape.
There they
regret the guile that makes the dead
Deidamia still lament Achilles;
and there, for the Palladium, they pay."
"If
they can speak within those sparks," I said,
"I pray you and repray and, master, may
my prayer be worth a thousand pleas, do not
forbid my
waiting here until the flame
with horns approaches us; for you can see
how, out of my desire, I bend toward it."
And he to
me: "What you have asked is worthy
of every praise; therefore, I favor it.
I only ask you this: refrain from talking.
Let me
address them-I have understood
what you desire of them. Since they were Greek,
perhaps they'd be disdainful of your speech."
And when
my guide adjudged the flame had reached
a point where time and place were opportune,
this was the form I heard his words assume:
"You
two who move as one within the flame,
if I deserved of you while I still lived,
if I deserved of you much or a little
when in
the world I wrote my noble lines, do
not move on; let one of you retell
where, having gone astray, he found his death."
The
greater horn within that ancient flame
began to sway and tremble, murmuring
just like a fire that struggles in the wind;
and then
he waved his flame-tip back and forth
as if it were a tongue that tried to speak,
and flung toward us a voice that answered: "When
I sailed
away from Circe, who'd beguiled me
to stay more than a year there, near Gaeta-
before Aeneas gave that place a name-
neither my
fondness for my son nor pity
for my old father nor the love I owed
Penelope, which would have gladdened her,
was able
to defeat m me the longing
I had to gain experience of the world
and of the vices and the worth of men.
Therefore,
I set out on the open sea
with but one ship and that small company
of those who never had deserted me.
I saw as
far as Spain, far as Morocco,
along both shores; I saw Sardinia
and saw the other islands that sea bathes.
And I and
my companions were already
old and slow, when we approached the narrows
where Hercules set up his boundary stones
that men
might heed and never reach beyond:
upon my right, I had gone past Seville,
and on the left, already passed Ceuta.
'Brothers,'
I said, 'o you, who having crossed
a hundred thousand dangers, reach the west,
to this brief waking-time that still is left
unto your
senses, you must not deny
experience of that which lies beyond
the sun, and of the world that is unpeopled.
Consider
well the seed that gave you birth:
you were not made to live your lives as brutes,
but to be followers of worth and knowledge.'
I spurred
my comrades with this brief address
to meet the journey with such eagerness
that I could hardly, then, have held them back;
and having
turned our stern toward morning, we
made wings out of our oars in a wild flight
and always gained upon our left-hand side.
At night I
now could see the other pole
and all its stars; the star of ours had fallen
and never rose above the plain of the ocean.
Five times
the light beneath the moon had been
rekindled, and, as many times, was spent,
since that hard passage faced our first attempt,
when there
before us rose a mountain, dark
because of distance, and it seemed to me
the highest mountain I had ever seen.
And we
were glad, but this soon turned to sorrow
for out of that new land a whirlwind rose
and hammered at our ship, against her bow.
Three
times it turned her round with all the waters;
and at the fourth, it lifted up the stern
so that our prow plunged deep, as pleased an Other,
until the
sea again closed-over us."
The flame
already was erect and silent-
it had no more to say. Now it had left us
with the permission of the gentle poet,
when, just
behind it, came another flame
that drew our eyes to watch its tip because
of the perplexing sound that it sent forth.
Even as
the Sicilian bull (that first
had bellowed with the cry-and this was just-
of him who shaped it with his instruments)
would
always bellow with its victim's voice,
so that, although that bull was only brass,
it seemed as if it were pierced through by pain;
so were
the helpless words that, from the first,
had found no path or exit from the flame,
transformed into the language of the fire.
But after
they had found their way up toward
the tip, and given it that movement which
the tongue had given them along their passage,
we heard:
"0 you to whom I turn my voice,
who only now were talking Lombard, saying,
'Now you may leave-I'll not provoke more speech,'
though I
have come perhaps a little late,
may it not trouble you to stop and speak
with me; see how I stay-and I am burning!
If you
have fallen into this blind world
but recently, out of the sweet Italian
country from which I carry all my guilt,
do tell me
if the Romagnoles have peace
or war; I was from there-the hills between
Urbino and the ridge where Tiber springs."
I still
was bent, attentive, over him,
when my guide nudged me lightly at the side
and said: "You speak; he is Italian."
And I, who
had my answer set already,
without delay began to speak to him:
"O soul that is concealed below in flame,
Romagna is
not now and never was
quite free of war inside its tyrants' hearts;
but when I left her, none had broken out.
Ravenna
stands as it has stood for years;
the eagle of Polenta shelters it and also
covers Cervia with his wings.
The city
that already stood long trial and
made a bloody heap out of the French, now
finds itself again beneath green paws.
Both
mastiffs of Verruchio, old and new, who
dealt so badly with Montagna, use their teeth to
bore where they have always gnawed.
The cities
on Lamone and Santerno are led
by the young lion of the white lair; from
summer unto winter, he shifts factions.
That city
with its side bathed by the Savio,
just as it lies between the plain and mountain,
lives somewhere between tyranny and freedom.
And now, I
pray you, tell me who you are:
do not be harder than I've been with you,
that in the world your name may still endure."
After the
flame, in customary fashion,
had roared awhile, it moved its pointed tip
this side and that and then set free this breath:
"If I
thought my reply were meant for one
who ever could return into the world,
this flame would stir no more; and yet, since none-
if what I
hear is true-ever returned
alive from this abyss, then without fear
of facing infamy, I answer you.
I was a
man of arms, then wore the cord,
believing that, so girt, I made amends;
and surely what I thought would have been true
had not
the Highest Priest-may he be damned!-
made me fall back into my former sins;
and how and why, I'd have you hear from me.
While I
still had the form of bones and flesh
my mother gave to me, my deeds were not
those of the lion but those of the fox.
The wiles
and secret ways-I knew them all
and so employed their arts that my renown
had reached the very boundaries of earth.
But when I
saw myself come to that part
of life when it is fitting for all men
to lower sails and gather in their ropes,
what once
had been my joy was now dejection;
repenting and confessing, I became
a friar; and- poor me-it would have helped.
The prince
of the new Pharisees, who then
was waging war so near the Lateran-
and not against the Jews or Saracens,
for every
enemy of his was Christian,
and none of them had gone to conquer Acre
or been a trader in the Sultan's lands-
took no
care for the highest office or
the holy orders that were his, or for
my cord, which used to make its wearers leaner.
But just
as Constantine, on Mount Soracte,
to cure his leprosy, sought out Sylvester,
so this one sought me out as his instructor,
to ease
the fever of his arrogance.
He asked me to give counsel. I was silent-
his words had seemed to me delirious.
And then
he said: 'Your heart must not mistrust:
I now absolve you in advance-teach me
to batter Penestrino to the ground.
You surely
know that I possess the power
to lock and unlock Heaven; for the keys
my predecessor did not prize are two.'
Then his
grave arguments compelled me so,
my silence seemed a worse offense than speech,
and I said: 'Since you cleanse me of the sin
that I
must now fall into, Father, know:
long promises and very brief fulfillments
will bring a victory to your high throne.'
Then
Francis came, as soon as I was dead,
for me; but one of the black cherubim
told him: 'Don't bear him off; do not cheat me.
He must
come down among my menials;
the counsel that he gave was fraudulent;
since then, I've kept close track, to snatch his scalp;
one can't
absolve a man who's not repented,
and no one can repent and will at once;
the law of contradiction won't allow it.'
O
miserable me, for how I started
when he took hold of me and said: 'Perhaps
you did not think that I was a logician!'
He carried
me to Minos; and that monster
twisted his tail eight times around his hide
and then, when he had bit it in great anger,
announced:
'This one is for the thieving fire';
for which-and where, you see-I now am lost,
and in this garb I move in bitterness."
And when,
with this, his words were at an end,
the flame departed, sorrowing and writhing
and tossing its sharp horn. We moved beyond;
I went
together with my guide, along
the ridge until the other arch that bridges
the ditch where payment is imposed on those
who, since
they brought such discord, bear such loads.
Who, even
with untrammeled words and many
attempts at telling, ever could recount
in full the blood and wounds that I now saw?
Each
tongue that tried would certainly fall short
because the shallowness of both our speech
and intellect cannot contain so much.
Were you
to reassemble all the men
who once, within Apulia's fateful land,
had mourned their blood, shed at the Trojans' hands,
as well as
those who fell in the long war
where massive mounds of rings were battle spoils-
even as Livy writes, who does not err-
and those
who felt the thrust of painful blows
when they fought hard against Robert Guiscard;
with all the rest whose bones are still piled up
at
Ceperano-each Apulian was
a traitor there-and, too, at Tagliacozzo,
where old Alardo conquered without weapons;
and then,
were one to show his limb pierced through
and one his limb hacked off, that would not match
the hideousness of the ninth abyss.
No barrel,
even though it's lost a hoop
or end- piece, ever gapes as one whom I
saw ripped right from his chin to where we fart:
his bowels
hung between his legs, one saw
his vitals and the miserable sack
that makes of what we swallow excrement.
While I
was all intent on watching him,
he looked at me, and with his hands he spread
his chest and said: "See how I split myself
See now
how maimed Mohammed is! And he
who walks and weeps before me is Ali,
whose face is opened wide from chin to forelock.
And all
the others here whom you can see
were, when alive, the sowers of dissension
and scandal, and for this they now are split.
Behind us
here, a devil decks us out
so cruelly, re-placing every one:
of this throng underneath the sword edge when
we've made
our way around the road of pain,
because our wounds have closed again before
we have returned to meet his blade once more.
But who
are you who dawdle on this ridge,
perhaps to slow your going to the verdict
that was pronounced on your self-accusations?
"Death
has not reached him yet," my master answered,
"nor is it guilt that summons him to torment;
but that he may gain full experience,
I, who am
dead, must guide him here below,
to circle after circle, throughout Hell:
this is as true as that I speak to you."
More than
a hundred, when they heard him, stopped
within the ditch and turned to look at me,
forgetful of their torture, wondering.
"Then
you, who will perhaps soon see the sun,
tell Fra Dolcino to provide himself
with food, if he has no desire to join me
here quickly,
lest when snow besieges him,
it bring the Novarese the victory
that otherwise they would not find too easy."
When he
had raised his heel, as if to go,
Mohammed said these words to me, and then
he set it on the ground and off he went.
Another sinner,
with his throat slit through
and with his nose hacked off up to his eyebrows,
and no more than a single ear remaining,
had-with
the others-stayed his steps in wonder;
he was the first, before the rest, to open
his windpipe-on the outside, all bloodred-
and said:
"O you whom guilt does not condemn,
and whom, unless too close resemblance cheats me,
I've seen above upon Italian soil,
remember
Pier da Medicina if
you ever see again the gentle plain
that from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo.
And let
the two best men of Fano know-
I mean both Messer Guido and Angiolello-
that, if the foresight we have here's not vain,
they will
be cast out of their ship and drowned,
weighed down with stones, near La Cattolica,
because of a foul tyrant's treachery.
Between
the isles of Cyprus and Majorca,
Neptune has never seen so cruel a crime
committed by the pirates or the Argives.
That
traitor who sees only with one eye
and rules the land which one who's here with me
would wish his sight had never seen, will call
Guido and
Angiolello to a parley,
and then will so arrange it that they'll need
no vow or prayer to Focara's wind!"
And I to
him: "If you would have me carry
some news of you above, then tell and show me
who so detests the sight of Rimini."
And then
he set his hand upon the jaw
of a companion, opening his mouth
and shouting: "This is he, and he speaks- not.
A man cast
out, he quenched the doubt in Caesar,
insisting that the one who is prepared
can only suffer harm if he delays."
Oh, how
dismayed and pained he seemed to me,
his tongue slit in his gullet: Curio,
who once was so audacious in his talk!
And one
who walked with both his hands hacked off,
while lifting up his stumps through the dark air,
so that his face was hideous with blood,
cried out:
"You will remember Mosca, too,
who said-alas-'What's done is at an end,'
which was the seed of evil for the Tuscans."
I added:
"-and brought death to your own kinsmen";
then having heard me speak, grief heaped on grief,
he went his way as one gone mad with sadness.
But I
stayed there to watch that company
and saw a thing that I should be afraid
to tell with no more proof than my own self-
except
that I am reassured by conscience,
that good companion, heartening a man
beneath the breastplate of its purity.
I surely
saw, and it still seems I see,
a trunk without a head that walked just like
the others in that melancholy herd;
it carried
by the hair its severed head,
which swayed within its hand just like a lantern;
and that head looked at us and said: "Ah me!"
Out of
itself it made itself a lamp,
and they were two in one and one in two;
how that can be, He knows who so decrees.
When it
was just below the bridge, it lifted
its arm together with its head, so that
its words might be more near us, words that said:
"Now
you can see atrocious punishment,
you who, still breathing, go to view the dead:
see if there's any pain as great as this.
And so
that you may carry news of me,
know that I am Bertran de Born, the one
who gave bad counsel to the fledgling king.
I made the
son and father enemies:
Achitophel with his malicious urgings
did not do worse with Absalom and David.
Because I
severed those so joined, I carry-
alas-my brain dissevered from its source,
which is within my trunk. And thus, in me
one sees
the law of counter-penalty."
So many
souls and such outlandish wounds
had made my eyes inebriate-they longed
to stay and weep. But Virgil said to me:
"Why
are you staring so insistently?
Why does your vision linger there below
among the lost and mutilated shadows?
You did
not do so at the other moats.
If you would count them all, consider: twenty-
two miles make up the circuit of the valley.
The moon
already is beneath our feet;
the time alloted to us now is short,
and there is more to see than you see here."
"Had
you," I answered him without a pause,
"been able to consider why I looked,
you might have granted me a longer stay."
Meanwhile
my guide had moved ahead; I went
behind him, answering as I walked on,
and adding: "In that hollow upon which
just now,
I kept my eyes intent, I think
a spirit born of my own blood laments
the guilt which, down below, costs one so much."
At this my
master said: "Don't let your thoughts
about him interrupt you from here on:
attend to other things, let him stay there;
for I saw
him below the little bridge,
his finger pointing at you, threatening,
and heard him called by name -Geri del Bello.
But at
that moment you were occupied
with him who once was lord of Hautefort;
you did not notice Geri-he moved off."
"My
guide, it was his death by violence,
for which he still is not avenged," I said,
"by anyone who shares his shame, that made
him
so-disdainful now; and-Isuppose-
for this he left without a word to me,
and this has made me pity him the more."
And so we
talked until we found the first
point of the ridge that, if there were more light,
would show the other valley to the bottom.
When we
had climbed above the final cloister
of Malebolge, so that its lay brothers
were able to appear before our eyes,
I felt the
force of strange laments, like arrows
whose shafts are barbed with pity; and at this,
I had to place my hands across my ears.
Just like
the sufferings that all the sick
of Val di Chiana's hospitals, Maremma's,
Sardina's, from July until September
would
muster if assembled in one ditch-
so was it here, and such a stench rose up
as usually comes from festering limbs.
And
keeping always to the left, we climbed
down to the final bank of the long ridge,
and then my sight could see more vividly
into the
bottom, where unerring Justice,
the minister of the High Lord, punishes
the falsifiers she had registered.
I do not
think that there was greater grief
in seeing all Aegina's people sick
(then, when the air was so infected that
all
animals, down to the little worm,
collapsed; and afterward, as poets hold
to be the certain truth, those ancient peoples
received
their health again through seed of ants)
than I felt when I saw, in that dark valley,
the spirits languishing in scattered heaps.
Some lay
upon their bellies, some upon
the shoulders of another spirit, some
crawled on all fours along that squalid road.
We
journeyed step by step without a word,
watching and listening to those sick souls,
who had not strength enough to lift themselves.
I saw two
sitting propped against each other-
as pan is propped on pan to heat them up-
and each, from head to foot, spotted with scabs;
and I have
never seen a stableboy
whose master waits for him, or one who stays
awake reluctantly, so ply a horse
with
currycomb, as they assailed themselves
with clawing nails-their itching had such force
and fury, and there was no other help.
And so
their nails kept scraping off the scabs,
just as a knife scrapes off the scales of carp
or of another fish with scales more large.
"O
you who use your nails to strip yourself,"
my guide began to say to one of them,
"and sometimes have to turn them into pincers,
tell us if
there are some Italians
among the sinners in this moat-so may
your nails hold out, eternal, at their work."
"We
two whom you see so disfigured here,
we are Italians," one said, in tears.
"But who are you who have inquired of us?"
My guide
replied: "From circle down to circle,
together with this living man, I am
one who descends; I mean to show him Hell."
At this
their mutual support broke off;
and, quivering, each spirit turned toward me
with others who, by chance, had heard his words.
Then my
good master drew more close to me,
saying: "Now tell them what it is you want."
And I began to speak, just as he wished:
"So
that your memory may never fade
within the first world from the minds of men,
but still live on-and under many suns-
do tell me
who you are and from what city,
and do not let your vile and filthy torment
make you afraid to let me know your names."
One
answered me: ' My city was Arezzo
and Albero of Siena had me burned;
but what I died for does not bring me here.
It's true
that I had told him-jestingly-
'I'd know enough to fly through air'; and he,
with curiosity, but little sense,
wished me
to show that art to him and, just
because I had not made him Daedalus,
had one who held him as a son burn me.
But Minos,
who cannot mistake, condemned
my spirit to the final pouch of ten
for alchemy I practiced in the world."
And then I
asked the poet: "Was there ever
so vain a people as the Sienese?
Even the French can't match such vanity."
At this,
the other leper, who had heard me,
replied to what I'd said: "Except for Stricca,
for he knew how to spend most frugally;
and
Niccolo, the first to make men see
that cloves can serve as luxury (such seed,
in gardens where it suits, can take fast root);
and, too,
Caccia d'Asciano's company,
with whom he squandered vineyards and tilled fields,
while Abbagliato showed such subtlety.
But if you
want to know who joins you so
against the Sienese, look hard at me-
that way, my face can also answer rightly-
and see
that I'm the shade of that Capocchio
whose alchemy could counterfeit fine metals.
And you, if I correctly take your measure,
recall how
apt I was at aping nature."
When Juno
was incensed with Semele
and, thus, against the Theban family
had shown her fury time and time again,
then
Athamas was driven so insane
that, seeing both his wife and their two sons,
as she bore one upon each arm, he cried:
"Let's
spread the nets, to take the lioness
together with her cubs along the pass";
and he stretched out his talons, pitiless,
and
snatched the son who bore the name Learchus,
whirled him around and dashed him on a rock;
she, with her other burden, drowned herself.
And after
fortune turned against the pride
of Troy, which had dared all, so that the Icing
together with his kingdom, was destroyed,
then
Hecuba was wretched, sad, a captive;
and after she had seen Polyxena
dead and, in misery, had recognized
her
Polydorus lying on the shore,
she barked, out of her senses, like a dog-
her agony had so deformed her mind.
But
neither fury-Theban, Trojan-ever
was seen to be so cruel against another,
in rending beasts and even human limbs,
as were
two shades I saw, both pale and naked,
who, biting, ran berserk in just the way
a hog does when it's let loose from its sty.
The one
came at Capocchio and sank
his tusks into his neck so that, by dragging,
he made the hard ground scrape against his belly.
And he who
stayed behind, the Aretine,
trembled and said: "That phantom's Gianni Schicchi,
and he goes raging, rending others so."
And,
"Oh," I said to him, "so may the other
not sink its teeth in you, please tell me who
it is before it hurries off from here."
And he to
me: "That is the ancient soul
of the indecent Myrrha, she who loved
her father past the limits of just love.
She came
to sin with him by falsely taking
another's shape upon herself, just as
the other phantom who goes there had done,
that he
might gain the lady of the herd,
when he disguised himself as Buoso Donati,
making a will as if most properly."
And when
the pair of raging ones had passed,
those two on whom my eyes were fixed, I turned
around to see the rest of the ill-born.
I saw one
who'd be fashioned like a lute
if he had only had his groin cut off
from that part of his body where it forks.
The heavy
dropsy, which so disproportions
the limbs with unassimilated humors
that there's no match between the face and belly,
had made
him part his lips like a consumptive,
who will, because of thirst, let one lip drop
down to his chin and lift the other up.
"O
you exempt from every punishment
in this grim world, and I do not know why,"
he said to us, "look now and pay attention
to this,
the misery of Master Adam:
alive, I had enough of all I wanted;
alas, I now long for one drop of water.
The
rivulets that fall into the Arno
down from the green hills of the Casentino
with channels cool and moist, are constantly
before me;
I am racked by memory-
the image of their flow parches me more
than the disease that robs my face of flesh.
The rigid
Justice that would torment me
uses, as most appropriate, the place
where I had sinned, to draw swift sighs from me.
There is
Romena, there I counterfeited
the currency that bears the Baptist's seal;
for this I left my body, burned, above.
But could
I see the miserable souls
of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,
I'd not give up the sight for Fonte Branda.
And one of
them is in this moat already,
if what the angry shades report is true.
What use is that to me whose limbs are tied?
Were I so
light that, in a hundred years,
I could advance an inch, I should already
be well upon the road to search for him
among the
mutilated ones, although
this circuit measures some eleven miles
and is at least a half a mile across.
Because of
them I'm in this family;
it was those three who had incited me
to coin the florins with three carats' dross."
And I to
him: "Who are those two poor sinners
who give off smoke like wet hands in the winter
and lie so close to you upon the right?"
"I
found them here," he answered, "when I rained
down to this rocky slope; they've not stirred since
and will not move, I think, eternally.
One is the
lying woman who blamed Joseph;
the other, lying Sinon, Greek from Troy:
because of raging fever they reek so."
And one of
them, who seemed to take offense,
perhaps at being named so squalidly,
struck with his fist at Adam's rigid belly.
It sounded
as if it had been a drum;
and Master Adam struck him in the face,
using his arm, which did not seem less hard,
saying to
him: "Although I cannot move
my limbs because they are too heavy, I
still have an arm that's free to serve that need."
And he
replied: "But when you went to burning,
your arm was not as quick as it was now;
though when you coined, it was as quick and more."
To which
the dropsied one: "Here you speak true;
but you were not so true a witness there,
when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy."
"If I
spoke false, you falsified the coin,"
said Sinon; "I am here for just one crime-
but you've committed more than any demon."
"Do
not forget the horse, you perjurer,"
replied the one who had the bloated belly,
"may you be plagued because the whole world knows it."
The Greek:
"And you be plagued by thirst that cracks
your tongue, and putrid water that has made
your belly such a hedge before your eyes."
And then
the coiner: "So, as usual,
your mouth, because of racking fever, gapes;
for if I thirst and if my humor bloats me,
you have
both dryness and a head that aches;
few words would be sufficient invitation
to have you lick the mirror of Narcissus."
I was
intent on listening to them
when this was what my master said: "If you
insist on looking more, I'll quarrel with you!"
And when I
heard him speak so angrily,
I turned around to him with shame so great
that it still stirs within my memory.
Even as
one who dreams that he is harmed
and, dreaming, wishes he were dreaming, thus
desiring that which is, as if it were not,
so l
became within my speechlessness:
I wanted to excuse myself and did
excuse myself, although I knew it not.
"Less
shame would wash away a greater fault
than was your fault," my master said to me;
"therefore release yourself from all remorse
and see
that I am always at your side,
should it so happen-once again-that fortune
brings you where men would quarrel in this fashion:
to want to
hear such bickering is base."
The very
tongue that first had wounded me,
sending the color up in both my cheeks,
was then to cure me with its medicine-
as did
Achilles' and his father's lance,
even as I have heard, when it dispensed
a sad stroke first and then a healing one.
We turned
our backs upon that dismal valley
by, climbing up the bank that girdles it;
we made our way across without a word.
Here it
was less than night and less than day,
so that my sight could only move ahead
slightly, but then I heard a bugle blast
so strong,
it would have made a thunder clap
seem faint; at this, my eyes-which doubled back
upon their path-turned fully toward one place.
Not even
Roland's horn, which followed on
the sad defeat when Charlemagne had lost
his holy army, was as dread as this.
I'd only
turned my head there briefly when
I seemed to make out many high towers; then
I asked him: "Master, tell me, what's this city?"
And he to
me: "It is because you try
to penetrate from far into these shadows
that you have formed such faulty images.
When you
have reached that place, you shall see clearly
how much the distance has deceived your sense;
and, therefore, let this spur you on your way."
Then
lovingly he took me by the hand
and said: "Before we have moved farther on,
so that the fact may seem less strange to you,
I'd have
you know they are not towers, but giants,
and from the navel downward, all of them
are in the central pit, at the embankment."
Just as,
whenever mists begin to thin,
when, gradually, vision finds the form
that in the vapor-thickened air was hidden,
so I
pierced through the dense and darkened fog;
as I drew always nearer to the shore,
my error fled from me, my terror grew;
for as, on
its round wall, Montereggioni
is crowned with towers, so there towered here,
above the bank that runs around the pit,
with half
their bulk, the terrifying giants,
whom Jove still menaces from Heaven when
he sends his bolts of thunder down upon them.
And I
could now make out the face of one,
his shoulders and his chest, much of his belly,
and both his arms that hung along his sides.
Surely
when she gave up the art of making
such creatures, Nature acted well indeed,
depriving Mars of instruments like these.
And if she
still produces elephants
and whales, whoever sees with subtlety
holds her-for this- to be more just and prudent;
for where
the mind's acutest reasoning
is joined to evil will and evil power,
there human beings can't defend themselves.
His face
appeared to me as broad and long
as Rome can claim for its St. Peter's pine cone;
his other bones shared in that same proportion;
so that
the bank, which served him as an apron
down from his middle, showed so much of him
above, that three Frieslanders would in vain
have
boasted of their reaching to his hair;
for downward from the place where one would buckle
a mantle, I saw thirty spans of him.
"Raphel
mai amecche zabi almi,"
began to bellow that brute mouth, for which
no sweeter psalms would be appropriate.
And my
guide turned to him: "O stupid soul,
keep to your horn and use that as an outlet
when rage or other passion touches you!
Look at
your neck, and you will find the strap
that holds it fast; and see, bewildered spirit,
how it lies straight across your massive chest."
And then
to me: "He is his own accuser;
for this is Nimrod, through whose wicked thought
one single language cannot serve the world.
Leave him
alone-let's not waste time in talk;
for every language is to him the same
as his to others-no one knows his tongue."
So,
turning to the left, we journeyed on
and, at the distance of a bow-shot, found
another giant, far more huge and fierce.
Who was
the master who had tied him so,
I cannot say, but his left arm was bent
behind him and his right was bent in front,
both
pinioned by a chain that held him tight
down from the neck; and round the part of him
that was exposed, it had been wound five times.
"This
giant in his arrogance had tested
his force against the force of highest Jove,"
my guide said, "so he merits this reward.
His name
is Ephialtes; and he showed
tremendous power when the giants frightened
the gods; the arms he moved now move no more."
And I to
him: "If it is possible,
I'd like my eyes to have experience
of the enormous one, Briareus."
At which
he answered: "You shall see Antaeus
nearby. He is unfettered and can speak;
he'll take us to the bottom of all evil.
The one
you wish to see lies far beyond
and is bound up and just as huge as this one,
and even more ferocious in his gaze."
No
earthquake ever was so violent
when called to shake a tower so robust,
as Ephialtes quick to shake himself.
Then I was
more afraid of death than ever;
that fear would have been quite enough to kill me,
had I not seen how he was held by chains.
And we
continued on until we reached
Antaeus, who, not reckoning his head,
stood out out above the rock wall full five ells.
"O
you, who lived within the famous valley
(where Scipio became the heir of glory
when Hannibal retreated with his men),
who took a
thousand lions as your prey-
and had you been together with your brothers
in their high war, it seems some still believe
the sons
of earth would have become the victors-
do set us down below, where cold shuts in
Cocytus, and do not disdain that task.
Don't send
us on to Tityus or Typhon;
this man can give you what is longed for here;
therefore bend down and do not curl your lip.
He still
can bring you fame within the world,
for he's alive and still expects long life,
unless grace summon him before his time."
So said my
master; and in haste Antaeus
(stretched out his hands, whose massive grip had once
been felt by Hercules, and grasped my guide.
And
Virgil, when he felt himself caught up,
called out to me: "Come here, so l can hold you,"
then made one bundle of himself and me.
Just as
the Garisenda seems when seen
beneath the leaning side, when clouds run past
and it hangs down as if about to crash,
so did
Antaeus seem to me as I
watched him bend over me-a moment when
I'd have preferred to take some other road.
But
gently-on the deep that swallows up
both Lucifer and Judas-he placed us;
nor did he, so bent over, stay there long,
but, like
a mast above a ship, he rose.
Had I the
crude and scrannel rhymes to suit
the melancholy hole upon which all
the other circling crags converge and rest,
the juice
of my conception would be pressed
more fully; but because I feel their lack,
I bring myself to speak, yet speak in fear;
for it is
not a task to take in jest,
to show the base of all the universe-
nor for a tongue that cries out, "mama," "papa."
But may
those ladies now sustain my verse
who helped Amphion when he walled up Thebes,
so that my tale not differ from the fact.
O rabble,
miscreated past all others,
there in the place of which it's hard to speak,
better if here you had been goats or sheep!
When we
were down below in the dark well,
beneath the giant's feet and lower yet,
with my eyes still upon the steep embankment,
I heard
this said to me: "Watch how you pass;
walk so that you not trample with your soles
the heads of your exhausted, wretched brothers."
At this I
turned and saw in front of me,
beneath my feet, a lake that, frozen fast,
had lost the look of water and seemed glass.
The Danube
where it flows in Austria,
the Don beneath its frozen sky, have never
made for their course so thick a veil in winter
as there
was here; for had Mount Tambernic
or Pietrapana's mountain crashed upon it,
not even at the edge would it have creaked.
And as the
croaking frog sits with its muzzle
above the water, in the season when
the peasant woman often dreams of gleaning,
so, livid
in the ice, up to the place
where shame can show itself, were those sad shades
whose teeth were chattering with notes like storks'.
Each kept
his face bent downward steadily;
their mouths bore witness to the cold they felt,
just as their eyes proclaimed their sorry hearts.
When I had
looked around a while, my eyes
turned toward my feet and saw two locked so close,
the hair upon their heads had intermingled.
"Do
tell me, you whose chests are pressed so tight,"
I said, "who are you?" They bent back their necks,
and when they'd lifted up their faces toward me,
their
eyes, which wept upon the ground before,
shed tears down on their lips until the cold
held fast the tears and locked their lids still more.
No clamp
has ever fastened plank to plank
so tightly; and because of this, they butted
each other like two rams, such was their fury.
And one
from whom the cold had taken both
his ears, who kept his face bent low, then said:
"Why do you keep on staring so at us?
If you
would like to know who these two are:
that valley where Bisenzio descends,
belonged to them and to their father Alberto.
They came
out of one body; and you can
search all Caina, you will never find
a shade more fit to sit within this ice-
not him
who, at one blow, had chest and shadow
shattered by Arthur's hand; and not Focaccia;
and not this sinner here who so impedes
my vision
with his head, I can't see past him;
his name was Sassol Mascheroni; if
you're Tuscan, now you know who he has been.
And lest
you keep me talking any longer,
know that I was Camiscion de' Pazzi;
I'm waiting for Carlino to absolve me."
And after
that I saw a thousand faces
made doglike by the cold; for which I shudder-
and always will-when I face frozen fords.
And while
we were advancing toward the center
to which all weight is drawn-1, shivering
in that eternally cold shadow-I
know not
if it was will or destiny
or chance, but as I walked among the heads,
I struck my foot hard in the face of one.
Weeping,
he chided then: "Why trample me?
If you've not come to add to the revenge
of Montaperti, why do you molest me?"
And I:
"My master, now wait here for me,
that I may clear up just one doubt about him;
then you can make me hurry as you will."
My guide
stood fast, and I went on to ask
of him who still was cursing bitterly:
"Who are you that rebukes another so?"
"And
who are you who go through Antenora,
striking the cheeks of others," he replied,
"too roughly-even if you were alive?"
"I am
alive, and can be precious to you
if you want fame," was my reply, "for I
can set your name among my other notes."
And he to
me: "I want the contrary;
so go away and do not harass me-
your flattery is useless in this valley."
At that I
grabbed him by the scruff and said:
"You'll have to name yourself to me or else
you won't have even one hair left up here."
And he to
me: "Though you should strip me bald,
I shall not tell you who I am or show it,
not if you pound my head a thousand times."
His hairs
were wound around my hand already
and I had plucked from him more than one tuft
while he was barking and his eyes stared down,
when
someone else cried out: "What is it, Bocca?
Isn't the music of your jaws enough
for you without your bark? What devil's at you?"
"And
now," I said, "you traitor bent on evil,
I do not need your talk, for I shall carry
true news of you, and that will bring you shame."
"Be
off," he answered; "tell them what you like,
but don't be silent, if you make it back,
about the one whose tongue was now so quick.
Here he
laments the silver of the Frenchmen;
I saw,' you then can say, 'him of Duera,
down there, where all the sinners are kept cool.'
And if
you're asked who else was there in ice,
one of the Beccheria is beside you-
he had his gullet sliced right through by Florence.
Gianni de'
Soldanieri, I believe,
lies there with Ganelon and Tebaldello,
he who unlocked Faenza while it slept."
We had
already taken leave of him,
when I saw two shades frozen in one hole,
so that one's head served as the other's cap;
and just
as he who's hungry chews his bread,
one sinner dug his teeth into the other
right at the place where brain is joined to nape:
no
differently had Tydeus gnawed the temples
of Menalippus, out of indignation,
than this one chewed the skull and other parts.
"0
you who show, with such a bestial sign,
your hatred for the one on whom you feed,
tell me the cause," I said; "we can agree
that if
your quarrel with him is justified,
then knowing who you are and what's his sin,
I shall repay you yet on earth above,
if that
with which I speak does not dry up."
That
sinner raised his mouth from his fierce meal,
then used the head that he had ripped apart
in back: he wiped his lips upon its hair.
Then he
began: "You want me to renew
despairing pain that presses at my heart
even as I think back, before I speak.
But if my
words are seed from which the fruit
is infamy for this betrayer whom
I gnaw, you'll see me speak and weep at once.
I don't
know who you are or in what way
you've come down here; and yet you surely seem-
from what I hear-to be a Florentine.
You are to
know I was Count Ugolino,
and this one here, Archbishop Ruggieri;
and now I'll tell you why I am his neighbor.
There is
no need to tell you that, because
of his malicious tricks, I first was taken
and then was killed-since I had trusted him;
however,
that which you cannot have heard-
that is, the cruel death devised for me-
you now shall hear and know if he has wronged me.
A narrow
window in the Eagles' Tower,
which now, through me, is called the Hunger Tower,
a cage in which still others will be locked,
had,
through its opening, already showed me
several moons, when I dreamed that bad dream
which rent the curtain of the future for me.
This man
appeared to me as lord and master;
he hunted down the wolf and its young whelps
upon the mountain that prevents the Pisans
from
seeing Lucca; and with lean and keen
and practiced hounds, he'd sent up front, before him,
Gualandi and Sismondi and Lanfranchi .
But after
a brief course, it seemed to me
that both the father and the sons were weary;
I seemed to see their flanks torn by sharp fangs.
When I
awoke at daybreak, I could hear
my sons, who were together with me there,
weeping within their sleep, asking for bread.
You would
be cruel indeed if, thinking what
my heart foresaw, you don't already grieve;
and if you don't weep now, when would you weep?
They were
awake by now; the hour drew near
at which our food was usually brought,
and each, because of what he'd dreamed, was anxious;
below, I
heard them nailing up the door
of that appalling tower; without a word,
I looked into the faces of my sons.
I did not
weep; within, I turned to stone.
They wept; and my poor little Anselm said:
'Father, you look so . . . What is wrong with you?'
At that I
shed no tears and-all day long
and through the night that followed-did not answer
until another sun had touched the world.
As soon as
a thin ray had made its way
into that sorry prison, and I saw,
reflected in four faces, my own gaze,
out of my
grief, I bit at both my hands;
and they, who thought I'd done that out of hunger,
immediately rose and told me: 'Father,
it would
be far less painful for us if
you ate of us; for you clothed us in this
sad flesh-it is for you to strip it off.'
Then I
grew calm, to keep them from more sadness;
through that day and the next, we all were silent;
O hard earth, why did you not open up?
But after
we had reached the fourth day, Gaddo,
throwing himself, outstretched, down at my feet,
implored me: 'Father, why do you not help me?'
And there
he died; and just as you see me,
I saw the other three fall one by one
between the fifth day and the sixth; at which,
now blind,
I started groping over each;
and after they were dead, I called them for
two days; then fasting had more force than grief."
When he
had spoken this, with eyes awry,
again he gripped the sad skull in his teeth,
which, like a dog's, were strong down to the bone.
Ah, Pisa,
you the scandal of the peoples
of that fair land where si is heard, because
your neighbors are so slow to punish you,
may, then,
Caprara and Gorgona move
and build a hedge across the Arno's mouth,
so that it may drown every soul in you!
For if
Count Ugolino was reputed
to have betrayed your fortresses, there was
no need to have his sons endure such torment.
O Thebes
renewed, their years were innocent
and young-Brigata, Uguiccione, and
the other two my song has named above!
We passed
beyond, where frozen water wraps-
a rugged covering-still other sinners,
who were not bent, but flat upon their backs.
Their very
weeping there won't let them weep,
and grief that finds a barrier in their eyes
turns inward to increase their agony;
because
their first tears freeze into a cluster,
and, like a crystal visor, fill up all
the hollow that is underneath the eyebrow.
And
though, because of cold, my every sense
had left its dwelling in my face, just as
a callus has no feeling, nonetheless,
I seemed
to feel some wind now, and I said:
"My master, who has set this gust in motion?
For isn't every vapor quenched down here?"
And he to
me: "You soon shall be where your
own eye will answer that, when you shall see
the reason why this wind blasts from above."
And one of
those sad sinners in the cold
crust, cried to us: "O souls who are so cruel
that this last place has been assigned to you,
take off
the hard veils from my face so that
I can release the suffering that fills
my heart before lament freezes again."
To which I
answered: "If you'd have me help you,
then tell me who you are; if I don't free you,
may I go to the bottom of the ice."
He
answered then: "I am Fra Alberigo,
the one who tended fruits in a bad garden,
and here my figs have been repaid with dates."
"But
then," I said, "are you already dead?"
And he to me: "I have no knowledge of
my body's fate within the world above.
For
Ptolomea has this privilege:
quite frequently the soul falls here before
it has been thrust away by Atropos.
And that
you may with much more willingness
scrape these glazed tears from off my face, know this:
as soon as any soul becomes a traitor,
as I was,
then a demon takes its body
away- and keeps that body in his power
until its years have run their course completely.
The soul
falls headlong, down into this cistern;
and up above, perhaps, there still appears
the body of the shade that winters here
behind me;
you must know him, if you've just
come down; he is Ser Branca,Doria;
for many years he has been thus pent up."
I said to
him: "I think that you deceive me,
for Branca Doria is not yet dead;
he eats and drinks and sleeps and puts on clothes."
"There
in the Malebranche's ditch above,
where sticky pitch boils up, Michele Zanche
had still not come," he said to me, "when this one-
together
with a kinsman, who had done
the treachery together with him-left
a devil in his stead inside his body.
But now
reach out your hand; open my eyes."
And yet I did not open them for him;
and it was courtesy to show him rudeness.
Ah,
Genoese, a people strange to every
constraint of custom, full of all corruption,
why have you not been driven from the world?
For with
the foulest spirit of Romagna,
I found one of you such that, for his acts,
in soul he bathes already in Cocytus
and up
above appears alive, in body.
"Vexilla
regis prodeunt inferni
toward us; and therefore keep your eyes ahead,"
my master said, "to see if you can spy him."
Just as,
when night falls on our hemisphere
or when a heavy fog is blowing thick,
a windmill seems to wheel when seen far off,
so then I
seemed to see that sort of structure.
And next, because the wind was strong, I shrank
behind my guide; there was no other shelter.
And
now-with fear I set it down in meter-
I was where all the shades were fully covered
but visible as wisps of straw in glass.
There some
lie flat and others stand erect,
one on his head, and one upon his soles;
and some bend face to feet, just like a bow.
But after
we had made our way ahead,
my master felt he now should have me see
that creature who was once a handsome presence;
he stepped
aside and made me stop, and said:
"Look! Here is Dis, and this the place where you
will have to arm yourself with fortitude."
O reader,
do not ask of me how I
grew faint and frozen then-I cannot write it:
all words would fall far short of what it was.
I did not
die, and I was not alive;
think for yourself, if you have any wit,
what I became, deprived of life and death.
The
emperor of the despondent kingdom
so towered from the ice, up from midchest,
that I match better with a giant's breadth
than
giants match the measure of his arms;:
now you can gauge the size of all of him
if it is in proportion to such parts.
If he was
once as handsome as he now
is ugly and, despite that, raised his brows
against his Maker, one can understand
how every
sorrow has its source in him!
I marveled when I saw that, on his head,
he had three faces: one-in front-bloodred;
and then
another two that, just above
the midpoint of each shoulder, joined the first;
and at the crown, all three were reattached;
the right
looked somewhat yellow, somewhat white; a
the left in its appearance was like those
who come from where the Nile, descending, flows.
Beneath
each face of his, two wings spread out,
as broad as suited so immense a bird:
I've never seen a ship with sails so wide.
They had
no feathers, but were fashioned like
a bat's; and he was agitating them,
so that three winds made their way out from him-
and all
Cocytus froze before those winds.
He wept out of six eyes; and down three chins,
tears gushed together with a bloody froth.
Within
each mouth-he used it like a grinder-
with gnashing teeth he tore to bits a sinner,
so that he brought much pain to three at once.
The
forward sinner found that biting nothing
when matched against the clawing, for at times
his back was stripped completely of its hide.
"That
soul up there who has to suffer most,"4
my master said: "Judas Iscariot-
his head inside, he jerks his legs without.
Of those
two others, with their heads beneath,
the one who hangs from that black snout is Brutus-
see how he writhes and does not say a word!
That
other, who seems so robust, is Cassius.
But night is come again, and it is time
for us to leave; we have seen everything."
Just as he
asked, I clasped him round the neck;
and he watched for the chance of time and place,
and when the wings were open wide enough,
he took
fast hold upon the shaggy flanks
and then descended, down from tuft to tuft,
between the tangled hair and icy crusts.
When we
had reached the point at which the thigh 7
revolves, just at the swelling of the hip,
my guide, with heavy strain and rugged work,
reversed
his head to where his legs had been
and grappled on the hair, as one who climbs-
I thought that we were going back to Hell.
"Hold
tight," my master said-he panted like
a man exhausted-"it is by such stairs
that we must take our leave of so much evil."
Then he
slipped through a crevice in a rock
and placed me on the edge of it, to sit;
that done, he climbed toward me with steady steps.
I raised
my eyes, believing I should see
the half of Lucifer that I had left;
instead I saw him with his legs turned up;
and if I
then became perplexed, do let
the ignorant be judges-those who can
not understand what point I had just crossed.
"Get
up," my master said, "be on your feet:
the way is long, the path is difficult;
the sun's already back to middle tierce."
It was no
palace hall, the place in which
we found ourselves, but with its rough-hewn floor
and scanty light, a dungeon built by nature.
"Before
I free myself from this abyss,
master," I said when I had stood up straight,
"tell me enough to see I don't mistake:
Where is
the ice? And how is he so placed
head downward? Tell me, too, how has the sun
in so few hours gone from night to morning?"
And he to
me: "You still believe you are
north of the center, where I grasped the hair
of the damned worm who pierces through the world.
And you
were there as long as I descended;
but when I turned, that's when you passed the point
to which, from every part, all weights are drawn.
And now
you stand beneath the hemisphere
opposing that which cloaks the great dry lands
and underneath whose zenith died the Man
whose
birth and life were sinless in this world.
Your feet are placed upon a little sphere
that forms the other face of the Judecca.
Here it is
morning when it's evening there;
and he whose hair has served us as a ladder
is still fixed, even as he was before.
This was
the side on which he fell from Heaven;
for fear of him, the land that once loomed here
made of the sea a veil and rose into