Inferno: Canto XVIII


There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
  Wholly of stone and of an iron colour,
  As is the circle that around it turns.

Right in the middle of the field malign
  There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep,
  Of which its place the structure will recount.

Round, then, is that enclosure which remains
  Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
  And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.

As where for the protection of the walls
  Many and many moats surround the castles,
  The part in which they are a figure forms,

Just such an image those presented there;
  And as about such strongholds from their gates
  Unto the outer bank are little bridges,

So from the precipice's base did crags
  Project, which intersected dikes and moats,
  Unto the well that truncates and collects them.

Within this place, down shaken from the back
  Of Geryon, we found us; and the Poet
  Held to the left, and I moved on behind.

Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish,
  New torments, and new wielders of the lash,
  Wherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.

Down at the bottom were the sinners naked;
  This side the middle came they facing us,
  Beyond it, with us, but with greater steps;

Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
  The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
  Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;

For all upon one side towards the Castle
  Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter's;
  On the other side they go towards the Mountain.

This side and that, along the livid stone
  Beheld I horned demons with great scourges,
  Who cruelly were beating them behind.

Ah me! how they did make them lift their legs
  At the first blows! and sooth not any one
  The second waited for, nor for the third.

While I was going on, mine eyes by one
  Encountered were; and straight I said: "Already
  With sight of this one I am not unfed."

Therefore I stayed my feet to make him out,
  And with me the sweet Guide came to a stand,
  And to my going somewhat back assented;

And he, the scourged one, thought to hide himself,
  Lowering his face, but little it availed him;
  For said I: "Thou that castest down thine eyes,

If false are not the features which thou bearest,
  Thou art Venedico Caccianimico;
  But what doth bring thee to such pungent sauces?"

And he to me: "Unwillingly I tell it;
  But forces me thine utterance distinct,
  Which makes me recollect the ancient world.

I was the one who the fair Ghisola
  Induced to grant the wishes of the Marquis,
  Howe'er the shameless story may be told.

Not the sole Bolognese am I who weeps here;
  Nay, rather is this place so full of them,
  That not so many tongues to-day are taught

'Twixt Reno and Savena to say 'sipa;'
  And if thereof thou wishest pledge or proof,
  Bring to thy mind our avaricious heart."

While speaking in this manner, with his scourge
  A demon smote him, and said: "Get thee gone
  Pander, there are no women here for coin."

I joined myself again unto mine Escort;
  Thereafterward with footsteps few we came
  To where a crag projected from the bank.

This very easily did we ascend,
  And turning to the right along its ridge,
  From those eternal circles we departed.

When we were there, where it is hollowed out
  Beneath, to give a passage to the scourged,
  The Guide said: "Wait, and see that on thee strike

The vision of those others evil-born,
  Of whom thou hast not yet beheld the faces,
  Because together with us they have gone."

From the old bridge we looked upon the train
  Which tow'rds us came upon the other border,
  And which the scourges in like manner smite.

And the good Master, without my inquiring,
  Said to me: "See that tall one who is coming,
  And for his pain seems not to shed a tear;

Still what a royal aspect he retains!
  That Jason is, who by his heart and cunning
  The Colchians of the Ram made destitute.

He by the isle of Lemnos passed along
  After the daring women pitiless
  Had unto death devoted all their males.

There with his tokens and with ornate words
  Did he deceive Hypsipyle, the maiden
  Who first, herself, had all the rest deceived.

There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;
  Such sin unto such punishment condemns him,
  And also for Medea is vengeance done.

With him go those who in such wise deceive;
  And this sufficient be of the first valley
  To know, and those that in its jaws it holds."

We were already where the narrow path
  Crosses athwart the second dike, and forms
  Of that a buttress for another arch.

Thence we heard people, who are making moan
  In the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles,
  And with their palms beating upon themselves

The margins were incrusted with a mould
  By exhalation from below, that sticks there,
  And with the eyes and nostrils wages war.

The bottom is so deep, no place suffices
  To give us sight of it, without ascending
  The arch's back, where most the crag impends.

Thither we came, and thence down in the moat
  I saw a people smothered in a filth
  That out of human privies seemed to flow;

And whilst below there with mine eye I search,
  I saw one with his head so foul with ordure,
  It was not clear if he were clerk or layman.

He screamed to me: "Wherefore art thou so eager
  To look at me more than the other foul ones?"
  And I to him: "Because, if I remember,

I have already seen thee with dry hair,
  And thou'rt Alessio Interminei of Lucca;
  Therefore I eye thee more than all the others."

And he thereon, belabouring his pumpkin:
  "The flatteries have submerged me here below,
  Wherewith my tongue was never surfeited."

Then said to me the Guide: "See that thou thrust
  Thy visage somewhat farther in advance,
  That with thine eyes thou well the face attain

Of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab,
  Who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails,
  And crouches now, and now on foot is standing.

Thais the harlot is it, who replied
  Unto her paramour, when he said, 'Have I
  Great gratitude from thee?'--'Nay, marvellous;'

And herewith let our sight be satisfied."



Inferno: Canto XIX


O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,
  Ye who the things of God, which ought to be
  The brides of holiness, rapaciously

For silver and for gold do prostitute,
  Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound,
  Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

We had already on the following tomb
  Ascended to that portion of the crag
  Which o'er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest
  In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,
  And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
  The livid stone with perforations filled,
  All of one size, and every one was round.

To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater
  Than those that in my beautiful Saint John
  Are fashioned for the place of the baptisers,

And one of which, not many years ago,
  I broke for some one, who was drowning in it;
  Be this a seal all men to undeceive.

Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
  The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
  Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

In all of them the soles were both on fire;
  Wherefore the joints so violently quivered,
  They would have snapped asunder withes and bands.

Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont
  To move upon the outer surface only,
  So likewise was it there from heel to point.

"Master, who is that one who writhes himself,
  More than his other comrades quivering,"
  I said, "and whom a redder flame is sucking?"

And he to me: "If thou wilt have me bear thee
  Down there along that bank which lowest lies,
  From him thou'lt know his errors and himself."

And I: "What pleases thee, to me is pleasing;
  Thou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not
  From thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken."

Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived;
  We turned, and on the left-hand side descended
  Down to the bottom full of holes and narrow.

And the good Master yet from off his haunch
  Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me
  Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

"Whoe'er thou art, that standest upside down,
  O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,"
  To say began I, "if thou canst, speak out."

I stood even as the friar who is confessing
  The false assassin, who, when he is fixed,
  Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

And he cried out: "Dost thou stand there already,
  Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?
  By many years the record lied to me.

Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,
  For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud
  The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?"

Such I became, as people are who stand,
  Not comprehending what is answered them,
  As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

Then said Virgilius: "Say to him straightway,
  'I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.'"
  And I replied as was imposed on me.

Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,
  Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation
  Said to me: "Then what wantest thou of me?

If who I am thou carest so much to know,
  That thou on that account hast crossed the bank,
  Know that I vested was with the great mantle;

And truly was I son of the She-bear,
  So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth
  Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

Beneath my head the others are dragged down
  Who have preceded me in simony,
  Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever
  That one shall come who I believed thou wast,
  What time the sudden question I proposed.

But longer I my feet already toast,
  And here have been in this way upside down,
  Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

For after him shall come of fouler deed
  From tow'rds the west a Pastor without law,
  Such as befits to cover him and me.

New Jason will he be, of whom we read
  In Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,
  So he who governs France shall be to this one."

I do not know if I were here too bold,
  That him I answered only in this metre:
  "I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,
  Before he put the keys into his keeping?
  Truly he nothing asked but 'Follow me.'

Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias
  Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen
  Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.

Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,
  And keep safe guard o'er the ill-gotten money,
  Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.

And were it not that still forbids it me
  The reverence for the keys superlative
  Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

I would make use of words more grievous still;
  Because your avarice afflicts the world,
  Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,
  When she who sitteth upon many waters
  To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

The same who with the seven heads was born,
  And power and strength from the ten horns received,
  So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.

Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
  And from the idolater how differ ye,
  Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
  Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower
  Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!"

And while I sang to him such notes as these,
  Either that anger or that conscience stung him,
  He struggled violently with both his feet.

I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,
  With such contented lip he listened ever
  Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

Therefore with both his arms he took me up,
  And when he had me all upon his breast,
  Remounted by the way where he descended.

Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;
  But bore me to the summit of the arch
  Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

There tenderly he laid his burden down,
  Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep,
  That would have been hard passage for the goats:

Thence was unveiled to me another valley.



Inferno: Canto XX


Of a new pain behoves me to make verses
  And give material to the twentieth canto
  Of the first song, which is of the submerged.

I was already thoroughly disposed
  To peer down into the uncovered depth,
  Which bathed itself with tears of agony;

And people saw I through the circular valley,
  Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
  Which in this world the Litanies assume.

As lower down my sight descended on them,
  Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted
  From chin to the beginning of the chest;

For tow'rds the reins the countenance was turned,
  And backward it behoved them to advance,
  As to look forward had been taken from them.

Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
  Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;
  But I ne'er saw it, nor believe it can be.

As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
  From this thy reading, think now for thyself
  How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,

When our own image near me I beheld
  Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes
  Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.

Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
  Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
  To me: "Art thou, too, of the other fools?

Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
  Who is a greater reprobate than he
  Who feels compassion at the doom divine?

Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom
  Opened the earth before the Thebans' eyes;
  Wherefore they all cried: 'Whither rushest thou,

Amphiaraus?  Why dost leave the war?'
  And downward ceased he not to fall amain
  As far as Minos, who lays hold on all.

See, he has made a bosom of his shoulders!
  Because he wished to see too far before him
  Behind he looks, and backward goes his way:

Behold Tiresias, who his semblance changed,
  When from a male a female he became,
  His members being all of them transformed;

And afterwards was forced to strike once more
  The two entangled serpents with his rod,
  Ere he could have again his manly plumes.

That Aruns is, who backs the other's belly,
  Who in the hills of Luni, there where grubs
  The Carrarese who houses underneath,

Among the marbles white a cavern had
  For his abode; whence to behold the stars
  And sea, the view was not cut off from him.

And she there, who is covering up her breasts,
  Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,
  And on that side has all the hairy skin,

Was Manto, who made quest through many lands,
  Afterwards tarried there where I was born;
  Whereof I would thou list to me a little.

After her father had from life departed,
  And the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,
  She a long season wandered through the world.

Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake
  At the Alp's foot that shuts in Germany
  Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.

By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,
  'Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,
  With water that grows stagnant in that lake.

Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor,
  And he of Brescia, and the Veronese
  Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.

Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong,
  To front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,
  Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.

There of necessity must fall whatever
  In bosom of Benaco cannot stay,
  And grows a river down through verdant pastures.

Soon as the water doth begin to run,
  No more Benaco is it called, but Mincio,
  Far as Governo, where it falls in Po.

Not far it runs before it finds a plain
  In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,
  And oft 'tis wont in summer to be sickly.

Passing that way the virgin pitiless
  Land in the middle of the fen descried,
  Untilled and naked of inhabitants;

There to escape all human intercourse,
  She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise
  And lived, and left her empty body there.

The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,
  Collected in that place, which was made strong
  By the lagoon it had on every side;

They built their city over those dead bones,
  And, after her who first the place selected,
  Mantua named it, without other omen.

Its people once within more crowded were,
  Ere the stupidity of Casalodi
  From Pinamonte had received deceit.

Therefore I caution thee, if e'er thou hearest
  Originate my city otherwise,
  No falsehood may the verity defraud."

And I: "My Master, thy discourses are
  To me so certain, and so take my faith,
  That unto me the rest would be spent coals.

But tell me of the people who are passing,
  If any one note-worthy thou beholdest,
  For only unto that my mind reverts."

Then said he to me: "He who from the cheek
  Thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders
  Was, at the time when Greece was void of males,

So that there scarce remained one in the cradle,
  An augur, and with Calchas gave the moment,
  In Aulis, when to sever the first cable.

Eryphylus his name was, and so sings
  My lofty Tragedy in some part or other;
  That knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.

The next, who is so slender in the flanks,
  Was Michael Scott, who of a verity
  Of magical illusions knew the game.

Behold Guido Bonatti, behold Asdente,
  Who now unto his leather and his thread
  Would fain have stuck, but he too late repents.

Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle,
  The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;
  They wrought their magic spells with herb and image.

But come now, for already holds the confines
  Of both the hemispheres, and under Seville
  Touches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns,

And yesternight the moon was round already;
  Thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee
  From time to time within the forest deep."

Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.



Inferno: Canto XXI


From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things
  Of which my Comedy cares not to sing,
  We came along, and held the summit, when

We halted to behold another fissure
  Of Malebolge and other vain laments;
  And I beheld it marvellously dark.

As in the Arsenal of the Venetians
  Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch
  To smear their unsound vessels o'er again,

For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
  One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
  The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,
  This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,
  Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen;

Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine,
  Was boiling down below there a dense pitch
  Which upon every side the bank belimed.

I saw it, but I did not see within it
  Aught but the bubbles that the boiling raised,
  And all swell up and resubside compressed.

The while below there fixedly I gazed,
  My Leader, crying out: "Beware, beware!"
  Drew me unto himself from where I stood.

Then I turned round, as one who is impatient
  To see what it behoves him to escape,
  And whom a sudden terror doth unman,

Who, while he looks, delays not his departure;
  And I beheld behind us a black devil,
  Running along upon the crag, approach.

Ah, how ferocious was he in his aspect!
  And how he seemed to me in action ruthless,
  With open wings and light upon his feet!

His shoulders, which sharp-pointed were and high,
  A sinner did encumber with both haunches,
  And he held clutched the sinews of the feet.

From off our bridge, he said: "O Malebranche,
  Behold one of the elders of Saint Zita;
  Plunge him beneath, for I return for others

Unto that town, which is well furnished with them.
  All there are barrators, except Bonturo;
  No into Yes for money there is changed."

He hurled him down, and over the hard crag
  Turned round, and never was a mastiff loosened
  In so much hurry to pursue a thief.

The other sank, and rose again face downward;
  But the demons, under cover of the bridge,
  Cried: "Here the Santo Volto has no place!

Here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio;
  Therefore, if for our gaffs thou wishest not,
  Do not uplift thyself above the pitch."

They seized him then with more than a hundred rakes;
  They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered,
  That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer."

Not otherwise the cooks their scullions make
  Immerse into the middle of the caldron
  The meat with hooks, so that it may not float.

Said the good Master to me: "That it be not
  Apparent thou art here, crouch thyself down
  Behind a jag, that thou mayest have some screen;

And for no outrage that is done to me
  Be thou afraid, because these things I know,
  For once before was I in such a scuffle."

Then he passed on beyond the bridge's head,
  And as upon the sixth bank he arrived,
  Need was for him to have a steadfast front.

With the same fury, and the same uproar,
  As dogs leap out upon a mendicant,
  Who on a sudden begs, where'er he stops,

They issued from beneath the little bridge,
  And turned against him all their grappling-irons;
  But he cried out: "Be none of you malignant!

Before those hooks of yours lay hold of me,
  Let one of you step forward, who may hear me,
  And then take counsel as to grappling me."

They all cried out: "Let Malacoda go;"
  Whereat one started, and the rest stood still,
  And he came to him, saying: "What avails it?"

"Thinkest thou, Malacoda, to behold me
  Advanced into this place," my Master said,
  "Safe hitherto from all your skill of fence,

Without the will divine, and fate auspicious?
  Let me go on, for it in Heaven is willed
  That I another show this savage road."

Then was his arrogance so humbled in him,
  That he let fall his grapnel at his feet,
  And to the others said: "Now strike him not."

And unto me my Guide: "O thou, who sittest
  Among the splinters of the bridge crouched down,
  Securely now return to me again."

Wherefore I started and came swiftly to him;
  And all the devils forward thrust themselves,
  So that I feared they would not keep their compact.

And thus beheld I once afraid the soldiers
  Who issued under safeguard from Caprona,
  Seeing themselves among so many foes.

Close did I press myself with all my person
  Beside my Leader, and turned not mine eyes
  From off their countenance, which was not good.

They lowered their rakes, and "Wilt thou have me hit him,"
  They said to one another, "on the rump?"
  And answered: "Yes; see that thou nick him with it."

But the same demon who was holding parley
  With my Conductor turned him very quickly,
  And said: "Be quiet, be quiet, Scarmiglione;"

Then said to us: "You can no farther go
  Forward upon this crag, because is lying
  All shattered, at the bottom, the sixth arch.

And if it still doth please you to go onward,
  Pursue your way along upon this rock;
  Near is another crag that yields a path.

Yesterday, five hours later than this hour,
  One thousand and two hundred sixty-six
  Years were complete, that here the way was broken.

I send in that direction some of mine
  To see if any one doth air himself;
  Go ye with them; for they will not be vicious.

Step forward, Alichino and Calcabrina,"
  Began he to cry out, "and thou, Cagnazzo;
  And Barbariccia, do thou guide the ten.

Come forward, Libicocco and Draghignazzo,
  And tusked Ciriatto and Graffiacane,
  And Farfarello and mad Rubicante;

Search ye all round about the boiling pitch;
  Let these be safe as far as the next crag,
  That all unbroken passes o'er the dens."

"O me! what is it, Master, that I see?
  Pray let us go," I said, "without an escort,
  If thou knowest how, since for myself I ask none.

If thou art as observant as thy wont is,
  Dost thou not see that they do gnash their teeth,
  And with their brows are threatening woe to us?"

And he to me: "I will not have thee fear;
  Let them gnash on, according to their fancy,
  Because they do it for those boiling wretches."

Along the left-hand dike they wheeled about;
  But first had each one thrust his tongue between
  His teeth towards their leader for a signal;

And he had made a trumpet of his rump.



Inferno: Canto XXII


I have erewhile seen horsemen moving camp,
  Begin the storming, and their muster make,
  And sometimes starting off for their escape;

Vaunt-couriers have I seen upon your land,
  O Aretines, and foragers go forth,
  Tournaments stricken, and the joustings run,

Sometimes with trumpets and sometimes with bells,
  With kettle-drums, and signals of the castles,
  And with our own, and with outlandish things,

But never yet with bagpipe so uncouth
  Did I see horsemen move, nor infantry,
  Nor ship by any sign of land or star.

We went upon our way with the ten demons;
  Ah, savage company! but in the church
  With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!

Ever upon the pitch was my intent,
  To see the whole condition of that Bolgia,
  And of the people who therein were burned.

Even as the dolphins, when they make a sign
  To mariners by arching of the back,
  That they should counsel take to save their vessel,

Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain,
  One of the sinners would display his back,
  And in less time conceal it than it lightens.

As on the brink of water in a ditch
  The frogs stand only with their muzzles out,
  So that they hide their feet and other bulk,

So upon every side the sinners stood;
  But ever as Barbariccia near them came,
  Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it,
  One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass
  One frog remains, and down another dives;

And Graffiacan, who most confronted him,
  Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch,
  And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

I knew, before, the names of all of them,
  So had I noted them when they were chosen,
  And when they called each other, listened how.

"O Rubicante, see that thou do lay
  Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,"
  Cried all together the accursed ones.

And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,
  That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,
  Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

Near to the side of him my Leader drew,
  Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:
  "I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

My mother placed me servant to a lord,
  For she had borne me to a ribald knave,
  Destroyer of himself and of his things.

Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;
  I set me there to practise barratry,
  For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected,
  On either side, a tusk, as in a boar,
  Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

Among malicious cats the mouse had come;
  But Barbariccia clasped him in his arms,
  And said: "Stand ye aside, while I enfork him."

And to my Master he turned round his head;
  "Ask him again," he said, "if more thou wish
  To know from him, before some one destroy him."

The Guide: "Now tell then of the other culprits;
  Knowest thou any one who is a Latian,
  Under the pitch?"  And he: "I separated

Lately from one who was a neighbour to it;
  Would that I still were covered up with him,
  For I should fear not either claw nor hook!"

And Libicocco: "We have borne too much;"
  And with his grapnel seized him by the arm,
  So that, by rending, he tore off a tendon.

Eke Draghignazzo wished to pounce upon him
  Down at the legs; whence their Decurion
  Turned round and round about with evil look.

When they again somewhat were pacified,
  Of him, who still was looking at his wound,
  Demanded my Conductor without stay:

"Who was that one, from whom a luckless parting
  Thou sayest thou hast made, to come ashore?"
  And he replied: "It was the Friar Gomita,

He of Gallura, vessel of all fraud,
  Who had the enemies of his Lord in hand,
  And dealt so with them each exults thereat;

Money he took, and let them smoothly off,
  As he says; and in other offices
  A barrator was he, not mean but sovereign.

Foregathers with him one Don Michael Zanche
  Of Logodoro; and of Sardinia
  To gossip never do their tongues feel tired.

O me! see that one, how he grinds his teeth;
  Still farther would I speak, but am afraid
  Lest he to scratch my itch be making ready."

And the grand Provost, turned to Farfarello,
  Who rolled his eyes about as if to strike,
  Said: "Stand aside there, thou malicious bird."

"If you desire either to see or hear,"
  The terror-stricken recommenced thereon,
  "Tuscans or Lombards, I will make them come.

But let the Malebranche cease a little,
  So that these may not their revenges fear,
  And I, down sitting in this very place,

For one that I am will make seven come,
  When I shall whistle, as our custom is
  To do whenever one of us comes out."

Cagnazzo at these words his muzzle lifted,
  Shaking his head, and said: "Just hear the trick
  Which he has thought of, down to throw himself!"

Whence he, who snares in great abundance had,
  Responded: "I by far too cunning am,
  When I procure for mine a greater sadness."

Alichin held not in, but running counter
  Unto the rest, said to him: "If thou dive,
  I will not follow thee upon the gallop,

But I will beat my wings above the pitch;
  The height be left, and be the bank a shield
  To see if thou alone dost countervail us."

O thou who readest, thou shalt hear new sport!
  Each to the other side his eyes averted;
  He first, who most reluctant was to do it.

The Navarrese selected well his time;
  Planted his feet on land, and in a moment
  Leaped, and released himself from their design.

Whereat each one was suddenly stung with shame,
  But he most who was cause of the defeat;
  Therefore he moved, and cried: "Thou art o'ertakern."

But little it availed, for wings could not
  Outstrip the fear; the other one went under,
  And, flying, upward he his breast directed;

Not otherwise the duck upon a sudden
  Dives under, when the falcon is approaching,
  And upward he returneth cross and weary.

Infuriate at the mockery, Calcabrina
  Flying behind him followed close, desirous
  The other should escape, to have a quarrel.

And when the barrator had disappeared,
  He turned his talons upon his companion,
  And grappled with him right above the moat.

But sooth the other was a doughty sparhawk
  To clapperclaw him well; and both of them
  Fell in the middle of the boiling pond.

A sudden intercessor was the heat;
  But ne'ertheless of rising there was naught,
  To such degree they had their wings belimed.

Lamenting with the others, Barbariccia
  Made four of them fly to the other side
  With all their gaffs, and very speedily

This side and that they to their posts descended;
  They stretched their hooks towards the pitch-ensnared,
  Who were already baked within the crust,

And in this manner busied did we leave them.



Inferno: Canto XXIII


Silent, alone, and without company
  We went, the one in front, the other after,
  As go the Minor Friars along their way.

Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
  My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
  Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;

For 'mo' and 'issa' are not more alike
  Than this one is to that, if well we couple
  End and beginning with a steadfast mind.

And even as one thought from another springs,
  So afterward from that was born another,
  Which the first fear within me double made.

Thus did I ponder: "These on our account
  Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff
  So great, that much I think it must annoy them.

If anger be engrafted on ill-will,
  They will come after us more merciless
  Than dog upon the leveret which he seizes,"

I felt my hair stand all on end already
  With terror, and stood backwardly intent,
  When said I: "Master, if thou hidest not

Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche
  I am in dread; we have them now behind us;
  I so imagine them, I already feel them."

And he: "If I were made of leaded glass,
  Thine outward image I should not attract
  Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.

Just now thy thoughts came in among my own,
  With similar attitude and similar face,
  So that of both one counsel sole I made.

If peradventure the right bank so slope
  That we to the next Bolgia can descend,
  We shall escape from the imagined chase."

Not yet he finished rendering such opinion,
  When I beheld them come with outstretched wings,
  Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.

My Leader on a sudden seized me up,
  Even as a mother who by noise is wakened,
  And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,

Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop,
  Having more care of him than of herself,
  So that she clothes her only with a shift;

And downward from the top of the hard bank
  Supine he gave him to the pendent rock,
  That one side of the other Bolgia walls.

Ne'er ran so swiftly water through a sluice
  To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,
  When nearest to the paddles it approaches,

As did my Master down along that border,
  Bearing me with him on his breast away,
  As his own son, and not as a companion.

Hardly the bed of the ravine below
  His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill
  Right over us; but he was not afraid;

For the high Providence, which had ordained
  To place them ministers of the fifth moat,
  The power of thence departing took from all.

A painted people there below we found,
  Who went about with footsteps very slow,
  Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.

They had on mantles with the hoods low down
  Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
  That in Cologne they for the monks are made.

Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;
  But inwardly all leaden and so heavy
  That Frederick used to put them on of straw.

O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!
  Again we turned us, still to the left hand
  Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;

But owing to the weight, that weary folk
  Came on so tardily, that we were new
  In company at each motion of the haunch.

Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find
  Some one who may by deed or name be known,
  And thus in going move thine eye about."

And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,
  Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet,
  Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!

Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest."
  Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait,
  And then according to his pace proceed."

I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste
  Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me;
  But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.

When they came up, long with an eye askance
  They scanned me without uttering a word.
  Then to each other turned, and said together:

"He by the action of his throat seems living;
  And if they dead are, by what privilege
  Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?"

Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college
  Of miserable hypocrites art come,
  Do not disdain to tell us who thou art."

And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up
  In the great town on the fair river of Arno,
  And with the body am I've always had.

But who are ye, in whom there trickles down
  Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?
  And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?"

And one replied to me: "These orange cloaks
  Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
  Cause in this way their balances to creak.

Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese;
  I Catalano, and he Loderingo
  Named, and together taken by thy city,

As the wont is to take one man alone,
  For maintenance of its peace; and we were such
  That still it is apparent round Gardingo."

"O Friars," began I, "your iniquitous. . ."
  But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed
  One crucified with three stakes on the ground.

When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
  Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
  And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,

Said to me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest,
  Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
  To put one man to torture for the people.

Crosswise and naked is he on the path,
  As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
  Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;

And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
  Within this moat, and the others of the council,
  Which for the Jews was a malignant seed."

And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel
  O'er him who was extended on the cross
  So vilely in eternal banishment.

Then he directed to the Friar this voice:
  "Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us
  If to the right hand any pass slope down

By which we two may issue forth from here,
  Without constraining some of the black angels
  To come and extricate us from this deep."

Then he made answer: "Nearer than thou hopest
  There is a rock, that forth from the great circle
  Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,

Save that at this 'tis broken, and does not bridge it;
  You will be able to mount up the ruin,
  That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises."

The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down;
  Then said: "The business badly he recounted
  Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."

And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices
  Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,
  That he's a liar and the father of lies."

Thereat my Leader with great strides went on,
  Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks;
  Whence from the heavy-laden I departed

After the prints of his beloved feet.



Inferno: Canto XXIV


In that part of the youthful year wherein
  The Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,
  And now the nights draw near to half the day,

What time the hoar-frost copies on the ground
  The outward semblance of her sister white,
  But little lasts the temper of her pen,

The husbandman, whose forage faileth him,
  Rises, and looks, and seeth the champaign
  All gleaming white, whereat he beats his flank,

Returns in doors, and up and down laments,
  Like a poor wretch, who knows not what to do;
  Then he returns and hope revives again,

Seeing the world has changed its countenance
  In little time, and takes his shepherd's crook,
  And forth the little lambs to pasture drives.

Thus did the Master fill me with alarm,
  When I beheld his forehead so disturbed,
  And to the ailment came as soon the plaster.

For as we came unto the ruined bridge,
  The Leader turned to me with that sweet look
  Which at the mountain's foot I first beheld.

His arms he opened, after some advisement
  Within himself elected, looking first
  Well at the ruin, and laid hold of me.

And even as he who acts and meditates,
  For aye it seems that he provides beforehand,
  So upward lifting me towards the summit

Of a huge rock, he scanned another crag,
  Saying: "To that one grapple afterwards,
  But try first if 'tis such that it will hold thee."

This was no way for one clothed with a cloak;
  For hardly we, he light, and I pushed upward,
  Were able to ascend from jag to jag.

And had it not been, that upon that precinct
  Shorter was the ascent than on the other,
  He I know not, but I had been dead beat.

But because Malebolge tow'rds the mouth
  Of the profoundest well is all inclining,
  The structure of each valley doth import

That one bank rises and the other sinks.
  Still we arrived at length upon the point
  Wherefrom the last stone breaks itself asunder.

The breath was from my lungs so milked away,
  When I was up, that I could go no farther,
  Nay, I sat down upon my first arrival.

"Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,"
  My Master said; "for sitting upon down,
  Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame,

Withouten which whoso his life consumes
  Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth,
  As smoke in air or in the water foam.

And therefore raise thee up, o'ercome the anguish
  With spirit that o'ercometh every battle,
  If with its heavy body it sink not.

A longer stairway it behoves thee mount;
  'Tis not enough from these to have departed;
  Let it avail thee, if thou understand me."

Then I uprose, showing myself provided
  Better with breath than I did feel myself,
  And said: "Go on, for I am strong and bold."

Upward we took our way along the crag,
  Which jagged was, and narrow, and difficult,
  And more precipitous far than that before.

Speaking I went, not to appear exhausted;
  Whereat a voice from the next moat came forth,
  Not well adapted to articulate words.

I know not what it said, though o'er the back
  I now was of the arch that passes there;
  But he seemed moved to anger who was speaking.

I was bent downward, but my living eyes
  Could not attain the bottom, for the dark;
  Wherefore I: "Master, see that thou arrive

At the next round, and let us descend the wall;
  For as from hence I hear and understand not,
  So I look down and nothing I distinguish."

"Other response," he said, "I make thee not,
  Except the doing; for the modest asking
  Ought to be followed by the deed in silence."

We from the bridge descended at its head,
  Where it connects itself with the eighth bank,
  And then was manifest to me the Bolgia;

And I beheld therein a terrible throng
  Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,
  That the remembrance still congeals my blood

Let Libya boast no longer with her sand;
  For if Chelydri, Jaculi, and Phareae
  She breeds, with Cenchri and with Amphisbaena,

Neither so many plagues nor so malignant
  E'er showed she with all Ethiopia,
  Nor with whatever on the Red Sea is!

Among this cruel and most dismal throng
  People were running naked and affrighted.
  Without the hope of hole or heliotrope.

They had their hands with serpents bound behind them;
  These riveted upon their reins the tail
  And head, and were in front of them entwined.

And lo! at one who was upon our side
  There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him
  There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders.

Nor 'O' so quickly e'er, nor 'I' was written,
  As he took fire, and burned; and ashes wholly
  Behoved it that in falling he became.

And when he on the ground was thus destroyed,
  The ashes drew together, and of themselves
  Into himself they instantly returned.

Even thus by the great sages 'tis confessed
  The phoenix dies, and then is born again,
  When it approaches its five-hundredth year;

On herb or grain it feeds not in its life,
  But only on tears of incense and amomum,
  And nard and myrrh are its last winding-sheet.

And as he is who falls, and knows not how,
  By force of demons who to earth down drag him,
  Or other oppilation that binds man,

When he arises and around him looks,
  Wholly bewildered by the mighty anguish
  Which he has suffered, and in looking sighs;

Such was that sinner after he had risen.
  Justice of God! O how severe it is,
  That blows like these in vengeance poureth down!

The Guide thereafter asked him who he was;
  Whence he replied: "I rained from Tuscany
  A short time since into this cruel gorge.

A bestial life, and not a human, pleased me,
  Even as the mule I was; I'm Vanni Fucci,
  Beast, and Pistoia was my worthy den."

And I unto the Guide: "Tell him to stir not,
  And ask what crime has thrust him here below,
  For once a man of blood and wrath I saw him."

And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,
  But unto me directed mind and face,
  And with a melancholy shame was painted.

Then said: "It pains me more that thou hast caught me
  Amid this misery where thou seest me,
  Than when I from the other life was taken.

What thou demandest I cannot deny;
  So low am I put down because I robbed
  The sacristy of the fair ornaments,

And falsely once 'twas laid upon another;
  But that thou mayst not such a sight enjoy,
  If thou shalt e'er be out of the dark places,

Thine ears to my announcement ope and hear:
  Pistoia first of Neri groweth meagre;
  Then Florence doth renew her men and manners;

Mars draws a vapour up from Val di Magra,
  Which is with turbid clouds enveloped round,
  And with impetuous and bitter tempest

Over Campo Picen shall be the battle;
  When it shall suddenly rend the mist asunder,
  So that each Bianco shall thereby be smitten.

And this I've said that it may give thee pain."



Inferno: Canto XXV


At the conclusion of his words, the thief
  Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
  Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them."

From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
  For one entwined itself about his neck
  As if it said: "I will not thou speak more;"

And round his arms another, and rebound him,
  Clinching itself together so in front,
  That with them he could not a motion make.

Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why resolve not
  To burn thyself to ashes and so perish,
  Since in ill-doing thou thy seed excellest?

Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,
  Spirit I saw not against God so proud,
  Not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!

He fled away, and spake no further word;
  And I beheld a Centaur full of rage
  Come crying out: "Where is, where is the scoffer?"

I do not think Maremma has so many
  Serpents as he had all along his back,
  As far as where our countenance begins.

Upon the shoulders, just behind the nape,
  With wings wide open was a dragon lying,
  And he sets fire to all that he encounters.

My Master said: "That one is Cacus, who
  Beneath the rock upon Mount Aventine
  Created oftentimes a lake of blood.

He goes not on the same road with his brothers,
  By reason of the fraudulent theft he made
  Of the great herd, which he had near to him;

Whereat his tortuous actions ceased beneath
  The mace of Hercules, who peradventure
  Gave him a hundred, and he felt not ten."

While he was speaking thus, he had passed by,
  And spirits three had underneath us come,
  Of which nor I aware was, nor my Leader,

Until what time they shouted: "Who are you?"
  On which account our story made a halt,
  And then we were intent on them alone.

I did not know them; but it came to pass,
  As it is wont to happen by some chance,
  That one to name the other was compelled,

Exclaiming: "Where can Cianfa have remained?"
  Whence I, so that the Leader might attend,
  Upward from chin to nose my finger laid.

If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe
  What I shall say, it will no marvel be,
  For I who saw it hardly can admit it.

As I was holding raised on them my brows,
  Behold! a serpent with six feet darts forth
  In front of one, and fastens wholly on him.

With middle feet it bound him round the paunch,
  And with the forward ones his arms it seized;
  Then thrust its teeth through one cheek and the other;

The hindermost it stretched upon his thighs,
  And put its tail through in between the two,
  And up behind along the reins outspread it.

Ivy was never fastened by its barbs
  Unto a tree so, as this horrible reptile
  Upon the other's limbs entwined its own.

Then they stuck close, as if of heated wax
  They had been made, and intermixed their colour;
  Nor one nor other seemed now what he was;

E'en as proceedeth on before the flame
  Upward along the paper a brown colour,
  Which is not black as yet, and the white dies.

The other two looked on, and each of them
  Cried out: "O me, Agnello, how thou changest!
  Behold, thou now art neither two nor one."

Already the two heads had one become,
  When there appeared to us two figures mingled
  Into one face, wherein the two were lost.

Of the four lists were fashioned the two arms,
  The thighs and legs, the belly and the chest
  Members became that never yet were seen.

Every original aspect there was cancelled;
  Two and yet none did the perverted image
  Appear, and such departed with slow pace.

Even as a lizard, under the great scourge
  Of days canicular, exchanging hedge,
  Lightning appeareth if the road it cross;

Thus did appear, coming towards the bellies
  Of the two others, a small fiery serpent,
  Livid and black as is a peppercorn.

And in that part whereat is first received
  Our aliment, it one of them transfixed;
  Then downward fell in front of him extended.

The one transfixed looked at it, but said naught;
  Nay, rather with feet motionless he yawned,
  Just as if sleep or fever had assailed him.

He at the serpent gazed, and it at him;
  One through the wound, the other through the mouth
  Smoked violently, and the smoke commingled.

Henceforth be silent Lucan, where he mentions
  Wretched Sabellus and Nassidius,
  And wait to hear what now shall be shot forth.

Be silent Ovid, of Cadmus and Arethusa;
  For if him to a snake, her to fountain,
  Converts he fabling, that I grudge him not;

Because two natures never front to front
  Has he transmuted, so that both the forms
  To interchange their matter ready were.

Together they responded in such wise,
  That to a fork the serpent cleft his tail,
  And eke the wounded drew his feet together.

The legs together with the thighs themselves
  Adhered so, that in little time the juncture
  No sign whatever made that was apparent.

He with the cloven tail assumed the figure
  The other one was losing, and his skin
  Became elastic, and the other's hard.

I saw the arms draw inward at the armpits,
  And both feet of the reptile, that were short,
  Lengthen as much as those contracted were.

Thereafter the hind feet, together twisted,
  Became the member that a man conceals,
  And of his own the wretch had two created.

While both of them the exhalation veils
  With a new colour, and engenders hair
  On one of them and depilates the other,

The one uprose and down the other fell,
  Though turning not away their impious lamps,
  Underneath which each one his muzzle changed.

He who was standing drew it tow'rds the temples,
  And from excess of matter, which came thither,
  Issued the ears from out the hollow cheeks;

What did not backward run and was retained
  Of that excess made to the face a nose,
  And the lips thickened far as was befitting.

He who lay prostrate thrusts his muzzle forward,
  And backward draws the ears into his head,
  In the same manner as the snail its horns;

And so the tongue, which was entire and apt
  For speech before, is cleft, and the bi-forked
  In the other closes up, and the smoke ceases.

The soul, which to a reptile had been changed,
  Along the valley hissing takes to flight,
  And after him the other speaking sputters.

Then did he turn upon him his new shoulders,
  And said to the other: "I'll have Buoso run,
  Crawling as I have done, along this road."

In this way I beheld the seventh ballast
  Shift and reshift, and here be my excuse
  The novelty, if aught my pen transgress.

And notwithstanding that mine eyes might be
  Somewhat bewildered, and my mind dismayed,
  They could not flee away so secretly

But that I plainly saw Puccio Sciancato;
  And he it was who sole of three companions,
  Which came in the beginning, was not changed;

The other was he whom thou, Gaville, weepest.



Inferno: Canto XXVI


Rejoice, O Florence, since thou art so great,
  That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,
  And throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad!

Among the thieves five citizens of thine
  Like these I found, whence shame comes unto me,
  And thou thereby to no great honour risest.

But if when morn is near our dreams are true,
  Feel shalt thou in a little time from now
  What Prato, if none other, craves for thee.

And if it now were, it were not too soon;
  Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,
  For 'twill aggrieve me more the more I age.

We went our way, and up along the stairs
  The bourns had made us to descend before,
  Remounted my Conductor and drew me.

And following the solitary path
  Among the rocks and ridges of the crag,
  The foot without the hand sped not at all.

Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,
  When I direct my mind to what I saw,
  And more my genius curb than I am wont,

That it may run not unless virtue guide it;
  So that if some good star, or better thing,
  Have given me good, I may myself not grudge it.

As many as the hind (who on the hill
  Rests at the time when he who lights the world
  His countenance keeps least concealed from us,

While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)
  Seeth the glow-worms down along the valley,
  Perchance there where he ploughs and makes his vintage;

With flames as manifold resplendent all
  Was the eighth Bolgia, as I grew aware
  As soon as I was where the depth appeared.

And such as he who with the bears avenged him
  Beheld Elijah's chariot at departing,
  What time the steeds to heaven erect uprose,

For with his eye he could not follow it
  So as to see aught else than flame alone,
  Even as a little cloud ascending upward,

Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment
  Was moving; for not one reveals the theft,
  And every flame a sinner steals away.

I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see,
  So that, if I had seized not on a rock,
  Down had I fallen without being pushed.

And the Leader, who beheld me so attent,
  Exclaimed: "Within the fires the spirits are;
  Each swathes himself with that wherewith he burns."

"My Master," I replied, "by hearing thee
  I am more sure; but I surmised already
  It might be so, and already wished to ask thee

Who is within that fire, which comes so cleft
  At top, it seems uprising from the pyre
  Where was Eteocles with his brother placed."

He answered me: "Within there are tormented
  Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together
  They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.

And there within their flame do they lament
  The ambush of the horse, which made the door
  Whence issued forth the Romans' gentle seed;

Therein is wept the craft, for which being dead
  Deidamia still deplores Achilles,
  And pain for the Palladium there is borne."

"If they within those sparks possess the power
  To speak," I said, "thee, Master, much I pray,
  And re-pray, that the prayer be worth a thousand,

That thou make no denial of awaiting
  Until the horned flame shall hither come;
  Thou seest that with desire I lean towards it."

And he to me: "Worthy is thy entreaty
  Of much applause, and therefore I accept it;
  But take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.

Leave me to speak, because I have conceived
  That which thou wishest; for they might disdain
  Perchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine."

When now the flame had come unto that point,
  Where to my Leader it seemed time and place,
  After this fashion did I hear him speak:

"O ye, who are twofold within one fire,
  If I deserved of you, while I was living,
  If I deserved of you or much or little

When in the world I wrote the lofty verses,
  Do not move on, but one of you declare
  Whither, being lost, he went away to die."

Then of the antique flame the greater horn,
  Murmuring, began to wave itself about
  Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.

Thereafterward, the summit to and fro
  Moving as if it were the tongue that spake,
  It uttered forth a voice, and said: "When I

From Circe had departed, who concealed me
  More than a year there near unto Gaeta,
  Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
  For my old father, nor the due affection
  Which joyous should have made Penelope,

Could overcome within me the desire
  I had to be experienced of the world,
  And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

But I put forth on the high open sea
  With one sole ship, and that small company
  By which I never had deserted been.

Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,
  Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,
  And the others which that sea bathes round about.

I and my company were old and slow
  When at that narrow passage we arrived
  Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

That man no farther onward should adventure.
  On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
  And on the other already had left Ceuta.

'O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
  Perils,' I said, 'have come unto the West,
  To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still
  Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
  Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
  Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
  But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'

So eager did I render my companions,
  With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
  That then I hardly could have held them back.

And having turned our stern unto the morning,
  We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,
  Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

Already all the stars of the other pole
  The night beheld, and ours so very low
  It did not rise above the ocean floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched
  Had been the splendour underneath the moon,
  Since we had entered into the deep pass,

When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
  From distance, and it seemed to me so high
  As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;
  For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
  And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
  At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
  And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

Until the sea above us closed again."



Inferno: Canto XXVII


Already was the flame erect and quiet,
  To speak no more, and now departed from us
  With the permission of the gentle Poet;

When yet another, which behind it came,
  Caused us to turn our eyes upon its top
  By a confused sound that issued from it.

As the Sicilian bull (that bellowed first
  With the lament of him, and that was right,
  Who with his file had modulated it)

Bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted,
  That, notwithstanding it was made of brass,
  Still it appeared with agony transfixed;

Thus, by not having any way or issue
  At first from out the fire, to its own language
  Converted were the melancholy words.

But afterwards, when they had gathered way
  Up through the point, giving it that vibration
  The tongue had given them in their passage out,

We heard it said: "O thou, at whom I aim
  My voice, and who but now wast speaking Lombard,
  Saying, 'Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,'

Because I come perchance a little late,
  To stay and speak with me let it not irk thee;
  Thou seest it irks not me, and I am burning.

If thou but lately into this blind world
  Hast fallen down from that sweet Latian land,
  Wherefrom I bring the whole of my transgression,

Say, if the Romagnuols have peace or war,
  For I was from the mountains there between
  Urbino and the yoke whence Tiber bursts."

I still was downward bent and listening,
  When my Conductor touched me on the side,
  Saying: "Speak thou: this one a Latian is."

And I, who had beforehand my reply
  In readiness, forthwith began to speak:
  "O soul, that down below there art concealed,

Romagna thine is not and never has been
  Without war in the bosom of its tyrants;
  But open war I none have left there now.

Ravenna stands as it long years has stood;
  The Eagle of Polenta there is brooding,
  So that she covers Cervia with her vans.

The city which once made the long resistance,
  And of the French a sanguinary heap,
  Beneath the Green Paws finds itself again;

Verrucchio's ancient Mastiff and the new,
  Who made such bad disposal of Montagna,
  Where they are wont make wimbles of their teeth.

The cities of Lamone and Santerno
  Governs the Lioncel of the white lair,
  Who changes sides 'twixt summer-time and winter;

And that of which the Savio bathes the flank,
  Even as it lies between the plain and mountain,
  Lives between tyranny and a free state.

Now I entreat thee tell us who thou art;
  Be not more stubborn than the rest have been,
  So may thy name hold front there in the world."

After the fire a little more had roared
  In its own fashion, the sharp point it moved
  This way and that, and then gave forth such breath:

"If I believed that my reply were made
  To one who to the world would e'er return,
  This flame without more flickering would stand still;

But inasmuch as never from this depth
  Did any one return, if I hear true,
  Without the fear of infamy I answer,

I was a man of arms, then Cordelier,
  Believing thus begirt to make amends;
  And truly my belief had been fulfilled

But for the High Priest, whom may ill betide,
  Who put me back into my former sins;
  And how and wherefore I will have thee hear.

While I was still the form of bone and pulp
  My mother gave to me, the deeds I did
  Were not those of a lion, but a fox.

The machinations and the covert ways
  I knew them all, and practised so their craft,
  That to the ends of earth the sound went forth.

When now unto that portion of mine age
  I saw myself arrived, when each one ought
  To lower the sails, and coil away the ropes,

That which before had pleased me then displeased me;
  And penitent and confessing I surrendered,
  Ah woe is me! and it would have bestead me;

The Leader of the modern Pharisees
  Having a war near unto Lateran,
  And not with Saracens nor with the Jews,

For each one of his enemies was Christian,
  And none of them had been to conquer Acre,
  Nor merchandising in the Sultan's land,

Nor the high office, nor the sacred orders,
  In him regarded, nor in me that cord
  Which used to make those girt with it more meagre;

But even as Constantine sought out Sylvester
  To cure his leprosy, within Soracte,
  So this one sought me out as an adept

To cure him of the fever of his pride.
  Counsel he asked of me, and I was silent,
  Because his words appeared inebriate.

And then he said: 'Be not thy heart afraid;
  Henceforth I thee absolve; and thou instruct me
  How to raze Palestrina to the ground.

Heaven have I power to lock and to unlock,
  As thou dost know; therefore the keys are two,
  The which my predecessor held not dear.'

Then urged me on his weighty arguments
  There, where my silence was the worst advice;
  And said I: 'Father, since thou washest me

Of that sin into which I now must fall,
  The promise long with the fulfilment short
  Will make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.'

Francis came afterward, when I was dead,
  For me; but one of the black Cherubim
  Said to him: 'Take him not; do me no wrong;

He must come down among my servitors,
  Because he gave the fraudulent advice
  From which time forth I have been at his hair;

For who repents not cannot be absolved,
  Nor can one both repent and will at once,
  Because of the contradiction which consents not.'

O miserable me! how I did shudder
  When he seized on me, saying: 'Peradventure
  Thou didst not think that I was a logician!'

He bore me unto Minos, who entwined
  Eight times his tail about his stubborn back,
  And after he had bitten it in great rage,

Said: 'Of the thievish fire a culprit this;'
  Wherefore, here where thou seest, am I lost,
  And vested thus in going I bemoan me."

When it had thus completed its recital,
  The flame departed uttering lamentations,
  Writhing and flapping its sharp-pointed horn.

Onward we passed, both I and my Conductor,
  Up o'er the crag above another arch,
  Which the moat covers, where is paid the fee

By those who, sowing discord, win their burden.



Inferno: Canto XXVIII


Who ever could, e'en with untrammelled words,
  Tell of the blood and of the wounds in full
  Which now I saw, by many times narrating?

Each tongue would for a certainty fall short
  By reason of our speech and memory,
  That have small room to comprehend so much.

If were again assembled all the people
  Which formerly upon the fateful land
  Of Puglia were lamenting for their blood

Shed by the Romans and the lingering war
  That of the rings made such illustrious spoils,
  As Livy has recorded, who errs not,

With those who felt the agony of blows
  By making counterstand to Robert Guiscard,
  And all the rest, whose bones are gathered still

At Ceperano, where a renegade
  Was each Apulian, and at Tagliacozzo,
  Where without arms the old Alardo conquered,

And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off,
  Should show, it would be nothing to compare
  With the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia.

A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
  Was never shattered so, as I saw one
  Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.

Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
  His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
  That maketh excrement of what is eaten.

While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
  He looked at me, and opened with his hands
  His bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me;

How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
  In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
  Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;

And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
  Disseminators of scandal and of schism
  While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.

A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
  Thus cruelly, unto the falchion's edge
  Putting again each one of all this ream,

When we have gone around the doleful road;
  By reason that our wounds are closed again
  Ere any one in front of him repass.

But who art thou, that musest on the crag,
  Perchance to postpone going to the pain
  That is adjudged upon thine accusations?"

"Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt doth bring him,"
  My Master made reply, "to be tormented;
  But to procure him full experience,

Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct him
  Down here through Hell, from circle unto circle;
  And this is true as that I speak to thee."

More than a hundred were there when they heard him,
  Who in the moat stood still to look at me,
  Through wonderment oblivious of their torture.

"Now say to Fra Dolcino, then, to arm him,
  Thou, who perhaps wilt shortly see the sun,
  If soon he wish not here to follow me,

So with provisions, that no stress of snow
  May give the victory to the Novarese,
  Which otherwise to gain would not be easy."

After one foot to go away he lifted,
  This word did Mahomet say unto me,
  Then to depart upon the ground he stretched it.

Another one, who had his throat pierced through,
  And nose cut off close underneath the brows,
  And had no longer but a single ear,

Staying to look in wonder with the others,
  Before the others did his gullet open,
  Which outwardly was red in every part,

And said: "O thou, whom guilt doth not condemn,
  And whom I once saw up in Latian land,
  Unless too great similitude deceive me,

Call to remembrance Pier da Medicina,
  If e'er thou see again the lovely plain
  That from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo,

And make it known to the best two of Fano,
  To Messer Guido and Angiolello likewise,
  That if foreseeing here be not in vain,

Cast over from their vessel shall they be,
  And drowned near unto the Cattolica,
  By the betrayal of a tyrant fell.

Between the isles of Cyprus and Majorca
  Neptune ne'er yet beheld so great a crime,
  Neither of pirates nor Argolic people.

That traitor, who sees only with one eye,
  And holds the land, which some one here with me
  Would fain be fasting from the vision of,

Will make them come unto a parley with him;
  Then will do so, that to Focara's wind
  They will not stand in need of vow or prayer."

And I to him: "Show to me and declare,
  If thou wouldst have me bear up news of thee,
  Who is this person of the bitter vision."

Then did he lay his hand upon the jaw
  Of one of his companions, and his mouth
  Oped, crying: "This is he, and he speaks not.

This one, being banished, every doubt submerged
  In Caesar by affirming the forearmed
  Always with detriment allowed delay."

O how bewildered unto me appeared,
  With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit,
  Curio, who in speaking was so bold!

And one, who both his hands dissevered had,
  The stumps uplifting through the murky air,
  So that the blood made horrible his face,

Cried out: "Thou shalt remember Mosca also,
  Who said, alas! 'A thing done has an end!'
  Which was an ill seed for the Tuscan people."

"And death unto thy race," thereto I added;
  Whence he, accumulating woe on woe,
  Departed, like a person sad and crazed.

But I remained to look upon the crowd;
  And saw a thing which I should be afraid,
  Without some further proof, even to recount,

If it were not that conscience reassures me,
  That good companion which emboldens man
  Beneath the hauberk of its feeling pure.

I truly saw, and still I seem to see it,
  A trunk without a head walk in like manner
  As walked the others of the mournful herd.

And by the hair it held the head dissevered,
  Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern,
  And that upon us gazed and said: "O me!"

It of itself made to itself a lamp,
  And they were two in one, and one in two;
  How that can be, He knows who so ordains it.

When it was come close to the bridge's foot,
  It lifted high its arm with all the head,
  To bring more closely unto us its words,

Which were: "Behold now the sore penalty,
  Thou, who dost breathing go the dead beholding;
  Behold if any be as great as this.

And so that thou may carry news of me,
  Know that Bertram de Born am I, the same
  Who gave to the Young King the evil comfort.

I made the father and the son rebellious;
  Achitophel not more with Absalom
  And David did with his accursed goadings.

Because I parted persons so united,
  Parted do I now bear my brain, alas!
  From its beginning, which is in this trunk.

Thus is observed in me the counterpoise."



Inferno: Canto XXIX


The many people and the divers wounds
  These eyes of mine had so inebriated,
  That they were wishful to stand still and weep;

But said Virgilius: "What dost thou still gaze at?
  Why is thy sight still riveted down there
  Among the mournful, mutilated shades?

Thou hast not done so at the other Bolge;
  Consider, if to count them thou believest,
  That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds,

And now the moon is underneath our feet;
  Henceforth the time allotted us is brief,
  And more is to be seen than what thou seest."

"If thou hadst," I made answer thereupon,
  "Attended to the cause for which I looked,
  Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned."

Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him
  I went, already making my reply,
  And superadding: "In that cavern where

I held mine eyes with such attention fixed,
  I think a spirit of my blood laments
  The sin which down below there costs so much."

Then said the Master: "Be no longer broken
  Thy thought from this time forward upon him;
  Attend elsewhere, and there let him remain;

For him I saw below the little bridge,
  Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger
  Fiercely, and heard him called Geri del Bello.

So wholly at that time wast thou impeded
  By him who formerly held Altaforte,
  Thou didst not look that way; so he departed."

"O my Conductor, his own violent death,
  Which is not yet avenged for him," I said,
  "By any who is sharer in the shame,

Made him disdainful; whence he went away,
  As I imagine, without speaking to me,
  And thereby made me pity him the more."

Thus did we speak as far as the first place
  Upon the crag, which the next valley shows
  Down to the bottom, if there were more light.

When we were now right over the last cloister
  Of Malebolge, so that its lay-brothers
  Could manifest themselves unto our sight,

Divers lamentings pierced me through and through,
  Which with compassion had their arrows barbed,
  Whereat mine ears I covered with my hands.

What pain would be, if from the hospitals
  Of Valdichiana, 'twixt July and September,
  And of Maremma and Sardinia

All the diseases in one moat were gathered,
  Such was it here, and such a stench came from it
  As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue.

We had descended on the furthest bank
  From the long crag, upon the left hand still,
  And then more vivid was my power of sight

Down tow'rds the bottom, where the ministress
  Of the high Lord, Justice infallible,
  Punishes forgers, which she here records.

I do not think a sadder sight to see
  Was in Aegina the whole people sick,
  (When was the air so full of pestilence,

The animals, down to the little worm,
  All fell, and afterwards the ancient people,
  According as the poets have affirmed,

Were from the seed of ants restored again,)
  Than was it to behold through that dark valley
  The spirits languishing in divers heaps.

This on the belly, that upon the back
  One of the other lay, and others crawling
  Shifted themselves along the dismal road.

We step by step went onward without speech,
  Gazing upon and listening to the sick
  Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies.

I saw two sitting leaned against each other,
  As leans in heating platter against platter,
  From head to foot bespotted o'er with scabs;

And never saw I plied a currycomb
  By stable-boy for whom his master waits,
  Or him who keeps awake unwillingly,

As every one was plying fast the bite
  Of nails upon himself, for the great rage
  Of itching which no other succour had.

And the nails downward with them dragged the scab,
  In fashion as a knife the scales of bream,
  Or any other fish that has them largest.

"O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,"
  Began my Leader unto one of them,
  "And makest of them pincers now and then,

Tell me if any Latian is with those
  Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee
  To all eternity unto this work."

"Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest,
  Both of us here," one weeping made reply;
  "But who art thou, that questionest about us?"

And said the Guide: "One am I who descends
  Down with this living man from cliff to cliff,
  And I intend to show Hell unto him."

Then broken was their mutual support,
  And trembling each one turned himself to me,
  With others who had heard him by rebound.

Wholly to me did the good Master gather,
  Saying: "Say unto them whate'er thou wishest."
  And I began, since he would have it so:

"So may your memory not steal away
  In the first world from out the minds of men,
  But so may it survive 'neath many suns,

Say to me who ye are, and of what people;
  Let not your foul and loathsome punishment
  Make you afraid to show yourselves to me."

"I of Arezzo was," one made reply,
  "And Albert of Siena had me burned;
  But what I died for does not bring me here.

'Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest,
  That I could rise by flight into the air,
  And he who had conceit, but little wit,

Would have me show to him the art; and only
  Because no Daedalus I made him, made me
  Be burned by one who held him as his son.

But unto the last Bolgia of the ten,
  For alchemy, which in the world I practised,
  Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned."

And to the Poet said I: "Now was ever
  So vain a people as the Sienese?
  Not for a certainty the French by far."

Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,
  Replied unto my speech: "Taking out Stricca,
  Who knew the art of moderate expenses,

And Niccolo, who the luxurious use
  Of cloves discovered earliest of all
  Within that garden where such seed takes root;

And taking out the band, among whom squandered
  Caccia d'Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,
  And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered!

But, that thou know who thus doth second thee
  Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye
  Tow'rds me, so that my face well answer thee,

And thou shalt see I am Capocchio's shade,
  Who metals falsified by alchemy;
  Thou must remember, if I well descry thee,

How I a skilful ape of nature was."