Part 7

the other was that one whom thou, Gaville, dost bemoan.

Inferno Canto XXVI

Rejoice, Florence, since thou art so great that o'er sea and land thou beatest thy wings, and through thy Hell thy name is spread abroad!

Among the thieves I found five such of thy citizens, at which comes shame to me, and thou dost not rise to great honour by it.

But if near the morning of the truth one dreams, thou shalt hear, within a little time from now, what Prato, not to say others, doth covet for thee.

And if it were already, it would not be too soon. Would it were so, since it must be! for the more I age, the more it will weigh on me.

We departed, and up by the stairs which he had made for us to descend before, my Leader remounted and drew me up;

and continuing along the lonely way, amid the splinters and the rocks of the cliff, his foot without his hand could not advance.

Then I grieved, and now I grieve again when I direct my mind to what I saw, and curb my wit more than I am wont,

that it run not where virtue guides it not; so that, if a good star or something better hath given me the good, I myself envy it not.

As many as the husbandman who rests on the hill, in the season when he who illumines the world holds his face least hidden from us,

as the fly yields to the gnat, sees fireflies down through the valley, perhaps there where he gathers vintage and ploughs:

with so many flames all resplendent was the eighth bolgia, as I perceived as soon as I was there where the bottom appeared.

And as he who took vengeance with the bears saw Elijah's chariot at its departure, when the horses rose erect to heaven,

could not so follow it with his eyes as to see aught but the flame alone, like a little cloud, ascending:

so moves each one along the throat of the ditch, for none shows his theft, and every flame steals away a sinner.

I stood upon the bridge, risen to look, so that, had I not laid hold of a craggy rock, I had fallen down without being pushed.

And the Leader, who saw me so intent, said: "Within the fires are the spirits; each shrouds himself in that wherewith he burns."

"My Master," I answered, "by hearing thee I am the more assured; but already I had thought that it was so, and already would have said to thee:

who is that in the fire which comes thus divided above, that it seems to rise from the pyre where Eteocles was laid with his brother?"

He answered me: "Within there Ulysses and Diomed are tormented, and thus together they go to the vengeance as once to the wrath;

and within their flame is bewailed the ambush of the horse which made the door whence issued the noble seed of the Romans.

There is wept within the art by which, though dead, Deidamia still mourns for Achilles, and for the Palladium ye suffer pain."

"If they can speak within those sparks," said I, "Master, thee I pray and beseech, that the prayer avail a thousandfold,

that thou deny me not the waiting until the horned flame come hither; see that toward it I bend with desire!"

And he to me: "Thy prayer is worthy of much praise, and therefore I accept it; but see that thy tongue restrain itself.

Leave the speaking to me, for I have conceived what thou wouldst; for they would be shy, since they were Greeks, perhaps of thy speech."

After the flame had come there where to my Leader seemed time and place, I heard him speak to it in this form:

"O ye who are two within one fire, if I deserved of you while I lived, if I deserved much or little of you

when in the world I wrote the lofty verses, move not; but let one of you tell where, through him, lost, he went to die."

The greater horn of the ancient flame began to sway, murmuring, just as one whom the wind fatigues;

then, waving its tip hither and thither, as if it were the tongue that spoke, it flung a voice outward and said: "When

I parted from Circe, who had hidden me more than a year there near Gaeta, before Aeneas had so named it,

neither sweetness of son, nor the piety of the old father, nor the bounden love which should have made Penelope happy,

could conquer within me the ardour that I had to become experienced of the world and of human vice and valour;

but I put myself out upon the open high sea with but one ship and that small company from which I was not deserted.

The one shore and the other I saw as far as Spain, even to Morocco, and the island of the Sardinians, and the others which that sea bathes around.

I and my companions were old and slow when we came to that narrow passage where Hercules set his bounds

so that man might not pass beyond; on the right I left myself Seville, and on the other already had left me Ceuta.

'O brothers,' said I, 'who through a hundred thousand perils have reached the West, to this so little vigil

of our senses which is the remnant, refuse not the experience, behind the sun, of the world without people.

Consider your seed: ye were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.'

My companions I made so keen, with this brief oration, for the journey, that scarcely thereafter could I have held them back;

and turning our stern to the morning, of the oars we made wings to the mad flight, always gaining on the left side.

All the stars of the other pole the night beheld, and ours so low that it rose not from the marine floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched was the light below the moon, after we had entered on the deep passage,

when there appeared to us a mountain, dark with distance, and it seemed to me so high as I had never seen any.

We rejoiced, and soon turned to weeping; for of the new land a whirlwind rose and smote the forepart of the ship.

Three times it made her wheel with all the waters; at the fourth it lifted the stern up and sent the prow down, as pleased Another,

until the sea was closed again above us."

Inferno Canto XXVII

Already the flame was upright and quiet from speaking no more, and now was going from us with the leave of the sweet poet,

when another, which came behind her, made us turn our eyes to its tip by a confused sound that issued from it.

As the Sicilian bull, which bellowed first with the plaint of him (and that was right) who had tempered it with his file,

bellowed with the voice of the afflicted, so that, though it was of brass, yet it seemed pierced by the pain;

thus, having no way nor hole from the beginning in the fire, into its own speech the doleful words were changed.

But after they had caught their path up through the point, giving it that flicker which the tongue had given them in passage,

we heard it say: "O thou to whom I direct my voice and who didst speak but now in Lombard, saying 'Get thee gone, I stir thee no more,'

though I perchance be come somewhat late, grudge not to stay and speak with me; see that it grudges not me, and I burn!

If thou but now, into this blind world, didst fall from that sweet Latin land whereof I bring all my guilt,

tell me if the Romagnuoli have peace or war; for I was of the mountains there between Urbino and the ridge from which the Tiber is unloosed."

I was still below, attentive and bent, when my Leader touched me on the side, saying: "Speak thou; this is a Latin."

And I, who already had my answer ready, without delay began to speak: "O soul that art hidden down there,

thy Romagna is not, and never was, without war in the hearts of its tyrants; but in open show I left none there.

Ravenna stands as it has stood many years: the eagle of Polenta broods over it, so that she covers Cervia with her wings.

The city which made the long trial and the bloody heap of Frenchmen, lies under the green claws.

And the old mastiff and the new of Verrucchio, who made ill government of Montagna, there where they are wont to suck with their teeth.

The cities of Lamone and of Santerno the lioncub of the white nest conducts, who changes side from summer to winter.

And that one which the Savio bathes on the flank, as she lies between plain and mountain, lives between tyranny and free state.

Now who thou art, I pray thee tell us; be not harder than others have been, if thy name hold front in the world."

After the fire had roared a while in its own fashion, it moved its sharp point hither, thither, and then gave such breath:

"If I thought that my answer were to one who ever should return to the world, this flame would stay without more shaking;

but because never from this depth returned alive any, if I hear true, without fear of infamy I answer thee.

I was a man of arms, and then a cord-bearer, believing, thus girt, to make amends; and certainly my belief came entire,

if it had not been for the great priest — ill befall him! — who put me back into my first faults; and how and wherefore, I would have thee understand.

While I was form of bones and flesh which my mother gave me, my deeds were not leonine, but of the fox.

The devices and the covered ways I knew all, and so plied their art that to the ends of earth the sound went out.

When I saw myself come to that part of my age where each one ought to lower the sails and gather up the ropes,

what before pleased me, then irked me, and penitent and confessed I gave myself; ah wretched me! and it would have availed.

The prince of the new Pharisees, having war near Laterano, and not with Saracens nor with Jews,

for each his enemy was Christian, and none had been at winning Acre nor merchant in the Soldan's land,

nor supreme office nor sacred orders regarded he in himself, nor in me that halter which used to make his girt ones more lean.

But as Constantine sought Sylvester within Soracte to cure him of the leprosy, so this one sought me for master

to cure him of his proud fever; he asked me counsel, and I was silent because his words seemed drunken.

Then he said again: 'Let not thy heart suspect; thus far I absolve thee, and do thou teach me to cast Penestrino to the ground.

Heaven can I lock and unlock, as thou knowest; therefore are two the keys which my predecessor held not dear.'

Then the grave arguments impelled me where silence seemed to me the worse, and I said: 'Father, since thou washest me

of that sin into which I now must fall, a long promise with short keeping shall make thee triumph on the high seat.'

Francis came afterwards, when I was dead, for me; but one of the black cherubim said to him: 'Bear him not away; do me no wrong.

He must come down among my wretches because he gave the fraudulent counsel, from which time I have been at his hair;

for he cannot be absolved who repents not, nor can repenting and willing together be, by the contradiction which allows it not.'

Oh me, sorrowful! how I started when he seized me, saying: 'Perhaps thou thought'st not that I was a logician!'

To Minos he bore me; and he twisted eight times the tail upon his hard back; and after he bit it in great rage,

said: 'This is of the guilty of the fire-fur'; wherefore I, where thou seest, am lost, and thus clothed, going, I rue."

When he had thus completed his speech, the flame, lamenting, departed, twisting and shaking its sharp horn.

We passed onward, I and my Leader, up the cliff unto the other arch which covers the ditch where is paid the fee

to those who, by wagering, acquire burden.

Inferno Canto XXVIII

Who could ever, with words unbound, tell fully of the blood and of the wounds which I now saw, though told full oft?

Every tongue would surely fail for our speech and for the mind that has too little room to comprehend so much.

If there were gathered all the folk who once, upon the fortunate land of Apulia, were grieved for their blood

by the Trojans and by the long war that made of rings such lofty spoils, as Livy writes, who errs not,

with that which felt the pains of blows in contending against Robert Guiscard; and the other whose bones are still gathered

at Ceperano, where every Apulian was false, and there at Tagliacozzo, where without arms the old Alardo conquered;

and if one showed his member pierced and one lopped, to equal the foul fashion of the ninth bolgia would be nothing.

So may he never see, by losing a farthing or a trifle, as I saw one, thus not pierced, broken from the chin to where one breaks wind.

Between the legs hung the entrails; the heart appeared and the wretched sack that makes ordure of what is swallowed.

While I was all intent to see him, he looked at me and with his hands opened his breast, saying: "Now see how I rend myself!

see how mangled is Mohammed! Before me goes weeping Ali, cloven in the face from chin to forelock.

And all the others whom thou seest here, sowers of scandal and of schism were living, and therefore are cloven thus.

A devil is here behind who cleaves us so cruelly, with the edge of the sword resetting each of this sort,

when we have turned the doleful road; for the wounds are closed before another comes before him again.

But thou, who art thou that on the rock musest, perhaps to delay going to the pain that is adjudged upon thy accusations?"

"Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt leads him," answered my Master, "to torment; but to give him full experience,

to me, who am dead, it behoves to lead him through Hell here below from gyre to gyre; and this is true even as I speak to thee."

More than a hundred, when they heard, stopped in the ditch to gaze at me for wonder, forgetting their martyrdom.

"Now say to Fra Dolcino then, that he arm himself, thou who perchance shalt see the sun shortly, if he will not here soon follow me,

with victuals, that stress of snow bring not the victory to the Novarese, which otherwise to gain were not light."

After he had raised one foot to go, Mohammed said to me this word; then stretched it to the ground to depart.

Another, who had his throat pierced and his nose cut off up under the brows, and had never but one ear alone,

stayed to gaze through wonder with the others, before the others opened his pipe, which was outwardly red on every part,

and said: "O thou whom guilt condemns not and whom I saw up in the Latin land, if too great likeness deceive me not,

remember Pier da Medicina, if ever thou return to see the sweet plain that slopes from Vercelli to Marcabò.

And let the two better of Fano know, to Messer Guido and eke to Angiolello, that, if foresight here be not vain,

they shall be cast out of their vessel and done to death near the Cattolica by the treason of a fell tyrant.

Between the isle of Cyprus and of Majorca never saw Neptune so great a crime, not from pirates, not from Argive folk.

That traitor who sees only with one, and holds the land which such a one here with me would fain be fasting from seeing,

shall bring them to parley with him; then shall so do, that to the wind of Focara they shall need neither vow nor prayer."

And I to him: "Show me and declare, if thou wilt that I bear news of thee up, who is he of the bitter sight."

Then he put his hand to the jaw of a companion and opened his mouth, crying: "This is he, and speaks not.

This one, banished, plunged the doubt in Caesar, affirming that the furnished always with loss endured the awaiting."

Oh how fearful he seemed to me, with the tongue cut in his throat, Curio, who was so bold to speak!

And one who had both hands lopped off, raising the stumps through the dark air, so that the blood made his face foul,

cried: "Remember also the Mosca, who said, alas! 'A thing done has a head,' which was ill seed for the Tuscan people."

And I added to him: "And death of thy stock"; wherefore he, heaping grief on grief, went away like a sad and mad person.

But I remained to gaze on the crowd, and saw a thing which, without more proof, I should have been afraid to tell alone;

were it not that conscience assures me, the good company that emboldens man beneath the hauberk of feeling pure.

I saw certainly, and still it seems I see, a trunk without a head go even as the others of the sad flock were going;

and the severed head he held by the hair, dangling with the hand like a lantern: and that looked at us and said: "Oh me!"

Of himself he made himself lantern, and were two in one and one in two; how it can be, he knows who so ordains.

When he was at the foot of the bridge, he raised the arm high with the whole head to bring near his words to us,

which were: "Now see the grievous pain, thou who, breathing, goest seeing the dead: see if any be great as this.

And that thou bear news of me, know that I am Bertram del Bornio, he who gave the young king the evil counsels.

I made the father and the son rebellious; Achitophel did not more with Absalom and David with his wicked goads.

Because I parted persons so joined, parted I bear my brain, alas!, from its beginning which is in this trunk.

Thus is observed in me the counterpass."

Inferno Canto XXIX

The many people and the diverse wounds had so inebriated my eyes that they were fain to stay weeping.

But Virgil said to me: "Why dost thou still gaze? why doth thy sight still sink down there among the sad, mutilated shades?

Thou hast not done so at the other bolge; think, if thou believest to count them, that the valley winds twenty-two miles.

And now the moon is beneath our feet; the time is little hence that is allowed us, and other is to be seen that thou seest not."

"If thou hadst," I answered thereupon, "attended to the cause wherefor I gazed, perchance thou hadst yet let me stay."

Part was he going, and I went behind him, the Leader, already making answer, and subjoining: "Within that hollow

where I held now mine eyes so fixed, I believe that a spirit of my blood weeps the guilt which down there costs so dear."

Then said the Master: "Let not thy thought be broken henceforth concerning him. Attend to other, and let him remain there;

for I saw him at the foot of the little bridge show thee and threaten strongly with the finger, and heard him name Geri del Bello.

Thou wast then so wholly impeded over him who once held Altaforte, that thou lookedst not that way, so was he gone."

"O my Leader, the violent death which is not yet avenged," said I, "for any who is sharer in the shame,

made him disdainful; whence he went without speaking to me, as I deem: and in this he hath made me more pious to him."

Thus we spoke as far as the first place that of the cliff shows the other valley, all to the bottom, if more light were there.

When we were above the last enclosure of Malebolge, so that its convolutions could appear to our sight,

laments shot at me diversely, which had their arrows barbed with pity; wherefore I covered my ears with my hands.

What grief were it, if of the hospitals of Valdichiana between July and September and of Maremma and of Sardinia the ills

were all together in one pit, such was it there, and such stench issued thence as is wont to come from festering limbs.

We descended on the last shore of the long cliff, still on the left; and then was my sight more keen

down toward the bottom, where the ministress of the High Lord, infallible justice, punishes the falsifiers here enrolled.

I believe that to see greater sadness was not in Aegina the whole people sick, when the air was so full of malice

that the animals, even to the little worm, all fell, and then the ancient folk, according to what poets hold for sure,

restored themselves from seed of ants; for it was to see, through that dark valley, the spirits languishing in diverse heaps.

One upon the belly and one upon the shoulders of another lay, and one on all fours transformed himself along the doleful path.

Step by step we went without speech, looking and listening to the sick, who could not lift their persons.

I saw two sitting leaned on each other, as tile on tile is leaned to warm, from head to foot spotted with scabs;

and never saw I ply the curry-comb on a lad waited for by the master, nor on him who wakes right unwillingly,

as each plied often the bite of his nails upon himself for the great rage of the itching, that has no further help;

and so they drew down the scabs with the nails, as knife of scardova the scales or of other fish that has them broader.

"O thou who with thy fingers dost unscale thyself," my Leader began to one of them, "and who makest of them sometimes pincers,

tell us if any Latin is among these who are here within, if the nail suffice thee eternally to this work."

"Latins are we, that thou seest so marred here both," answered one weeping; "but who art thou that hast asked of us?"

And the Leader said: "I am one who descends with this living man down from crag to crag, and intend to show him Hell."

Then the common support was broken; and trembling each turned to me with others who heard it by rebound.

The good Master drew wholly to me, saying: "Say to them what thou wilt"; and I began, after he turned:

"If your memory be not stolen in the first world from human minds, but live beneath many suns,

tell us who ye are and of what people; your unseemly and troublesome pain fright not you from revealing yourselves to me."

"I was of Arezzo, and Albero of Siena," answered one, "had me put to the fire; but he who is cause of my death here leads me not.

True is it that I said to him, speaking in jest: 'I know how to lift myself to flight through the air'; and he, who had little wit and much desire,

would have me show him the art; and only because I made him not Daedalus, he made me burn by him who had me as son.

But in the last bolgia of the ten Me for the alchemy which I practised in the world condemned Minos, to whom 'tis not lawful to err."

And I said to the poet: "Was there ever people so vain as the Sienese? Certes not the French, by far!"

Wherefore the other leper, who heard me, answered my speech: "Except Stricca, who knew how to make the temperate spendings,

and Niccolò, who first discovered the costly custom of the clove in the garden where such seed is planted;

and except the band in which Caccia d'Asciano scattered the vine and the great field, and the Abbagliato proffered his wisdom.

But that thou know who thus seconds thee against the Sienese, sharpen thine eye on me, so that my face answer thee well:

so shalt thou see that I am the shade of Capocchio, who falsified the metals with alchemy; and thou shouldst remember, if I eye thee well,

how I was a good ape of nature."

Inferno Canto XXX

In the time when Juno was angered for Semele against the Theban blood, as she showed once and again,

Athamas became so mad that, seeing his wife with two children go laden by each hand,

he cried: "Let us spread the nets, that I may catch the lioness and the lion-cubs at the pass"; and then he stretched his pitiless claws,

taking the one who had name Learchus, and whirled him and dashed him on a rock; and she drowned herself with the other burden.

And when fortune hurled down the height of the Trojans who dared all, so that together with the kingdom the king was cast out,

“Stories of the world, in your language.”