Part 8

Sad Hecuba, wretched and vile, after she saw Polyxena dead, and on the shore of the sea became aware

of her Polydorus, the sorrowful woman raved and barked like a dog; so much did grief twist her mind.

But neither Theban nor Trojan furies were ever seen so cruel in any, not piercing beasts, let alone human limbs,

as I saw in two pale and naked shades, who ran biting in that fashion as the pig does when let out of the sty.

One reached Capocchio, and at the knot of the neck sank teeth, so that, dragging, made him scrape his belly on the hard ground.

And the Aretine who remained, trembling, said to me: "That fiend is Gianni Schicchi, and goes raging, thus mangling others."

"Oh," said I to him, "if the other does not sink his teeth in your back, do not trouble to tell who he is, before he parts from here."

And he to me: "That is the ancient soul of wicked Myrrha, who became friend to her father, against right love.

She came to sin with him in such wise, falsifying herself into another's form, as the other who goes there sustained,

to gain the lady of the troop, falsifying in himself Buoso Donati, making the will and giving it rule."

And after the two raging shades had passed, upon whom I had kept my eye, I turned it to look at the other ill-born.

I saw one, made like a lute, so long as he had had the groin cut from the other part that forks a man.

The heavy dropsy, that so disjoins the limbs with the humor ill-converted, that the face answers not to the belly,

made him hold his lips open as the hectic does, who for thirst turns one to the chin and the other up.

"O you who are without any pain, and I know not why, in the wretched world," said he to us, "look and attend

to the misery of master Adam; I had, alive, enough of what I wished, and now, alas!, I crave a drop of water.

The little streams that from the green hills of the Casentino descend into the Arno, making their channels cold and moist,

are always before me, and not in vain, for their image dries me far more than the ill wherewith I waste in the face.

The rigid justice that probes me derives cause from the place where I sinned to send my sighs further in flight.

There is Romena, where I falsified the sealed alloy of the Baptist; wherefore I left the body up there burned.

But if I saw here the sad soul of Guido or Alessandro or their brother, I would not give the sight for Fonte Branda.

She is already within, if the raging shades that go around speak true; but what avails me, who have my limbs bound?

If I were but so light that I could go an ounce in a hundred years, I would already be sent on the path,

seeking him among this ugly people, though it winds eleven miles, and less than half a mile across lies not.

I am among such kin for them; they induced me to coin the florins that had three carats of alloy."

And I to him: "Who are the two wretches that smoke like wet hands in winter, lying close to your right confines?"

"Here I found them—and then turned not," answered he, "when I rained into this cleft, and I think they will not for eternity.

One is the false woman who accused Joseph; the other is the false Greek Sinon of Troy: for sharp fever they cast so much sweat."

And one of them, who took it as annoyance perhaps to be named so obscurely, with his fist struck his hard paunch.

It sounded like a drum; and master Adam struck him on the face with his arm, which seemed no less hard,

saying to him: "Though the moving be taken from me by the limbs that are heavy, yet have I the arm free for such work."

Whereto he answered: "When you went to the fire, you had it not so quick; but so and more you had it when you coined."

And the dropsical: "You speak true of this: but you were not so true a witness there where of the truth you were asked at Troy."

"If I spoke false, and you falsified the coin," said Sinon, "I am here for one fault, and you for more than any other demon!"

"Remember, perjurer, the horse," answered he who had the swollen belly; "and may it be evil to you that all the world knows!"

"And may the thirst that cracks you," said the Greek, "and the foul water that hedges your belly before your eyes be evil to you!"

Then the coiner: "Thus your mouth tears for your ill as is its wont; for, if I have thirst and humor refills me,

you have the burning and the head that pains you, and to lick the mirror of Narcissus you would not need many words of invitation."

To hear them I was wholly fixed, when the master said to me: "Now look, for almost I quarrel not with you!"

When I heard him speak to me in anger, I turned to him with such shame, that even through memory it turns me now.

As he who dreams his own hurt, who in dreaming desires to dream, so that what is, as if it were not, he longs for,

so made I myself, not able to speak, who wished to excuse myself, and excused myself all the while, and thought I did it not.

"Greater defect less shame washes," said the master, "than yours has been; therefore unload yourself of every sadness.

And reckon that I shall ever be at your side, if more it befalls that fortune receives you where there are people in like dispute:

for to wish to hear that is base desire."

Inferno Canto XXXI

One same tongue first stung me, so that it dyed both one cheek and the other, and then the medicine restored me;

thus I hear that the lance of Achilles and of his father used to be cause first of sad and then of goodly gift.

We gave our backs to the miserable valley up the bank that girds it around, crossing without any speech.

There was less than night and less than day, so that my sight went little ahead; but I heard sound a high horn,

so loud that it would have made any thunder faint, which, against itself following its way, directed all my eyes to one place.

After the dolorous rout, when Charlemagne lost the holy enterprise, Orlando sounded not so terribly.

Little I bore my head turned there, when it seemed to me to see many high towers; wherefore: "Master, say, what land is this?"

And he to me: "Because you scan through the darkness too from afar, it befalls that then in imagining you err.

You shall see well, if you join there, how much the sense is deceived from far; therefore spur yourself a little more."

Then kindly he took me by the hand and said: "Before we are further ahead, so that the fact seem less strange to you,

know that they are not towers, but giants, and are in the pit around from the bank from the navel downward all of them."

As when the mist dissipates, the gaze little by little reshapes what the vapor hides that thickens the air,

so piercing the gross and dark air, more and more approaching toward the shore, error fled from me and fear grew in me;

for, as upon the round circle Montereggion is crowned with towers, so the brink that girds the pit

towered with half the person the horrible giants, whom Jupiter still threatens from the sky when he thunders.

And I already discerned of some the face, the shoulders and the chest and great part of the belly, and down the ribs both the arms.

Nature certainly, when she left the art of such animals, did well enough in taking such executors from Mars.

And if of elephants and whales she repents not, who looks subtly, more just and more discreet he holds her;

for where the argument of the mind is joined to ill will and to power, no defense can people make.

His face seemed to me long and large like the pine-cone of St. Peter's at Rome, and in proportion were the other bones;

so that the bank, which was a covering from the middle down, showed well so much above, that to reach the hair

three Frisians would have boasted in vain; for I saw thirty great palms from the place down where a man buckles his mantle.

"Raphel mai amecche zabi almi," began to cry the fierce mouth, to which sweeter psalms befitted not.

And my leader to him: "Senseless soul, keep to the horn, and with that vent yourself when anger or other passion touches you!

Seek at your neck, and you will find the rope that holds you bound, O confused soul, and see him who pains your great breast."

Then said he to me: "He accuses himself; this is Nimrod, for whose evil cooking one language alone is not used in the world.

Let us leave him and speak not in vain; for so is every language to him as his to others, known to none."

We therefore made a longer journey, turned to the left; and at a crossbow's shot we found the other far fiercer and greater.

What master had girded him, I know not to say, but he held girt before and behind the right arm

with a chain that bound him from the neck down, so that upon the uncovered it wound up to the fifth coil.

"This proud one wished to be expert of his power against the highest Jove," said my leader, "whence he has such desert.

Ephialtes is his name, and made the great proofs when the giants made the gods afraid; the arms he moved, never now moves."

And I to him: "If it may be, I would that my eyes had experience of the enormous Briareus."

Whereto he answered: "You shall see Antaeus near here who speaks and is unbound, who shall put us in the depth of every evil.

That which you wish to see is much further and is bound and made like this one, save that he appears fiercer in the face."

No earthquake was ever so robust that shook a tower so strongly, as Ephialtes was quick to shake himself.

Then I feared death more than ever, and there was no need more than the sight, had I not seen the coils.

We proceeded further then, and came to Antaeus, who well five ells, without the head, came out of the cave.

"O you who in the fortunate valley which Scipio made heir of glory, when Hannibal with his gave the backs,

once took a thousand lions for prey, and who, if you had been at the high war of your brothers, still it seems believed

that the sons of the earth would have conquered: put us down, and let it not irk you, where Cocytus locks the coldness.

Make us not go to Tityus nor Typhon: these can give of that which here is craved; therefore bend and twist not your snout.

Still can you render fame in the world, for he lives, and long life still awaits him if before time grace call him not to itself."

Thus said the master; and he in haste stretched his hands, and took my leader, whom Hercules already felt great squeeze.

Virgil, when he felt himself taken, said to me: "Come here, so that I may take you;" then made it that one bundle were he and I.

As seems to look on the Garisenda under the leaning, when a cloud goes above it so, that it hangs against,

so seemed Antaeus to me who stood waiting to see him bend, and it was such hour that I would have gone by another road.

But lightly to the depth that devours Lucifer with Judas, he let us down; nor, so bent, made he stay there,

and as a mast in ship he rose.

Inferno Canto XXXII

If I had the rhymes rough and hoarse, as would befit the dismal hole over which all the other rocks arch,

I would press of my concept the juice more fully; but because I have them not, not without fear I bring myself to speak;

for it is no enterprise to take in jest to describe the bottom of all the universe, nor for a tongue that calls mamma or babbo.

But let those ladies aid my verse who aided Amphion to close Thebes, so that from the fact the speech be not diverse.

O above all ill-created folk that stay in the place where to speak is hard, better had you been here sheep or goats!

As we were down in the dark pit under the feet of the giant far lower, and I still gazed at the high wall,

I heard say to me: "Look how you pass: go so, that you tread not with the soles the heads of the wretched weary brothers."

Wherefore I turned, and saw before me and under my feet a lake that for frost had semblance of glass and not of water.

Not so thick veil over its course made winter of the Danube in Austria, nor Tanai under the cold sky,

as was there; for if Tambernicchi had fallen thereon, or Pietrapana, it would not have made even a crack from the edge.

And as to croak the frog stays with muzzle out of the water, when it dreams often the peasant girl to glean,

livid, up to where shame appears, were the sorrowful shades in the ice, putting the teeth in the note of a stork.

Each one held the face turned down; from the mouth the cold, and from the eyes the sad heart among them witness procure.

When I had looked around a little, I turned to the feet, and saw two so close, that they had the hair of the head mingled together.

"Tell me, you who so press the breasts," said I, "who are you?" And those bent the necks; and when they had raised the faces to me,

their eyes, which before were but moist within, dropped over the lips, and the frost bound the tears between them and locked them.

With wood wood bar never clamped so strongly; wherefore like two rams they butted together, so much anger vanquished them.

And one who had lost both the ears for the cold, yet with face downward, said: "Why do you mirror yourself so in us?

If you wish to know who these two are, the valley whence the Bisenzio declines was of their father Alberto and of them.

From one body they issued; and all Caina you can search, and not find a shade worthier to be fixed in gelatine:

not he to whom breast and shadow were broken with one blow by the hand of Arthur; not Focaccia; not this one who cumbers me

with his head so, that I see no further, and was named Sassol Mascheroni; if Tuscan you are, well now know who he was.

And because you put me not to more speech, know that I was Camiscion de' Pazzi; and await Carlino to acquit me."

Then I saw a thousand dog-like faces made by cold; whence comes on me a shiver, and ever shall, for the frozen pools.

And while we were going toward the middle to which every weight gathers, and I trembled in the eternal shade;

whether will or destiny or fortune, I know not; but, walking among the heads, strongly I struck the foot in the face of one.

Weeping he scolded me: "Why do you trample me? if you come not to increase the vengeance of Montaperti, why do you molest me?"

And I: "Master mine, now wait for me here, so that I issue from a doubt through this one; then you shall make me, whatever you will, haste."

The leader stayed, and I said to him who still blasphemed bitterly: "Who are you that thus rebuke others?"

"Now who are you that go through Antenora, striking," answered he, "the cheeks of others, so that, if you were alive, too much it were?"

"Alive am I, and dear can I be to you," was my answer, "if you ask fame, that I put your name among the other noted."

And he to me: "Of the contrary have I desire. Get you hence and give me no more whining, for ill you know to flatter through this blade!"

Then I took him by the scalp and said: "It must be that you name yourself, or no hair shall remain here above to you."

Whereto he to me: "Because you unhood me, neither will I tell you who I am, nor show you, though a thousand times you pluck me on the head."

I already had the hairs wound in hand, and had drawn from him more than one lock, he barking with eyes gathered down,

when another cried: "What have you, Bocca? is it not enough to sound with the jaws, if you bark not? what devil touches you?"

"Now," said I, "I will that you speak no more, wicked traitor; for to your shame I shall bear true news of you."

"Go away," answered he, "and tell what you will; but be not silent, if you go out from here, of him who just now had the tongue so ready.

He weeps here for the silver of the French: "I saw," you can say, "him of Duera there where the sinners stay fresh."

If you are asked "Who else was there?", you have at side him of Beccheria whose gorget Florence cut.

Gianni de' Soldanier I believe to be further with Ganellone and Tebaldello, who opened Faenza when men slept."

We were already parted from him, when I saw two frozen in one hole, so that the one head was hood to the other;

and as bread through hunger is eaten, so the uppermost set teeth to the other there where the brain joins with the nape:

not otherwise Tideus gnawed the temples of Menalippus in disdain, than that one made the skull and other things.

"O you who show by so bestial sign hatred upon him whom you eat, tell me the why," said I, "for such accord,

that if you rightly lament of him, knowing who you are and his fault, up in the world still I shall change for you,

if that wherewith I speak dry not."

Inferno Canto XXXIII

The mouth he lifted from the fierce repast, that sinner, wiping it on the hairs of the head he had wasted behind.

Then began: "You wish that I renew desperate grief that presses my heart already but in thinking, before I speak of it.

But if my words must be seed that fruits infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw, you shall see speech and weeping together.

I know not who you are nor by what mode you have come down here; but Florentine you seem to me truly when I hear you.

You must know that I was Count Ugolino, and this is the Archbishop Ruggieri: now will I tell you why I am so near.

That by the effect of his ever-evil thoughts, trusting in him, I was taken and then dead, needs not be said;

but that which you can not have heard, that is how my death was cruel, you shall hear, and know if he wronged me.

A narrow hole within the Tower of Hunger, which by me has the title of the famine, and must yet close for others,

had shown me through its foramen already many moons, when I made the evil dream that rent the veil from the future for me.

This one appeared to me as master and lord, driving the wolf and wolf-cubs to the mount whence the Pisans can not see Lucca.

With lean bitches, eager and wary, Gualandi with Sismondi and with Lanfranchi had set themselves before from the front.

In little course the father and the sons seemed to me weary, and with the sharp fangs I seemed to see them rend their flanks.

When I awoke before the morning, I heard weep amid sleep my sons who were with me, and ask for bread.

Well are you cruel, if you already grieve not thinking what my heart announced; and if you weep not, of what do you use to weep?

Already were they awake, and the hour approached that the food used to be brought to us, and through his dream each was doubting;

and I heard nail the door below to the horrible tower; wherefore I looked in the face of my sons without speaking.

I wept not, so within I turned to stone: they wept; and my little Anselmuccio said: "You look so, father! what have you?"

Therefore I wept not nor answered all that day nor the night following, until the other sun came out in the world.

As a little ray was cast in the dolorous prison, and I discerned in four faces my own aspect,

both the hands for grief I bit; and they, thinking that I did it for wish to eat, of a sudden rose

and said: "Father, much less grief will it be to us if you eat of us: you clothed us with these miserable flesh, and you unclothe them."

I quieted then to make them no sadder; the day and the other we stayed all mute; ahi hard earth, why did you not open?

After we were come to the fourth day, Gaddo threw himself stretched at my feet, saying: "My father, why do you not help me?"

There he died; and as you see me, I saw the three fall one by one between the fifth day and the sixth; wherefore I gave myself,

already blind, to grope over each, and two days called them, after they were dead. Then, more than grief, fasting prevailed."

When he had said this, with twisted eyes he took again the miserable skull with the teeth, which were strong at the bone, like a dog's.

Ahi Pisa, disgrace of the peoples of the fair land where the yes sounds, since the neighbors to punish you are slow,

let Capraia and Gorgona move, and make a hedge to Arno at its mouth, so that it drown in you every person!

For if Count Ugolino had the voice of having betrayed you of the castles, you should not have set his sons to such cross.

Innocent made the new age, new Thebes, Uguiccione and the Brigata and the other two whom the song above calls.

We passed beyond, there where the frozen roughly wraps another people, not turned down, but all supine.

The weeping itself there lets not weep, and the sorrow that finds stop upon the eyes, turns inward to make the anguish grow;

for the first tears make a knot, and as visors of crystal, fill under the brow all the cup.

And albeit, as from a callus, through the cold each feeling had ceased of my face its seat,

already it seemed to me to feel some wind; wherefore: "Master mine, what moves this? is not every vapor quenched down here?"

Whereto he to me: "Soon shall you be where of this the eye shall make you answer, seeing the cause that rains the breath."

And one of the sad of the cold crust cried to us: "O cruel souls unto whom the last post is given,

lift from my face the hard veils, so that I vent the grief that impregnates my heart, a little, before the weeping freezes."

Wherefore I to him: "If you wish that I aid you, tell who you are, and if I free you not, to the bottom of the ice must I go."

Answered therefore: "I am Brother Alberigo; I am he of the fruits of the evil orchard, who here requite date for fig."

"Oh," said I to him, "are you then still dead?" And he to me: "How my body stands up in the world, I bear no knowledge.

Such advantage has this Ptolomea, that full oft the soul falls here before Atropos has moved to give it.

And so that you more willingly scrape the glassed tears from my face, know that, as soon as the soul betrays

as did I, its body is taken from it by a demon, who then governs it while all its time be turned.

It rushes into such a cistern; and perhaps still appears up the body of the shade who winters behind me here.

You must know it, if you come but now down: he is Ser Branca Doria, and more years are passed since he was so enclosed."

"I believe," said I to him, "that you deceive me; for Branca Doria never died at all, and eats and drinks and sleeps and wears clothes."

"In the ditch above," said he, "of the Malebranche, where the tenacious pitch boils, Michael Zanche was not yet arrived,

when this one left the devil in his stead in his own body, and a near kinsman who wrought the treason together with him.

But stretch now your hand hither; open me the eyes." And I opened them not to him; and courtesy it was to be churlish to him.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”