Part 4

We were still at the trunk, expecting that he would wish to say more to us, when we were seized by a noise,

such as one who hears the boar and the hunt coming to his stand, and hears the beasts and the branches rustling.

And lo, two came from the left bank, naked and scratched, fleeing so fast that they broke through every tangle of the wood.

The one in front: "Now run, run, death!" And the other, who seemed to him too slow, cried: "Lano, not so ready were

thy legs at the jousts at the Toppo!" And then, since perhaps his breath failed him, he made a knot of himself and a bush.

Behind them the wood was full of black bitches, eager and running, like greyhounds loosed from the leash.

They fell on the wretch who had hidden, and tore him piece by piece; then they bore away those suffering limbs.

Then my guide took me by the hand, and led me to the bush that wept in vain for its bloody wounds.

"O Jacopo," it said, "of Sant' Andrea, what availed it thee to make a shield of me? what guilt have I of thy sinful life?"

When the master stood over it, he said: "Who wert thou, who through so many slits breathest with blood a sorrowful speech?"

And it to us: "O souls who are come to see the dishonest havoc that has severed my branches so from me,

gather them at the foot of the dismal stock. I was of the city that changed its first patron for the Baptist; wherefore he,

with his art, shall ever make it sorrowful; and were it not that on the passage of the Arno some likeness of him still remains,

the citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the ashes left by Attila would have labored in vain.

I made a gibbet for myself of my own house."

Inferno Canto XIV

After the love of my native place constrained me, I gathered the scattered leaves and gave them back to him who was now hoarse.

Then we came to the point where the second ring is parted from the third, and where is seen the horrible art of justice.

To make the new things clear, I say that we arrived at a plain from whose bed every plant is banished.

The mournful wood is a garland round it, as the dismal ditch is round the wood; there we stayed our steps on the very edge.

The space was a dry and dense sand, made in no other fashion than that which was once trodden by Cato's feet.

O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest to be feared by every one who reads what was manifest to my eyes!

Of naked souls I saw many flocks who wept all most miserably, and diverse seemed the law imposed on them.

Some lay supine on the ground, some sat all huddled up, and others went continually about.

She who went wandering was the most numerous, and she the least who lay in torment, but had her tongue most loosed to grief.

Over all the sand, with slow falling, rained down broad flakes of fire, like snow on the Alps without wind.

Such as Alexander saw in those hot parts of India, falling upon his host, flames descend even to the solid earth,

wherefore he provided to trample the soil with his squadrons, so that the vapor might be the better extinguished while alone:

so descended the eternal heat; whereby the sand caught fire, like tinder beneath the flint, to double the pain.

Never was there rest from the dance of the wretched hands, now here now there shaking off from them the fresh burning.

I began: "Master, thou who conquerest all things, save the stubborn demons who at the entering of the gate rushed out against us,

who is that great one who seems to care not for the fire, and lies disdainful and writhing, so that the rain seems not to torment him?"

And he, who had perceived that I was asking my leader of him, cried: "Such as I was alive, such am I dead.

If Jupiter weary his smith, from whom angered he took the sharp thunderbolt wherewith I was struck on my last day;

or if he weary the others in turn after turn at Mongibello in the black forge, crying 'Good Vulcan, help, help!'

as he did at the battle of Phlegra, and hurl at me with all his force: he could not have glad vengeance of me."

Then my leader spoke with such force as I had not heard him so strong: "O Capaneus, in that it is not quenched,

the more art thou punished for thy pride; no torment, save thy rage, would be fit pain for thy fury."

Then he turned to me with gentler look, saying: "He was one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes; and he had, and seems to have,

God in disdain, and little esteems him; but, as I said to him, his scorns are due ornaments enough for his breast.

Now come after me, and take heed thou set not yet thy feet upon the burning sand; but keep them ever close to the wood."

Silently we came to where issues forth from the wood a little stream, the redness of which still makes me shudder.

Such as from the Bulicame issues a brook which the sinners then divide among themselves, so down through the sand went that one.

Its bottom and both banks were made of stone, and the margins at the sides; whereby I perceived the passage was open.

"Of all else that I have shown thee, since we entered by the gate whose threshold is denied to none,

nothing was seen by thy eyes so notable as this present river, which quenches all flames upon itself."

These words were my leader's; wherefore I prayed him to give me the food of which he had given me the desire.

"In the mid-sea lies a wasted land," he then said, "which is called Crete, under whose king the world was once chaste.

There is a mountain that was once glad with water and with leaves, which was called Ida; now it is desert like a thing forbidden.

Rhea chose it once for a faithful cradle of her son, and to hide him the better, when he cried, she had cries made there.

Within the mountain stands upright a great old man, who holds his shoulders turned toward Damietta and gazes on Rome as on his mirror.

His head is formed of fine gold, and pure silver are the arms and the breast, then is he of copper down to the fork;

from there downward he is all chosen iron, save that the right foot is baked clay; and on that more than the other he stands erect.

Each part, except the gold, is cracked by a fissure that drops tears, which, collected, make that cavern.

Their course falls down into this valley; they make Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon; then they go down through this narrow channel,

until, where one descends no further, they make Cocytus; and what that pool is thou shalt see, therefore it is not told here."

And I to him: "If this present stream thus derives from our world, why does it appear to us only at this edge?"

And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round; and though thou hast come far, yet to the left, descending to the bottom,

thou hast not yet turned through all the circle; wherefore, if aught new appears to us, it should not bring wonder to thy face."

And I again: "Master, where is found Phlegethon and Lethe? for of the one thou art silent, and the other thou sayest is made of this rain."

"In all thy questions certainly thou pleasest me," he answered, "but the boiling of the red water ought well to have solved the one thou makest.

Lethe thou shalt see, but outside this foss, there where the souls go to wash themselves when the repented guilt is removed."

Then he said: "Now is it time to withdraw from the wood; see that thou comest behind me: the margins make a way, which are not burnt,

and above them every vapor is quenched."

Inferno Canto XV

Now one of the hard margins bears us; and the smoke of the brook shades us from above, so that the fire spares the water and the banks.

Such as the Flemings between Guizzante and Bruges, fearing the flood that rushes toward them, make the bulwark that the sea may flee them;

and such as the Paduans along the Brenta, to defend their villages and their castles, before Chiarentana feels the heat:

to such image were those made, though not so high nor so thick, whatsoever the master made them.

Already we were removed from the wood so far, that I should not have seen where it was, if I had turned myself backward,

when we met a troop of souls who were coming along the bank, and each one gazed at us as at evening

one looks at another under a new moon; and they sharpened their brows toward us as the old tailor at the eye of his needle.

Thus eyed by such a family, I was recognized by one, who took me by the hem and cried: "What a marvel!"

And I, when he stretched his arm to me, fixed my eyes on his baked aspect, so that the scorched face did not defend

his knowledge from my intellect; and bending my hand to his face, I answered: "Are you here, ser Brunetto?"

And he: "O my son, let it not displease thee if Brunetto Latini turns back a little with thee and leaves the track."

I said to him: "With all my power, come; and if you wish me to sit with you, I will do it, if it pleases him who goes with thee."

"O son," said he, "whoever of this flock stops at all, lies then a hundred years without roasting when the fire strikes him.

Therefore go on: I will come at thy heels; and then rejoin my band, who go weeping their eternal losses."

I dared not descend from the road to go even with him; but held my head bowed as one who goes reverently.

He began: "What fortune or destiny before thy last day leads thee down here? and who is this who shows the way?"

"Up there above, in the serene life," I answered him, "I went astray in a valley, before my age was full.

But yesterday morning I turned my back on it: this one appeared to me, returning to that, and brings me home by this path."

And he to me: "If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of a glorious port, if well I marked it in the fair life;

and if I had not died so early, seeing the heaven to thee so benign, I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people who descended from Fiesole of old, and still smell of the mountain and the flint,

shall be, for thy good deeds, thine enemy; and it is right, for among the sour sorbs it befits not the sweet fig to bear fruit.

Old fame in the world calls them blind; a people avaricious, envious, and proud: from their customs see thou cleanse thee.

Thy fortune keeps such honor for thee, that both one party and the other shall hunger for thee; but far be the grass from the beak.

Let the bestial Fiesolans make litter of themselves, and not touch the plant, if any still rises in their dung,

in which may revive the holy seed of those Romans who remained there when was made the nest of so much malice."

"If all my prayer were fulfilled," I answered him, "you would not yet be banished from human nature;

for in my mind is fixed, and now grieves me, the dear and good paternal image of you, when from time to time in the world

you taught me how man makes himself eternal: and how much I hold it in grace, while I live, must be discerned in my tongue.

What you tell of my course I write, and keep it to gloss with other text for a lady who shall know, if I reach her.

So much I wish to be manifest to you, provided my conscience chide me not, that to Fortune, as she wills, I am ready.

Such pledge is not new to my ears: therefore let Fortune turn her wheel as she pleases, and the peasant his mattock."

My master then on the right cheek turned back and looked at me; then said: "He listens well who notes."

Nor for all that, in less speech, I went with ser Brunetto, and asked who were his companions most known and most high.

And he to me: "To know of some is good; of the others it were laudable to be silent, for time would be short for so much sound.

In sum know that all were clerks and men of great letters and of great fame, foul in the world with one same sin.

Priscian goes with that sorry crowd, and Francesco d'Accorso also; and to see, hadst thou had desire of such taint,

him couldst thou have seen whom from the servant of the servants was transferred from Arno to Bacchiglione, where he left the ill-stretched nerves.

More would I say; but the coming and the speech can be no longer, for I see there new smoke rising from the sand.

People come with whom I must not be. Be my Treasure recommended to thee, in which I still live, and ask no more."

Then he turned, and seemed of those who run for the green cloth at Verona across the field; and of those

he seemed the winner, not the loser.

Inferno Canto XVI

Already was I in a place whence was heard the roar of the water that falls into the other circle, like that which the hives make in humming,

when three shades parted together, running, from a troop that was passing under the rain of the harsh torment.

They came toward us, and each cried: "Stay thou, who by thy habit seemest to be of our depraved land."

Alas, what wounds I saw upon their limbs, fresh and old, burnt by the flames! Yet less pain it gives me but to remember.

At their cries my teacher attended; turned his face toward me, and "Now wait," said, "to these one must be courteous.

And if it were not for the fire that shoots the nature of the place, I would say that haste befitted thee better than them."

They recommenced, as we stayed, they the ancient verse; and when they were come to us, they made a wheel of themselves all three.

As the champions used to do, naked and anointed, considering their hold and their advantage, before they are beaten and thrust between them,

so, wheeling, each directed his face to me, so that the neck continually made contrary journey to the feet.

And "If misery of this place alone renders us and our prayers in contempt," began one, "and the discolored and boiled aspect,

the fame of us may bend thy mind to tell us who thou art, that with living feet so securely rubbest through the hell.

This one, whose tread thou seest me trample, though he go naked and hairless, was of greater degree than thou believest:

nephew was he of the good Gualdrada; Guido Guerra was his name, and in his life he did much with wit and with the sword.

The other, who with me treads the crushed sand, is Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose voice in the world above should be welcome.

And I, who am set with them on the cross, was Jacopo Rusticucci, and certainly the fierce wife harms me more than else."

If I had been covered by the fire, I would have cast myself beneath them, and I think the teacher would have suffered it;

but because I should have been burnt and cooked, fear vanquished my good will that made me greedy to embrace them.

Then I began: "Not contempt, but grief your condition fixed within me, so great that slowly it all strips off,

as soon as this my lord said to me words whereby I thought that such folk as you were coming.

I am of your land, and ever the deeds of you and the honored names I retraced and heard with affection.

I leave the bitter, and go for sweet apples promised me by the truthful leader; but first I must sink to the center."

"If the soul long guide thy limbs," answered that one again, "and if thy fame shine after thee,

say whether courtesy and valor dwell in our city as of wont, or if wholly they are gone forth;

for Guiglielmo Borsiere, who grieves with us a little and goes there with the companions, vexes us sorely with his words."

"New people and sudden gains have generated pride and excess, Florence, in thee, so that thou already weepest for it."

Thus I cried with lifted face; and the three, who took that for answer, looked one at the other as at truth is looked.

"If other times it costs thee so little," they all answered, "to satisfy others, happy thou if thou speakest at thy ease!

Wherefore, if thou escape these dark places and return to see the fair stars, when it shall avail thee to say 'I was,'

see that thou speak of us to the people." Then they broke the wheel, and to flee their nimble legs seemed wings.

An amen could not have been said so quickly as they had vanished; wherefore the master seemed to depart.

I followed him, and little had we gone, when the sound of the water was so near to us, that we should scarce be heard in speech.

As that river which has its proper course first from Monte Viso toward the east, from the left flank of the Apennines,

which is called Acquacheta above, before it falls down into the low bed, and to Forli is void of that name,

roars there above San Benedetto dell'Alpe to fall at a descent where it should be received by a thousand;

so, down a steep bank, we found that discolored water resounding, so that in little time it would have hurt the ear.

I had a cord girt around me, and with it thought at times to take the leopard with the painted skin.

After I had loosed it all from me, as the leader had commanded me, I offered it to him knotted and coiled.

Whereupon he turned to the right side, and a little way from the bank cast it down into that deep abyss.

'Yet must novelty answer,' I said within myself, 'to the new sign which the master so seconds with his eye.'

Ah, how cautious men ought to be near those who see not only the deed, but through the thoughts mirror with the mind!

He said to me: "Soon shall come from above that which I await and which thy thought dreams; soon must it be uncovered to thy sight."

Ever from that truth which has the face of falsehood should man close his lips as long as he can, because without guilt it makes shame;

but here I cannot be silent; and by the notes of this comedy, reader, I swear to thee, if they be not void of long grace,

that I saw through that gross and dark air come swimming upward a figure, marvelous to every steadfast heart,

as returns he who goes down sometimes to loose the anchor that grapples a rock or other thing shut in the sea,

who stretches upward and draws in his feet.

Inferno Canto XVII

"Behold the beast with the pointed tail, that passes the mountains and breaks the walls and arms! Behold her who befouls all the world!"

Thus began my leader to speak to me; and beckoned to her to come to shore, near the end of the traversed marbles.

And that foul image of fraud came on, and arrived with head and bust, but drew not her tail upon the bank.

Her face was the face of a just man, so benign was the skin outwardly, and of a serpent was all the rest of her trunk;

two paws she had hairy up to the armpits; the back and the breast and both the flanks she had painted with knots and with wheels.

With more colors, subdued and overlaid, did never Tartars nor Turks make cloths, nor were such webs set by Arachne.

As sometimes the barks stand at the shore, which are partly in water and partly on land, and as there among the lurching Germans

the beaver settles to make his war, so that worst of beasts was staying on the edge which bounds the stone and holds the sand.

In the void all her tail was quivering, twisting upward the venomous fork which armed its tip like a scorpion.

The leader said: "Now must our way turn a little unto that malicious beast that lies there."

Therefore we descended to the right breast, and ten steps we made upon the extreme, well to escape the sand and the flame.

And when we were come to her, a little further on I see upon the sand people sitting near the empty space.

There the master, "That thou mayst bear full experience of this circle," said to me, "go, and see their condition.

Let thy discourses be brief there; while thou returnest, I will speak with this one, that she grant us her strong shoulders."

Thus still upon the extreme edge of that seventh circle, all alone, I went, where the mournful people sat.

Through their eyes burst forth their grief; here and there they aided with their hands sometimes against the vapors, sometimes the hot soil:

not otherwise do the dogs in summer now with the snout now with the foot, when they are bitten by fleas or flies or gadflies.

After I turned my eyes on the faces of certain, on whom the dolorous fire falls, I knew none of them; but I perceived

that from the neck of each hung a pouch which had a certain color and certain mark, and thence their eye seems to feed.

And as I look among them, in a yellow purse I saw azure that had the face and bearing of a lion.

Then, proceeding the course of my gaze, I saw another red as blood, showing a white goose whiter than butter.

And one who with a blue and gross sow had marked his white little bag, said to me: "What doest thou in this ditch?

Now go thy way; and since thou art still alive, know that my neighbor Vitaliano shall sit here at my left flank.

With these Florentines I am Paduan: often they deafen my ears crying: 'Let the sovereign knight come,

who shall bring the pouch with three beaks!'" Here he twisted his mouth and thrust out the tongue, like an ox that licks its nose.

And I, fearing lest he be more angered who had admonished me to stay but little, returned from the weary souls.

I found my leader who had already mounted upon the crupper of the fierce animal, and said to me: "Now be strong and bold.

Now we descend by such stairs; mount in front, for I will be in the middle, so that the tail may not do harm."

As is he who has so near the shudder of the quartan, that he has already pale nails, and trembles all over but looking at the shade,

such became I at his words; but shame made his menaces strong in me, which before a good lord makes a servant stout.

I seated myself on those shoulders; I would have said, but the voice came not as I thought: 'See that thou embrace me.'

But he, who other time succored me in other perhaps, soon as I mounted clasped me with his arms and sustained me;

and said: "Geryon, move now: the wide wheels, and let the descent be little; think on the new burden that thou hast."

As the little bark goes out of place backward backward, so from there he withdrew; and when he felt himself at play altogether,

there where was the breast, he turned the tail, and that stretched, like an eel, moved, and with the paws gathered the air to him.

Greater fear I believe there was not when Phaeton abandoned the reins, whereby the heaven, as still appears, was scorched;

nor when wretched Icarus felt his loins deprived of feathers by the heated wax, his father crying to him 'Thou holdest a bad way!',

than was mine, when I saw that I was in the air on every side, and saw quenched every sight save that of the beast.

She goes swimming slow slow; turns and descends, but I perceive it not save that beneath and in my face she winds.

I already felt from the right hand the gulf make beneath us a horrible crash, wherefore I bend my head down with the eyes.

Then was I more timorous at the void, for I saw fires and heard laments; whereby I trembling all shrank together.

And I saw then, for I saw it not before, the descending and the wheeling through the great evils that were approaching from divers sides.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”