'Inferno (English)' by Dante Alighieri

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CANTO I

ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,

I wandered from the straight lost path afar.

Through the great dark was no releasing way;

Above that dark was no relieving star.

If yet that terrored night I think or say,

As death's cold hands its fears resuming are.



Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,

The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,

I turn my tale to that which next befell,

When the dawn opened, and the night was not.

The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot,

Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot

Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,

And though it kindled from the nether hell,

Or from the Star that all men leads, alike

It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike

The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow.



How first I entered on that path astray,

Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know.

When gained my feet the upward, lighted way,

I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea,

The deep strong tides, has baffled, and panting lies,

On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see

The league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes

Surveyed that fear, the while my wearied frame

Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became

More quiet.

Then from that pass released, which yet

With living feet had no man left, I set

My forward steps aslant the steep, that so,

My right foot still the lower, I climbed.


Below

No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand

Was sterile of all growth on either hand,

Or moving life, a spotted pard except,

That yawning rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt

So closely round my feet, that scarce I kept

The course I would.

That sleek and lovely thing,

The broadening light, the breath of morn and spring,

The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay,

As when Divine Love on Creation's day

First gave these fair things motion, all at one

Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none

When down the slope there came with lifted head

And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red,

A lion, roaring, all the air ashake

That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take

No heart was mine, for where the further way

Mine anxious eyes explored, a she-wolf lay,

That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she

In aspect ruthless that I quaked to see,

And where she lay among her bones had brought

So many to grief before, that all my thought

Aghast turned backward to the sunless night

I left. But while I plunged in headlong flight

To that most feared before, a shade, or man

(Either he seemed), obstructing where I ran,

Called to me with a voice that few should know,

Faint from forgetful silence, "Where ye go,

Take heed. Why turn ye from the upward way?"



I cried, "Or come ye from warm earth, or they

The grave hath taken, in my mortal need

Have mercy thou!"

He answered, "Shade am I,

That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky,

In the late years of Julius born, and bred

In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led

To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man;

And when the great Augustan age began,

I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how

Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow,

Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou

To thus return to all the ills ye fled,

The while the mountain of thy hope ahead

Lifts into light, the source and cause of all

Delectable things that may to man befall?"



I answered, "Art thou then that Virgil, he

From whom all grace of measured speech in me

Derived? O glorious and far-guiding star!

Now may the love-led studious hours and long

In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,

Master and Author mine of Light and Song,

Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few

Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won

Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee,

Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun

No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see

The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I

To force that passage if thine aid deny."

He answered, "Would ye leave this wild and live,

Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies

Shall no man pass, except the path he tries

Her craft entangle. No way fugitive

Avoids the seeking of her greeds, that give

Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse

As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse

Her craving. And the beasts with which she breed

The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require,

Bare all the desirable lands in which she feeds;

Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings tire

Until she woos, in evil hour for her,

The wolfhound that shall rend her. His desire

Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir

Of her base heart; but wisdoms, and devoirs

Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer.

The Italian lowlands he shall reach and save,

For which Camilla of old, the virgin brave,

Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase

He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place

Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back,

From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack

Slain out of life, to find the native hell

Whence envy loosed her.

For thyself were
well

To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see

The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe,

The unending cries, of those whose only plea

Is judgment, that the second death to be

Fall quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go

To those who burn, but in their pain content

With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high,

Holier than opens to such souls as I,

The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one

Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none

Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny

May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there

Rules and pervades in every part, and calls

His chosen ever within the sacred walls.

O happiest, they!"

I answered, "By that Go

Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,

And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet

I safety find, within the Sacred Gate

That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see

Who look with longing for their end to be."



Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.

Canto II

THE day was falling, and the darkening air

Released earth's creatures from their toils, while I,

I only, faced the bitter road and bare

My Master led. I only, must defy

The powers of pity, and the night to be.

So thought I, but the things I came to see,

Which memory holds, could never thought forecast.

O Muses high! O Genius, first and last!

Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine

To meet this need. For never theme as mine

Strained vainly, where your loftiest nobleness

Must fail to be sufficient.

First
I said,

Fearing, to him who through the darkness led,

"O poet, ere the arduous path ye press

Too far, look in me, if the worth there be

To make this transit. &Aelig;neas once, I know,

Went down in life, and crossed the infernal sea;

And if the Lord of All Things Lost Below

Allowed it, reason seems, to those who see

The enduring greatness of his destiny,

Who in the Empyrean Heaven elect was called

Sire of the Eternal City, that throned and walled

Made Empire of the world beyond, to be

The Holy Place at last, by God's decree,

Where the great Peter's follower rules. For he

Learned there the causes of his victory.



"And later to the third great Heaven was caught

The last Apostle, and thence returning brought

The proofs of our salvation. But, for me,

I am not &Aelig;neas, nay, nor Paul, to see

Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show,

And if this road for no sure end I go

What folly is mine? But any words are weak.

Thy wisdom further than the things I speak

Can search the event that would be."

Here I
stayed

My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade

That led me heard and turned, magnanimous,

And saw me drained of purpose halting thus,

And answered, "If thy coward-born thoughts be clear,

And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,

Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy

From shadows, surely that they know not why

Nor wherefore. . . Hearken, to confound thy fear,

The things which first I heard, and brought me here.

One came where, in the Outer Place, I dwell,

Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell,

Radiant in light that native round her clung,

And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among

(Eyes with no earthly like but heaven's own blue),

And called me to her in such voice as few

In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear,

So toned and cadenced from the Utmost Sphere,

The Unattainable Heaven from which she came.

'O Mantuan Spirit,' she said, 'whose lasting fame

Continues on the earth ye left, and still

With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me,

- My friend, not fortune's - climbs a path so ill

That all the night-bred fears he hastes to flee

Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale

Moved through the peace of I leaven, and swift I sped

Downward, to aid my friend in love's avail,

With scanty time therefor, that half I dread

Too late I came. But thou shalt haste, and go

With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so

For me be consolation. Thou shalt say,

"I come from Beatricë." Downward far,

From Heaven to I leaven I sank, from star to star,

To find thee, and to point his rescuing way.

Fain would I to my place of light return;

Love moved me from it, and gave me power to learn

Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand

I very oft shall praise thee.'

Here
she ceased,

And I gave answer to that dear command,

'Lady, alone through whom the whole race of those

The smallest Heaven the moon's short orbits hold

Excels in its creation, not thy least,

Thy lightest wish in this dark realm were told

Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose

To loose thee from them, and thyself content

Couldst thus continue in such strange descent

From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn,

And while ye further left, would fain return.'



" 'That which thou wouldst,' she said, 'I briefly tell.

There is no fear nor any hurt in Hell,

Except that it be powerful. God in me

Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see

I share not, nor myself can shrink to feel

The flame of all this burning. One there is

In height among the Holiest placed, and she

- Mercy her name - among God's mysteries

Dwells in the midst, and hath the power to see

His judgments, and to break them. This sharp

I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so

Leaned Lucia toward her while she spake - and said,

"One that is faithful to thy name is sped,

Except that now ye aid him." She thereat,

- Lucia, to all men's wrongs inimical -

Left her High Place, and crossed to where I sat

In speech with Rachel (of the first of all

God saved). "O Beatrice, Praise of God,"

- So said she to me - "sitt'st thou here so slow

To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so

That all he left to serve thee? Hear'st thou not

The anguish of his plaint? and dost not see,

By that dark stream that never seeks a sea,

The death that threats him?"

None, as thus she
said,

None ever was swift on earth his good to chase,

None ever on earth was swift to leave his dread,

As came I downward from that sacred place

To find thee and invoke thee, confident

Not vainly for his need the gold were spent

Of thy word-wisdom.' Here she turned away,

Her bright eyes clouded with their tears, and I,

Who saw them, therefore made more haste to reach

The place she told, and found thee. Canst thou say

I failed thy rescue? Is the beast anigh

From which ye quailed? When such dear saints beseech

- Three from the Highest - that Heaven thy course allow

Why halt ye fearful? In such guards as thou

The faintest-hearted might be bold."


As flowers,

Close-folded through the cold and lightless hours,

Their bended stems erect, and opening fair

Accept the white light and the warmer air

Of morning, so my fainting heart anew

Lifted, that heard his comfort. Swift I spake,

"O courteous thou, and she compassionate!

Thy haste that saved me, and her warning true,

Beyond my worth exalt me. Thine I make

My will. In concord of one mind from now,

O Master and my Guide, where leadest thou

I follow."

And we, with no more words' delay,

Went forward on that hard and dreadful way.

Canto III

THE gateway to the city of Doom. Through me

The entrance to the Everlasting Pain.

The Gateway of the Lost. The Eternal Three

Justice impelled to build me. Here ye see

Wisdom Supreme at work, and Primal Power,

And Love Supernal in their dawnless day.

Ere from their thought creation rose in flower

Eternal first were all things fixed as they.

Of Increate Power infinite formed am I

That deathless as themselves I do not die.

Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear.

All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.

This scroll in gloom above the gate I read,

And found it fearful. "Master, hard," I said,

"This saying to me." And he, as one that long

Was customed, answered, "No distrust must wrong

Its Maker, nor thy cowarder mood resume

If here ye enter. This the place of doom

I told thee, where the lost in darkness dwell.

Here, by themselves divorced from light, they fell,

And are as ye shall see them." Here he lent

A hand to draw me through the gate, and bent

A glance upon my fear so confident

That I, too nearly to my former dread

Returned, through all my heart was comforted,

And downward to the secret things we went.



Downward to night, but not of moon and cloud,

Not night with all its stars, as night we know,

But burdened with an ocean-weight of woe

The darkness closed us.

Sighs, and wailings loud,

Outcries perpetual of recruited pain,

Sounds of strange tongues, and angers that remain

Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd

Of discords pressed, that needs I wept to hear,

First hearing. There, with reach of hands anear,

And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright,

The tumult of the everlasting night,

As sand that dances in continual wind,

Turns on itself for ever.

And I, my head

Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned

With outcries round me, to my leader said,

"Master, what hear I? Who so overborne

With woes are these?"

He answered, "These be they

That praiseless lived and blameless. Now the scorn

Of Height and Depth alike, abortions drear;

Cast with those abject angels whose delay

To join rebellion, or their Lord defend,

Waiting their proved advantage, flung them here. -

Chased forth from Heaven, lest else its beauties end

The pure perfection of their stainless claim,

Out-herded from the shining gate they came,

Where the deep hells refused them, lest the lost

Boast something baser than themselves."


And I,

"Master, what grievance hath their failure cost,

That through the lamentable dark they cry?"



He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth

We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death

They have not. Memory of them on the earth

Where once they lived remains not. Nor the breath

Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead,

But all alike disdain them. That they know

Themselves so mean beneath aught else constrains

The envious outcries that too long ye heed.

Move past, but speak not."

Then I looked, and
lo,

Were souls in ceaseless and unnumbered trains

That past me whirled unending, vainly led

Nowhither, in useless and unpausing haste.

A fluttering ensign all their guide, they chased

Themselves for ever. I had not thought the dead,

The whole world's dead, so many as these. I saw

The shadow of him elect to Peter's seat

Who made the great refusal, and the law,

The unswerving law that left them this retreat

To seal the abortion of their lives, became

Illumined to me, and themselves I knew,

To God and all his foes the futile crew

How hateful in their everlasting shame.



I saw these victims of continued death

- For lived they never - were naked all, and loud

Around them closed a never-ceasing cloud

Of hornets and great wasps, that buzzed and clung,

- Weak pain for weaklings meet, - and where they stung,

Blood from their faces streamed, with sobbing breath,

And all the ground beneath with tears and blood

Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud

There were great worms that drank it.

Gladly
thence

I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood

That flowed before us. On the nearer shore

Were people waiting. "Master, show me whence

These came, and who they be, and passing hence

Where go they? Wherefore wait they there content,

- The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er

The unbridged abyss?"

He answered, "When we stand

Together, waiting on the joyless strand,

In all it shall be told thee." If he meant

Reproof I know not, but with shame I bent

My downward eyes, and no more spake until

The bank we reached, and on the stream beheld

A bark ply toward us.

Of exceeding eld,

And hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill,

With horrid glee the while he neared us, "Woe

To ye, depraved! - Is here no Heaven, but ill

The place where I shall herd ye. Ice and fire

And darkness are the wages of their hire

Who serve unceasing here - But thou that there

Dost wait though live, depart ye. Yea, forbear!

A different passage and a lighter fare

Is destined thine."

But here my guide replied,

"Nay, Charon, cease; or to thy grief ye chide.

It There is willed, where that is willed shall be,

That ye shall pass him to the further side,

Nor question more."

The fleecy cheeks thereat,

Blown with fierce speech before, were drawn and flat,

And his flame-circled eyes subdued, to hear

That mandate given. But those of whom he spake

In bitter glee, with naked limbs ashake,

And chattering teeth received it. Seemed that then

They first were conscious where they came, and fear

Abject and frightful shook them; curses burst

In clamorous discords forth; the race of men,

Their parents, and their God, the place, the time,

Of their conceptions and their births, accursed

Alike they called, blaspheming Heaven. But yet

Slow steps toward the waiting bark they set,

With terrible wailing while they moved. And so

They came reluctant to the shore of woe

That waits for all who fear not God, and not

Them only.

Then the demon Charon rose

To herd them in, with eyes that furnace-hot

Glowed at the task, and lifted oar to smite

Who lingered.

As the leaves, when autumn shows,

One after one descending, leave the bough,

Or doves come downward to the call, so now

The evil seed of Adam to endless night,

As Charon signalled, from the shore's bleak height,

Cast themselves downward to the bark. The brown

And bitter flood received them, and while they passed

Were others gathering, patient as the last,

Not conscious of their nearing doom.


"My son,"

- Replied my guide the unspoken thought - "is none

Beneath God's wrath who dies in field or town,

Or earth's wide space, or whom the waters drown,

But here he cometh at last, and that so spurred

By Justice, that his fear, as those ye heard,

Impels him forward like desire. Is not

One spirit of all to reach the fatal spot

That God's love holdeth, and hence, if Char

chide,

Ye well may take it. - Raise thy heart, for now,

Constrained of Heaven, he must thy course allow."



Yet how I passed I know not. For the ground

Trembled that heard him, and a fearful sound

Of issuing wind arose, and blood-red light

Broke from beneath our feet, and sense and sight

Left me. The memory with cold sweat once more

Reminds me of the sudden-crimsoned night,

As sank I senseless by the dreadful shore.

Canto IV

ARISING thunder from the vast Abyss

First roused me, not as he that rested wakes

From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury shakes

Untimely, and around I gazed to know

The place of my confining.

Deep, profound,

Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound,

Sheer sank the Valley of the Lost Abyss,

Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood,

And like the winds of some unresting wood

The gathered murmur from those depths of woe

Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this

The unceasing sound comes ever. I might not tell

How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell,

It was so clouded and so dark no sight

Could pierce it.

"Downward through the worlds of night

We will descend together. I first, and thou

My footsteps taking," spake my guide, and I

Gave answer, "Master, when thyself art pale,

Fear-daunted, shall my weaker heart avail

That on thy strength was rested?"


"Nay," said he,

"Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry

So pales me. Come ye, for the path we tread

Is long, and time requires it." Here he led

Through the first entrance of the ringed abyss,

Inward, and I went after, and the woe

Softened behind us, and around I heard

Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word,

But round us sighs so many and deep there came

That all the air was motioned. I beheld

Concourse of men and women and children there

Countless. No pain was theirs of cold or flame,

But sadness only. And my Master said,

"Art silent here? Before ye further go

Among them wondering, it is meet ye know

They are not sinful, nor the depths below

Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness

Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed,

Being born too soon, we did not pass ( for I,

Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less

Our doom is weighed, - to feel of Heaven the need,

To long, and to be hopeless."

Grief
was mine

That heard him, thinking what great names must be

In this suspense around me. "Master, tell,"

I questioned, "from this outer girth of Hell

Pass any to the blessed spheres exalt,

Through other's merits or their own the fault.

Condoned?" And he, my covert speech that read,

- For surance sought I of my faith, - replied,

"Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned

And garmented with conquest. Of the dead,

He rescued from us him who earliest died,

Abel, and our first parent. Here He found,

Abraham, obedient to the Voice he heard;

And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word;

Isaac, and Israel and his sons, and she,

Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king;

And many beside unnumbered, whom he led

Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be

Among the blest for ever. Until this thing

I witnessed, none, of all the countless dead,

But hopeless through the somber gate he came."



Now while he spake he paused not, but pursued,

Through the dense woods of thronging spirits, his aim

Straight onward, nor was long our path until

Before us rose a widening light, to fill

One half of all the darkness, and I knew

While yet some distance, that such Shades were there

As nobler moved than others, and questioned, "Who,

Master, are those that in their aspect bear

Such difference from the rest?"

"All
these," he said,

"Were named so glorious in thy earth above

That Heaven allows their larger claim to be

Select, as thus ye see them."

While
he spake

A voice rose near us: "Hail!" it cried, "for he

Returns, who was departed."

Scarce
it ceased

When four great spirits approached. They did not show

Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though

Content in their dominion moved. My guide

Before I questioned told, "That first ye see,

With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he

Is Homer, sovereign of the craft we tried,

Leader and lord of even the following three, -

Horace, and Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard,

That hailed me, caused them by one impulse stirred

Approach to do me honour, for these agree

In that one name we boast, and so do well

Owning it in me." There was I joyed to meet

Those shades, who closest to his place belong,

The eagle course of whose out-soaring song

Is lonely in height.

Some space apart (to
tell,

It may be, something of myself ), my guide

Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet

Me also, and my Master smiled to see

They made me sixth and equal. Side by side

We paced toward the widening light, and spake

Such things as well were spoken there, and here

Were something less than silence.

Strong and wide

Before us rose a castled height, beset

With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable,

And girdled with a rivulet round, but yet

We passed thereover, and the water clear

As dry land bore me; and the walls ahead

Their seven strong gates made open one by one,

As each we neared, that where my Master led

With ease I followed, although without were none

But deep that stream beyond their wading spread,

And closed those gates beyond their breach had been,

Had they sought entry with us.

Of
coolest green

Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there,

Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair

To accord with its containing.

Grave,
austere,

Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they

That walked that verdure.

To a
place aside

Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here

Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey

Of such great spirits as are my glory and pride

That once I saw them.

There, direct in
view,

Electra passed, among her sons. I knew

Hector and &Aelig;neas there; and Cæsar too

Was of them, armed and falcon-eyed; and there

Camilla and Penthesilea. Near there sate

Lavinia, with her sire the Latian king;

Brutus, who drave the Tarquin; and Lucrece

Julia, Cornelia, Marcia, and their kin;

And, by himself apart, the Saladin.



Somewhat beyond I looked. A place more high

Than where these heroes moved I gazed, and knew

The Master of reasoned thought, whose hand withdrew

The curtain of the intellect, and bared

The secret things of nature; while anigh,

But lowlier, grouped the greatest names that shared

His searchings. All regard and all revere

They gave him. Plato there, and Socrates

I marked, who closeliest reached his height; and near

Democritus, who dreamed a world of chance

Born blindly in the whirl of circumstance;

And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,

Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles,

Zeno, were there; and Dioscorides

Who searched the healing powers of herbs and trees;

And Orpheus, Tullius, Livius, Seneca,

Euclid and Ptolemæus; Avicenna,

Galen, Hippocrates; Averrhoës,

The Master's great interpreter, - but these

Are few to those I saw, an endless dream

Of shades before whom Hell quietened and cowered. My theme,

With thronging recollections of mighty names

That there I marked impedes me. All too long

They chase me, envious that my burdened song

Forgets. - But onward moves my guide anew:

The light behind us fades: the six are two:

Again the shuddering air, the cries of Hell

Compassed, and where we walked the darkness fell.

Canto V

MOST like the spirals of a pointed shell,

But separate each, go downward, hell from hell,

The ninefold circles of the damned; but each

Smaller, concentrate in its greater pain,

Than that which overhangs it.

Those
who reach

The second whorl, on entering, learn their bane

Where Minos, hideous, sits and snarls. He hears,

Decides, and as he girds himself they go.



Before his seat each ill-born spirit appear,

And tells its tale of evil, loath or no,

While he, their judge, of all sins cognizant,

Hears, and around himself his circling tail

Twists to the number of the depths below

To which they doom themselves in telling.


Alway

The crowding sinners: their turn they wait: they show

Their guilt: the circles of his tail convey

Their doom: and downward they are whirled away.



"O thou who callest at this doleful inn,"

Cried Minos to me, while the child of sin

That stood confessing before him, trembling stayed,

"Heed where thou enterest in thy trust, nor say,

I walk in safety, for the width of way

Suffices."

But my guide the answer took,

"Why dost thou cry? or leave thine ordered trade

For that which nought belongs thee? Hinder not

His destined path. For where he goeth is willed,

Where that is willed prevaileth."

Now
was filled

The darker air with wailing. Wailing shook

My soul to hear it. Where we entered now

No light attempted. Only sound arose,

As ocean with the tortured air contends,

What time intolerable tempest rends

The darkness; so the shrieking winds oppose

For ever, and bear they, as they swerve and sweep,

The doomed disastrous spirits, and whirl aloft,

Backward, and down, nor any rest allow,

Nor pause of such contending wraths as oft

Batter them against the precipitous sides, and there

The shrieks and moanings quench the screaming air,

The cries of their blaspheming.

These
are they

That lust made sinful. As the starlings rise

At autumn, darkening all the colder skies,

In crowded troops their wings up-bear, so here

These evil-doers on each contending blast

Were lifted upward, whirled, and downward cast,

And swept around unceasing. Striving airs

Lift them, and hurl, nor ever hope is theirs

Of rest or respite or decreasing pains,

But like the long streaks of the calling cranes

So came they wailing down the winds, to meet

Upsweeping blasts that ever backward beat

Or sideward flung them on their walls. And I -

"Master who are they next that drive anigh

So scourged amidst the blackness?"


"These," he said,

"So lashed and harried, by that queen are led,

Empress of alien tongues, Semiramis,

Who made her laws her lawless lusts to kiss,

So was she broken by desire; and this

Who comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus,

Love's fool, who broke her faith to Sichæus,

Dido; and bare of all her luxury,

Nile's queen, who lost her realm for Antony."



And after these, amidst that windy train,

Helen, who soaked in blood the Trojan plain,

And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet

The same net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed;

And thousand other along the fated road

Whom love led deathward through disastrous things

He pointed as they passed, until my mind

Was wildered in this heavy pass to find

Ladies so many, and cavaliers and kings

Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said,

"Poet, those next that on the wind appear

So light, and constant as they drive or veer

Are parted never, I fain would speak."


And he, -

"Conjure them by their love, and thou shalt see

Their flight come hither."

And when the swerving blast

Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed,

"O wearied souls, come downward, if the Power

That drives allow ye, for one restful hour."

As doves, desirous of their nest at night,

Cleave through the dusk with swift and open flight

Of level-lifting wings, that love makes light,

Will-borne, so downward through the murky air

Came those sad spirits, that not deep Hell's despair

Could sunder, parting from the faithless band

That Dido led, and with one voice, as though

One soul controlled them, spake,


"O Animate!

Who comest through the black malignant air,

Benign among us who this exile bear

For earth ensanguined, if the King of All

Heard those who from the outer darkness call

Entreat him would we for thy peace, that thou

Hast pitied us condemned, misfortunate. -

Of that which please thee, if the winds allow,

Gladly I tell. Ravenna, on that shore

Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew;

And there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart

So quick to take dominion, overthrew

Him with my own fair body, and overbore

Me with delight to please him. Love, which gives

No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me

Was empired, that its rule, as here ye see,

Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives

To part us. Love to one death led us. The mode

Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The place of Cain

Awaits our slayer."

They ceased, and I my head

Bowed down, and made no answer, till my guide

Questioned, "What wouldst thou more?" and replied,

"Alas my thought I what sweet keen longings led

These spirits, woeful, to their dark abode!"

And then to them, - "Francesca, all thy pain

Is mine. With pity and grief I weep. But say

How, in the time of sighing, and in what way,

Love gave you of the dubious deeds to know."



And she to me, "There is no greater woe

In all Hell's depths than cometh when those who

Look back to Eden. But if thou wouldst learn

Our love's first root, I can but weep and tell.

One day, and for delight in idleness,

- Alone we were, without suspicion, -

We read together, and chanced the page to turn

Where Galahad tells the tale of Lancelot,

How love constrained him. Oft our meeting eyes,

Confessed the theme, and conscious cheeks were hot,

Reading, but only when that instant came

Where the surrendering lips were kissed, no less

Desire beat in us, and whom, for all this pain,

No hell shall sever (so great at least our gain),

Trembling, he kissed my mouth, and all forgot,

We read no more."

As thus did one confess

Their happier days, the other wept, and I

Grew faint with pity, and sank as those who die.

Canto VI

THE misery of that sight of souls in Hell

Condemned, and constant in their loss, prevailed

So greatly in me, that I may not tell

How passed I from them, sense and memory failed

So far.

But here new torments I discern,

And new tormented, wheresoe'er I turn.

For sodden around me was the place of bane,

The third doomed circle, where the culprits know

The cold, unceasing, and relentless rain

Pour down without mutation. Heavy with hail,

With turbid waters mixed, and cold with snow,

It streams from out the darkness, and below

The soil is putrid, where the impious lie

Grovelling, and howl like dogs, beneath the flail

That flattens to the foul soaked ground, and try

Vainly for ease by turning. And the while

Above them roams and ravens the loathsome hound

Cerberus, and feeds upon them.

The swampy ground

He ranges; with his long clawed hands he grips

The sinners, and the fierce and hairy lips

(Thrice-headed is he) tear, and the red blood drips

From all his jaws. He clutches, and flays, and rends,

And treads them, growling: and the flood descends

Straight downward.

When he saw us, the loathly worm

Showed all his fangs, and eager trembling frame

Nerved for the leap. But undeterred my guide.

Stooped down, and gathered in full hands the soil,

And cast it in the gaping gullets, to foil

Gluttonous blind greed, and those fierce mouths and wide

Closed on the filth, and as the craving cur

Quietens, that strained and howled to reach his food,

Biting the bone, those squalid mouths subdued

And silenced, wont above the empty dead

To bark insatiate, while they tore unfed

The writhing shadows.

The straight persistent rain,

That altered never, had pressed the miry plain

With flattened shades that in their emptiness

Still showed as bodies. We might not here progress

Except we trod them. Of them all, but one

Made motion as we passed. Against the rain

Rising, and resting on one hand, he said,

"O thou, who through the drenching murk art led,

Recall me if thou canst. Thou wast begun

Before I ended."

I, who looked in vain

For human semblance in that bestial shade,

Made answer, "Misery here hath all unmade,

It may be, that thou wast on earth, for nought

Recalls thee to me. But thyself shalt tell

The sins that scourged thee to this foul resort,

That more displeasing not the scope of Hell

Can likely yield, though greater pains may lie

More deep."

And he to me, "Thy city, so high

With envious hates that swells, that now the sack

Bursts, and pours out in ruin, and spreads its wrack

Far outward, was mine alike, while clearer air

Still breathed I. Citizens who knew me there

Called me Ciacco. For the vice I fed

At rich men's tables, in this filth I lie

Drenched, beaten, hungered, cold, uncomforted,

Mauled by that ravening greed; and these, as I,

With gluttonous lives the like reward have won."



I answered, "Piteous is thy state to one

Who knew thee in thine old repute, but say,

If yet persists thy previous mind, which way

The feuds of our rent city shall end, and why

These factions vex us, and if still there be

One just man left among us."


"Two," said he,

"Are just, but none regards them. Yet more high

The strife, till bloodshed from their long contend

Shall issue at last: the barbarous Cerchi clan

Cast the Donati exiled out, and they

Within three years return, and more offend

Than they were erst offended, helped by him

So long who palters with both parts. The fire

Three sparks have lighted - Avarice, Envy, Pride, -

And there is none may quench it."

Here
he ceased

His lamentable tale, and I replied,

"Of one thing more I ask thee. Great desire

Is mine to learn it. Where are those who sought

Our welfare earlier? Those whose names at least

Are fragrant for the public good they wrought,

Arrigo, Mosca, and the Tegghiaio

Worthiest, and Farinata, and with these

Jacopo Rusticucci. I would know

If soft in Heaven or bitter-hard in Hell

Their lives continue."

"Cast in hells
more low

Than yet thou hast invaded, deep they lie,

For different crimes from ours, and shouldst thou go

So far, thou well mayst see them. If thou tread

Again the sweet light land, and overhead

Converse with those I knew there, then recall,

I pray, my memory to my friends of yore.

But ask no further, for I speak no more."



Thereon his eyes, that straight had gazed before

Squinted and failed, and slowly sank his head,

And blindly with his sodden mates he lay.

And spake my guide, "He shall not lift nor stir,

Until the trumpet shrills that wakens Hell;

And these, who must inimical Power obey,

Shall each return to his sad grave, and there

In carnal form the sinful spirit shall dwell

Once more, and that time only, from the tomb

Rising to hear the irrevocable doom

Which shall reverberate through eternity."



So paced we slowly through the rain that fell

Unchanging, over that foul ground, and trod

The dismal spirits it held, and somewhat spake

Of life beyond us, and the things of God;

And asked I, "Master, shall these torments cease,

Continue as they are, or more increase,

When calls the trumpet, and the graves shall break,

And the great Sentence sound?"

And he
to me,

"Recall thy learning, as thou canst. We know

With more perfection, greater pain or bliss

Resolves, and though perfection may not be

To these accurs'd, yet nearer then than this

It may be they shall reach it."

More
to show

He sought, as turned we to the fresh descent,

But speaking all in such strange words as went

Past me. - But ceased our downward path, and

Plutus, of human weal the hateful foe.

Canto VII

HAH, strange! ho, Satan!" such the sounds half-heard

The thick voice gobbled, the while the foul, inflamed,

Distended visage toward us turned, and cast

Invective from its bestial throat, that slurred

Articulate speech. But here the gentle sage,

Who knew beforehand that we faced, to me

Spake first, "Regard not; for a threat misaimed

Falls idle. Fear not to continue past.

His power to us, however else it be,

Is not to hinder." Then, that bulk inflate

Confronting, - "Peace, thou greed! thy lusting rage

Consume thee inward! Not thy word we wait

The path to open. It is willed on high, -

There, where the Angel of the Sword ye know

Took ruin upon the proud adultery

Of him thou callest as thy prince."


Thereat

As sails, wind-rounded, when the mast gives way,

Sink tangled to the deck, deflated so

Collapsed that bulk that heard him, shrunk and flat;

And we went downward till before us lay

The fourth sad circle. Ah! what woes contain,

Justice of God! what woes those narrowing deeps

Contain; for all the universe down-heaps

In this pressed space its continent of pain,

So voiding all that mars its peace. But why

This guilt that so degrades us?

As the
surge

Above Charybdis meets contending surge,

Breaks and is broken, and rages and recoils

For ever, so here the sinners. More numerous

Than in the circles past are these. They urge

Huge weights before them. On, with straining breasts,

They roll them, howling in their ceaseless toils.

And those that to the further side belong

l)o likewise, meeting in the midst, and thus

Crash vainly, and recoil, reverse, and cry,

"Why dost thou hold?" "Why dost thou loose?"

No rest

Their doom permits them. Backward course they bend;

Continual crescents trace, at either end

Meeting again in fresh rebound, and high

Above their travail reproachful howlings rise

Incessant at those who thwart their round.


And I,

Who felt my heart stung through with anguish, said,

"O Master, show me who these peoples be,

And if those tonsured shades that left we see

Held priestly office ere they joined the dead."



He answered, "These, who with such squinting eyes

Regarded God's providing, that they spent

In waste immoderate, indicate their guilt

In those loud barkings that ye hear. They spilt

Their wealth distemperate; and those they meet

Who cry 'Why loose ye?' avarice ruled: they bent

Their minds on earth to seize and hoard. Of these

Hairless, are priests, and popes, and cardinals,

For greed makes empire in such hearts complete."



And I, "Among them that these vices eat

Are none that I have known on earth before?"



He answered, "Vainly wouldst thou seek; a life

So blind to bounties has obscured too far

The souls once theirs, for that which once they wore

Of mortal likeness in their shades to show.

Waste was their choice, and this abortive strife

And toil unmeaning is the end they are

They butt for ever, until the last award

Shall call them from their graves. Ill-holding those

Ill-loosing these, alike have doomed to know

This darkness, and the fairer world forgo.

Behold what mockery doth their fate afford!

It needs no fineness of spun words to tell.

For this they did their subtle wits oppose,

Contending for the gifts that Fortune straws

So blindly, - for this blind contending hell.



"Beneath the moon there is not gold so great

In worth, it could one moment's grief abate,

Or rest one only of these weary souls."



"Master, this Fortune that ye speak, whose claws

Grasp all desirable things of earth," I said,

"What is she?"

"O betrayed in foolishness I

Blindness of creatures born of earth, whose goals

Are folly and loss!" he answered, "I would make

Thy mouth an opening for this truth I show.



"Transcendent Wisdom, when the spheres He built

Gave each a guide to rule it: more nor less

Their light distributes. For the earth he gave

Like guide to rule its splendours. As we know

The heavenly lights move round us, and is spilt

Light here, and darkness yonder, so doth she

From man to man, from race and kindred take

Alternate wealth, or yield it. None may save

The spoil that she depriveth: none may flee

The bounty that she wills. No human wits

May hinder, nor may human lore reject

Her choice, that like a hidden snake is set

To reach the feet unheeding. Where she sits

In judgment, she resolves, and whom she wills

Is havened, chased by petulant storms, or wreck '

Remedeless. Races cease, and men forget

They were. Slaves rise to rule their lords. She

And empties, godlike in her mood. No pause

Her changes leave, so many are those who call

About her gates, so many she dowers, and all

Revile her after, and would crucify

If words could reach her, but she heeds nor hears,

Who dwells beyond the noise of human laws

In the blest silence of the Primal Spheres.



- But let us to the greater woes descend.

The stars from their meridian fall, that rose

When first these hells we entered. Long to stay

Our right of path allows not."

While
he spake

We crossed the circle to the bank beyond,

And found a hot spring boiling, and a way,

Dark, narrow, and steep, that down beside it goes,

By which we clambered. Purple-black the pond

Beneath it, widening to a marsh that spreads

Far out, and struggling in that slime malign

Were muddied shades, that not with hands, heads,

And teeth and feet besides, contending tore,

And maimed each other in beast-like rage.


My guide

Expounded, "Those whom anger overbore

On earth, behold ye. Mark the further sign

Of bubbles countless on the slime that show.

These from the sobs of those immersed arise;

For buried in the choking filth they cry,

We once were sullen in the rain-sweet air,

When waked the light, and all the earth was fair,

How sullen in the murky swamp we lie

Forbidden from the blessed light on high.

This song they gurgle in their throats, that so

The bubbles rising from the depths below

Break all the surface of the slime."


Between

The high bank and the putrid swamp was seen

A narrow path, and this, a sweeping arc,

We traversed; outward o'er the surface dark

Still gazing, at the choking shades who took

That diet for their wrath. Till livelier look

Was forward drawn, for where at last we came

A great tower fronted, and a beacon's flame.

Canto VIII

I SAY, while yet from that tower's base afar,

We saw two flames of sudden signal rise,

And further, like a small and distant star,

A beacon answered.

"What before us lies?

Who signals our approach, and who replies?"

I asked, and answered he who all things knew,

"Already, if the swamp's dank fumes permit,

The outcome of their beacon shows in view,

Severing the liquid filth."

No shaft can slit

Impalpable air, from any corded bow,

As came that craft towards us, cleaving so,

And with incredible speed, the miry wave.

To where we paused its meteor course it clave,

A steersman rising in the stern, who cried,

"Behold thy doom, lost spirit!" To whom my guide,

"Nay, Phlegyas, Phlegyas, here thy cries are

We need thine aid the further shore to gain;

But power thou hast not."

One amazed to meet

With most unlooked and undeserved deceit

So rages inly; yet no dared reply

There came, as down my Leader stept, and I

Deepened the skiff with earthly weight undue,

Which while we seated swung its bows anew

Outward, and onward once again it flew,

Labouring more deep than wont, and slowlier now,

So burdened.

While that kennel of filth we clave,

There rose among the bubbles a mud-soaked head.

"Who art thou, here before thy time?" it said,

And answer to the unfeatured mask I gave,

"I come, but stay not. Who art thou, so blind

And blackened from the likeness of thy kind?"



"I have no name, but only tears," said he.



I answered, "Nay, however caked thou be,

I know thee through the muddied drench. For thee

Be weeping ever, accursed spirit."


At that,

He reached his hands to grasp the boat, whereat

My watchful Master thrust him down, and cried,

"Away, among the dogs, thy fellows!" and then

To me with approbation, "Blest art thou,

Who wouldst not pity in thy heart allow

For these, in arrogance of empty pride

Who lived so vainly. In the minds of men

Is no good thing of this one left to tell,

And hence his rage. How many above that dwell,

Now kinglike in their ways, at last shall lie

Wallowing in these wide marshes, swine in sty,

With all men's scorn to chase them down."


And I,

"Master, it were a seemly thing to see

This boaster trampled in the putrid sea,

Who dared approach us, knowing of all we know."



He answered, "Well thy wish, and surely so

It shall be, e'er the distant shore we view."

And I looked outward through the gloom, and lo!

The envious eaters of that dirt combined

Against him, leapt upon him, before, behind,

Dragged in their fury, and rent, and tore him through,

Screaming derisive, "Philip! whose horse-hooves shine

With silver," and the rageful Florentine

Turned on himself his gnashing teeth and tore.



But he deserveth, and I speak, no more.



Now, as we neared the further beach, I heard

The lamentable and unceasing wail

By which the air of all the hells is stirred

Increasing ever, which caused mine eyes unveil

Their keenest vision to search what came, and he

Who marked, indulgent, told. "Ahead we see

The city of Dis, with all its dolorous crew,

Numerous, and burdened with reliefless pain,

And guilt intolerable to think."


I said,

"Master, already through the night I view

The mosques of that sad city, that fiery red

As heated metal extend, and crowd the plain."

He answered, "These the eternal fire contain,

That pulsing through them sets their domes aglow."

At this we came those joyless walls below,

- Of iron I thought them, - with a circling moat;

But saw no entrance, and the burdened boat

Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before

The steersman warned us. "Get ye forth. The shore

Is here, - and there the Entrance."

There,
indeed,

The entrance. On the barred and burning gate

I gazed; a thousand of the fiends that rained

From Heaven, to fill that place disconsolate,

Looked downward, and derided. "Who," they said,

"Before his time comes hither? As though the dead

Arrive too slowly for the joys they would,"

And laughter rocked along their walls. My guide

Their mockery with an equal mien withstood,

Signalling their leaders he would speak aside,

And somewhat closing their contempt they cried,

"Then come thou hither, and let him backward go,

Who came so rashly. Let him find his way

Through the five hells ye traversed, the best he may.

He can but try it awhile! - But thou shalt stay,

And learn the welcome of these halls of woe."



Ye well may think how I, discomforted

By these accursed words, was moved. The dead,

Nay, nor the living were ever placed as I,

If this fiends' counsel triumphed. And who should try

That backward path unaided?


"Lord," I said,

"Loved Master, who hast shared my steps so far,

And rescued ever, if these our path would bar,

Then lead me backward in most haste, nor let

Their malice part us."

He with cheerful
mien,

Gave answer. "Heed not that they boast. Forget

The fear thou showest, and in good heart abide,

While I go forward. Not these fiends obscene

Shall thwart the mandate that the Power supplied

By which we came, nor any force to do

The things they threaten is theirs; nor think that I

Should leave thee helpless here."

The
gentle Sage

At this went forward. Feared I? Half I knew

Despair, and half contentment. Yes and no

Denied each other; and of so great a woe

Small doubt is anguish.

In their orgulous
rage

The fiends out-crowded from the gates to meet

My Master; what he spake I could not hear;

But nothing his words availed to cool their heat,

For inward thronged they with a jostling rear

That clanged the gates before he reached, and he

Turned backward slowly, muttering, "Who to me

Denies the woeful houses?" This he said

Sighing, with downcast aspect and disturbed

Beyond concealment; yet some length he curbed

His anxious thought to cheer me. "Doubt ye nought

Of power to hurt in these fiends insolent;

For once the wider gate on which ye read

The words of doom, with greater pride, they sought

To close against the Highest. Already is bent

A great One hereward, whose unhindered way

Descends the steeps unaided. He shall say

Such words as must the trembling hells obey."

Canto IX

I THINK the paleness of the fear I showed

When he, rejected from that conference,

Rejoined me, caused him speak more confident

Than felt he inly. For the glance he sent

Through the dense darkness of the backward road

Denied the valour of his words' pretence;

And pausing there with anxious listening mien,

While came no sound, nor any help was seen,

He muttered, "Yet we must this conflict win,

For else - But whom her aid has pledged herein -

How long before he cometh!" And plain I knew

His words turned sideward from the ending due

They first portended. Faster beat my fear,

Methinks, than had he framed in words more clear

The meaning that his care withheld.


I said,

"Do others of the hopeless, sinless, dead,

Who with thee in the outmost circle dwell,

Come ever downward to the narrowing hell

That now we traverse?"

"Once Erichtho
fell,"

He answered, "conjured to such end that I,

- Who then short time had passed to those who die, -

Came here, controlled by her discerning spell,

And entered through these hostile gates, and drew

A spirit from the darkest, deepest pit,

The place of Judas named, that centres Hell.

The path I learnt, and all its dangers well.

Content thine heart. This foul-stretched marsh surrounds

The dolorous city to its furthest bounds.

Without, the dense mirk, and the bubbling mire:

Within, the white-hot pulse of eating fire,

Whence this fiend-anger thwarts. . .," and more he said,

To save me doubtless from my thoughts, but I

Heeded no more, for by the beacons red

That on the lofty tower before us glowed,

Three bloodstained and infernal furies showed,

Erect, of female form in guise and limb,

But clothed in coils of hydras green and grim;

And with cerastes bound was every head,

And for its crown of hair was serpented;

And he, who followed my diverted gaze,

The handmaids of the Queen of Woeful Days

Well knowing, told me, "These the Furies three.

Megæra leftward: on the right is she

Alecto, wailing: and Tisiphone

Midmost."

These hateful, in their need of prey,

Tore their own breasts with bloodied claws, and when

They saw me, from the living world of men,

Beneath them standing, with one purpose they

Cried, and so loudly that I shrank for fear,

"Medusa! let her from her place appear,

To change him into stone! Our first default

That venged no wrath on Theseus' deep assault,

So brings him."

"Turn thou from their sight," my guide

Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied,

But placed his hands across mine eyes the while

He told me further "Risk no glance. The sight

Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night

From which were no returning."

Ye
that read

With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed

The hidden meaning of the truth that lies

Beneath the shadow-words of mysteries

That here I show ye.

While I turned away,


Across the blackness of the putrid bay,

There crashed a thunder of most fearful sound,

At which the opposing shores, from bound to bound,

Trembled.

As when an entering tempest rends

The brooding heat, and nought its course can stay,

That through the forest its dividing way

Tears open, and tramples down, and strips, and bends,

And levels. The wild things in the woods that be

Cower down. The herdsmen from its trumpets flee.

With clouds of dust to trace its course it goes,

Superb, and leaving ruin. Such sound arose.

And he that held me loosened mine eyes, and said,

"Look back, and see what foam the black waves bear."



As frogs, the while the serpent picks his prey,

In panic scatter through the stream, and there

Flatten themselves upon its bouldered bed,

I saw a thousand ruined spirits that fled

Before the coming of One who held his way

Dry-shod across the water.

His
left hand

He waved before him, and the stagnant air

Retreated. Simple it were to understand

A Messenger of Heaven he came. My guide

Signed me to silence, and to reverence due,

While to one stroke of his indignant wand

The gate swung open. "Outcast spawn!" he cried,

His voice heard vibrant through the aperture grim,

"Why spurn ye at the Will that, once defied,

Here cast ye grovelling? Have ye felt from Him

Aught ever for fresh revolt but harder pains?

Has Cerberus' throat, skinned with the threefold chains,

No meaning? Why, to fate most impotent,

Contend ye vainly?"

Then he turned and went,

Nor one glance gave us, but he seemed as one

Whom larger issue than the instant done

Engages wholly.

By that Power compelled,

The gates stood open, and our course we held

Unhindered. As the threshold dread we crossed,

My eager glances swept the scene to know,

In those doomed walls imprisoned, how lived the lost.



On either hand a wide plain stretched, to show

A sight of torment, and most dismal woe.



At Arles, where the stagnant Rhone extends,

Or Pola, where the gulf Quarnero bends,

As with old tombs the plains are ridged, so here,

All sides, did rows of countless tombs appear,

But in more bitter a guise, for everywhere

Shone flames, that moved among them.


Every tomb

Stood open, white with heat. No craft requires

More heated metal than the crawling fires

Made hot the sides of those sad sepulchres;

And cries of torture and most dire despair

Came from them, as the spirits wailed their doom.



I said, "Who are they, in these chests that lie

Confined, and join in this lamenting cry?"



My Master answered, "These in life denied

The faith that saves, and that resisting pride

Here brought them. With their followers, like to like,

Assorted are they, and the keen flames strike

With differing anguish, to the same degree

They reached in their rebellion."

While
he spake

Rightward he turned, a narrow path to take

Between them and that high-walled boundary.

Canto X

FIRST went my Master, for the space was small

Between the torments and the lofty wall,

And I behind him.

"O controlling Will,"

I spake, "who leadest through such hates, and still

Prevailest for me, wilt thou speak, that who

Within these tombs are held mine eyes may see?

For lifted are they, and unwatched."


And he, -

"The lids stand open till the time arrive

When to the valley of Jehoshaphat

They each must wend, and earthly flesh resume,

And back returning, as the swarming hive,

From condemnation, each the doleful tomb

Re-enter wailing, and the lids thereat

Be bolted. Here in fitting torment lie

The Epicurean horde, who dared deny

That soul outlasts its mortal home. Is here

Their leader, and his followers round him. Soon

Shall all thy wish be granted, - and the boon

Ye hold in secret."

"Kind my
guide," I said,

"I was not silent to conceal, but thou

Didst teach, when in thy written words I read,

That in brief speech is wisdom."


Here a voice

Behind me, "Tuscan, who canst walk at choice

Untouched amidst the torments, wilt thou stay?

For surely native of the noble land

Where once I held my too-audacious way,

Discreet of speech, thou comest."

The
sudden cry

So close behind me from the chests that came,

First drove me closer to my guide, but he, -

"What dost thou? Turn thee!" - and a kindly hand

Impelled me, fearful, where the crawling flame

Was all around me, - "Lift thine eyes and see,

For there is Farinata. Be thou short

In speech, for time is failing."

Scorn
of hell

Was in the eyes that met me. Hard he wrought

To raise himself, till girdle-deep I knew

The greatest of the fierce Uberti crew,

Who asked me, with contempt near-waiting, "Tell

Of whom thou art descended?"

I
replied,

Concealing nothing. With lifted brows he eyed

My face in silence some brief while, and then, -

"Foes were they ever to my part, and me.

It yet must linger in the minds of men

How twice I broke them."

"Twice ye learned them
flee,"

- I answered boldly, - "but they twice returned;

And others fled more late who have not learned

The mode of that returning."

Here a
shade

Arose beside him, only to the chin

Revealed: I think it knelt. Beyond and round

It rather looked than at me. Nought it found.

Thereat it wept, and asked me, "Ye that go

Unhindered through these homes of gateless woe, -

Is my son with thee? Hast thou nought to tell?"



I answered, "Single through the gates of hell

I had no power to enter. Near my guide

Awaits me yonder. - Whom in foolish pride,

Thy Guido held so lightly."

At the word

He leapt erect from out the tomb, and cried,

"How saidst thou? Held? Already he hath not died?

Doth not the sweet light meet him? The clear air

Breathes he not yet?"

The imploring cries I heard

But checked awhile to answer, and in despair

He fell flat forward, and was seen no more.

But he, magnanimous, who first delayed

My steps, had heeded nought, nor turned his head,

And now continued that he spake before.

"If with the coin ye forged they have not paid,

It more torments me than this flaming bed.

Yet thou thyself, before the Queen of Night

Shall fifty times revoke and raise her light,

Shalt learn the hardship of that art. But tell,

As thou wouldst feel the cool winds' pinions beat

Once more upon thee, and the sweet light fall

Around the feet of morning, for this heat

And fetid air we writhe in, why were all

Those exiles pardoned by thy laws, to dwell

In their dear homes once more, and only mine,

My kindred, find no mercy?"

I to
him, -

"The rout and chase that dyed the Arbia red

To thy descendants dealt this bitter bread;

The memory of that slaughter doth not dim,

But leaves thee to our prayers a name of hate

In all our churches."

Here he sighed, and
said,

"I was not single in that strife, nor lacked

Good cause to strike; but when your remnant fled,

And Florence, naked to her foes elate,

Cowered, waiting, all with one consent agreed

To tread her out to dust, and extirpate

All life within her, I, and only I,

Stood out against it, and refused the deed,

And with my swords I saved them. Is this thing

Less memoried than my wrath?"

I
answered, "Yea:

But what I can I will, and that thy seed

Have rest at my returning, solve, I pray,

A doubt that disconcerts me. Ye that dwell

In these abodes beneath us, each foretell

- Or so ye claim - what distant times shall bring,

Yet plead for knowledge of the passing day, -

Or mock me, asking that yourselves could say."



He answered, "As in age a man may see

Far off, while nearer sights are blurred, so we

See clearly times long passed, and times to be.

Foresight is ours, and long remembering,

In each an anguish, while the anxious mind

Is void to all around it, foiled and blind

Where most it longs for knowledge. Nought we know

Thine earthly present, save as here below

One after one descending bears his tale;

And therefore, when the wings of Time shall fail,

And sealed in these accursed tombs we lie,

All knowledge from our vacant minds shall die,

As well ye may perceive it."

Here I
said,

Compunctious for a fault now seen, "Wilt tell

That other, fallen, that I did not well

Withholding answer? Guido is not dead.

My silence from the earlier doubt was bred,

From which thou hast resolved me."

Now my
guide

Was calling, and in greater haste I said,

"Thy comrades in thy grief I charge thee tell,

Ere I go from thee."

Shortly he replied,

"The second Frederick, and the Cardinal,

Are with me, and a thousand more beside

Of whom I speak not."

With the word he
fell;

And I went onward, turning in my thought

The hostile presage of his words that taught

Mine own near exile, till my guide at last

Questioned, "What cloud thine eyes hath overcast?

What thought hath wildered all thy mind?" and I

Answered, and told.

He said, "The things thou hear'st

That threat thee, hold them in thy memory well.

Yet know that soon, beneath a fairer sky,

When she, whose sight hath no blank space, shall tell

What cometh, then shalt thou read, ungapped and clear,

The journey of thy life."

The while he spake

He turned him leftward from the wall, to take

A path that to the midmost vale declined,

A fetid rising odour first to find.

Canto XI

BUT boldly outward from the wall we went,

Down sloping, till a sudden steep descent

Before us yawned. The sides, extending far,

Of broken rocks, a great pit circular

Enclosed. Beneath our feet a fouler throng

Than that we left, upcast a stench so vile

We might not face, but left our course awhile

To crouch behind a stone-built monument,

Whereon I read, "Pope Anastasius

Is here, who sold his faith for Photinus."



Then spake my Master. "Till the fetid air

By gradual use we take, we must not dare

Continue downward."

"Show me, while we stay,

The meanings of this foul and dreadful way."



"I meant it, surely," said my guide. "Behold

The space beneath us. There three circlets lie,

Alike to those we left behind, but why

This deeper fate is theirs, I first will show;

And when we pass them in the depths below

Ye need not wait to question what ye see.



"All malice of men's hearts in injury

Results, and hence to Heaven is odious;

And all the malice that aggrieveth thus

Strikes in two ways, by either force or fraud;

And fraud in man is vice peculiar,

That from Hell's centre to the utmost star

Is else unknown, and is to God therefore

Most hateful Hence the violent-sinful lie

Outward, and inmost are the fraudulent.

And as the sinful-violent make their war

On God, their neighbours, or themselves, so they

Are portioned in the outer wards.


I say,

To them, or to the things they own, the wrong

May aim. By violence, wounds or death may be,

Extortions, burnings, wastes; and ye shall see

That equal in the outmost round belong

Reivers of life alike, and plunderers.

And in the second round are those whose sin

Is violence to themselves; they weep therein,

Repenting when too late, whose hands destroy

Their earthly bodies; and condemned alike

Are those with profligate wasteful hands who strike

At their own wealth, or having cause for joy

Reject it, weeping with no need. The third

And smallest of the outer circlets holds

All those with violence of blaspheming words,

Or in their hearts, the Lord of Life deny,

The wealth of Nature that the world enfolds

Contemning. Hence by lust or usury,

Sodom or Cahors, the downward path may be

That ends in this destruction.

Fraud,
that gnaws

The universal conscience of mankind,

Is also different in its guilt, because

It either at the stranger strikes behind,

Or makes the sacred bond of confidence

The means of its prevailing; and the first

Breaks but the kindly general bond, and hence

More outward in the final depths are cast

Deceivers, flatterers, cheats, and sorcerers,

Thieves, panders, and such filth.

The
last and worst

And smallest circle holds such souls as break

Not only in their guilt the natural bond

That all men own, but in some trust, beyond

The usual course, are faithless. In this lake,

The base and centre of Dis, the inmost hell,

All traitors in relentless torments dwell."



I answered, "Master, clearer words than these

I could not ask, the ranks of guilt to show,

That gather in the dreadful gulfs below;

But tell me, - those that in so great dis-ease

We earlier passed, wind-beaten, choked with slime,

Or chilled and flattened with unending rain,

If God's wrath reach them, why they yet remain

Outside the hot walls of the Place of Pain?

Or why they suffer through the night of Time

So greatly, if they are not judged to Hell?"



He answered, "Surely ye recall not well

The Ethics that your schools have taught, or wide

Your thoughts have wandered from their wont, to cause

A doubt so simple. Are there not three laws

By which the ways of Hell from Heaven divide -

Beast-treason, malice, and incontinence,

And of these three the third the least offence

To God provoketh, and receives less blame?

Bethink the faults of those where first ye came

Through circles loftier than the heated wall

That now surrounds us, and ye well shall see

Why with less wrath the strokes of justice fall

On those left outward by divine decree."



"O Light!" I said, "whose cheering rays dispel

The mists that blind me, wilt thou further tell

Why stands the customed toll of usury

Condemned in thy discourse as direst sin,

Abhorrent to the bounty of God?"


He said,

"The teaching of thine own Philosophy

Is pregnant with this truth unborn. Therein

Thou learn'st of God himself, interpreted

In Nature's ways; and as a child may tread

Unsurely in its Master's steps, thine art

Interprets Nature in its turn, and is

God's grandchild therefore. Through these mysteries

Look backward. When the Law of Eden came,

How spake the Eternal Wisdom? Toil; It said,

And in that labour find thy guerdon-bread:

Be fruitful, and increase thy kind. His part

God gave to man, so saying. The usurer

Seeks not his profit in the path designed,

But looks the fruit of others' toils to find,

And pluck where nought he planted.


More to say

The time permits not; but the downward way

We needs must venture. In the outer skies

The Fishes from the pale horizon rise,

And the Great Wain its shining course descends

Where the night-lair of Caurus dark extends."

Canto XII

NOW came we to the steep cliff-side. As where

The Adige at the mountain bored until

Fell the huge ruin of half its bulk, and there

Turned the swift stream a further course to fill

Beneath the scarred precipitous side, so here

The shattered ominous cliffs descended sheer;

And sprawled across the verge, Crete's infamy,

The fruit of that false cow, Pasiphaë,

Was fearsome, that the boldest heart should flee.



To us he turned his red malignant eyes,

Gnawing his own side, the while he strove to rise,

As one made rageful past restraint, but loud

My leader hailed him, "Think'st thou, overproud,

That Theseus cometh, who gave thy death

Not one that Ariadne taught is here,

Nor destined victim for thy rage to gore,

But one who walketh through the place of fear

In safety, to behold the stripes ye bore."

As some roped bull, whose throat is stretched to feel

The knife's sharp doom, against the rending steel

So madly wrenches that he breaks away,

Already slaughtered, plunging while he may,

But blindly and vainly, at this word I saw

Heaving the huge bulk of the Minotaur,

And cried my careful guide, "Descend with speed,

The whilst he rages."

Down with watchful heed,

But swiftly, clomb we by the rocks' rough side,

The jutting stones that lightly held my guide

Trembling beneath my earthlier weight.


He said,

Who watched my silence, "Likely turns thy thought

To this rent ruin the gross beast guards. Before,

When downward came I, of this fall was nought,

But nearly after came that Lord who bore

Out from the horror of Dis its choicer prey.

Hell, to its loathliest entrails, felt that day

Love's coming, and trembled, and this mountain fell.

The power of Love, that thus discomfits Hell,

Oft in forgotten times, as sages tell,

Hath changed our world to chaos. - But heed thy way.

Before us is the gulf of blood wherein

Murderers by violence purge their briefer sin.

O blindness of their greed, or bestial rage!

So short the war that on their kind they wage;

So long is their repenting."

I
beheld

A wide moat, curving either hand, as though

Its sweep surrounded all the plain. Below

On the near bank, were Centaurs, each who held

A spear for casting, or a bended bow,

The while they raced along the brink, as when

Their game they hunted in the world of men.



Seeing us, they stayed, and of the nearest, three

Approached us, with the threats of shaft on string.

One cried, "What torments do your guilts decree,

Who cross Hell's gaps in such strange wandering?

How came ye loosened from your dooming? - Say,

Lest the cord teach ye."

Unperturbed, my
guide

Gave answer. "Not for such vain threats we stay.

To Chiron only will we speak. Thy will

For rashness cost thee once thy life, and still

Inciteth folly." And then to me, "Behold

Nessus, who once for Deianira died;

Beyond is Chiron, round whose mighty knees

Played once the infant years of Achilles;

The rageful Pholus is the last; they go

With thousand others around the moat, that so

If any spirits the boiling blood would quit

Beyond the licence of their dooms, they know

A different anguish from the shafts that slit

The parts shown naked."

These swift beasts
and we

Approached each other the while he spake, and he,

Great Chiron, with a shaft's notched end put back

The beard that hindered both his jaws, and said,

To those his comrades, "Not as walk the dead

Doth this one coming, but with the weight they lack

Disturbs the stones he treadeth."

My
guide by now

Stood where the human and the brute combined,

Beneath his breast, and answered for me. "Yea,

He lives indeed, and I, to lead his way,

I race this dark valley. No sportive choice to find,

But driven of need, he threads this night of flame;

And She from singing Alleluias came

Who bade me do it. No spirit condemned am I,

Nor he deserving of thy doom. I pray,

By virtue of the Name I will not say,

l hat of thy comrades one thy care supply

To guide us to the ford, and him to bear

Across, who may not tread the yielding air

As those discarnate."

Chiron's bearded
head

Bent round to Nessus at his right, and said,

"Turn, as they ask, and guide, and bear him through,

And warn thy comrades that no wrong they do

To these in passing."

In this trusty ward

We held the margin of the purple flood

That seethed beneath us. In the boiling blood

Were spirits to the brows immersed.


"Ye see,"

Said Nessus, "tyrants who by weight of sword

Spread death and rapine in their lands. Is here

Fierce Dionysius, who the doleful year

Made long to those he ruled in Sicily;

And Alexander here repents; and he

Whose brows o'erhung with night-black hair ye see

Is Azzolino; and the head beyond

Where on the stream the trailing mane is blonde,

Obizzo, whom his stepson choked."


We came

Where other spirits in the boiling pond

Showed from the neck, and in this place beheld

That Guy who to avenge his father's name

The English Henry at Viterbo felled,

Even in the presence of God. The victim's heart

Yet raised in reverence on the bank of Thame,

Recalls it, and the assassin boils apart

Placed separate for the deed's high blasphemy.



And further passed we those whose guilt allowed

Of freedom to the waist. Among the crowd,

More numerous now, were more in clearer view,

That by themselves or by their deeds I knew,

As shallower yet the seething purple grew,

Till all except the miscreants' feet was free.



"Here must we cross the fosse," the Centaur said,

And I, sole living in this world of dead,

Climbed upward, and my earthly weight he bore,

And while he waded to the further shore

Continued, "As the boiling stream ye see

Diminish, so its bottom sinks anew

Rounding the circle, till it comes once more

To those whose ruling choked their world in gore,

In which they suffer. High Justice here torments

The pirate Sextus, and fierce Pyrrhus here;

Attila with eternal tears laments;

And Rinier Pazzo, once a word of fear,

With Rinier of Corneto boils, to pay

For bandit-murders on the State's highway."

Canto XIII

WHILE Nessus yet recrossed the purple stream

A wood we entered where no path appeared,

No cool wind stirred, nor any sun came through,

But all the foliage, as by winter seared,

Was brittle and brown, and gnarled and twisted grew

The branches, and if any fruit did seem

They were but poisonous pods to closer view.

No denser holts the lurking beasts have found

Beneath Corneto, where the marshy ground,

Uncoultered, to Cecina's stream declines.



Foul harpies nest amidst the loathly vines,

Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,

With their drear wail of some awaiting woe.

Their wings are wide: and like gross birds below

Their bellies feathered, and their feet are clawed.

Strange cries come from them through the sickly trees.



My Master told me, "Through this dismal land,

The second circlet pass we, till we reach

The place of that intolerable sand

Which forms the third, and in its place completes

The outer round. Recall my earlier speech

That taught the order of these woes. Look well

For confirmation of the things I tell "



I looked, but saw not. Every side there rose

A wailing burdened with unnumbered woes,

While all the woods were vacant. From ground

It came not - rather from the boughs around

It beat upon us, as voiced by those who hid

Before our coming, the tangled growth amid.



My Master taught me. "If thou break away

The nearest twig that meets thine hand, wilt see

How far thy dreaming from the truth astray."



Thereat I reached, and from a twisted thorn

That rose before us, withered, gaunt, forlorn,

Broke short a twig, and from the trunk a cry

Came sharply, "Tear not!" and a blood-gout

Dark on the wound, the while the trunk anew

Entreated, "Rend not; does no mercy lie

In those that still their human forms retain?

Men were we, till we left on earth self-slain

The bodies given of God. But had we been

The souls of serpents, in this hopeless dole

We had not thought that any mortal soul

Would wound us, helpless to their hands."


Hast seen

Cast on the coals a living branch and green?

One end already burns, and one projects

Clear of the heat, but from the fire's effects

Moisture exudes and hissing wind. So here

Blood welled and words from out the wound. The fear

Of this strange voice, and pity, so in me wrought

I dropt the broken shoot, and fixed in thought

Stood silent.

On my side my leader spake,

"O wounded spirit, had his heart believed

The truth that earlier in my verse he read,

He had not with unthinking violence grieved

The most unhappy of the hapless dead.

But mine the word that caused his hand to break,

Who knew that truth's incredibility

Would else confound him. It was grief to me

To prompt him to it. But if thou speak and tell

Of whom thou wast, he may requite thee well,

Thy fame renewing in the world, for there

He soon returneth."

And the voice
replied,

"The sound of thy seducing words and fair

Constrains me to forgive thee, and confide

The bitter grief that in my trunk I hide,

Which else were silent always. With me bear

In patience somewhat, if I talk too long,

Caught in this bait of words, when all my wrong

Returneth to me. In this toil is he,

The second Frederick's confident, who held

His heart's two keys, and turned them. Here ye see

The ruin of too great fidelity,

That sleep and life gave forfeit. Yea, for she,

That harlot who in Cæsar's court rebelled

Against all virtue round his throne, the bane

And vice of all high concourse, Envy, stirred

And slandered, till my Master half believed.

And I, who all things at his hands received,

And all myself had rendered, in disdain

Gave silence only to the accusing word,

And in contempt of life I broke the chain

That held me to it. Just to others, I wrought

Injustice to myself. But here I swear,

By these sad roots that hold me, word nor thought,

Nor deed nor negligence was mine in aught

Against him faithless. Ye that upward bear

The news and burden of our griefs below,

Rebuild my memory in the world, I pray,

That my rash hand prostrated."

Here
his woe

Found silence, and the things I sought to say

I lacked the heart. Until, at last, my guide

Enquired me, "Wouldst thou more?" and I replied,

"Ask for me."

To the prisoned grief he said,

"That this man gladly when he leave the dead

Uplift thy record, as thy words entreat,

Inform us further how this fate ye meet,

How the bent soul these twisted knots allows;

Or ever any from these tortured boughs

Erect himself to manhood."

Then
the tree

Blew strongly, and the wind was words that said,

"In brief thou shalt be answered. When the dead,

Self-slaughtered, from the unready corse is torn,

Then Minos, in the seventh gulf to mourn,

Consigns it. Here on no set space it falls,

But cast at random, and its roots it strikes

In marsh or rock, and boughs and thorny spikes

Grow upward. On its leaves the harpies feed,

Tearing, and where the broken twiglets bleed

Pain finds its outlet.

When the trumpet
calls,

We all, with those who earthly flesh regain,

Shall upward troop, but that our hand hath slain

We may not enter, as is just. The Vale

Of Judgment when we leave we each shall hale

Our bodies slain behind us, till we reach

The dismal thorns we left, and each on each

Shall hang them. Every trunk of every shade

Bent with the weight of that itself betrayed."



We still were listening, lest more words should come

From this sad spirit, when rose such noise anear

That all the wailings of the woods were dumb

Before it, and we paused, as those who hear

The boar-hunt plunging through the brake, and nigh,

Crashed boughs, and rush of beasts that chase and fly,

Approaching where they stand; and forth there burst

Two spirits torn and bare, and cried the first,

"Befriend me, Death!" and cried the one behind,

"Ah, Lano, swifter legs than mine ye show,

But Toppo's tourney found thy limbs more slow."



Thereat he made no further pace, but low

Crawled 'neath the densest bush the woods contained,

And the next instant, as the shade he gained,

A rush of hell-hounds on his chase there came.

Wild on the bush they leapt to trace and claim

Their hiding victim, sinking fang and claw

In him who squatted in its midst. They rent

The writhing limbs, and diverse ways they went,

Carrying the fragments that they tore.


My guide

Now led my steps the damaged bush beside,

That loud lamented. Severed boughs we saw,

And torn twigs bleeding. In its pain it made

Protest, "Jacopo da Sant' Andrea!

What gain was here to make my leaves thy shade?

What condemnation for thy sins is mine?"



My Master questioned it, "Who art thou, say,

So bruised and injured in a strife not thine?"



It answered, "Ye that some strange fate hath led

To see me mangled and discomfited,

I pray ye closely round my foot to lay

The boughs and leaves their violence strawed away.

In that fair city of the plain I dwelt

Which once to Mars, its earliest patron, knelt,

And then the Baptist in his place preferred,

And earned thereby the war-god's enmity.

So that, except on Arno's bridge there stands

His statue yet, those men with useless hands

Had toiled, from ashes of the Huns, again

To build it in the years of Charlemagne.



"I have no name: I have no tale to say.

I made a gibbet of my house. Ye see

The end in this, the doleful price I pay."

Canto XIV

LOVE in my heart for that dear home of mine

Compelled me. To the nameless Florentine

I did the service that he asked. I laid

The gathered twigs against his trunk.


We left

That grove of men, of human form bereft

By their own violence, and before us lay

A space so hateful that I shrank afraid,

For surely none might cross it.

Here,
I say,

The third sad circlet wide before us spread,

A desert, by the dark wood garlanded,

As that is belted by the boiling fosse.

A desert which the hardiest might not cross

Was here. The Libyan waste where Cato led

The remnant of the host of Pompey, shows

Dry sand alike, but oh, what heavier woes,

Vengeance of God! what woes were here! Who boast

They fear not Heaven, before that dreadful coast

Have come not, or they would not doubt their dread!

Strewn on the sands the naked souls I saw

Lamenting loudly. Some by diverse law

Lay flat: some crouched: some madly raced, and these,

More numerous far, by milder cries conveyed

A lesser torment than the souls that stayed

Fixed on one spot.

Upon that concourse dire

Slow flakes were falling of dilated fire,

Straight downward, as the Alpine snows descend,

When no wind stirs the stillness.

As
there came

From burning skies the separate flakes of flame

Upon the host that Alexander led

Across the torrid Indian plains - and they

Stamped the red ashes lest they join and spread,

And all be conflagration - so the heat

Flaked downward in a slow unceasing sheet,

On sand re-kindled with recruited fire,

Like tinder that the flint and steel ignite.

Here was the dance of woven hands I in vain

That brushed aside the settling points of pain.



I said, "O thou, whom all these different hells

Obey - save those gate-demons obdurate -

Who yonder lies, whose fierce disdain repels

The eternal doom, and with a heart as great

As all his ruin, beneath the torturing rain

Contorted, moves not, nor laments?"


My guide

I questioned, but the rebel shade replied,

"Dead am I, but yet my living heart unslain

Outequals Heaven. Though this relentless rain

Fall ever; though Jove the toiling knave should tire

From whom he snatched the bolt of previous fire

That first transfixed me; though he tire alike

All Etna's smiths, there is no power to strike

Shall make me quail. Let all His force employ,

He shall not taste the fierce exultant joy

To break me, suppliant."

I had yet to learn

My guide's hard voice, that in slow words and stern

Made answer. "Think'st thou then, O Capaneus,

Thy wrath makes answer to the wrath of Zeus?

Or God regards it? But thy rageful pride,

Against thee with the outer fires allied,

Makes heavier torment for thy bane, and so

Is penal only to thyself - Behold,"

- With gentler voice again assumed, my guide

Turned to me, as the sinner's tale he told -

"That lord, who once with six like kings was foe

To Thebes, and sieged it. Then his boast, as now,

That God he equalled. But his words avow

The justice of his doom, and impotent

Against regardless Heaven, they ornament

His breast most fitly - Follow where I tread -

- Avoid the sand."

With careful steps he led

Along the margin of the mournful wood,

And spake no more, until at length we stood

Where-a thin river of most doleful red

(I shudder, thinking), from the sighing trees

Flowed outward. As the stream the harlots share

Flows outward from beneath Bulicame,

So this ran forward through the sand. Stone-bare

Its bottom, stone its shelving sides, and grey

The stony margins of its course. By these

I judged that here we crossed the fiery plain

Which else repelled us - But my guide again

Was speaking.

"Since the doleful gate ye passed,

Which still for all creation, first and last,

Stands wide, no sights of wonder seen compare

With this slight stream, whose margins cold and bare

No fires can vanquish, whose red waters quench

Hell's heat, and burn not."

"Master,"
I desired,

"For hunger wakened, grant the food required."



"Far out in ocean lies an island waste

Whose King, when once the early world was chaste,

Ruled all men. In the midst a mountain lies,

Ida, that once was fair to stormless skies,

Peace of still nights and languorous noons it had,

With murmuring leaves and falling waters glad

(Cybele there the Heavenly Child concealed);

Now lies it barer than a salted field,

Than some outdated use more desolate,

Abandoned, naked, in the change of fate.



"A giant of Eld within this mountain stands;

From Damietta with rejecting hands

He turns, and Romeward holds his eyes, as she

Who in her mirror gazes fixedly.

His head is all of purest gold: his breast

And arms are silver of the finest test:

Then all is brazen to the forking cleft:

Iron is the right leg only, but the left

Hath the foot also of the like: of clay

The dexter foot, on which he leans alway.

This giant throughout, except the golden head,

Is cracked, and from the fissure tears are shed,

And these sink downward through the rocks, until

They reach Hell's levels, and form the springs that fill

The sunless gulf we passed of Acheron,

And, draining thence, the Styx, and Phlegethon,

Till downward by this straitened conduit passed

Where all descent is ended, form at last

The lake I tell not, for thine eyes shall see."

I asked him, "If this stream from hell to hell

Descend continuous, I discern not well

Why in the loftier circles nought I saw?"



He said, "As downward, tier by tier, we draw

Toward the narrowing centre, still the bound

We circle leftward, yet the slanting round

Is incompleted; hence new sights to meet

Ye must not marvel "

"Master,"
I replied,

"One question more. Of Lethe nought ye say,

Nor speak of Phlegethon. Across our way

Comes either?"

"Surely, in this scarlet tide


The one flows past ye. But at Lethe's side

Thy feet shall stand in other air than this,

For Lethe flows not through the lost abyss,

But those repentant, from their guilt made free,

Shall find it. - Follow boldly where I tread

The stone. Not here the burning sand can spread;

Nor the red rain molest from overhead."

Canto XV

WE held the margin of the scarlet stream,

The cold grey stones beneath our feet. A steam

Arising from the water, overhead

A canopy that roofed the causeway spread,

Which quenched the fire descending.


As the dyke

From Bruges to Cadsand, where the burghers dread

The arising tide, or as the bank alike

The Paduans build in winter, to forbear

The Brenta's floods, when Chiarentana knows

The feet of summer on the mountain snows,

Such were the bulwarks of the stream, though less

In height and thickness.

Far that wilderness

Of wailing boughs we left, till backward glance

Had failed to find it. Once a troop we met

That racing past us in their mournful dance

Reversed, and sharply were their glances set

To read us, as a tailor frowns to thread

The needle, when long years of toil have

The needed sight, or as men meeting peer

At twilight, when the rising moon is thin.



Of these, one caught me by the skirt, and said,

"O marvel!" and the face that heat had skimmed,

I yet recalled, and answered, "Art thou here,

My master?"

He replied, "Brief words to win,

I pray thee, O my son, consent that I

Go backward somewhat with thee, while my kin

Continue on the path we held."

I
said,

"I do not grant it, but beseech: and more,

For those old days, when all thy learning's store

Was mine to pillage, if my guide permit,

Sit will I with thee here some space."


But he

Made answer, "Nay, for if we pause or sit,

There must we for a hundred years remain,

Powerless to writhe beneath the falling rain.

But I will walk beside thy skirts as now,

No farther than these penal laws allow,

And then my station in our band resume,

Who race, and wail our everlasting doom."



I dared not from my higher stand descend,

Nor might he to the causeway climb, and so

I walked as those in humble prayer who bend,

The while he paced the burning sand below.



He first enquired, "What chance or fate hath led

Thy feet, before thy mortal loss, to tread

A path so vacant?"

"In mid-life," I said,

"I wandered in a pathless waste, and there,

Refused of exit, in my last despair,

I was returning to its midst, when he

Who guides me came, and by this dreadful way

Will bring me home at last."

And he
to me,

"I doubt it nought, for if thy destined star

Perceived I rightly, when fair life and clear

I with thee breathed, a different haven lay

Before thee than this heat to which we steer,

Who tempt High Heaven in all we speak and are.

And but for death's too soon determining,

Mine aid had cheered thee in thy later spring.



"But those, the thankless and malign, who came

To Florence from the rocks of Fiesole,

Who mixed not with a nobler race than they,

Still in their children hate thee, deed and name.

Where the sour sorb-trees fruit, shall figs abound?

Like are they even as our fathers found.

Greed envy, hauteur, are the signs they show.

Look that thou walk not in their ways. For though

The path be stony for thy feet today,

The time is near when in thy larger fame

Both parties for thy potent aid shall pray.

Then from the he-goat's teeth the grass be far!

But those thy kind, if any yet there be

Surviving of the sacred Roman seed,

Amidst the dense growth of the ranker weed,

Let the Fiesolan beasts, the where they lie,

Make their own litter for their natural sty."



I answered, "Master, had it lain with me

To choose my boon from Heaven, not where we are,

But in the clear air of the world above,

Thy words had guided. All my heart in love

Returns toward thee, as my thoughts recall

Thine image, patient, kind, beneficent,

That taught me, tireless, hour by hour, in all,

How by the growth of that which Heaven hath lent,

Man wins to life immortal. While I live,

In nought but words - and grateful words I give-

Is still my power to thank thee. All you tell,

Mind-treasured, with a text remembered well,

I keep for One on whom I hope, that she

May comment further, as shall surely be

If her I reach hereafter. This I say

Meantime, let Fortune at her worst of will,

So conscience chide not, wreck my days: and still

The boor his mattock's baser laws obey."



My leader heard me, and a backward glance

Across his shoulder, to the right, he cast,

To where we talked, and answered, "What ye say,

Forget not in the days undawned."


But yet

I questioned Ser Brunetto, "Tell me they

Most famed on earth, who pay the godless debt

In torment of this fiery rain at last?"



He answered, "Some there be ye well may know,

But more that better should the world forget,

And time for speech is shortened. Briefly, here

Are clerks and scholars, all betrayed so low

By one defiling. Priscian here must run.

And of our city here Accorso's son,

Francesco. If such scurf thy mind admits,

That base one of the Arno howling sits,

Who, to Bacchiglione's bank transferred,

There left his sin-wrecked nerves. - But further word

I may not. - Yonder in the distance see

New smoke arising from the sandy waste.

Fresh folk race on with whom I must not be. -

Those writings mine by which on earth I live

Remember. - More I ask not."

Here
in haste

He loosed my skirts, and turned, and seemed as they

Who at Verona's summer sports compete,

Naked, across the fields with flying feet,

To win the vesture green their speed to pay.

Canto XVI

THE sandy plain was almost past. There rose

Such noise as murmurs through the hive. For near

We came to where the tainted water sheer

Falls to the level of the fraudulent,

The next sad circle. Ever past us went

The flying bands beneath the fiery rain,

Scattering the sharp tormenting flakes. Of those,

Three runners from a troop dividing came,

Who called me with one impulse, "Stranger, stay,

Who by the garb hast found this dreadful way

From our perverted city."

The searing flame

Had baked their limbs, and in the hardened flesh

New wounds were formed with every flake. Ah me

Again in thought the piteous sight I see,

And make their anguish mine. My guide the while

Turned as they ran. "Wait here. For courtesy

Deserve they from thyself, than theirs to thee

More urgent. Only that the falling heat

Forbids, thyself with greater haste should meet

Their coming, than their own."

At
that we paused,

And when they saw it their arresting cry

They ceased, and recommenced the general wail.



I might not reach them through the burning hail,

Nor might they to the causeway climb, nor run

Beside me, for the end was now so nigh,

Nor might they, lest more grief the torture caused,

Remain unmotioned in one place, and so

They circled, as the nude, oiled champions go,

Rotating, for the chance of grasp or blow

Watchful, but these their eyes so held on me,

That feet and neck perforce moved contrary,

As round they wheeled.

One hailed me first, "O thou,


Whose living feet, as some strange powers allow,

Resound among the shadows, if aught so base

As we who bake in this unfertile place

Thy mind regard, recall our earthly fame,

And heed our plea to learn thy later name.

He in whose footsteps I rotate, though now

So peeled and bare, when in clear light, was he,

Gualdrada's grandson, who so nobly wrought

In field and counsel both; the one ye see

Who treads the sand behind, in all men's thought

Should still be fragrant, Aldobrandi he;

And I, Jacopo Rusticucci. She,

That savage wife an ill fate gave, has brought

This misery on me."

Had some shelter shown

To guard me from the slow unceasing rain,

I had not shrunk to cross the heated plain,

To greet them in their grief, whose names are known

So highly, nor I think my Master's voice

Had chid me; but their aspects, baked and dried,

Repelled and warned me.

"Not
contempt," I cried,

"But sorrow in my heart since first my guide

Prepared me to expect such names, has grown,

And will not leave me soon. Alike we own

The same fair city, where your deeds today

Are told not seldom, and true men rejoice

Who hear them. From the bitter gall I go

The fruit to find, and yet descend more low

To Hell's deep centre ere I climb."

He
said,

"Thy spirit long within thy members dwell,

And fame behind thee shine! But speak I pray

If valour quite and noble grace have fled

From our loved city. For one, whose place in Hell

Was filled but late, - with yonder troop he burns,

Torments us largelier than the pain he learns,

With tales of its befalling. Is there now

Such dearth of honour, lifted once so high?"

And my heart failed me for direct reply,

But with uplifted face I cried, "O thou,

My Florence! Not thy fallen tears are dry

For plebeian strangers in thy halls, and pride

And riot extolled, and honour crucified."



And these that heard, their glances from me drew,

And at each other gazed, as men that knew

My confirmation, and divined it true.



At length they answered in one voice, "If there,

As here, the truth unharmed thy lips may dare,

Blest art thou! If from this unlighted air

Again ye climb to where the stars are bare,

When with rejoicing heart I once was there

Thy thought looks backward, let thy words to men

Exalt our names for that which late we were."



At this they broke their giddy wheel, and then

More swiftly than the heart could breathe Amen

With legs like wings, across the sand they fled,

And we went forward once again.

So
near

The sound of waters now, I scarce could hear

My leader's voice. As that first stream to head

From Monte Viso's height a separate way

Seaward, its quieter name and loftier bed

Forgets at Forli, and in sheer descent

Above San Benedetto's towers resounds

(There where a thousand in its wealthy bounds

Might refuge, hindered by the sheltered few),

So here the red stream to the nether pit

Fell headlong, echoing through the void.


I wore

A cord girt round me (once I thought to snare

That painted pard of which I spoke before,

So noosed), and this my guide commanded me

To loose, and reached it from me coiled, and there

Far outward flung it in the blank abyss.



The blackness gulped it, while I thought, "From this,

An act so strange, must spring new mystery, -

How fixed he gazes where it sank, - and he,

As though he heard me, answered. Ah, what care,

What caution should we yield to Those who see

Not the deed only, but the thought!


He said,

"I signalled That which rises while I speak,

And makes thy question clear."

A man
may dread

Truth more than falsehood to his friends to speak,

When truth than falsehood shows more wild, and weak

Of proof is that he inly knows, but I

Am barred from silence. Reader, truth I swear,

By all my hope of fame this work shall bear,

That slowly through the gross and fetid air

A Shape swam upward. As the mariners see

Their comrade rising from the depths, who dived

An anchor tangled in the rocks to free,

Against the brink the wingless bulk arrived.

Canto XVII

BEHOLD the reptile with the stinging tail,

That mountains hold not, nor strong walls avail

To bar, nor any weapons wound. Behold

Him who diseases all the world with guile."



So spake my guide, and to the monster signed

To join us where the causeway ceased, and he,

That shape of loathsome fraud, swam warily

Landward, and rested there his bust, the while

The undulations of his tail unrolled

Trailed outward in the hollow dark behind.



His face was human, with a glance benign,

Kindly, and just, and mild, but all beside

Was reptile to the venomed fork. Two paws

Were hairy to the armpits. Bright design

And various colour patterned all his hide

On breast and flank, in knots and circles drawn;

Splendid as broidered cloths that mock the dawn,

From Smyrna, or the looms of Tartary,

Or those Arachne wove.

As oft we see

The wherries half afloat and half ashore,

Or as the German beaver waits his prey,

So on the brink the unclean monster lay,

Which brims the desert with containing stone;

The bust reposing, and the tail alone

Still twisting, restless in the void: it bore

A forked end, venomed as the scorpions are.



Then spake my guide, "Along the dreadful beach

Now must we for a little space, to reach

This shape malignant where it rests." We went

Down from the causeway on the right, and then

Ten steps across the stony marge, that so

Clear of the sand and fire our path should go

Along the skirting of the void, and when

We reached the monster, near at hand I knew

Along the edge of sand and stone, a row

Of sinners crouching.

Here my Master said,


"All kinds who suffer in this round to view,

Before we leave it, mark their mien who sit

Around the margin of the deeper pit.

Go forward to them, but be brief. The while

Converse I shortly with this beast of guile,

That his broad shoulders bear us down."


Thereat

Approached I to the doleful folk who sat

Thus on the torture's utmost bound. Their woe

Was streaming from their eyes Above, below,

With restless movements, like the dog that lies

In summer, sleepless from the teasing flies,

And turns, now here, now there, with snout and paw

Smiting, so they with ceaseless hands and vain

Brushed the hot sand, or flicked the burning rain.



From face to face I looked, but nought I saw

Familiar, only that a purse there hung

From every neck, of various prints, and each,

The while they baked along the dismal beach,

Gazed down, as though his sure salvation lay

The emblazoned pouch within.

The
shades among,

One gilded pouch an azure lion bore,

And one of gules a white goose showed, but more,

I paused at one who on a silver ground

A pregnant sow gave azure, and thereon

He looked, and growled, "What dost thou? Get thee gone.

Thou art not of us. But since thy live return

My word may carry, let the Paduans learn

The place at my left side, that's vacant now,

Awaits Vitaliano." Like a cow

He writhed his mouth, and licked his nose, and said,

"Of Padua I; but these are Florentines

Around me. Oft they din my ears and cry,

We wait the sovereign cavalier, who shines

In silver. He shall bear the he goats red

Upon the pouch that decks his throat."


But I

Would wait no longer, lest my guide were wroth,

And left these dolorous souls, pain-wearied now,

Beneath their burden of eternity,

While backward to the beast I went.


His haunch

My guide had climbed, and now to venture forth

He called me likewise. "Here I mount, that thou

Shalt ride before me; so the swinging tail,

More distant from thy fears, when out we launch,

Shall steer us downward. Here no steadier stair

Avails, but through the empty dark we sail.

Be bold, and fear not. For the fetid air

Shall bear us safely."

As the man that
fears

The nearing ague, pale and shivering stands,

Already gazing on a bloodless nail,

Not strengthful even to leave the harmful shade,

Was I that heard. But yet with trembling hands

(As some poor knave his craven heart conceals,

Emboldened by his master's calm), I made

My passage to the shoulders broad. I tried

For words in which to beg my gentle guide

To lend his arm, but no sound came, and he,

Who knew my thoughts, and aided all, thereon

Reached round me while he ordered, - "Geryon,

Now start, and widely be thy circles spread,

And slow thy sinking." As the wherries slide

Downward and backward to the waiting tide,

So slid the monster from the bank, until,

Launched in free space, he outward turned his head

To face the void, and like an eel his tail

Was twisting, and his paws outreached to fill

With gathered air.

Did greater fears assail

When Phaëthon let the loose reins fall, that they

Were trailed through heaven, and burnt the Milky Way?

Or when Icarus felt the wax divide

From feathered loins, the while his father cried,

Far under, Evil road is thine? No sight

Was left me, save the beast I rode. The night

Was hollow where he swam. I might not know

That sank we, saving that the wind below

Beat upward, and against my face it blew

As round we wheeled in gradual loops. I knew,

Right-hand, the thunder of the whirlpool rise,

And outward stretched my head, with downward eyes,

And then shrank backward in more fear, for high

Through the gross darkness pierced a wailing cry,

And flickering lights were far beneath, whereby

I learnt our height, and by these sights aware

Of how we wheeled, and in what space of air,

And how descending, colder fear I knew.



But as the falcon, soaring long in vain,

Wing-wearied, stoops to reach the empty plain,

Though neither bird nor lure attract, the while

The falconer cries Alas I and winging slow

Disdainful, sullen, not for bait or guile

Is lured, but from his master sulks, - below

The ragged rocks at last, this Geryon,

By us defeated of his customed freight,

Alit, but lightened of my earthly weight

Like arrow from the loosened string was gone.

Canto XVIII

Now stood we in the utter depth of Hell,

For here ten trenches, with a central well,

Contain all traitors in their kinds. The wall

Is iron-grey stone that rings it round, and all

Its floors and bastions are alike. Its name

Is Malebolge. In this central shame

There lie ten moats that like a tenfold chain

Circle the wide and deep and dreadful well

That midmost sinks, - but in its place I tell

That horror.

As succeeding moats begird

A fortress, so, between the outer wall

And central shaft, the ten great chasms extend

In which the sin-divided traitors herd,

And as such moats are bridged, so cliffs remain

Connecting bank to bank, converging all

Where, at the margin of the pit, they end.



By the first fosse we stood, when Geryon shook

His back in anger from my weight, and shot

Upward again for his familiar prey.

My guide, left-hand, beneath the rampart took

narrow path the ditch that edged, to find

The nearest crossing. In his steps behind

I walked, nor spared upon my right to look

Down on the crowd that filled the trench. Their lot

Revealed new torments, and new griefs, for they

Had live tormentors for their bane, unlike

The circles past.

Beneath the demons' ban

All-naked here in two great crowds they ran,

In opposite ways. For close beneath the dyke

The advancing concourse faced us all, but those

Lined in the further rank beside us moved,

Though livelier-motioned.

As at Rome were seen


The pilgrims in the year of Jubilee

Divided on the bridge, - one crowd was sent

Toward St. Peter's, one reversed that went

Toward Giordano, - so these shades I see

Herded. Behind them demons, horned and hooved,

With swinging scourges move. Their backs are grooved

And whealed with beating where the thongs have been.

Ah, how the first cut lifts their legs! Not one

That waits a second stroke to make him run.



As on we passed, a sinner stayed mine eye

Whose face familiar seemed. With bended head

He shunned my gaze, but to my guide I said,

"One was there in the troop that passed us by

Already that my sight had known." Thereat

He paused not only, but in courtesy

Some steps allowed me to return, that I

Might question whom I sought; and when we found

That hiding shade I cried aloud, "O thou!

In vain that wouldst, with careful glance on ground,

Avoid, except that features feigned ye wear,

I know ye, Venedico. What curst prank

Hath cast thee pickling in so foul a tank?"



He answered, sullen, "Nought I seek to tell,

But thy clear speech, that through the murk of Hell,

With recollection of the former air,

Resounds so strangely, all compels. I run

For no gained greed or spoil my lust had won.

Persuasions only brought my bane. I weep

That fair Ghisola shared the Marquis' sleep

By my contriving. That the truth, whate'er

The aspect that a viler tale may wear

In lips of gossip. Tell the Bolognese

It is not only I that run with these

From our false city. They crowd more numerous

Than all the infant tongues on earth today

That Sipa in their speech are taught to say,

Between the Reno and the Savena.

Alone and pregnant. For that guilt to pay

He runs, and Medea weights his doom. All they

Whose hidden lives the like deceit confess

In this direction race. But longer stay

Deserves not. Pass we to the further trench."



The narrow path ran on, and somewhat sank,

But arching where it bridged the chasms.


A stench

Assailed us as we neared the next, beyond

The vapour cast from any stagnant pond

Of earth's excretions, scent and sight alike

Assailing. Moaning from the depth arose,

And gasping, and the noise of beating hands.

The banks were caked with filth the vapour left

In rolling upward from the dismal cleft,

Which sinks so deep that he alone who stands

On the mid archway of the bridge can see

Its hidden baseness. There, with useless blows,

I saw the wallowing crowd of culprits strike

The flowing filth from off their mouths. A head

Was there so soiled, I looked in doubt if he

Were priest or layman, till in wrath he bawled,

"Why dost thou scan me in my filthiness?

I am not soaking in a different mess

From those around me."

In return I called,

"Because I knew thee when thy hair was dry.

If rightly through thy present dirt I guess

Thou art Alessio."

Striving still to clear

His head, that like a rotten pumpkin showed,

He answered, "Yea, my flatteries brought me here.

Fair words alone have filled this dismal road."



Then spake my guide, "Look further out, for she,

That fouled sprawled harlot, whom in vain you see

Scrape off the filth with filthy nails, and try,

Now crouching at the side, now straining high,

To avoid the deluge of the dung, on earth

Was Thais, whose sweet tongue her lovers' worth

Exalted past her own. But longer stay

This trench deserves not, nor a look's delay."

Canto XIX

O SIMON MAGUS! O ye pestilent!

Followers and thieves of him; who prostitute

For gold and silver things divine I Lament,

For here is your abiding. Here for you

The trumpet sounds damnation. Here I stand

On the third arch, by which your trench is spanned,

And what behold I? Heaven and earth unite

With these dark horrors, O Wisdom infinite!

To show the balance of thy scales is true.



Smooth on each wall the livid stone was dressed,

And pierced with holes, as where the martins nest,

But larger, and the stony floor contained

Round holes alike, in size and shape the same

As in my beauteous San Giovanni

The stands for the baptizers. Lately one

I broke to save a drowning life: let none

Revile me with an altered tale. There came

From out each hole two legs: the rest remained

Housed in the rock. The soles unceasingly

Burned, and the legs, that to the calf were bare,

So strained and kicked that any rope had burst

That held them. On the soles of these accurst

Bright flames that licked the outer surface were;

As on things oiled, they moved from heel to toe,

Flickering and dancing.

"Master, show
the name

Of him whose legs from out the flood I see,

That twist and writhe and strain more furiously

Than all beside, and licked by livelier flame?"



He answered, "Somewhat if we leave the bridge,

And sideways follow the dividing ridge,

This fosse that severs from the next below,

There is a passage in the wall, too steep

For any human feet or hands to go,

But I will bear thee, if thou wilt, and so

Himself shall tell thee why so strongly leap

His fire-licked members."

I replied, "Thy
will

Is mine, thou knowest. For if my voice were still,

My mind were naked to thy thought."


Left-hand

We turned along the lower boundary,

And here my Master bore me down, until

Upon the perforated flood to stand

He set me safely. Where he placed me down

I saw the lamentable legs of him

Who writhed so hardly.

"Whosoe'er thou
be,

Who hast thy body thus reversed," I cried,

"Save by thy doom the power of speech has died,

Unhappy, answer!" As the friar must bend,

Confessing him who in his grave is penned,

For some perfidious murder judged to die

Head downwards; who, to more his fate extend,

Prolongs confession, while the spades delay,

So to the entrance of the hole did I

Stoop down, and upward rose a voice, "Art here

Already, Boniface? Before the year

The writ foretold me? Hast thou tired so soon

Of that dear wealth which was the tempting boon

For which thou didst the Bride of Christ betray?

- Won by deceit, and cast in spoils away."



And I stood wildered, till my Master said,

"Delay not thy reply, I am not he

Whom thou believest."

This I called,
whereon

The spirit madly wrenched his feet, and cried

With weeping voice, "Then what concern with me

Thy steps to this unholy place has led?

By that Great Mantle from my shoulders gone,

The She-bear whelped me, and her cubs I tried

To feed and foster, and exalt their pride.

Much gold I pursed, and straitly pursed am I;

And here I wait until the next shall die

And take my place, and in that joyful hour

I join the earlier of our kind, acower

Beneath the fissures of the stones that lie.



"But more already have I baked," he said,

"And longer stood on my inverted head,

Than he that follows in my place shall know.

There comes a shepherd from the West. Bordeaux

Shall give the Church a viler lord than he

And I together in our deeds should be.

For like that Jason of the Maccabees

Who bought God's church, and bent his heathen knees

To alien altars, shall he prove, and so,

As to his guilt his king complaisant showed,

The king of France shall take that impious road."



I know not if I spoke too foolish-bold

But in this strain I answered, "Say what gold

Our Lord from Peter for His keys required?

Or by Matthias next was Peter hired

To yield that office that the guilty lost?

But justly dost thou pay the penal cost

Of thy betrayal. Keep that golden fee

That made thee false to Charles of Sicily

As best thou mayst. And but those Keys revered,

Which in glad life thy hands have turned, repress

Mine heart s indignant wrath, the nakedness

Of all thou wast, my harder words should say.

For avarice in thy Seat its guilt hath scared

Upon the conscience of mankind. It treads

The just man downward, and exalts the base.

A wrath foreshown by that Evangelist

Who saw the harlot with the seven heads

And the ten horns, who kept her virtuous place,

Pleasing her spouse, until the kings she kissed

In acts of fornication. Gods to you

Are gold and silver. In your eyes they shine

Deities a hundred, while the idolater,

That in your pride you excommunicate,

To one false god bends only. Constantine!

What countless evils through the years accrue,

Not that thou lovedst God's spouse, but gave to her

A wealth unseemly for her lowly state."



As thus mine indignation spake, below

If conscience waked or rage I may not know,

But wild and furious sprawled his feet. My guide

I glanced at, fearful lest his looks should chide,

And faced assent. Again he lifted me,

And by that path the boldest goat had shunned,

He bore me to the crossway back. Beneath,

The fifth great cleft gave other woes to see.

Canto XX

ANOTHER valley in its turn I tell.

Another guilt, another depth of hell,

Extends beneath. The great trench circular

We gazed on from the crossing arch, and far

I saw that silent weeping crowd and slow

That moves around it, as the chanters go

In earthly process of the Litanies.

But other cause for shortened steps have these,

For when my distant glance I dropped more low

On those beneath, an unfamiliar woe

They showed, neck-twisted where the body joins,

Till each his own and not his neighbour's loins

Could gaze on while he walked, and for this cause

They needs went backwards. Some by Nature's laws

Distorting palsies so may wrench, but I

Have seen nought like it, nor believe the sky

Looks down on such contortion.

Ye who
read

- God give ye vintage of the words ye heed -

Reflect how I, who watched our human seed

So altered and debased, with visage dry

Could watch them. They of heavenly form bereft

So far, that where the hinder parts are cleft

The tears rolled down them as they wept, and I,

Whose eyes thereat with kindred tears were wet,

Bowed down upon the cold stone parapet,

And wept beyond controlling.

But my
guide

Spake sharply. "Art thou of those fools," he said,

"Whose pity liveth where it best were dead?

For what more impious than the thought that dares

Beyond man's province, and in fancy shares

The mind of the Creator? Raise thine head.

Look up! For near us is Amyhiaraüs

For whom Hell gaped. The wondering Thebans cried,

'Why dost thou leave the war? Why hasten thus

Thy chariot horses down the steep?' But he

Nor paused, nor turned, till Minos' seat before

He stayed and trembled. Not this guise he wore

In that proud kinghood of his fame. Dost see

How loth his shoulders form his breast? He thought

To see far forward. Now his limbs are taught

To bear him backward. Next Tiresias,

Who smote too boldly with his sorcerous rod

The entangled snakes, and found his limbs transform

To woman's comelier contours, soft and warm;

Which aspect lasted till he smote again

The twisted dealers of the earlier bane.

The next is Aruns who, in Luni's hills,

Whereunder toil the Carrarese for bread,

Cave-couched amidst the marble; all the ills

That lay fore-fated in the thought of God,

He sought to read from unobstructed seas,

Or where the night her starry legions led.

Now walks he backward for his wage. With these

Observe that body with the wry-necked head

That onward shuffles, while her hair is spread

Upon the breasts we see not. Bear with me

A little while I tell. For here is she,

Manto, who after her long wandering

Found roothold in my native place. Her sire

Died, and the city of the Bacchic rites

Groaned to the scourging of an alien king,

And she went forth. In northern Italy

Where the wild Tyrol bars the German mire,

The hills are hollowed. Like an inland sea

The lake of Garda lies. A thousand streams

Flash foaming downward from the Alpine heights

From Garda to the Val Camonica

To feed it, till the basin brims, and then

Flows over at a point where all the sees,

Trentine and Brescian and Veronese,

Unite, that all their passing priests it seems

Might bless the men that dwell there. Builded strong,

To tame the Brescian and the Bergamese,

That truth I hear. But wilt thou bear with me

That backward turns my mind to these that move

In that sad process underneath?"


He said:

"Regard thou him whose dusky shoulders spread

His weight of beard. A Grecian augur he

When Greece so empty of its males became

That scarce the cradles held them. Aulis heard

Eurypilus and Calchas speak the word

That loosed the cables of their ships. The tale

I told before in my great tragedy,

As well thou knowest. And here Eurypilus

Beneath thee moves. The next is Michael Scot,

Lean-flanked, who could by magic artistry

Against the demons' subtlest wiles prevail.

Guido Bonatti comes behind, and next

Asdente weeps that his vain mind forgot

His bench and leather. Mark those crones unsexed

That follow. Witchcraft with their waxen dolls

And mystic herbs they wrought, and left therefor

The seemly ordered life which Heaven extols,

The loom and needle. But the time permits

No more to tarry. Come! The western wave

At Seville yields the moon her watery grave.

Full was she two days since, that late ye saw

So thinly crescent in the pathless wood."

We left them, twisted in their sorcerous pits,

Conversing as we onward walked, until

We reached the shadow of a darker ill,

When gazing down the fifth black chasm we stood.

Canto XXI

NOW looked we downward on a darker ditch

Than those preceding. As the bubbling pitch

Boils in the great Venetian arsenal,

To caulk the wave-beat ships, when winter's call

In-herds them from repulsing seas; and there

One builds anew, and one with hard repair

Plugs the cracked ribs that heat and cold have strained,

And many friendless winds have buffeted

In many wanderings on the ocean ways.

One mends the injured stern, and one the head,

One fashions oars, one joins the broken stays,

One sews the jib, one lends his aid to spread

New mainsail for the rotten sheet and stained

That drew them inward. So they toil beside

The pitchy cauldron - so the boiling here

Filled, like a cauldron, all the trench entire,

That art Divine, and never earthly fire,

So heated. Breaking on the surface wide

Were bubbles only. Nought beside I saw,

Save that the blackness heaved, and then compressed,

Unceasing.

Sight of that retentive maw

Drew my fixed gaze, until my leader's cry

Alarmed me sharply, "Guard thee! Guard!" and I

Stayed not to look, but toward him leapt, nor guessed

Why called he, till within that safety pressed

Of his sure arm I turned me round, and there,

Across the bridge, a coal-black demon ran.

How closer shrank I from that fierce aspect I

How near the menace of the wings outspread

And lightfoot speed! His shoulders sharp and high

Sustained the haunches of a hanging man,

Whose ankles in his claws were fast.


He said:

"Ho, Taloned of the Fifth Damnation! Here

Is Santa Zita's Elder! Thrust him down!

While I for others of the sinful town

Go backward. Plenty there this goal shall win,

For all men there contrive the barterer's sin,

- Except, of course, Bonturo!"

From
the bridge

He cast him, twirling. From that weight's relief

Straightening, he mounted up the stony ridge

So swift I thought that never hound on thief

Was loosed so gladly.

Plunging headlong in


The sinner sank, and rose convulsed, and writhed,

Arching his back as one who prays. There came

A cackling laughter from beneath the bridge,

And flying demons rose. "This Holy Place,"

They mocked, "befits a sanctimonious face,

But nought it saves thee from thy bathing. Ho!

Ye swim not here as in the Serchio.

It is not willed a naked part to show,

Except the knives shall slice it."


As the cooks

Around the boiler group with waiting prongs,

To thrust the carcase if it rise too far

Above the broth that stews it, so did they

The twisting sinner with a score of hooks,

Clamoring derisive. "Find thy place below,

Where mayst thou pilfer in thy private way

If aught attract thee there."

My
Master said,

"Wait here, and fear not. Where the buttress swells

Crouch down, and hide, and whatsoe'er to me

Of outrage or repulse you hear or see

You need not tremble. Through the deeper

An earlier time I came, and proved their dread."



I crouched - and trembled. Down the central bridge

He went and left me. Ere he gained the ridge

That barred it from the next succeeding woe

The demons marked him. As the dogs outfly,

White-fanged and deafening, if a varlet show

A mood to linger at the gate, they came,

A rush of wings and drags outreached. Stout heart

He needed surely. But his voice outrang

Steadfast. "No victim for your rage am I.

Stand back! Ye know the heavy stripes that tame

Revolt. What! Would ye drag me? Stand apart.

Let one come forward. When he learns my name

Then choose ye freely."

Croaked the grisly
crew,

"Let Foultail test him," and the fiend advanced

Malignly confident. "What power," he said,

"Delays we bathe thee? Leap, or fork and fang

Shall teach it!" Backward at the troop he glanced,

That stirred impatient. But my leader knew

The Power that cloaked him.

"Thinkest thou thus, misled,

I blundered downward for thy sport? I come

Divinely messaged, where propitious fate

Hath willed another through these depths to show.

The greater demons at the outer gate

Have learnt it. Scatheless past thy ward we go.

To me the outrage of thy cries is dumb.

Thy hooks are pointless."

At these words the
fiend,

Sore daunted, drooped his ghastly tool, and cried,

"We must not strike him," to the rest, and I,

Who till this time the friending buttress screened,

My guide called forward. At the word I ran

Across the fearful space to reach his side,

The demons crowding as I came. (I saw

The footmen at Caprona once, who shrank

As I did, when they looked, and rank on rank

Their weaponed foes were round them, and they stood

Protected only by the rules of war

Against the crowd that yelled their deaths.) They would

The thing they dared not, but their lust began

To conquer prudence. Each the next would egg

To nick me. "Score him on the rump." - "Do thou." -

"Do thou then." - "Hook him, Hellbat, by the leg."



But Foultail railed against them, "Cease thee now,

Scarmiglione, lest the price we pay."

And then to us, - "Ye seek a broken way.

A thousand and two hundred years ago

And sixty-six, it was but yesterday,

And five hours later, Hell's foundations so

Were wrenched and shaken, that the bridge beyond

Was flung in fragments to the chasm below.

Along the margin of the boiling pond

Ye needs must go some distance. There I send

A swift patrol, lest any crawling wretch

Beyond the pitch his blackened limbs extend.

Ye may go safely in their guard. They know

Too well to trick ye. Alichino here,

And Calcabrina, and Cagnazzo thou,

With Ciriatto of the tusks, and those

Who form the ten that Barbariccia leads,

Fanged Draghignazzo, Graffiacane,

Hellbat, and Libicocco next, and he

That deepest-hued in peculation glows,

Fierce Rubicante. Oft the boiling breeds

Such boldness that the sinners seek relief

Along the margin, to their greater grief.

Search well. But guide these twain in safety through,

Along the crags that edge the boiling glue,

Until ye reach the nearest cliff that stands

Unbroken, and bisects the trench."


I said,

"O Master, let us seek the path unled

Than in such escort I Mark them glance and grin.

They nudge, expectant that their sport begin

When once from Foultail's sight we pass. For me,

I would not further, on a path I see

More dreadful hourly."

"Fear thou nought for
that,"

My Master answered; "thee they grin not at,

But in the malice of their hope to fetch

Clear of the pond and flay some crawling wretch

That leaves the boiling."

By the leftward bank


We then went forward in that grisly rank.

Canto XXII

MUCH have I seen of camps and moving men,

But not that escort of the demons ten

My mind compares. Not Campaldino saw

Such sight uncouth; nor any rout of war,

Pageant or masque, grotesque or carnival,

Mummery or tilt, can aught their like recall.

Nought in Italian lands, or lands afar,

Nor barque by landfall steered, or leading star,

Nought moves, on earth or wave or heavens of air,

Like those swart fiends, our chosen escort, were.

"Who wills to church must there with saints consort:

Who seeks the tavern must with guzzlers sport."

So runs the proverb. With these demons we

Paced the black verge that ringed the dreadful sea.

Yet little heed my mind allowed to know

Their various aspects vile. For seethed below

That lake of pitch the where in burning heat

The unclean of hand received their payment meet.

Most was I bent to learn the dole they knew

Whose sins their souls within that cauldron threw.

As dolphins, restless of the storm to be,

Arch their swift backs above the heaving sea,

Whereby the seamen, peril-warned, prepare

To meet fierce winds with decks and spars stripped bare,

So seemed, one instant's snatched release to gain,

Some sinner twisting in that boiling pain,

A shorter moment than the lightnings take,

Would arch his back from out the burning lake.

As wary frogs that round the stagnant ditch

Show noses only, so the bubbling pitch

Showed eyes of sinners, wide in watchful fright,

That instant as the taloned imps they sight

Sank in the slime. And as one frog may stay,

While all beside have dived and slipped away,

I saw (and shudder still in thought to see),

How one delayed, and Graffiacani

Bared his great claws, and clutched the diving head

By pitchy locks, and from that burning bed

Forth hauled him. So perchance yourselves have seen

A fresh-speared otter from the water green

Dragged, writhing.

Closing round their piteous prey,

"O rend him, Rubicante, rend and flay!"

Cried the obscene crew. But I to Virgil then,

"O Master, couldst thou of the souls of men

Learn whom they seize, ere yet, their work complete,

They backward fling him to the liquid heat?"



Close stepped my guide, at which the fiends controlled

Parted and stilled, and half reluctant hold

They loosed, the while he asked what sinful name

Men spake on earth that there to torture came.

And while the fiends their horrid trade delayed,

The wretch, ere yet his quivering pelt was flayed,

Gave answer. "Fathered by a waster wild,

Born in Navarre, my mother sold her child,

Constrained by hunger, to a lord's employ;

Then to King Thibault (yet himself a boy),

My fawning service passed. By bribe and cheat

I bought the lease of this unending heat."



As thus constrained his trembling lips allowed

The sin that cast him to that grisly crowd,

Side-thrust beneath his belly's rounded cup

The tusk of Ciriatto ripped him up.



As some caught mouse by wicked cats at play

Is tossed and toyed, he fared; but "Stand away!"

Snarled Barbariccia, while his limbs he twined

The victim round, and held, before, behind,

Joined in one piece. "If more thou wouldst," he said,

"Ask, ere we cast him to the deathless dead!"

And while the fiends forewent their labour sweet

To fling his entrails to the bubbling heat,

My Master asked him, "In the boiling flood

What others meet ye of your country's blood?"

He answered, "One not distant far from those,

A wretch Sardinian born, beside me rose

Last ere they snatched me from the lake away.

I would with him in scalding heat I lay

From slitting tusk secure, and plunging prong!"



But Libicocco cried "We wait too long!"

And ere his hook the chiefer fiend could stay,

Mangling and tearing from the bone away

The greater forepart of the arm, it fell.

While Draghignazzo next, a thought more slow,

Snatched downward, reaching for the legs below,

And clamouring rose again those birds of Hell.

But their Decurion wheeled, and loose thereat

His tortured captive wrenched, and railed and spat,

Cursing discordant till they stilled.


Once more

My Master asked him, "When they dragged ashore

Your form reluctant from the burning slime

Whom left ye happier?"

He, some passing
time,

Gazed at his wound, with vacant eyes; but when

Were restless motions from the demons ten,

Made hurrying answer. "Friar Gomita he,

That Pisa's lord, across Sardinia's sea,

Sent, trustful, for Gallura's rule. He made

His profit ever from his trust betrayed.

His lord's worst foes the smoothing bribe could pay,

And work his loss their quiet unhindered way:

A pot was he where every fraud would stew;

No theft was whispered but the worse he knew:

No knave was he, but very king, of wrong.

Michel, who sang on earth an equal song,

And held the neighbouring rule, beside him lies" -

But here he caught the Hell-bird's glittering eyes

Fixed on him, lustful for the hindered prey,

And all his cunning mind extreme of fear

Made active - "surely, would ye seek to hear

Tuscan or Lombard that on earth ye knew,

I need but call to bring the tortured crew.

For ever, if the demon chase be slack,

And one from out the scald a scourgeless back

Heaves from the clinging pitch, and crawls impune

Out on the marsh, with cautious signal soon

He whistles to his boiling mates to try

The like relief; and in such note will I

So call them. Only bid the demon band

Some little backward in the shades to stand,

To give them heart."

His snout Cagnazzo raised,

Contemptuous of the fraud, and sniffed, and gazed

Derisive round. "The sinner thinks," he said,

"To plunge once more in that infernal bed,

When backward in the shades we hide."


But he

Whined with new guile. "I might not hope to flee

Thy swifter wings. I only thought to know

Those others rendered to a kindred woe,

As malice moved me."

Swift Alichino

Gave answer. "If the steep descent ye try

We shall not trace your steps, but stooping fly

Straight for the pitch, and wait you there to rend.

Call whom ye will, but if ye fraud intend

Dear price ye pay. - We will the slope ascend

Some space, and o'er the bank's reverse conceal

Our waiting wings, the while the larger meal

His malice brings us." Thus, their mood reversed,

The cheat prevailed. Cagnazzo first, who first

Derided, now the offered sport would try,

To draw more victims from their steaming sty.



The demons turned their eyes, the ridge to climb,

A moment upward. Swift his chosen time

The desperate sinner seized, and leapt.


Aware

Instant, while yet he cleft the yielding air,

The broad-winged demon that had snapped the snare,

Grouped his close vans, and like a falling kite

Shot headlong lakeward, as a stone should smite.

Yet deftly, as the sinner sank from sight,

With wings outreached, and lifted breast aright

Retrieved, and screaming in his rage of prey

Skimmed the black gulf.

But close behind his
way

Came Calcabrina, great of wing as he,

And all his rage the baffled chase to see

Against Alichino turned. New sport we saw.

Demon on demon leapt, with tooth and claw

Tearing. For while the prey they plunged to pluck

Sank in the seething like a diving duck,

The frustrate falcons flapped and clutched, and tore,

Smote with wide wings, and closed and overbore

Each other, turning in mid-air, and fell.



Were laughter here, if any depth of Hell

Could hold it. Happed they on that surface hot,

Their victims' torments theirs, and all forgot

Their mutual rage in screaming pain. They drew

Separate: they strove with desperate strength anew

Their wings to lift from out the holding glue,

But vainly.

Fast their fellow demons flew

With shrill laments above the vaporous ditch,

And while they sank within the boiling pitch,

From either side at Barbariccia's call

Lined banks, their mates with hooks and drags to haul

To land. Still sinking as we turned away,

Sprawled on the marsh, the nightmare demons lay.

Canto XXIII

WE did not wait that escort more, but trod

A silent path in thoughtful guise, as go

The Minor Friars through the streets arow,

One after one, and those renounced of God,

Demon and barterer, we left.

I
thought

Of &Aelig;sop's fable of the frog that drew

The mouse behind it to the drowning flood,

And how that sinner in the boiling glue,

Beyond design, the chasing demons brought

To find a like disaster. Thought to thought

As Yea to Ay were kindred. Then my blood

Chilled through me as my mind advanced to see

How rage might wake against us, as the cause

Not only that the sinner missed their claws,

But that their comrades in such snare were caught,

And backward gazed I, and my guide besought,

"O Master, save thou hide thyself and me

Most swiftly, terror shakes my heart to see

Those demons tear us, for their broken sport.

Their malice, restive at our heels that ran,

If rage recruit it, not their leader's ban

Nor thought of later stripes shall hold. My fear

So urges that meseems the empty rear

Is dark with wings that chase us."


He replied,

"No leaded mirror moving at thy side

More instant would return thy shape than I

Receive thy thoughts unspoken. Rising nigh,

The rampart is not too precipitous

For careful scaling; if it falleth thus

Upon the further side, we soon shall stand

Beyond their peril."

Ere the ruse he
planned

Was action, with a whirl of wings they came

Outrageous, imminent, but my guide (as she

Who wakens to the roar of nearing flame,

And reaches for the babe with hasty hand

That life outvalues, and no more delays,

Even for the covering of her shift, but forth

She flies incontinent), against their wrath

Upcaught me in his arms, and raced to gain

The rock's high ridge that was their boundary.

And on the verge he loosed his feet, and slid

The abrupt decline.

As fast as down the spout

The water gushes to the landmill's wheel,

So shot he down the shelving bank. The rout

Of chasing demons, e'er his feet could feel

The level depth, had reached the wall, hut there

He feared them nothing, while they raged in vain,

For high controlling Providence provides

No serving demon strays beyond the sides

Of that sad hollow where his task is hid.



Now in recovered safety looked we round.

Beside us moved, with weeping eyes to ground,

A people clad in golden cloaks, whereon

To gaze was dazzling. Very tired and sad

Their looks, and slow their steps to pass belief.

And I, in doubt, who could not gauge their grief,

Gazed wondering. Such depth of hoods they had,

In shape as those the monks wear at Cologne;

In golden brilliance like their cloaks they shone.



O shining sepulchre of moldering bone I

For all within was lead: - such weight that those

In which the second Frederick burnt his foes

Were light as straw contrasted. Oh, what weight

In which to barter with eternal fate I



Left-hand we moved along their file, but though

They moved alike, they strained a pace so slow,

Bent with the load they bore, that every stride

A fresh face gave us that we moved beside:

And still from all the gasping sohs arose.

I asked my leader, "Will thy care provide

When next we pass whose name or tale I know,

That there we pause?"

From out a backward hood

There came a voice from one that understood

My Tuscan speech. "If here thou list to stay,

Whose feet so strangely dance the dismal way,

Thy wish may wait thee."

Then I turned and
saw

Two shades that struggled, but the dreadful law

That held them, made their haste as nought. Desire

Was in their looks to reach us, and my guide

Commanded: "Pause, and keep some space beside

With gradual motions like their own."


We stayed

Some moments patient, though three strides entire

Had reached us. Noughlt they spake at first, but long

With slanting eyes they summed us, and at last,

Communing only to themselves, they said:

"How moves his throat! Can mortal life belong

To wanderers here? Or if their lives be past

How walk they through this trench ungarmented?"



And then to me: "O Tuscan, these sad pits

Form the last college of the hypocrites,

And more we tell thee if thou dost not scorn

To teach us of what race thyself wast born."

I answered: "I was born and nurtured nigh

Where Arno finds the blue reflected sky

A city's turrets pierce. By ways forbade,

Clothed with the living flesh that first I had,

A High Power leads me. But yourselves shall show

Why from your eyes distils this dismal woe,

And what the shining pain around you clad."



The nearer answered: "Jovial Friars were we.

I Catalano, Loderingo he:

Bologna-born, and Florence chose us twain,

From either faction, jointly to maintain

Her peace internal. Still thine eyes may meet,

In those charred ruins of Gardingo Street,

The witness what we were."

My tongue began,

"O Friars, your evil - " when I marked a man

Writhe on the ground. To feel their weight he lay

Nailed down with three great stakes across the way.



Friar Catalano caught my glance, and said:

"That wretch, cross-fixed, on whom in turn we tread,

Is he who counselled with the priests, 'For us

It is expedient that one man should die -'

Naked and staked to bear our burdens thus

Annas alike, and all that council lie -

A seed of evil for the Jews were they."

I watched my Master gaze in wonder down

On that prone shade, outpulled and crucified

That from their weight he might not writhe aside,

Who there in everlasting exile lay,

But had not suffered when he passed that way

Beforetime. Nothing of his thought he said;

But later to the Friar he turned: "If nought

Of retribution wait thy word, I pray,

Thou wilt not here deny thine aid, but say

If further to the right in vain were sought

Some exit from this depth, or if we need

A loth return to make, and intercede

With those black angels that we left."


The Friar

Gave answer: "Nearer than ye think doth lie

The next of those convergent cliffs that span,

From the great barrier to the central pit,

These depths of pain. This only arch of it

Has fallen, but the slope a mortal man

May clamber, for the ruins pile so high

Toward the lower bank ye seek."

My
guide

Pondered awhile: "If this be truth, he lied

Who hooks the peculators."

And
the Friar

Gave nimble answer: "At Bologna well

We knew the devil, and all his works. A liar,

And father of all lies from there to Hell,

They called him."

Then with longer steps my

And somewhat angered in his looks that so

The imp had dared him, forward went, and I

In his loved footsteps left their laden woe.

Canto XXIV

IN that young month of the returning year

When, in Aquarius placed, the mounting

Shakes loose his hair a bolder course to run,

The hoarfrost takes his sister's face of fear,

A moment only. Then the husbandman,

As wanes the night before the equal day,

Looks forth, a world of winter-white to scan,

And knows the frugal store of roots and hay

Is ended, and laments, and smites his thigh,

And through the house as one distraught he goes;

But shortly forth again he looks, and knows

The world has changed its face, and cheerily

Takes crook, and chases out his flock to feed.

So I, that did my Master's anger heed,

Awhile was daunted, till we came to where

That tumbled ruin through the somber air

Rose darkly, when he turned with smile as sweet

As on that mountain when he stayed my feet

At our first meeting.

Careful glance he
cast

Along the huge mound of the broken rock,

And then as one who picks his point at last,

And doubts no more, from block to tumbled

He led me upward, with a reaching arm,

And voice that warned my blinder steps. No way

Was this for those of golden cloaks to flee,

That scarcely for his lighter frame, or me

His arm sustained, a trembling hold supplied;

And but that to the lower bank we strained

(For Malebolge to the central pit

Inward and downward slopes from every side),

I know not if my guide the crest had gained,

But sure I had not.

When my feet attained

The last rent fissure, the projecting stone

With failing strength I grasped, and reaching it,

My breath drained from me by that toil, to sit

Some space I thought, but while I sank he said:

"Thou must not rest thee here, but here and now

Make conquest of thy sloth, for while abed,

Forgetful of the hours, warm-blanketed,

Men rest, or sitting loose at ease, they find

No fame, but life consumes, they watch not how;

As foam on water, or as smoke in air,

A moment passes, and it is not there.

Arise! and with thy spirit's strength contend

Against the flesh that drags thee. Thus shall end

Revolt, except the ignoble soul allow

The body's weight to sink it. Not enough

Is wrought that thus the deeper trench we quit.

Be thine to comprehend, and with the wit

The will for action."

Narrow, steep and
rough,

Yet rose the path across the ridge that led,

But shamed to hear my leader's words I feigned

A strength I had not. "In thy steps," I said,

"I follow, confident," and further speech

I made, the while the rampart's crest we gained,

To hide my faintness from myself. Thereat

A voice made answer from the further deep,

Bestial, and formless of clear words to reach

The hearer's mind, but not this loss forgat

The notes of wrath.

Above the further
steep

Now stood we, but my living sight was vain

To pierce the blackness whence that awful cry

Reproached me.

"Master, while we here
remain.

I hear, but nought it means, and nought I see

Down-gazing. Wilt thou that the further wall

We gain, and climbing by the shorter fall,

Perchance in safety our descents repeat?"



He said: "For fit request a fit reply

Is action only." Leading silently,

He crossed the bridge, and on the eighth surround

A vantage of sufficient sight I found

That showed the seventh and more dreadful woe

Than those behind. For serpents here I saw

Hideous and frightful in their throngs, as though

All Libya and the red Egyptian sea

Had swarmed them. While I write my heart at war

With recollection backward holds my blood,

Shuddering. For not the Libyan sands shall be,

Nor all the plagues of the Egyptian flood,

Nor all that Ethiopia spawns, alike

Prolific. Not the crested water-snake,

The cobra, nor the leaping jaculus,

The speckled death, the serpent formed to strike

From either end, such horror holds.


I saw

A people naked, with no hole to take

For refuge, blindly in their fear that ran

Amidst this ruthless and appalling throng.

O for the spotted heliotrope I that thus

They might escape unseen. But not this law

Could charms resist. To snakes their hands belong

Snakes through their loins are pierced. I watched a man

Against whose throat a sudden serpent bit,

More swiftly than the shortest word is writ

Take fire, and burn, and in his place there came

A little heap of ashes. As the flame

In cinders sank, a sight most marvellous

Was mine - the calcined heap reversed the wrong,

Arising to its human form. 'Tis said

The Phoenix thus, on tears of incense fed,

That eats no herb, or any coarser bread,

With each five hundred years is purified,

And rises thence as though it had not died,

From its own ash again incarnated.



But as some demon-haunted soul may fall

Unconscious, writhing, nor the fit recall,

But weak and pallid to his feet again

He struggles dumbly in bewildered pain,

So looked the sinner. What scale of Heaven was here

To weight a doom so dreadful, so severe?



"Who art thou?" asked my guide, and answered he:

"A short while since I rained from Tuscany

To this ferocious gutter. A life more beast

Than human pleased me there. Pistoia well

My savage carnal ways, till here I fell,

Denned, native, Vanni Fucci, mule, am I."



I answered: "Though thy bestial crimes to hell

Have flung thee rightly, yet I rede not well

Why to this lower depth thou cam'st?"


And he

Feigned not to hear, but in a dismal shame

Gazed blankly upward, till constrained he said,

"Not for those crimes of loud repute I came

To this relentless doom. Reluctfully

It wrenches all my heart with grief to say

My guilt - more bitter than when first the dead

I joined, and Minos cast me here. My sin

Was this, that having robbed the sacristry

I spake not, while Rampino tortured lay,

And della Nona died, a guilt to pay

Which was not theirs. For that false crime herein

The serpents take me at their lust - but thou

Shalt go not backward with light heart to tell

My townsmen of this hidden infamy,

Nor joy to watch me in this pass - I see

A thing that cometh on earth. Short year from now

Thy part shall from my native place expel

The Neri, and their wealth shall confiscate.

But then shall Florence cleanse her lawless state;

Thy faction, outcast from her palaces,

Shall suffer all they gave, till Mars shall bring

A flaming vapour of such fierce disease

From Val di Magra, that the trembling knees

Of each Bianco on Piceno's plain

Shall bleeding bow. I would not tell this thing

Could any prescience on thy part restrain

The sorrow for thee which my heart foresees."

Canto XXV

HIS words he ended, and his bestial mind

Reverted to its impious use. He raised

Both hands in gestures of obscenity

Against the Eternal, till my heart inclined

To bless the serpents. One, that leapt behind

Just as he shouted, "Take it, God! at Thee

I aim it," twisted round his throat, to bind

His further utterance. One, his arms about,

Its tightening knots o'er wrists and elbows twined

To cease his antics. Ah, Pistoia! why

Dost never, when thy bitter factions burn

Their foemen's houses, and are sacked in turn,

The whole send upward to the cleansing sky

In one consuming? since thy sons exceed

The first corruptions of the godless seed

That built thee. All the infernal depths I trod

Revealed no shade with such contempt for God.



But while we looked, with sudden haste he fled,

And past us raced a Centaur-shape who said,

"Where hides the snarling thief I seek?"


I know

Maremma, nor believe its fens could show

So numerous snakes as round his haunches hung

And twisted in their wrath, and thereamong,

Even to the human part, behind his head

A fiery dragon broods with wings outspread,

That burn, and render all they reach to flame.



Then said my Master, "Cacus here we see,

Who made of old beneath Mount Aventine

Beneath his brethren, for the theft of shame

A lake of blood. To this great depth he came,

That there he wrought. He ceased his perfidy,

Taught by the raining blows of Hercules, -

A hundred mashed him, though he felt but ten."



On rushed the Centaur in his haste to seize

The fleeing shade, and while we gazed ahead

We saw not that beneath there came three men

That watched us, till they cried, "Who are ye there?"

Whereat the Centaur left our thoughts, and these

Possessed them. One man to his neighbour said,

"Why tarries Cianfa?" By that word aware

Of those that faced me, to my guide I signed

Desire for silence.

Reader, if this tale

Thy mind reject, I blame thee nought, for I

Look back, and memory here and credence find

Dispute. A monster with a serpent's tail,

And with six feet along the ground that ran,

Made halt before the three, and picked a man,

And leapt upon him. No clinging ivies twine

So closely. In his face its teeth it set.

Its forward feet behind his shoulders met.

Its belly on his belly pressed. Its feet

Strained to his sides and thighs, to backward meet.

Its tail between his legs, along his spine

Curled upwards. As a lighted paper burns

And blackens, but at first to brown it turns

Before the flames have reached it, so did they

Transform and blend, until you might not say

The serpent-hue was that, or this was man,

And then, as melted wax, their forms began

To merge and mingle. Cried his comrades, "Lo,

Where art - what art - which art thou, Agnello?

Art both or neither?" The two heads by now

Were one. The bodies were a monstrous sight.

A man was snake: a reptile walked upright.

With dragging steps it left us.

Hast
thou seen

The lizards changing hedge? From side to side

They cross the sun-glare of the roadway wide

A baffling streak. So fast a reptile shot

Toward these two remaining. Smoking hot,

And black as peppercorn it showed. It leapt

And pierced the navel of the one. It stept

Some paces back, and crouched, and watched. Its eyes

Its victim held, and he with dull surprise

Yawning, as one by sleep or fever dazed,

No motion made to fly, but backward gazed

Tranced. From the reptile's mouth, the navel's hole,

There came two smokes that feeling through the air

Were joined. The serpent and the human soul

In this conjunction stayed. Let Lucan prate

No more the horror of Nasidius' fate,

Nor how Sabellus failed from sight. I bear

No envy to the tales that Ovid made

Of Cadmus to a serpent changed, or how

Sad Arethusa is a fountain now.

They did not dream the thing I saw. The shade

That once was man his dreadful doom obeyed.

He closed his feet. His legs and thighs as one

Were blended. All that to his form was done

The snake reversed. Its tail it cleft. The skin

On the divided parts I saw begin

To shed its scales and soften; while the man

Acquiring that the snake had lost, began

lo alter snakelike his retractile limb.

Lengthened the worm's short arms: the arms of him

Shortened and scaled. The man's fifth member then

Lengthened and slit, the worm's hind legs to match.

The worm's hind legs their shrinking claws attach,

And blend to form the part concealed of men.



The copulating smoke around them spread.

The man grew bald. The needed hair was bred

Upon the snake's transforming parts. His head

The foul beast lifted, and arose upright.

The man fell prostrate. But the thievish light

Still kindled in their baleful eyes, the while

Their faces altered, and the shape erect,

- For which was human? - their completed guile

In altered visage showed. Its jaws withdrew.

A nose and lips it formed, and ears outgrew.

The while that other on the ground that lay,

Forked its thin tongue, and turned, and crawled away.

And like a snail that hides its horns, I saw

The ears receding in the serpent head.

Loud hissing down the dismal trench it sped,

And after ran the worm transformed, and tried

A sputtering speech.

But scarce my mind could think

Clear thought, or eyes see clearly, while the law

That ruled the refuse of this hateful sink

Changed and rechanged them. Yet I marked the last

Of those three shades, that slyly shrank aside,

Desirous only from my glance to hide, -

Puccio Sciancato. Him the serpents passed

Without molesting while I stayed. The one

I saw transformed was he for whom Gaville

Yet wails the vengeance that it cowered to feel,

Because his murder in its streets was done.

Canto XXVI

REJOICE, my Florence I that thy lifted wings

Not only in the world's wide sunlight shine,

Not only o'er the waves of ocean beat;

In Hell's deep vaults an equal fame is thine.

Five thieves, - and every thief a Florentine!

So thought I grimly, as we turned to meet

The cliff's ascent. But if the morning brings

The mind God's counsel, if its dreams be true,

Then that dark end desired of Prato's hate,

And all thy sullen, greedful foes, for you

Comes quickly. Not that were today the date

It were too soon for those who love thee. Yea,

I would that that which cometh came today.

For grief that on my weaker age shall weigh

Were now less dreadful.

Rough the rising
stair

That hard we clomb with foot and hand and knee,

And very silent all, and lonely there,

The ridge we crossed a keener grief to see.

Grief were it to gaze, and still that grief to me

Comes sharply, as my thoughts reluctant draw

Their wells of memory for the thing I saw.

With pain I speak, for if the holier law

Myself I hold, by any kindly star,

Or Power supernal, guided safely through

The world's stretched snares, I would not boast nor tell

As one who triumphs, that these depths of Hell

Contain such fruitage of our kind.


The view

Beneath us was an empty depth, wherethrough

Lights moved, abundant as the fireflies are

At even, when the gnats succeed the flies.

A myriad gleams the labourer sees who lies

Above them, resting, while the vale below

Already darkens to the night, - he toiled

From dawn to store the ripened grapes, or till

The roots around, and on the shadowing hill

Reclines and gazes down the vale. As he,

Whose mockers felt the she-bears' teeth, beheld

The chariot-horses rise erect to reach

The heavens of air, with searching eyes could see

At last, a little climbing flame afar,

That faded, cloudlike, as the fiery car

Ascended past his mortal sight, so here

Along the gutter of the fosse there came,

And passed, and left us, many a roving flame,

That seemed flame only, yet a human soul

Held each, but hid from sight the thief it stole.



This marvel of the moving flames to see,

I stretched from off the bridge so eagerly

I slipped, and falling grasped a rocky spar,

Alone that saved me from that depth. My guide

The answer to my eager search supplied.

"Within those moving flames the tortured are.

Each in his garment wraps himself from sight."



"Master, a truth already guessed aright

Thy word makes surer. Much I long to know

What spirit swathed in that wide fire doth go,

That flickers upward in two flames, as though

It rose combined from that reluctant pyre

Where, with his brother, burnt Eteocles,

To form two pillars of divided fire,

Because no death could quench their enmities?"



He answered, "Twain are in that flame; they run

Together now because they sinned as one.

Ulysses tortured there, and Diomed,

Repent the treason of the horse, that led

To Rome's foundation - through the fated door

The exiles issuing; and the trick lament

Through which still weeps in death Deidamia

For her lost Achilles; and furthermore

They suffer for the thieved Palladium."



"Master," I answered, "if they be not dumb

With so much anguish, let them speak, I pray,

- A thousand prayers I pray thee! - Grant we stay

Till that horned flame come hither! You see me bend

Almost to falling with desire."

He
said:

"Thy prayer is praise to him that prays it. Yea;

I grant; but hearken. When they pass below

Keep silent. Thee they might disdain, but I

Will ask thy purpose."

When they came more nigh,

He hailed them. "Ye who from one fire ascend

A twofold flame, I charge ye, if ye owe

A quittance to me for the lofty lay

Wherein I praised your earthly fames, I pray

That here ye pause, the while that one shall say

Of where at last he wandered forth to die."

At this was shaking of the greater horn,

And murmurs not at first articulate, -

A flame that by the wind is trailed and torn

To flickers, - till the end made animate

Wagged like a tongue, and answered, -


"When I turned

Aside from Circe's later lure, and left

The mount that &Aelig;neas named, my heart forgot

My aged father, I regarded not

My fondness for my child, my wife bereft

Of her due rights of love, but through my heart

Again the unconquerable ardour burned

To search experience of the world, anew

The vice and valour of mankind to view,

And seek the events of lonely lands apart

From known adventures of my race. I chose

One ship, and with a little band of those

With heart to follow, steered for open sea,

And left behind the morning.

Either
shore,

Spain and Morocco saw we, and between

Sardinia and the isles. At length was seen

That narrow passage of the meeting seas,

Whereat the warning stands of Hercules

That no man dare to pass it. Old were we,

Myself and my companions, old and slow,

When Ceuta lay behind us, and Seville

Was fading on the right, and westward still

We pointed.

"Brothers," to the rest I said,

"O brothers, following where my star hath led,

That not a thousand shapes of pain could dread

From this so great adventure. Hear me now.

Deny not that we add to all our gains,

While the brief vigil hour of life remains,

Experience of the unpeopled world that lies

Behind the lights of sunset. Think ye now,

We are not fashioned as the brute that dies,

But born for virtue and exploit."


Thereat

Such ardour waked that had I sought to stay

I scarce had ruled them. Still the moving poop

Looked back, and left the dawn. A southward loop

We sailed, still bending to the left, the while

We laboured weakly at the oars, and mile

To foolish mile extended, till we moved

Beneath strange stars in unacquainted skies.

Five times the bright bowl of the moon had filled,

Five times through heaven its silver light had spilled,

When as we toiled that silent waste of way,

A mountain, drear and vast, in distance lay.

A mountain of such height and magnitude

As all my wandering life I had not viewed:

But short was our rejoicing. From the land

A tempest smote us. Thrice the beaten prow

Whirled round with all its waters: either hand

The rising waves assailed our decks, and now

The bows tossed upwards, now the poop, for He

At last had spoken. Overwhelmed were we;

And closed again the solitary sea."

Canto XXVII

THE flame was silent, and erect and still

Moved from us with my leader's leave.

There came

Behind another and more restless flame

That strove for speech, and found its thwarted will

Gave only noise of whistling sounds, until

The words worked upward through the fire, as erst

The tyrant heard the brass Sicilian bull, -

That justly for its roasting victim first

He filled with its designer, - turn his cries

To bull-like bellowing. So the cunning file

Had tuned its throat.

But now the call he
tries,

Vibrating upward to the tongue's intent,

Sounds clearer. "Thou - O dear and wonderful! -

Who bringest that loved speech of Lombardy,

Thou whose familiar words to him that went,

'Go now, I urge no further,' called me on,

Though late, to plead thy patience. Pause, I pray,

Some longer space. Although so wrapt, to me

It irks not if I hear thee. This blind way

We burn, but may not lighted, if ye fell

But lately from the Latian land, from where

The endless burden of my guilt I bear,

If peace is on Romagna, wilt thou tell?

For I was native of the mountains there

Between Urbino and the heights from whence

The Tiber rises."

Still I downward bent,

And leant far outward in my eagerness,

Whereat my Leader, from my fixed intent

To call me, touched me on the side, and said,

"Speak thou, - is here no Greek's impertinence

To scorn thee."

I thereat, who willed no less,

Spake swiftly, "O sad spirit, so garmented

In flame no glance can reach thee, still thy land

Hath tyrants, in their hearts devising war,

But nought of open strife I lately saw,

And still within its ancient walls doth stand

The strength of thy Ravenna. Still doth brood

Polenta's eagle, and his pinions spread

Above its roofs, and Cervia's. Forli now,

Its siege and slaughter of its foes forgot,

The Green Claws hold anew. Verrucchio

Hath still its mastiff, and his young, who show

The teeth that tore Montagna. Still doth plot

The little lion in his lair of snow

To friend both factions, and his rule admit

Lamone's and Santerno's towns. That one

Constricted in its narrow space that lies

Between the mountains and the Savio,

So between tyrant rule and freedom won

Alternates. As I answer all, for it

Requite me. Tell me, as I half surmise,

Who wast thou? Tell me all thy tale, that so

Thy name on earth shall stablish."

Then
the flame

Roared without speech awhile, but in the end

The flickering point gave utterance. "If ye came

To count our tortures, and to earth ascend

To tell them, nothing would ye hear from me,

For all your pleading. But I know too well

There is no issue from this depth of Hell

For those who enter. With no fear of shame

I tell thee. By the sword I lived. Amend

To Heaven I schemed, and took St. Francis' cord

Not vainly, and my hope had fruited well,

But evil take the false Pope Boniface!

Who led me to my earlier sins. The sword

I lived by, but my deeds from infancy

The fox's wiles and shifts and secret shame

Had practised, till my cunning crafts became

A byword through the earth for perfidy.

When to the age I came at which mankind

Should turn the haven of the soul to find

From voyaging on life's alluring sea,

Drop sails and wind their idle ropes, and so

Pass inward on the tide with steerage slow,

Then was I grieved for all my boast before,

And with repentance wept, - alas, the woe!

It might have saved me.

Through this cord I wore

I served the Chief Priest of the Pharisees,

Who warred, - but not with Jews, and not with those

Who conquered Acre. Nor his Christian foes

Were merchants in the Soldan's land who dwelt,

But in the precincts of the Lateran

Christ's priest the Christian who beside him dwelt

Distressed with violence. Not his vows, nor dread

Of his high office as the Church's Head,

Nor reverence for my cord, that used to make

The wearers leaner, stayed him. Constantine

So called Silvestro from Soracte's cave

To cure him leprous, as this godless man

Besought my counsel. As a fool may rave

In drunken pride I thought him. Word of mine

He got not to inspire his guilt. At last

He urged me, 'Doubt not that thy choice be cast

With wisdom, if thou do the thing I bid.

I do absolve and bless thee even now

Before the words have passed thy lips. Do thou

Contrive that I shall gain Penestrino.

Forget not I can open or forbid

The Eternal Gate. The Keys that Celestine

So lightly loosed are twain.

Alike of Heaven and Hell.'

He urged me thus

Till speech than silence seemed less dangerous,

Whereon I answered, 'Father, since my guilt

Thou cleanest ere I tell thee. If thou wilt,

In one way canst thou triumph - all they will

In solemn treaty seal, - and nought fulfil.'



"I died, and to St. Francis' care consigned

My parting spirit, but there came behind

A shape that seized me by the hair, and cried

Against my Patron, 'Make no claim for him.

'Tis he who gave the counsel fraudulent.

I have not left him since. Can man repent

The while he sins? The contradiction here

Defies thy rescue, and the guilt is clear.'



"I turned, and one of Hell's Black Cherubim

Leered back. 'Thou didst not think with all thy craft

I studied logic in the schools?' he laughed.

He bore me down to Minos' seat, and he

Eight times his tail around his fearful back

Entwined, and gnawed it in his rage, and said

'Is here a sinner for the depths,' and me

He bade them fling to where I should not lack

My like, 'Down-cast him to the thievish fire

That hides its victims in its fold,' and so

For ever in this robe of pain I go;

My craft, that to my safe repentance led,

- That craft betrayed me to a fate so dire."



We left him wailing, and the writhing flame

Tossed its sharp horn for further speech, but we

No longer paused, but upward climbed, and came

To that next arch which spans a baser woe.

For suffering here were those who wrought to sow

Dissension - guilt the fruit, and here the fee.

Canto XXVIII

WHO in free words, without restraint or bar

Of formal beauty in their choice, could say

The things I saw? Repeat a different way

A hundred times, and what those tortures are

It tells not. Words are lacked. The mind of man

Such horror hates. It shrinks to comprehend

Such slaughterous sights as here around us ran.



If all who in Apulia's fatal land

Bewailed the bloodshed of their violent end

Beneath the merciless Roman sword, - if they

Who died in that long Punic war, which gave

Even of the rings they wore so vast a prey, -

If those who felt the weight of Guiscard's glaive, -

With those who perished in the fatal band

The false Apulians to their fate betrayed,

Whose bones at Ceperano heap, - with all

Alardo's craft at Tagliacozzo made

Without resort of weaponed strife to fall, -

Were gathered in one place and each displayed

The shredded limbs, the ghastly wounds of war,

Nought were it to the dreadful mode I saw

In this ninth chasm.

A man beneath us
stood

Whose body like a cantless cask was split.

The staves bulge outward. Through the bursting wood

It pours its contents. So the open slit

That cleft him, fore and hind, from neck to thigh,

Poured out; between his legs his entrails hung.

He thrust his hands his heart and lungs among,

And cried against us, "See Mahomet's pride!

Or see where Ali weeping walks beside,

Cleft down the face in twain from hair to chin.

Scandal or schism has each man sown as I.

For discord are we sliced who walk herein.

A devil waits us in our turn. For while

We stumble in our wounds, with every mile

The torment heals us, till again we reach

The place we were, and with his sword to each

He gives the slitting which we felt before. -

But who are ye who with no falling gore

So calmly view us? Do ye seek delay

To shun the purpose of the guilty way?"

My Master answered, "Death he hath not known,

Nor guilt unpurged the downward path hath shown

To whom I lead, but full experience

To gain, he goeth through evil's last defence

From cycle down to cycle: this is true

As here I stand and speak, who like to you

Have all my deeds behind me."

At
this word

Such wonder stirred the trench, that those who heard

A moment of their torment lost, and stayed

Oblivious of their gaping wounds. I made

The count of twice a hundred.


"Thou canst tell

Dolcino, if his waiting place in hell

He hath no haste for, that the Novarese

May win by starving whom they may not seize

By any sword-craft. Let him arm him well

With store of victuals ere the snow make blind

The mountain ways."

So spake Mahomet, the while

He stood with one leg lifted, to beguile

The demon that he moved.

A
shade behind,

Noseless, with one ear only, and his throat

Slit open, through the red gash spake, "O thou!

Guiltless, who on the Latian ground ere now

Hast met me, save resemblance lead astray,

Remember Piero, if the backward way,

To reach the sunlight of the world, thy fate

Permit thee, if thy living feet regain

Mine own dear country where the gentle plain

Slopes downward to Vercelli, wilt thou tell

The noblest two in Fano's walls that dwell,

Cassero and Cagnano, that except

Our foresight fail us here, that lord adept

At violence and unfaith shall both betray,

Cast from their barque in Cattolica bay,

Sack-sewn and weighted? He that hath one eye,

And holds that land that one who here doth lie

Had better never in his life have seen,

Will bring them there to treaty, and thereby

So act that caution of Fecara's squalls

Will aid them nought. Such deed there hath not been

In Neptune's sight: he hath more hope who falls

To Argives or to pirates."

I replied,

"Your speech resists me. Show me first aright

Who with thee here laments that bitter sight,

That I may bear thy tale aloft."

He
gripped

A comrade by the jaw. "This shade dumb-lipped

Was Curio once, with wagging tongue that lied

To cease the doubt in Cæsar. 'All delay

To men prepared is harmful!' urged he then.

Now walks he round to reach the place again

Where waits the slaughtering demon."


Sick dismay

Was on the face that once so glibly spake,

And tongue slit backward to the throat I saw

That once had gibed the dreadful cast of war.

Now moved he on, his endless turn to take

Prepared for that which did not grant delay.

But one whose either hand was sliced away,

Raised in the dusk the bleeding stumps until

The blood fell backward on his face, and cried

"Forget not Mosca! 'Ere ye counsel, kill;

Death's logic brief will save long argument.

The wrought deed prospers!' - So I urged. Ah me!

It bore a bitter seed for Tuscany."



I answered curtly, "And your race has died."

Whereat as one distraught with pain he went

Lamenting doubly.

Still I watched beside

The moving troops, and here a thing I saw

Divorced from reason. All our natural law

Denies it. Only mine integrity

To write such proofless words gives confidence.

But this I saw, and still in mind I see, -

A headless trunk that walked. Beside his knee

He swung his own head by the hair, as though

He bore a lantern for his feet to go

Unstumbling in the darkness. No pretence

Of explanation mine. What God ordains

The wise man marvels, and the fool explains.

The sharp eyes marked us, and a startled O!

Broke from the lips, and when the trunk below

Came level where we paused, the arm on high

Lifted the head to bring its words more nigh.



"Thou living, who dost view the grievous dead,

Is any doom so great as mine," it said,

"In all Hell's circles? That De Born am I

Who gave my prince the evil counselling

Which caused him, rebel to the elder king,

Against his sire to war. Ahithophel

So worked with David and with Absalom.

Because I parted father and child, in Hell

My root of being finds the brain therefrom

Disparted. So the Eternal Justice wills."

Canto XXIX

THE numerous people, and the diverse ills

That slit them in a hundred forms, had made

Mine eyes so salted, that awhile I stayed

Content with weeping, till my wiser guide

Reproached me. "Wherefore is thy sight delayed

Amidst the dismal demon-hacked so long?

Thou didst not linger at superior wrong

In higher pits so fainly. Wouldst thou guess

The numbers whom discordant wounds distress,

Consider two and twenty miles complete

The narrowing circuit that we cross. But now

The moon has passed beneath us. Short allow

Remains, before the time conceded ends,

And far beyond this gloom the realm extends

That waits thee."

"Master," I replied,
"if thou

Hadst heeded that which drew my gaze, thy feet

Had stayed beside me." But he pressed ahead

The while I answered, that the words I said

Were called behind him as we moved.


"Within

That cavern where I gazed so fixed, I saw

A kinsman who bewailed the dreadful law

That prices in such coin his earthly sin."



My Master answered, "Waste no thought thereon,

Mine eyes observed him whilst thine own were set

Too firmly on De Born to heed. He made

A gesture fierce with hate. They called him here

Geri del Bello."

"O my Guide! the debt

He left of honour, which his partners yet,

Who shared his shame, have venged not, so betrayed

His heart to indignation. More for that

My pity meets him."

While we spake, he
led

Across the ridgeway to the final tier

Of ordered suffering. Far beneath us spread,

Hid only by the dimness, wide and Hat,

The last sad cloister of the damned.


If sight

Came slowly in the gloom, it did not hide

The sounds of their lamenting. Every cry

Was like a shaft that pierced me, fledged for flight

With pity. Thousand were the woes that cried

In different accents, till my hands I pressed

Against my ears to still them.

If the
ills

Of Valdichiana, when the autumn fills

Its lazars, with Maremma's sick should lie,

And all Sardinia's in one ditch, so high,

So foul, the putrid stench might reach.


We left

The last span of the bridge's long descent

To take the intersecting wall. We went

Left-hand, as always. As we climbed more low

The thick malignant air sufficed to show

How the infallible Justice of God contrives

The doom of those who use their earthly lives

To give the face of truth to falsity.



I think not that &Aelig;gina's ancient woe

More bitter evil in its course could show,

Though groaning in an air so pestilent

All creatures, even the fluttering insect, fell,

Till all of human kind, as sages tell,

Had perished, once again to multiply

From seeds of ants.

Along a trench we
went

Where spirits in disordered heaps were thrown

And languished. This upon the belly lay,

That on the back, of him beneath. Alone

Another wriggled down the dismal way.



We went in silence, watching men too sick

To lift their bodies as we came, and heard

Their plaints unceasing. Two there were that leant

Against each other, as two pans are propt

For warming, on the hearth; and each so thick

Was scabbed, that horse-boy never yet so quick

Plied comb the while his master called, as they

Scraped with their nails the itching scales away,

That like the scales of bream around them dropt,

When the knife cleans it.

To the first his
word

My guide addressed. "O thou whose nails so fast

Now shred thy mail, and now as pincers work,

If any Latians in this trench are cast

I pray thee tell, and may thy fingers last

Sufficient for thy needs eternally!"

The leper answered, "Latians both are we

Who weep this torment. Tell me whom I see

That so can walk untortured?"

He
replied,

"One am I that High Heaven hath sent to guide

This other through the trenches ploughed in Hell.



At that they raised themselves apart, and turned

To gaze upon me. Others near, who learned

The meaning of my Master's words, alike

Their trembling bodies lifted up to see.



My leader's kindness gave the speech to me, -

"Ask that thou wilt," and by this leave I said,

"So that thy memory may not steal away

From our first world for many suns to be,

Let not disgust at thy sin's penalty

Restrain thee from the telling."

He
replied,

"I was Arezzo-born, and burned alive

(Albero da Siena's false contrive

Condemned me); not for that for which I died

Ye see me here. There is no doubt I said,

Too lightly, man could raise himself in flight

By arts I knew, and in his foolishness

He willed that I should teach him. This I tried,

And failed, whereon the woud-be Dædalus

Invoked his sire to burn me. None the less

This depth I found, by Minos judged aright,

Who errs not ever, and flung me downward thus

To this tenth blackness, for the alchemy

I practised."

"Surely," to my guide I said,

"There is no people of such vanity,

Not even the French, as are the Sienese."

Whereat the second of the leprous dead

Made answer, "Save the Stricca, who contrived

Such modest spending, or the youth who thrived

On his new cookery of the clove; or they

Who aided Caccia's haste to cast away

Forest and vineyard: - but that thou mayst know

Who thus gibes with thee at the Sienese,

Look closely, that mine altered face may show.

I am the shadow of Capocchio

Who made false metals by mine alchemies.

If whom I think thou art, thyself couldst tell

If false I coined, I coined that falsehood well."

Canto XXX

WHEN Juno's hate, enwrathed for Semele,

Repeated evils on the Theban blood,

Athamas to such madness sank that he,

Who saw his wife approach, each burdened arm

Bearing a son, cried out, "The nets we spread.

We take the lioness and her cubs!" and so

With pitiless claws he dashed the elder dead,

Whereat she leapt, still burdened, to the flood,

And drowned that other, and herself. And when

The Trojans' heavenward pride was cast so low

That king and kingdom ceased, Hecuba then

Saw Polyxena slain, and on the sand

Lay Polydore, and all her misery

Her mournful captive mind refused, and she

Barked like a dog, to such forlorn degree

Had sorrow moved her. But the Theban land

Such furies held not, nor the Trojans met

Such naked hate, as here I saw. There ran

Two shades with rabid working jaws, that bit

As snaps a sow thrust outward from the sty,

The full trough waiting. One bent down, and set

Its teeth behind Capocchio's neck, and so

It dragged him, while his belly rubbed the grit.

Whereat the trembling Arentine began,

"That goblin is Gianni Schicchi. Thus

He mangles - "

"May that other's teeth
forego

Thy neck-joint ever! Grudge thou not to show

Who is she, ere she passes hence."


He said,

"That female imp, the ancient shade is she

Of Myrrha, who with love flagitious

Approached her father in false garb, as he

Who gnaws Capocchio, aped Donati's dead,

The will by which the priceless mare he won

Dictating in that guise."

The furious two

Passed onward, mangling as they went, and I

The ill-born shadows more surveyed. Was one

Shaped like a lute, had but his groin begun

A forkless form. The heavy dropsy drew

His lips apart, as those whom fevers burn.



He said, "O ye, no penal fate who earn

Amidst this grimness, turn your eyes to see,

And hearken that which makes my misery

Beyond the eyes' observing. Justice sets

Before my sight the cool fresh rivulets

That Casentino's verdant hills provide

For Arno's fullness. Down the mountain side

They fall for ever in my sight, and so

Contain more torture than this swollen woe

That from my visage wears the flesh. The sight

That gives my frequent sighs a faster flight

Is justly of the place that saw my sin,

Mine own Romena, where the false alloy

I mixed and printed with the Baptist's head,

For which they burnt me. When on earth, I had

All earth's delights my fraudful wealth could buy.

A drop of water now would make me glad;

But had I Branda's fount, to lave therein,

It would not yield me such exceeding joy

As would the sight of Alessandro dead,

Or Guido in such misery here as I.

One, if the ravening shadows do not lie,

Is here already. Had I strength to move

One inch of journey in a hundred years,

I had been started on the road to prove

So fair a rumour, and behold his tears.

Yea, though eleven miles the circle bends,

And half a mile its crowded breadth extends -

For by their tempting in this sink I lie."



I asked him, "Next thy swollen boundary,

Right-hand, how name ye those unmoving two

That steam like hands in winter bathed?"


He said,

"When first I tumbled in this pot to stew,

So lay they both. They have not raised a head.

I think they will not through eternity.

The nearer is the wife of Potiphar

The other Sinon, that false Greek of Troy.

From burning fever reek they thus."


Too far

His scorn betrayed him. In a fierce annoy

The Trojan smote him with a lifted arm,

The rigid belly like a beaten drum

Resounding.

"Though my heavy limbs subtract

The power of motion, for so foul an act

My arm yet serves me." - So the Brescian said,

And brought it down upon the fevered head.

"It served thee little from a larger harm,

Or wherefore in full manhood didst thou come

Amongst us from the stake? It served, no doubt,

The base alloy to mix, and stamp it out."



The dropsied answered, "That on earth I burnt

Is truth, but say how long thy tongue hath learnt

Such custom? Falsehood was thine earthly skill."



He answered, "If I lied, thy trade could still

Outpace me. Would'st thou chide a lonely lie?

A thousand times thy hand would falsify.

There is no demon here could match the sum

Of thine iniquities."

"Such magnitude

Had thy one falsehood, all the world has spewed

Its indignation on thy name: be that

The heaviest burden of thy guilt."


"Be thine

The thirst that cracks thee, and the putrid filth

By which thou art distended."


"Like a cat

Thy jaw spits fury, as in life; if mine

Be moisture-swollen thirst, no fairer tilth

Ye garner for your gain," the Brescian said.

"The burning fever and the aching head.

I think Narcissus' mirror would not shine

For long unlicked beneath thee."



While
they jarred

I paused to hear them, till my Master said,

"A little longer, and thy fixed regard

Will end our friendship."



When his anger
showed

So sharply, all with sudden shame I glowed,

And might not answer. On I walked as one

Who dreams and wishes that the dream were done,

So evil turns it while he dreams, and so

Desires and knows not his desire is true.

So walked I in my shame and did not know

My shame forgave me in his thought. I knew

His anger, only in my thought alive,

Until he told me, "Weaker shame than thine

A greater fault would cancel; therefore cease

A grief too weighty. When we next arrive

At any kindred scene, thy mind release

More quickly. Discord in such filth is nought.

The thought to hear it is a vulgar thought."

Canto XXXI

So healed he with the tongue that hurt before,

Like that charmed spear which could the wounds restore

That first it made; and neither spake we more

The while we climbed from out the final pit,

To reach a hollow where nor dark nor day

Was round us. Here a horn above me blew

So loud that thunder to the noise of it

Were weakness. Not so loud Orlando's horn

Called vainly from the rout that cast away

An empire's purpose. Up I looked, and knew

A range of towers confronted, and thereat

I questioned, "Master, say what town is that

So near us?"

"Through the veil of darkness drawn,

The distance mocks thee. Let us haste, that so

The truth be shown," he said, and then - "But no,"

And took me kindly by the hand, - "the worst

Will seem less dreadful, if I show thee first.

They are not towers in a circling wall,

But giants planted round the pit, that all

Show upwards from the navel." As the mist

Thins slowly, by the morning sunlight kissed

Till hidden forms show vaguely, and reshape

Their gradual outlines as the vapour leaves

The obstructed air, the gloom, as near we drew,

Reformed my error with a closer view

More frightful. For the nether pit receives

Their legs and bellies, while the rest doth rise

Like Montereggione's towers, that crown

The wall's full circle. Upwards from the thighs

One monster faced me. Nature found escape

From such creation ere our time, and well

She chose her condemnation. Still Jove's frown

Against them thunders. If the monstrous whale

Its breed continue, or the elephant,

They do not vainly through their bulk rebel

Against the rule of nature. Wits are scant,

And weight is harmless. When they both unite

What is there in mankind that might prevail

To make defence against them?

Like
the pine

That stands before St. Peter's, such the sight

His visage showed me. All the rest alike

Was monstrous. Aproned by the bank, he yet

Such stature showed, that three tall Frisians

One on the other, could not thus combine

To reach his hair. The savage mouth began,

Rafel mai amech zabi almi,

To shout in rage toward us. Speech of man

It might not nearer. In full scorn my guide

The meaning of that barren noise supplied,

"His own his accusation. Nimrod he,

Who brought confusion on the tongues we speak;

In vain for converse here your questions seek.

He comprehends our speech no more than we

The sounds he rumbles. Dullard! take thy horn.

On thine own breast it hangs, and yet thy mind

Confuses, that it may not always find

And vent its passion with such blasts."


We went

Left-hand, and pacing thence a cross-bow shot,

A fiercer and more monstrous monument

Appalled me. Who the artist, once who got

Those cords around him, daunts my mind, but so

It had been. His right arm behind his back,

Five times were girt the parts exposed.


"Attack,"

My Master told, "against high Jove he planned,

What time the giants with the gods at war

Affrighted Heaven. Hence the equal law

That binds the arms he lifted. This ye see

Is Ephialtes."

"Master, might there be

Among these shapes the bulk of Briareus?"

"Yea, but far off he stands, and bound is he

Alike to this one, though of face more grim.

But Antæus, who did not war with Zeus,

Is near, and as there are no bonds on him,

He shall convey us down the sink of guilt."



No earthquake sways a massive tower as then

The bulk of Ephialtes, straining, shook

To break that bondage. Dread, that made me look,

So worked that fear alone my life had spilt,

Had not the strong bands cheered me.


On we went

And Antæus reached, five ells of height who showed

Above the edge whereon we walked, although

One half was in the dreadful cave below

To which we journeyed.

"Thou, who once
abode,"

My guide addressed him, "in that vale of fate

From which the broken Carthaginians fled,

To Scipio's glory; thou, whose hands have caught

A thousand lions for thine ancient prey;

Thou, whose strong aid, it seems, had likely brought

The strife Titanic to a different day

From that which closed it, - set us down, I pray,

Upon the frozen floor, and be not shy

To help us. Surely, should we further go

For aid to Typhon or to Tizeo,

The hope of larger fame thy name shall miss,

For this man's life resumes on earth, and he

Can lift thy boast anew. I know for this

All creatures long in Hell."

My Master's plea

So wrought, that hasteful were the monster's hands

To lift us. In the grasp that Hercules

Once felt to fearing was he raised, and I

Caught to him, in one bundle held. As seems

The Carisenda to a man that stands

Beneath the leaning side, when overhead

A low cloud darkens, till its bulk he deems

To overweight it, so the Titan showed

To me beneath. By some alternate road

My choice had lain, but ere my doubt was said

He placed us gently on the dreadful bed

Where Judas is devoured with Lucifer,

And having loosed us on the icy plain,

Like a ship's mast he raised himself again.

Canto XXXII

IF words were mine unlike our mortal tongue

In which the beauty of all heights is sung,

I might attempt with greater confidence

The core of my conception here. But whence

Are words for things undreamed? What words are fit

In harsh discordance for the utmost pit?

I have no words, and fear to speak, but yet

It must be.

Muses, by whose art was set

The Theban cincture of strong walls, lead on!

Grant me thy power, as once to Amphion,

That speech for truth interpret.

Here
converge

The rocky causeways. In this pit submerge

The vomits of creation. All its weight

Is pressed upon them. Here the miscreate

Lament their own existing. Oh, what curse

Here in the bottom of the Universe

Had lifted, had they been but goats! To me

It seems for men too dreadful.

Down
the slope

We started from the Titan's feet, and while

I still gazed backward at the wall, I heard

A cry beneath me, "Heed ye where ye tread

Lest fall thy weight on some grief-weary head

That here lamenteth."

Then I looked, and
lo!

No ground I trod, but all the space below

Was glass transparent. Not the underflow

Of Austrian Danube from the weight of snow

Such roof divides. Not Don, alone that lies

Beneath the silence of the frozen skies,

Such mantle wears. Sclavonia's lonely height

Had fallen here, or Lucca's mountain white,

And had not cracked it.

As the frogs at
night

Sit croaking, with their heads above the stream,

While on the bank the gleaner rests, adream

Of fields she emptied, so the miscreants lay

Frozen in firm ice, so deeply sunk that they

Showed livid through the hard transparency

That bound them, with their heads alone left free,

And chattering jaws that rapped the ice, and made

A noise of storks conversing. More betrayed

Their ceaseless tears the bitter woes they knew, -

Salt tears that froze in falling.

Here
were two

So closely brothered in that frozen bed

That face to face the hair of either head

Was mingled, and their hidden features pressed

Each other.

"Tell me, ye that breast to breast

So consort," asked I, "who on earth ye be?"

Whereat they bent their backward necks to see

Who called, and as their faces rose apart

The tears that ever from their eyes would start

The fierce cold hardened at their source, and held

Their eyelids firm as any smith should weld,

Or wood to wood with iron is clamped. Whereat,

Like he-goats angered, both their heads began

To butt the other in their rage. With that

Another near, who did not lift his face,

Whose ears the frost had taken, gave reply,

"Why seek ye, gazing at our woeful case,

To read us? If for aught ye list to know

Those twain, the vale of the Bisenzio

Was theirs, from Count Alberto. From one womb

They came, and search ye all the dreadful doom

Of this Caina where ye stand, not one

Is here more worthy of the frozen pie

In which they serve us. Not that wretch fordone

By Arthur's hand, who pierced him, front and back

And shadow at once; nor he that next doth lie

Beyond me, Mascheroni, - if ye come

From Tuscan hills, my words ye will not lack

To place him; - nor Focaccia. Lest ye try

To vex me with more words, de Pazzi I;

I wait Carlino here, to justify

My lighter guilt."

Of doggish faces, numb

With frozen torture, round our feet there lay

A thousand. Still my shuddering thought recalls,

And shivers ever as the frozen ford

I strive to think not. Was it destiny,

Or chance, or will? My doubt I own, but while

We trod mid-distance of the final mile,

My foot caught sharply one projecting head.

Whereat it raised a weeping voice, and said,

"Why dost thou trample thus the doomed, unless

Thou come designed to deal more bitterness

In hate for Montaperto?"


"Master, stay

One moment here, and any more delay

I will not ask."

My Master paused, and I

To that reviling spirit gave reply,

For still it cursed me, - "Tell me who thou art,

Who thus reproachest?"

"Nay, but be
thy part

To tell me first. Who art thou stumbling thus

Through Antenora, on the cheeks of us

Who suffer? Wert thou yet in life, it were

Too much to pardon."

"Nay, I live;
but say

The name thou hadst, and I will make thy day

A longer on the earth than else thy share

Of fame continue."

"Nay, ye little know

The words of flattery on this slope of woe.

We lust oblivion only. Get ye gone!

Nor vex me further."

By the after-scalp

I gripped him roughly. "Speak, or every hair

That grows upon thee, from the root I tear,

Before I leave thee on this icy alp."



He answered, "Though the final hair ye pick,

And though my face a thousand times ye kick,

I will not tell you."

In my hand his hair

Was twisted, and an ample tuft was flung

Loose on the ice, he barking out despair

And rage together, when the song he sung

Aroused his neighbour, "Bocca, what thy woe?

Canst thou not chatter with thy jaws as we,

And cease thy barking? What strange fiend supplies

An extra pain?"

I said, "Thy name I know,

And would no more. Accursed, traitorous!

Thy name a byword on the earth shall be;

For I will tell thy treasons."

"He who lies

So near, and talks so glibly, thou canst tell,

And not me only. Thou canst speak it thus, -

'Close-pinched with Bocca in the frozen hell

I saw Duera. There his chattering jaws

Bewail the Frenchman's silver bribe.' If more

They ask, who shiver in the icy claws,

Boccaria lies beyond, whose neck was slit

At Florence: and Soldanire thou canst say

Is not far distant; and Ganelone;

And Tribaldello fails not to deplore

The gates he opened in the night."


We stayed

To hear no further. In short space ahead

We saw two frozen in one hole. As bread

Is gnawed in hunger: as Menalippus

Was chewed by Tydeus: so the upmost head

Gripped with its teeth the neck beneath, and tore

Just where the nape and brain unite. I said,

"O thou, so hard whose bestial hatred gnaws

Thy mate in condemnation, if good cause

Thy rage explain, it were thy gain with us

To share it. Upward I return once more,

And surely as my speech remain, I then

Will give thee justice in the mouths of men."

Canto XXXIII

THE sinner ceased his ghastly meal, and wiped

His jaws upon the victim's hair, and said,

"Thou willest that reluctant words recall

A grief so dire it wrings my heart, before

An utterance forms, but if my speech shall fall

A seed that fruiting backward from the dead

Shall make him whom I tear infamed the more

Among our people, then I gladly weep

To tell thee. How to this sad depth ye came,

Where no man erst has been, nor what thy name

I know, but that familiar speech of thine

I heard, and hailed thee friend and Florentine,

- For I was Ugolino. Him I keep

In this remembrance of an earthly woe,

The arch-priest Ubaldini. Now I tell

Of that which brought us to this depth of Hell,

And why high Justice thus permits that I

Feed here, and shall not starve, and shall not die,

Nor cease my feeding. All I need not say

Of mutual fraud, nor how he snared away

My life, a tale for other tongues, but this,

The cruel fate I found, they well may miss,

It was so secret. In that hole which now

Is called the Dungeon of the Starved I lay,

And watched the narrow slit by night and day,

Until nine moons across its space of sky

Had ended, when the evil dream I knew

That did the curtain of my fate untie.



"It seemed that on the Pisan hills was I,

A gaunt wolf with his weary whelps that ran,

And after came the hounds; and there a man

That cheered them on; the lord of all was he,

This Ubaldini, and before him rode

Gualandi, and Sismondi, and thereby

Lanfranchi; and the hounds, that closer drew,

Were swift and lean and eager. I could see

The wolf among his whelps, that was but I

And my young sons, grow weary, and the hounds

Were tearing at their flanks. I waked to find

The night yet darkened, but the moaning sounds

My sons were making in their sleep for bread

Had roused me. Cruel were the hearer's heart

Who would not weep for that their cries forebode.

If not for this, for what should tears have part?

It was the first day that we were not fed.

The hour recurred. With anxious eyes, and

Of any speech we waited. Now they come

- The steps we know - we heard the echoing

That locked and sealed us from the world: we heard

The steps recede. I had not wept nor stirred.

I watched them weeping till the youngest said,

'Father, what ails thee? Wilt thou speak?' But I

Gazed and not moved, and could not find reply.

And all that day not any word I said,

And all that night, nor any tears I shed,

Till through the bars the morning light anew

Revealed our grief, and in my sons I knew

The aspect of myself, and anguish wrought

Within me, till I gnawed my hands. Whereat

They answered (impulsed by a single thought

That hunger urged me), 'Father, do not stay

Thine hand against us. Shouldst thou take away

The lives we owe thee, right it were, and less

To us the pain, that from the flesh we give

Thy life continue.'

Then I strove subdue

The anguish in me, lest I more distress

The sons beyond myself I loved. That day,

And all the next, in silent pain we lay

On earth too hard to take us. After that

Death came. For when the next sad dawn was dim

Fell Gaddo at my feet, and with one cry,

'O father, wilt thou aid us nought?' he died.

And two days more I watched, and after him,

One after one, beheld them fall and die.

Then, blind with famine, three days more I groped

Around them, till my grief no more denied

The pangs of fasting" - as these words he said,

With hateful eyes upon his murderer's head,

Again he seized it in strong teeth that bit

Hard on the bone. Ah, Pisa! since thy state

Thy neighbours leave, and all vituperate

Who know thee, shall not those two isles, that lie

So near, block Arno at its mouth, and throw

Its waters on thee till the depth of it

Hath drowned the last man in thy walls? For though

Had Ugolino all thy towers betrayed,

It were not right for one man traitorous

His children in their youth to torture thus

To innocent death, thou Thebes of Italy!

And therefore shall their frustrate names remain

In minds of all men where my tale is made.

Uguccione and Bragata they,

Anselm and Gaddo.

On we went, to see

A varied torment. Here the frozen pain

That bowed those others, bends its victims back.

They may not weep. The fount of tears they lack.

For all the hollows of their eyes are filled

With hardened ice. The tears that first they spilled

Are crystal visors to their sight.

To me,


Though cold had calloused all my face by now,

It seemed a wind was passing. To my guide

I questioned, "Master, is not vital heat

Extinguished here? Can utter cold allow

This downward air?"

He answered. "Soon we meet

Its cause, and sight shall tell thee."

Near
us cried

A wretch that marked us of the frozen host,

"O souls so cruel that the latest post

Is here assigned ye, will ye break away

The blocks one moment from mine eyes, that stay

The waiting tears?"

We paused, and I
replied.

"Then tell us who thou art, and whence thy doom,

And he should well deserve the frozen tomb

Who did not aid thee."

"Alberigo I,

The Jovial Friar, whom Manfred brought to die!

The evil fruit that in my orchard grew

Returns. The figs I gave: the dates I pick."



"Ha!" said I, "hast thou also left the quick

So soon?"

He said, "I know not. We that lie

In Ptolomæa, oft this depth descend

Before our bodies reach their natural end.

For those that like myself to death betray

Their friends, a waiting demon drags away,

Casts to this cistern of our kind, and then

His body takes, and in the ways of men

Controls it, till his time be spent. Behind

Is Brancha d'Oria. If his corse have died,

Who here finds winter, better chance have ye

Than I to tell, who earlier came, but he

Long years has suffered in this ice."


I said,

"I think thou liest. Brancha is not dead.

He lives on earth, and in our mortal way

His body eats and sleeps and warms today."



"Where boils the pitch, ere Michel Zanche came,

Within the Malebranche's ditch," said he,

"This man a demon in his place had left,

And one beside who shared his perfidy

Came likewise ere his time; but reach thy hand

To do the service that my speech can claim."

I heard, but different course my heart had planned

Since horror learnt his name. The ice uncleft

Still blinds him. Rudeness there was courtesy.



Ah, men corrupt from God! Ye Genoese,

Why do ye haste not on your path to these,

And earth seem cleaner? With Romagna's worst,

I found Ser Brancha, for his soul's disease

Ere death who suffers in this place accurst.

Canto XXXIV

THE lifted banners of the King of Hell,"

- My leader roused me from my thought -

"are nigh;

Look therefore." I beheld, as in such sky

As foul mist hides, or murk of night obscures,

A turning windmill loom; and such the gale

Its motions caused, that I, of strength too frail

To meet it longer, shrank behind my guide.



Beneath our feet - but memory fears to tell -

The sinners here contained in Hell's last sewers

Were frozen solid in firm ice, and shone

Like straw in glass; and as we walked thereon

We saw some flat, and some with heads below,

And some pulled backward like a bended bow,

And some were upright.

When we got so near

I needs must see, my leader stepped aside.

He said, "Let fortitude reject thy fear,

For Dis confronts thee."

There I think I
died,

Though living. Not the icy blast I met

A living man could face, a dead could feel.

But here speech fails me. Reader, words are nought

To help me further. To thy livelier thought

I leave it.

Breast-deep in the ice was set

The Emperor of the dolorous realm; but yet

So huge he towered that I should seem more fit

With giants to consort, than a giant compare

With one arm only. He, that once so fair

Could walk assured in Heaven, the lordliest there

Beneath his Maker, fills this glacial pit

If by his woe we price his earlier weal,

Or judge his glory by his aspect now,

Well may he fount affliction. For one head

I saw three faces. One was fiery red.

The others slanting from each shoulder rose

To form one crest that shapes creation's woes.

One pallid yellow, one the sable hue

Of those who wander from the tropic land

Wherefrom the sources of the Nile expand.

There were two wings the three foul heads below

Such bird to suit. I never saw such spread

Of ocean canvas to the wind: but these

Were bat-like, plumeless, and the wind they bred,

- They flapped unceasing - caused the glacier freeze

Down which we traversed. With six eyes he wept,

The while a sinner in each mouth he kept,

And chewed, and loosed not. Tears and foam unite

With dribbling blood, that spurts from every bite

Down his three chins. The midmost was not bit

So much as torn. At times his back was flayed

All bare of skin.

"That soul that most endures,


Whose head Apollyon in his mouth hath got,

Whose legs kick outward, is Iscariot:"

My Master told, "of those whose heads may quit

The teeth that chew them, down the swarthier chin

Is Brutus dangling. Mark how silently

He writhes. The comrade of his doom is he

Who shared that treason, Cassius. - But the night

Is rising in the world without, and we

Must hasten. All is seen that lies herein,

And hence depart we."

At his word I put

My arm around him. He with lifted foot

His opening watched, and when the wings were wide

Leapt from the glacier to the tangled side,

And midst the shaggy tufts of frozen hair

The scaly hide descended.

When we came

To pass the swelling of the haunch, my guide

With arduous effort turned, till where his head

Had been before, he placed his feet instead,

And gripped the hair as one that mounts. I thought

That backwards into Hell his path he sought.

But he, hard-panting with that toil, replied,

"Hold fast - be silent - by this only stair

We find Hell's exit."

Thus he climbed to
where

An opening gashed the rock, and reaching there

He placed me on the ledge, and warily

Himself stepped after. Here I looked to see

Again the front of Lucifer, and lo!

His legs stuck upward.

Were a man too dense


To understand the point we passed, he still

Might judge the toil before me, to return

To earth's far surface. "Gain thy feet, for ill

The pathway climbs," my guide enjoined, "that hence

Shall take us, as thy weary steps must learn,

And in the outer skies the sun midway

To noon is lifted."

Round I looked, and
saw

No palace, but such cleft in earth's deep maw

As likest to a natural dungeon showed,

Ill-floored, ill-lighted.

"Ere this evil
road,"

I answered, rising, "leave the deep abyss,

I pray thee tell me, lest my thought should err,

Why upward rise the legs of Lucifer,

And where the icy plain we crossed? and how

The morning shines without, which was but now

To night descending?"

"Dost thou
spare to think

Its meaning? Downward through the central sink

We passed. We have not backward climbed to where

I leapt, but holding by the frozen hair

We scaled this maggot of the evil core

To which all weights conclude; and when, midway,

We turned with effort, then beneath us lay

That half the world from which we came, and we

Look upward to that other world of sea

Which those who sail beyond thine hemisphere

Have found, and left uncharted. Standing here

Beneath us is the great dry land that lies

Within the cover of the northern skies,

And centres round the Sacred Mount whereon

The Holiest died. Above us reaches far

The region where the pathless oceans are;

For this side fell from Heaven the Worm of Hell

And all the land drew backward where he fell,

And hid beneath the waters. There is morn

When nightfall closes on thy northern land;

And there our issue, for a stream has worn

A tortuous passage from the outer skies

To this foul pit where Beelzebub lies,

And through the darkness of the toilsome way

Its sound must lead us."

Nothing more we
said,

Nor paused for rest, however jagged and rough

And dark the path we climbed, and long enough

For mortal feet to weary. Fast he led:

And I made tireless by that hope ahead

Pursued him upward, till the rocks were rent

With first a sight of Heaven's clear firmament,

And then the earth's clean airs with learnt delight

I breathed, and round me was the beauteous night,

And overhead the stars.

NOTES

Canto I. The opening scene is clearly allegorical,
and is capable of various interpretations. The simplest, and most probable, is that the
sleek and playful panther is Dante's own city of Florence, the lion is the king of France,
threatening the invasion of Italy, and the she-wolf is the temporal power of the Roman
See, the insatiable greed and corruption of which are represented as the radical causes of
the condition of Italy.

The poet has realized that, if he would save his moral
integrity, he must abandon political ambitions and associations, and revert his mind to
the pursuit of literature, and to the idealities of earlier years.

Canto II. This requires little comment. It amplifies
the idea of the poet's rescue from imminent spiritual peril by the interposition of Virgil
and Beatrice. Virgil obviously represents the love and practice of poetry, as opposed to
the snares of political ambition. Beatrice may be held to personate some spiritual quality
by those who care for such abstractions. The meaning is clear to anyone of average
imagination, and only loses by definition.

Canto III. The inscription over the gate of Hell
requires careful reading and intelligent apprehension. The idea is absolutely different
from that of eternal torture by an angry Deity. Hell is an inevitable condition of evil.
Those who occupy it are self-divorced by their own natures from the light of Heaven. The
great majority are not strictly in Hell at all, but rotate in endless repetition of the
futility of their wasted lives. They are typified by one who had been offered and refused
the Papacy An alternative choice had brought great dishonour to the Church, and,
considering the consequences which may follow from a mere refusal of the responsibilities
that life offers, Dante recognizes the justice of the condemnation. The parable of the
talent which was wrapped in a napkin reaches the same conclusion.

I anticipate a detail of criticism when I agree that the birds
of line 133 may have been falcons, not doves. But the spectacle of pigeons hesitating to
come to the call of one who would feed them, and flying downward one at a time, must have
been familiar to Dante in the squares of Florence, and it is in some ways a more forcible
metaphor, and one which is more familiar to a modern reader. It may be objected that Dante
would have compared the lost souls to falcons rather than to doves, but that is not
certain, as the success of his metaphors is often gained by sharpness of contrast,
underlying a superficial similitude.

Canto IV. This canto asserts the impotence of Hell
against those whose lives were blameless. It presents no difficulty.

Canto V. Here we enter the first circle of the places
of punishment. The idea is that Hell consists of nine narrowing circles (with some
subdivisions), each smaller than the one above it, and each containing sinners of a deeper
iniquity, till the centre point is reached, where Satan is fixed, surrounded by those
whose sins have merited "the place of Cain."

There are four outer circles, before the fiery citadel (the
city of Dis) is entered, and these are occupied by those whose sins were only against
their own bodies. They are not subjected to the indignity of torture by demons, but by
hostile elements only.

The first circle contains those who sinned through lack of
self-control, and they are now buffeted about by eternal winds, so that when they seek to
control themselves they are unable to do so.

Canto VI. The next circle contains the gluttons, whose
previous self-indulgence is now balanced by an appropriate discomfort.

Canto VII. In the third circle, the avaricious and the
wasteful find the same doom in the futility of abortive toil. Dante cannot recognize any
of the lost in this section: they have degraded themselves until their features have
become indistinct and blurred from any human likeness.

This is the last of the outer circles, and the edge of the
slough which divides it from the city of Dis is occupied by the muddied shades of those
who were once sullen, and ungrateful for the light and air, which they received from the
free bounty of God.

Canto VIII. As the adventurers are ferried over the
half-liquid moat, they observe others of those who suffer from the unrestrained indulgence
of evil temper, this being represented as the worst form of the various incontinences
which these outer circles contain.

Here, at the gates of Dis, we first encounter the demons that
people Hell. The sins of weakness are passed, and we meet evil in active assertion and
rebellion against the Deity.

Canto IX. The stubborn, though useless, opposition of
the demons to the entrance of Virgil and Dante shows that they are approaching the abodes
of evil in more malignant and aggressive forms than have been encountered previously.

Canto X. Here are those whose fault is no more than
that they lived in prideful contempt of the faith and discipline of religion. They are
innocent of the baser sins which will be ultimately encountered, but they are within the
circle of burning because their sin was spiritual, not merely carnal, as were those of the
previous sinners.

Canto XI. Here we approach to those who were not merely
infidel through arrogance, but from baser impulses, and the stench of their wickedness is
such that it cannot be quickly faced. Virgil uses the opportunity to explain the
distinctions of human guilt that are recognized in the divisions of Hell. We have passed
the sins of incontinence. We are entering the outer circles of Dis in which the sins of
violence are punished. These are subject to subdivision in three circlets, as they are
committed by men against their fellow men, their own bodies, or God.

In a farther depth we shall find those who have sinned, not by
violence, but by fraud, and they will be subdivided in circular trenches, as their frauds
were perpetrated against strangers, those with whom they were connected in some relation
of confidence, or those to whom they had direct obligations of loyalty - so that all
traitors are in the ultimate depth of Hell.

Canto XII. The adventurers now descend to view the
punishment of those who have committed violence against their fellow men, the blind and
brutal violence of the Minotaur typifying the minds of such criminals. The ruined wall
shows (as is seen again in still lower circles) that Christ had penetrated to the core of
Hell, and that those whom He released included sinners from the foulest circles. Here the
violent suffer appropriately in boiling blood, graduated according to their guilt.

Canto XIII. The penalty of those who have done violence
to their own bodies is as logical as that which falls upon those who do violence to
others.

Cantos XIV-XVI. Here, in a startling conjunction, are
those whose violence is directed against God the sodomites and the money-lenders. There is
no question of condemning only those who charged an excessive rate of interest. Dante
holds the deliberate opinion that the charging of interest for the use of money is morally
indefensible, and a radical evil of our civilization. It is commonly said that he would
have modified this view, could he have foreseen modern industrial developments. I can find
no reason at all to take this view. On the contrary, I think he would regard them as
having demonstrated the truth of the warning which he gave to the world.

Canto XVII. Notice the useless cunning with which the
money-lenders attempt to cheat their doom by gathering on the extreme edge of their place
of punishment - and so congregating upon the very edge of the final depth, where the
fraudulent suffer.

Cantos XVIII-XXXI. The fraudulent are divided among ten
circular trenches, each lower and smaller than the previous one, and these are bisected by
bridges of rock that slope down to the central pit, on which they converge. It is
therefore possible to go straight down to the centre by one of these causeways, crossing
the ten trenches in succession, or to turn aside as each trench is passed, and continue
along the circular wall that divides it from the next one, turning inward again when the
next of the converging bridges is reached. The ten trenches contain

(1) Panderers, and betrayers of women.

(2) Those who deceive by flattery.

(3) Those who enrich themselves under the cloak
of religious service.

(4) Sorcerers, and all who make gain from the
credulity of their fellows.

(5) Barterers, that is, those who corrupt
justice, regarding public office as a means of
extorting bribes, and using other illicit
means for their own enrichment.

(6) Hypocrites, who make false professions of
religion, and betray its precepts.

(7) Thieves and cheats.

(8) Tricksters, who deceive those in whom they
had deliberately established confidence.

(9) Those who with cunning words promote strife
or discord.

(10) Coiners, forgers, and their like.

Cantos XXXII-XXXIII. The final pit, through which the
poet and his guide must pass to ascend by the opposite way to the Southern Hemisphere and
the mountain of Purgatory, contains the sinners who have betrayed those to whom they were
under an obligation of loyalty, this being the lowest possibility of human baseness. Dante
may have meant to imply that Ugolino gnawed the dead bodies of his children before he
died, but he is not clear, and I have repeated the ambiguity.

The End

Translated by S. Fowler Wright

Editor 1 Interpretation

Dante's Inferno: A Journey Through Hell

When we think of hell, we often imagine a fiery place of eternal torment, a place reserved for the worst of human beings. But what if hell were not just a physical location, but a state of mind? What if it were a place where one's sins and flaws were exposed for all to see, and where one was forced to confront the consequences of one's actions? This is the world that Dante Alighieri created in his epic poem, Inferno.

Inferno is the first part of Dante's larger work, The Divine Comedy, and is considered one of the greatest works of literature in the Western canon. It tells the story of Dante's journey through the nine circles of hell, guided by the poet Virgil. Along the way, he encounters a variety of sinners, each punished according to their crimes. But Inferno is more than just a catalog of punishments – it is a deeply symbolic and allegorical work that explores the nature of sin and redemption.

The Structure of Inferno

One of the most striking features of Inferno is its structure. The poem is divided into 34 cantos, each with its own distinct imagery and themes. The first canto serves as an introduction, in which Dante sets the scene and describes his own personal journey. In the second canto, he meets Virgil, who will serve as his guide through the circles of hell.

The nine circles of hell are organized according to the severity of the sin committed. The first circle is reserved for the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, while the ninth and final circle is reserved for traitors. Each circle is home to a different type of sin – for example, the third circle is reserved for the gluttonous, while the sixth circle is reserved for the heretics.

Within each circle, Dante encounters sinners who are being punished for their crimes. These punishments are often gruesome and symbolic – for example, the gluttonous are forced to lie in a foul-smelling slush, while the heretics are trapped in tombs of fire.

The Symbolism of Inferno

One of the most fascinating aspects of Inferno is its use of symbolism. Nearly every aspect of the poem has a deeper meaning, and Dante often uses vivid imagery to convey his ideas. For example, the river Acheron, which Dante must cross to enter hell, represents the boundary between life and death. The three beasts that block his path represent the sins of lust, pride, and avarice.

One of the most important symbols in Inferno is the journey itself. Dante's journey through hell represents his own personal journey of self-discovery and redemption. As he progresses through the circles of hell, he becomes increasingly aware of the nature of sin and the consequences of his own actions. By the end of the poem, he has gained a greater understanding of himself and his place in the world.

Another key symbol in Inferno is the concept of contrapasso. This is the idea that the punishment should fit the crime – for example, the lustful are punished by being blown around by the winds of passion, while the violent are submerged in a river of boiling blood. The use of contrapasso reinforces the idea that sin has consequences, and that every action has a reaction.

The Themes of Inferno

Inferno is a deeply philosophical work that explores a variety of themes. One of the most important themes is the nature of sin. Dante believed that sin was not just a violation of God's laws, but a fundamental distortion of the human soul. He argued that sinners were not just punished for their actions, but for the damage they had done to their own souls.

Another important theme in Inferno is the concept of redemption. Dante believed that it was possible for sinners to be redeemed, but that this required a deep understanding of the nature of sin and a willingness to repent. Throughout the poem, Dante encounters sinners who are capable of redemption, but who are also trapped by their own pride and stubbornness.

Finally, Inferno is a commentary on the social and political structures of Dante's time. The poem is filled with references to historical figures and events, and Dante uses these references to comment on the state of Italy in the 14th century. For example, he places several popes and other church officials in various circles of hell, suggesting that he believed the church was corrupt and in need of reform.

Conclusion

Inferno is a masterpiece of literature that continues to captivate readers nearly 700 years after it was written. Its vivid imagery, powerful symbolism, and deep philosophical themes make it a work that rewards repeated readings and careful analysis. Whether read as an allegory of sin and redemption, a commentary on the political and social structures of the Middle Ages, or simply as a thrilling adventure story, Inferno remains a work of enduring significance and beauty.

Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation

Inferno: A Journey Through Hell

Dante Alighieri's Inferno is a classic poem that takes readers on a journey through the depths of Hell. Written in the early 14th century, this epic poem is part of a larger work called The Divine Comedy, which also includes Purgatorio and Paradiso. Inferno is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever written, and for good reason. It is a masterpiece of storytelling, symbolism, and allegory that explores the nature of sin, redemption, and the human condition.

The poem begins with Dante, the narrator, finding himself lost in a dark forest. He is confronted by three beasts - a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf - that block his path and threaten to devour him. Dante is saved by the poet Virgil, who has been sent by Beatrice, Dante's beloved, to guide him through Hell. Virgil tells Dante that he must journey through the nine circles of Hell in order to reach the center, where Satan is imprisoned.

The first circle of Hell is Limbo, where the souls of the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans reside. Here, Dante meets some of the greatest thinkers and artists of the ancient world, including Homer, Socrates, and Virgil himself. Despite their greatness, these souls are doomed to eternal separation from God because they were not baptized.

The second circle is reserved for the lustful. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who were consumed by their passions and desires in life. They are punished by being blown about by an eternal storm, which represents the restless nature of their desires. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Francesca da Rimini, who tells him the tragic story of how she and her lover Paolo were killed by her husband.

The third circle is for the gluttonous. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who indulged in excess and overconsumption in life. They are punished by being forced to lie in a vile slush that represents the waste and excess of their lives. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Ciacco, who tells him about the political strife that is tearing apart his home city of Florence.

The fourth circle is for the hoarders and the spendthrifts. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who were obsessed with wealth and material possessions in life. They are punished by being forced to push heavy weights around in opposite directions, which represents the futility of their greed. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Plutus, the god of wealth, who is powerless in Hell.

The fifth circle is for the wrathful and the sullen. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who were consumed by anger and bitterness in life. They are punished by being submerged in the River Styx, which represents the chaos and turmoil of their emotions. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Filippo Argenti, a former political rival who is consumed by rage.

The sixth circle is for the heretics. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who rejected the teachings of the Church in life. They are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, which represents the eternal damnation they have brought upon themselves. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Farinata degli Uberti, a political enemy who still shows a fierce loyalty to his city.

The seventh circle is divided into three rings, each reserved for a different type of sinner. The first ring is for the violent against others, the second is for the violent against themselves, and the third is for the violent against God. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who committed acts of violence in life. They are punished by being immersed in boiling blood, burning sand, or falling fire, depending on the nature of their sins. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Pier della Vigna, a former advisor to the emperor who was falsely accused of treachery.

The eighth circle is for the fraudulent and the malicious. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who used deception and trickery to harm others in life. They are punished by being trapped in various types of pits and ditches, each with its own unique form of torment. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Ulysses, who tells him about his final voyage and the tragic consequences of his ambition.

The ninth and final circle is for the treacherous. Here, Dante sees the souls of those who betrayed their loved ones, their country, and their God in life. They are punished by being frozen in a lake of ice, which represents the coldness and isolation of their hearts. Among the souls Dante encounters here is Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, and Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar.

Throughout his journey, Dante is guided by Virgil, who represents reason and wisdom. Virgil is a symbol of the classical world, which Dante admired and sought to emulate. However, Virgil is unable to guide Dante through the final circle of Hell, as he is a pagan and therefore cannot enter the realm of the Christian God. Instead, Dante is guided by Beatrice, who represents divine love and grace. Beatrice is a symbol of the Christian faith, which Dante ultimately embraces.

Inferno is a powerful and complex work that explores the nature of sin, redemption, and the human condition. It is a journey through the darkest depths of the human soul, but it is also a journey towards enlightenment and salvation. Dante's use of symbolism and allegory is masterful, and his characters are vivid and memorable. Inferno is a timeless work of literature that continues to captivate and inspire readers today.

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