Part 5

As the falcon that has long been on the wing, who, without sight of lure or bird, makes the falconer cry ‘Alas, you stoop!’, descends weary from where he rose swift, in a hundred circles, and far from his master sets himself, disdainful and fierce; so Geryon set us down at the foot, at the foot of the steep crag, and, our persons disburdened, vanished like a dart from the string.

Inferno Canto XVIII

There is a place in Hell called Malebolge, all of stone of a iron-hued color, like the encircling wall that girds it round. In the exact center of the malignant field yawns a well, very wide and deep, of whose structure I will tell in its place. The ridge that remains is therefore round between the well and the foot of the high hard bank, and has the bottom divided into ten valleys. As, where for the guard of the walls many moats encircle the castles, the part where they are gives a figure, such an image did these make there; and as to such fortresses from their thresholds to the outer bank there are little bridges, so from the base of the rock there moved ledges that cut the embankments and the moats up to the well that truncates and gathers them. In this place, shaken from the back of Geryon, we found ourselves; and the poet kept to the left, and I moved behind him. On the right hand I saw new sorrow, new torment, and new scourgers, with which the first bolgia was filled. At the bottom were the sinners naked; from the middle onward they came toward us face to face, from beyond with us, but with larger steps, as the Romans, because of the great multitude, in the year of jubilee, upon the bridge have found a mode that the people pass, so that on one side all have the brow toward the castle and go to St. Peter’s, on the other bank they go toward the mount. This side and that, up along the gloomy rock, I saw horned demons with great whips, who smote them cruelly from behind. Ah, how they made them lift their heels at the first blows! already none awaited the second nor the third. While I went, my eyes encountered one; and I straightway said: ‘I am not unused to seeing him.’ Wherefore I fixed my feet to picture him; and the sweet guide stayed with me, and assented that I should go a little back. And he, the scourged one, thought to hide by lowering his face; but little availed him, for I said: ‘O you who cast your eye to the ground, if the features you bear are not false, you are Venedico Caccianemico. But what brings you to such pungent sauces?’ And he to me: ‘Unwillingly I tell it; but your clear speech compels me, which makes me remember the ancient world. I was he who led Ghisolabella to do the marquis’s will, however the ugly tale may sound. And not I alone weep here, a Bolognese; nay, this place is so full of them, that so many tongues are not now learned to say “sipa” between Savena and Reno; and if you would have faith or witness of this, call to mind our avaricious breast.’ Thus speaking, a demon smote him with his curled whip, and said: ‘Away, pander! here there are no women for coinage.’ I rejoined my escort; then with few steps we came where a ledge issued from the bank. Very lightly we climbed it; and turned to the right up along its edge, we parted from those eternal circles. When we were where it juts out below to give passage to the scourged, the leader said: ‘Keep close, and see that your face feigns not the look of these other ill-born, whose faces you have not yet seen, because they have come along with us.’ Of the old bridge we watched the track that came toward us from the other side, and which the whip likewise drives. And the good master, without my asking, said to me: ‘See that great one who comes, and for his pain sheds no tears: how royal an aspect he still retains! That is Jason, who by courage and by wit deprived the Colchians of the ram. He passed through the isle of Lemnos after the bold pitiless women had given all their males to death. There with signs and with ornate words he deceived Hypsipyle, the young girl who first had deceived all the others. He left her there, pregnant and alone; such guilt condemns him to such torment; and of Medea also is vengeance taken. With him goes he who by such means deceives; and let this suffice to know of the first valley and of those who in it pant.’ Already we were where the narrow path crosses with the second embankment, and makes of it a support to another arch. Thence we heard people who squat in the other bolgia and snuffle with the nose, and beat themselves with the palms. The banks were crusted with a mold, from the breath below that clings there, which made war with eyes and nose. The bottom is so deep that we have not room to see without mounting on the back of the arch, where the rock overhangs most. Thither we came; and thence down in the ditch I saw people plunged in a filth that seemed to issue from human privies. And while I sought there below with my eye, I saw one with his head so foul with dung that it could not be seen if he were lay or clerk. He shouted at me: ‘Why are you so greedy to look at me more than the other filthy ones?’ And I to him: ‘Because, if I remember well, I have seen you with dry hair, and you are Alessio Interminei of Lucca: therefore I eye you more than all the others.’ And he then, beating his pate: ‘Down here the flatteries have submerged me, whereof I never had my tongue weary.’ Thereafter the leader said to me ‘See that you direct’ your face a little further forward, so that you take well with the eye the face of that foul and disheveled handmaid who scratches herself there with her dungy nails, and now crouches and now stands. That is Thais, the harlot who answered her paramour when he said “Have I great thanks with you?”: “Nay, wondrous!” And here let our sight be sated.’

Inferno Canto XIX

O Simon Magus, O miserable followers, who take the things of God, which should be brides of goodness, and you rapacious ones, for gold and silver adulterate them, now must the trumpet sound for you, since you are in the third bolgia. Already we were, at the following tomb, mounted on the rock on that part which exactly overhangs the middle of the ditch. O supreme wisdom, how great is the art that you show in heaven, on earth, and in the evil world, and how justly your virtue distributes! I saw along the sides and the bottom the livid stone full of holes, all of one width and each round. They seemed to me not less wide nor greater than those that are in my beautiful San Giovanni, made for the place of the baptizers; one of which, not many years ago, I broke for one who was drowning within: and let this be a seal to undeceive every man. Out of the mouth of each there protruded of a sinner the feet and the legs up to the calf, and the rest remained within. The soles of all were burning on both sides; wherefore so strongly did the joints quiver, that they would have broken fetters and bands. As the flaming of greasy things moves only along the outer edge, such was it there from the heels to the points. ‘Who is that, master, who frets, quivering more than his other companions,’ said I, ‘and whom a redder flame sucks?’ And he to me: ‘If you wish me to carry you down there by that bank which lies lowest, from him you shall learn of himself and of his wrongs.’ And I: ‘As much pleases me as pleases you: you are lord, and know that I depart not from your will, and know what is left unspoken.’ Then we came upon the fourth bank; we turned and descended on the left hand down into the bottom, pierced and narrow. The good master had not yet loosed himself from his haunch, so he reached me to the fissure of him who was weeping with his leg. ‘O whoever you are, that hold the upper part below, sad soul like a stake driven in,’ I began to say, ‘if you can, speak.’ I stood like the friar who confesses the perfidious assassin, who, after he is fixed, recalls him so that death may cease. And he cried: ‘Are you already there upright, are you already there upright, Boniface? The writing lied to me by several years. Are you so soon sated with that wealth for which you did not fear to take by guile the fair lady, and then to make havoc of her?’ Such I made myself as are those who stand, through not understanding what is answered them, as if abashed, and know not how to reply. Then Virgil said: ‘Tell him quickly: “I am not he, I am not he whom you think”’; and I replied as I was bidden. Wherefore the spirit twisted all his feet; then, sighing and with voice of weeping, said to me: ‘Then what do you ask of me? If it concerns you so much to know who I am, that you have therefore run along the bank, know that I was clothed with the great mantle; and truly I was son of the she-bear, so covetous to advance the cubs, that up above in wealth and here I placed myself in the purse. Beneath my head are the others drawn who preceded me in simony, flattened in the fissures of the stone. Down there shall I also fall when he comes whom I thought you were, when I made the sudden question. But more time has already passed since my feet were cooked and I have been thus upside down, than he shall stand planted with red feet: for after him shall come of yet uglier work, from true west, a pastor without law, such that it behooves him and me to be covered. He shall be a new Jason, of whom is read in the Maccabees; and as to that one his king was soft, so shall be to him who rules France.’ I know not if I was too bold here, that I answered him still in this strain: ‘Ah, now tell me: how much treasure did Our Lord require first of St. Peter before He placed the keys in his power? Certainly He asked nothing but “Follow me.” Nor did Peter nor the others take gold or silver from Matthias, when he was chosen by lot to the place which the guilty soul lost. Wherefore stay, for you are well punished; and look well at the ill-gotten coin that made you bold against Charles. And if it were not that still the reverence of the supreme keys which you held in your happy life forbids me, I would use yet heavier words; for your avarice afflicts the world, trampling the good and exalting the wicked. Of you pastors the Evangelist took note, when she who sits upon the waters was seen by him to whore with kings; she who was born with the seven heads, and from the ten horns had her proof, while virtue pleased her husband. You have made yourselves a god of gold and silver; and what else are you from the idolater, save that he worships one, and you a hundred? Ah, Constantine, of how much ill was mother, not your conversion, but that dower which the first rich father took from you!’ And while I sang him such notes, whether anger or conscience gnawed him, he struggled strongly with both his feet. I believe indeed that it pleased my leader, with such contented lips he ever heeded the sound of the true words expressed. Wherefore with both arms he took me; and when he had all of me up to his breast, he remounted by the way he had descended. Nor did he weary of holding me close, so he bore me above the summit of the arch that passes from the fourth to the fifth bank. There gently he laid down the burden, gently because of the rough and steep rock that would be hard passage for the goats. Then another valley was disclosed to me.

Inferno Canto XX

Of new pain must I make verses, and give matter to the twentieth canto of the first song, which is of the submerged. I was already wholly disposed to look into the uncovered bottom, which was bathed with anguished weeping; and I saw people coming through the round valley, silent and weeping, at the pace that the litanies make in this world. As my sight descended lower upon them, wonderfully did each appear twisted between the chin and the beginning of the chest, for the face was turned back from the loins, and it behooved them to come backward, because their sight in front was taken from them. Perhaps by force of palsy some one was thus wholly twisted; but I saw it not, nor believe it is. If God grant you, reader, to gather fruit from your reading, now think for yourself how I could keep my face dry, when I saw our image so distorted close at hand, that the weeping of the eyes bathed the buttocks through the cleft. Certainly I wept, leaning on one of the crags of the hard rock, so that my escort said to me: ‘Are you still among the other fools? Here pity lives when it is quite dead; who is more wicked than he who bears passion to the divine judgment? Lift your head, lift it, and see for whom the earth opened to the eyes of the Thebans; wherefore they all cried: “Whither rush you, Amphiaraus, why do you leave the war?” And he did not cease from rushing down the vale until Minos who seizes each one. See how he has made a breast of his shoulders; because he wished to see too far before, he looks behind and makes a backward path. See Tiresias, who changed semblance when from male he became female, changing all his members; and first, then, it behooved him to strike again the two intertwined serpents with his wand, ere he recovered his male plumes. That is Aruns who presses his belly to the rock, who in the mountains of Luni, where he who dwells below hews, the Carrara man, had his cavern among the white marbles for his dwelling; whence to watch the stars and the sea his view was not cut short. And she who covers her breasts, whom you see not, with loosened tresses, and has on that side every hairy skin, was Manto, who sought through many lands; then she settled where I was born; wherefore I am somewhat pleased that you listen. After her father departed life and the city of Bacchus became servant, she long wandered through the world. Up in fair Italy lies a lake, at the foot of the Alps that shut Germany above Tyrol, named Benaco. By more than a thousand founts, I believe, it is bathed between Garda and Val Camonica and Pennino with the water that stagnates in the said lake. There is a place in the middle where the Trentine shepherd and he of Brescia and the Veronese could mark, if he took that road. Peschiera sits, fair and strong gear to front the Brescians and Bergamasques, where the shore descends most around. There must needs fall all that cannot stay in the bosom of Benaco, and makes a river down through green pastures. Soon as the water sets to running, no more Benaco but Mincio it is called, until Governolo, where it falls into the Po. Not far has it run ere it finds a marsh, in which it spreads and makes a fen; and in summer is wont sometimes to be noisome. Thence passing, the cruel virgin saw land, in the middle of the marsh, uncultivated and bare of inhabitants. There, to flee all human fellowship, she stayed with her servants to practice her arts, and lived, and left there her empty body. The men then who were scattered around gathered to that place, which was strong because of the marsh it had on all sides. They made the city above those dead bones; and for her who first chose the place, they named it Mantua without other lot. Already were her people denser within, before the madman from Casalodi received deceit from Pinamonte. Wherefore I warn you that, if you ever hear otherwise of the origin of my land, let not the truth be frauded by any lie.’ And I: ‘Master, your reasonings are so certain to me and take my faith so, that the others would be quenched coals to me. But tell me, of the people who proceed, if you see any worthy of note; for to that alone my mind returns.’ Then he said to me: ‘He who from the cheek thrusts his beard upon his brown shoulders, was—when Greece was void of males, so that scarce remained for the cradles—an augur, and gave the signal with Calchas in Aulis to cut the first cable. Eurypylus was his name, and thus my high tragedy sings him in some place: well you know it, you who know it all. That other who is so small in the flanks, was Michael Scot, who truly knew the game of magic frauds. See Guido Bonatti; see Asdente, who would now have attended to leather and thread, but repents too late. See the wretched women who left the needle, the spool and the distaff, and made themselves diviners; they wrought spells with herbs and images. But come now, for already the boundary of both hemispheres holds and touches the wave under Seville Cain and the thorns; and last night was the moon full: well you should remember, for it harmed you not once in the deep wood.’ So he spoke to me, and we went meanwhile.

Inferno Canto XXI

Thus from bridge to bridge, speaking of other things which my comedy cares not to sing, we came; and we held the summit, when we stopped to see the other fissure of Malebolge and the other vain laments; and I saw it wonderfully dark. As in the arsenal of the Venetians boils in winter the tenacious pitch to caulk their unsound ships, for they cannot navigate—instead, one makes his new ship and one stops the ribs of him who has made most voyages; one hammers from prow and one from stern; another makes oars and another twists ropes; one patches the topsail and the mainsail—so, not by fire but by divine art, there boiled below a thick pitch, which glued the bank on every side. I saw it, but saw not in it ever aught save the bubbles that the boiling raised, and swell all, and sink compressed. While I gazed fixedly there below, my leader, saying ‘Look, look!’ drew me to him from the place where I stood. Then I turned like the man whom it irks to see that which he must flee, and whom sudden fear unnerves, who, to see, delays not his departure: and I saw behind us a black devil running up along the rock to come. Ah, how fierce he was in aspect! and how acerb he seemed in act, with wings outspread and light upon his feet! His shoulder, which was sharp and proud, carried a sinner with both haunches, and he held gripped the sinew of his feet. Of our bridge he said: ‘O Malebranche, here is one of the elders of Santa Zita! Put him under, for I return for more to that land, which is well furnished with them: every man there is a barrater, save Bonturo; for no, for money, is made yes there.’ Down there he flung him, and along the hard rock turned; and never was a mastiff loosed with such haste to follow the thief. He dived and came up convulsed; but the demons who had the covering of the bridge cried: ‘Here the Holy Face has no place! here one swims otherwise than in the Serchio! Wherefore, if you would not have our claws, make not too much above the pitch.’ Then they bit him with more than a hundred hooks, saying: ‘Covered must you dance here, so that, if you can, you may secretly pocket something.’ Not otherwise do the cooks make their scullions duck in the midst of the caldron the meat with the hooks, that it may not float. The good master said to me: ‘So that it may not appear that you are there, get down and crouch behind a spur of rock, that you may have some shelter; and for any offense done me, fear not, for I have the matter counted, since another time I was at such a barter.’ Then he passed beyond the end of the bridge; and when he reached the sixth bank, he had need of a sure front. With that fury and that tempest with which the dogs issue upon the poor wretch who suddenly asks where he may rest, there issued those from under the little bridge, and turned all their grapples against him; but he cried: ‘Let none of you be fell! Before your hook take me, let one of you come forward who may hear me, and then take counsel of hooking me.’ All cried: ‘Let Malacoda go!’; wherefore one moved—and the others stood firm—and came to him saying: ‘What avails it?’ ‘Think you, Malacoda, to see me come here,’ said my master, ‘already secure from all your defenses, without divine will and favorable fate? Let us go, for in heaven it is willed that I show this wild way to another.’ Then his pride so fell that he let the hook drop at his feet, and said to the others: ‘Now let him not be struck.’ And my leader to me: ‘O you who sit among the spurs of the rock all squat, come now securely back to me.’ Wherefore I moved and came to him quickly; and the devils all came forward, so that I feared they might not keep pledge; thus I once saw the soldiers fear who issued negotiated from Caprona, seeing themselves among so many foes. I drew close with all my person along my leader, and turned not my eyes from their countenance which was not good. They lowered their hooks and ‘Shall I touch him,’ said one to the other, ‘on the crupper?’ And they answered: ‘Yes, make him have it.’ But that demon who held parley with my leader turned all swift and said: ‘Stay, stay, Scarmiglione!’ Then said to us: ‘To go further along this rock is not possible, for the whole sixth arch lies broken at the bottom. And if it please you to go onward, go up along this gully; near is another rock that gives way. Yesterday, five hours later than this hour, completed a thousand two hundred with sixty-six years since the way was broken here. I send of these my men toward there to look if any one airs himself; go with them, for they will not be wicked.’ ‘Draw forward, Alichino, and Calcabrina,’ he began to say, ‘and you, Cagnazzo; and Barbariccia guide the ten. Libicocco come onward and Draghignazzo, Ciriatto snouty and Graffiacane and Farfarello and Rubicante mad. Search around the boiling pans; let these be safe up to the other spur that goes whole above the dens.’ ‘Alas, master, what is that I see?’ said I, ‘ah, without escort let us go alone, if you know how to go; for I, for myself, ask it not. If you are so wary as you are wont, do you not see that they gnash their teeth and with their brows threaten us woe?’ And he to me: ‘Fear not that you should be afraid; let them gnash at their will, for they do it for the boiled wretches.’ Along the left bank they turned; but first each had pressed his tongue with his teeth, toward their leader, as a sign; and he had made a trumpet of his ass.

Inferno Canto XXII

I have seen horsemen set the camp in motion, and begin the skirmish and make their show, and sometimes part for their escape; I have seen riders through your land, O Aretines, and seen bands go, strike tournaments and run the joust; now with trumpets, and now with bells, with drums and with castle signals, and with our own and with strange things; nor yet with so diverse a pipe saw I horsemen move nor footmen, nor ship by sign of land or star. We went with the ten demons. Ah fierce company! but in the church with the saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons. Yet was my attention on the pitch, to see every condition of the bolgia and of the people who were baked within. As the dolphins, when they make sign to the mariners with the arch of their back that they endeavor to save their ship, sometimes thus, to lighten the pain, some of the sinners showed his back and hid quicker than lightning. And as at the edge of the water of a ditch the frogs stand only with the snout out, so that they conceal the feet and the rest bulky,

“Stories of the world, in your language.”