The Divine Comedy

Midway upon the journey of our life
    I found myself within a forest dark,
    For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
    What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
    Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
    But of the good to treat, which there I found,
    Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
    So full was I of slumber at the moment
    In which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
    At that point where the valley terminated,
    Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
    Vested already with that planet’s rays
    Which leadeth others right by every road.

Then was the fear a little quieted
    That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout
    The night, which I had passed so piteously.

And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
    Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
    Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
    Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
    Which never yet a living person left.

After my weary body I had rested,
    The way resumed I on the desert slope,
    So that the firm foot ever was the lower.

And lo! almost where the ascent began,
    A panther light and swift exceedingly,
    Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!

And never moved she from before my face,
    Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
    That many times I to return had turned.

The time was the beginning of the morning,
    And up the sun was mounting with those stars
    That with him were, what time the Love Divine

At first in motion set those beauteous things;
    So were to me occasion of good hope,
    The variegated skin of that wild beast,

The hour of time, and the delicious season;
    But not so much, that did not give me fear
    A lion’s aspect which appeared to me.

He seemed as if against me he were coming
    With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger,
    So that it seemed the air was afraid of him;

And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings
    Seemed to be laden in her meagreness,
    And many folk has caused to live forlorn!

She brought upon me so much heaviness,
    With the affright that from her aspect came,
    That I the hope relinquished of the height.

And as he is who willingly acquires,
    And the time comes that causes him to lose,
    Who weeps in all his thoughts and is despondent,

E’en such made me that beast withouten peace,
    Which, coming on against me by degrees
    Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent.

While I was rushing downward to the lowland,
    Before mine eyes did one present himself,
    Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse.

When I beheld him in the desert vast,
    “Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
    “Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”

He answered me: “Not man; man once I was,
    And both my parents were of Lombardy,
    And Mantuans by country both of them.

‘Sub Julio’ was I born, though it was late,
    And lived at Rome under the good Augustus,
    During the time of false and lying gods.

A poet was I, and I sang that just
    Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy,
    After that Ilion the superb was burned.

But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance?
    Why climb’st thou not the Mount Delectable,
    Which is the source and cause of every joy?”

“Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain
    Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?”
    I made response to him with bashful forehead.

“O, of the other poets honour and light,
    Avail me the long study and great love
    That have impelled me to explore thy volume!

Thou art my master, and my author thou,
    Thou art alone the one from whom I took
    The beautiful style that has done honour to me.

Behold the beast, for which I have turned back;
    Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage,
    For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.”

“Thee it behoves to take another road,”
    Responded he, when he beheld me weeping,
    “If from this savage place thou wouldst escape;

Because this beast, at which thou criest out,
    Suffers not any one to pass her way,
    But so doth harass him, that she destroys him;

And has a nature so malign and ruthless,
    That never doth she glut her greedy will,
    And after food is hungrier than before.

Many the animals with whom she weds,
    And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound
    Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain.

He shall not feed on either earth or pelf,
    But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue;
    ’Twixt Feltro and Feltro shall his nation be;

Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour,
    On whose account the maid Camilla died,
    Euryalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds;

Through every city shall he hunt her down,
    Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,
    There from whence envy first did let her loose.

Therefore I think and judge it for thy best
    Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide,
    And lead thee hence through the eternal place,

Where thou shalt hear the desperate lamentations,
    Shalt see the ancient spirits disconsolate,
    Who cry out each one for the second death;

And thou shalt see those who contented are
    Within the fire, because they hope to come,
    Whene’er it may be, to the blessed people;

To whom, then, if thou wishest to ascend,
    A soul shall be for that than I more worthy;
    With her at my departure I will leave thee;

Because that Emperor, who reigns above,
    In that I was rebellious to his law,
    Wills that through me none come into his city.

He governs everywhere, and there he reigns;
    There is his city and his lofty throne;
    O happy he whom thereto he elects!”

And I to him: “Poet, I thee entreat,
    By that same God whom thou didst never know,
    So that I may escape this woe and worse,

Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said,
    That I may see the portal of Saint Peter,
    And those thou makest so disconsolate.”

Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.

Day was departing, and the embrowned air
    Released the animals that are on earth
    From their fatigues; and I the only one

Made myself ready to sustain the war,
    Both of the way and likewise of the woe,
    Which memory that errs not shall retrace.

O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!
    O memory, that didst write down what I saw,
    Here thy nobility shall be manifest!

And I began: “Poet, who guidest me,
    Regard my manhood, if it be sufficient,
    Ere to the arduous pass thou dost confide me.

Thou sayest, that of Silvius the parent,
    While yet corruptible, unto the world
    Immortal went, and was there bodily.

But if the adversary of all evil
    Was courteous, thinking of the high effect
    That issue would from him, and who, and what,

To men of intellect unmeet it seems not;
    For he was of great Rome, and of her empire
    In the empyreal heaven as father chosen;

The which and what, wishing to speak the truth,
    Were stablished as the holy place, wherein
    Sits the successor of the greatest Peter.

Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt,
    Things did he hear, which the occasion were
    Both of his victory and the papal mantle.

Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel,
    To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith,
    Which of salvation’s way is the beginning.

But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?
    I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul,
    Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.

Therefore, if I resign myself to come,
    I fear the coming may be ill-advised;
    Thou’rt wise, and knowest better than I speak.”

And as he is, who unwills what he willed,
    And by new thoughts doth his intention change,
    So that from his design he quite withdraws,

Such I became, upon that dark hillside,
    Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise,
    Which was so very prompt in the beginning.

“If I have well thy language understood,”
    Replied that shade of the Magnanimous,
    “Thy soul attainted is with cowardice,

Which many times a man encumbers so,
    It turns him back from honoured enterprise,
    As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.

That thou mayst free thee from this apprehension,
    I’ll tell thee why I came, and what I heard
    At the first moment when I grieved for thee.

Among those was I who are in suspense,
    And a fair, saintly Lady called to me
    In such wise, I besought her to command me.

Her eyes where shining brighter than the Star;
    And she began to say, gentle and low,
    With voice angelical, in her own language:

‘O spirit courteous of Mantua,
    Of whom the fame still in the world endures,
    And shall endure, long-lasting as the world;

A friend of mine, and not the friend of fortune,
    Upon the desert slope is so impeded
    Upon his way, that he has turned through terror,

And may, I fear, already be so lost,
    That I too late have risen to his succour,
    From that which I have heard of him in Heaven.

Bestir thee now, and with thy speech ornate,
    And with what needful is for his release,
    Assist him so, that I may be consoled.

Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go;
    I come from there, where I would fain return;
    Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak.

When I shall be in presence of my Lord,
    Full often will I praise thee unto him.’
    Then paused she, and thereafter I began:

‘O Lady of virtue, thou alone through whom
    The human race exceedeth all contained
    Within the heaven that has the lesser circles,

So grateful unto me is thy commandment,
    To obey, if ’twere already done, were late;
    No farther need’st thou ope to me thy wish.

But the cause tell me why thou dost not shun
    The here descending down into this centre,
    From the vast place thou burnest to return to.’

‘Since thou wouldst fain so inwardly discern,
    Briefly will I relate,’ she answered me,
    ‘Why I am not afraid to enter here.

Of those things only should one be afraid
    Which have the power of doing others harm;
    Of the rest, no; because they are not fearful.

God in his mercy such created me
    That misery of yours attains me not,
    Nor any flame assails me of this burning.

A gentle Lady is in Heaven, who grieves
    At this impediment, to which I send thee,
    So that stern judgment there above is broken.

In her entreaty she besought Lucia,
    And said, “Thy faithful one now stands in need
    Of thee, and unto thee I recommend him.”

Lucia, foe of all that cruel is,
    Hastened away, and came unto the place
    Where I was sitting with the ancient Rachel.

“Beatrice” said she, “the true praise of God,
    Why succourest thou not him, who loved thee so,
    For thee he issued from the vulgar herd?

Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint?
    Dost thou not see the death that combats him
    Beside that flood, where ocean has no vaunt?”

Never were persons in the world so swift
    To work their weal and to escape their woe,
    As I, after such words as these were uttered,

Came hither downward from my blessed seat,
    Confiding in thy dignified discourse,
    Which honours thee, and those who’ve listened to it.’

After she thus had spoken unto me,
    Weeping, her shining eyes she turned away;
    Whereby she made me swifter in my coming;

And unto thee I came, as she desired;
    I have delivered thee from that wild beast,
    Which barred the beautiful mountain’s short ascent.

What is it, then? Why, why dost thou delay?
    Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart?
    Daring and hardihood why hast thou not,

Seeing that three such Ladies benedight
    Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven,
    And so much good my speech doth promise thee?”

Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill,
    Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them,
    Uplift themselves all open on their stems;

Such I became with my exhausted strength,
    And such good courage to my heart there coursed,
    That I began, like an intrepid person:

“O she compassionate, who succoured me,
    And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon
    The words of truth which she addressed to thee!

Thou hast my heart so with desire disposed
    To the adventure, with these words of thine,
    That to my first intent I have returned.

Now go, for one sole will is in us both,
    Thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Master thou.”
    Thus said I to him; and when he had moved,

I entered on the deep and savage way.

“Through me the way is to the city dolent;
    Through me the way is to eternal dole;
    Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;
    Created me divine Omnipotence,
    The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,
    Only eterne, and I eternal last.
    All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

These words in sombre colour I beheld
    Written upon the summit of a gate;
    Whence I: “Their sense is, Master, hard to me!”

And he to me, as one experienced:
    “Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
    All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee
    Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
    Who have foregone the good of intellect.”

And after he had laid his hand on mine
    With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
    He led me in among the secret things.

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
    Resounded through the air without a star,
    Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
    Accents of anger, words of agony,
    And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
    For ever in that air for ever black,
    Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head with horror bound,
    Said: “Master, what is this which now I hear?
    What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?”

And he to me: “This miserable mode
    Maintain the melancholy souls of those
    Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
    Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
    Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
    Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
    For glory none the damned would have from them.”

And I: “O Master, what so grievous is
    To these, that maketh them lament so sore?”
    He answered: “I will tell thee very briefly.

These have no longer any hope of death;
    And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
    They envious are of every other fate.

No fame of them the world permits to be;
    Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
    Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.”

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
    Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
    That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

And after it there came so long a train
    Of people, that I ne’er would have believed
    That ever Death so many had undone.

When some among them I had recognised,
    I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
    Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
    That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
    Hateful to God and to his enemies.

These miscreants, who never were alive,
    Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
    By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

These did their faces irrigate with blood,
    Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
    By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

And when to gazing farther I betook me.
    People I saw on a great river’s bank;
    Whence said I: “Master, now vouchsafe to me,

That I may know who these are, and what law
    Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
    As I discern athwart the dusky light.”

And he to me: “These things shall all be known
    To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
    Upon the dismal shore of Acheron.”

Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
    Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
    From speech refrained I till we reached the river.

And lo! towards us coming in a boat
    An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
    Crying: “Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!

Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
    I come to lead you to the other shore,
    To the eternal shades in heat and frost.

And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
    Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!”
    But when he saw that I did not withdraw,

He said: “By other ways, by other ports
    Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
    A lighter vessel needs must carry thee.”

And unto him the Guide: “Vex thee not, Charon;
    It is so willed there where is power to do
    That which is willed; and farther question not.”

Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
    Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
    Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

But all those souls who weary were and naked
    Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
    As soon as they had heard those cruel words.

God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
    The human race, the place, the time, the seed
    Of their engendering and of their birth!

Thereafter all together they drew back,
    Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
    Which waiteth every man who fears not God.

Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
    Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
    Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
    First one and then another, till the branch
    Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
    Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
    At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

So they depart across the dusky wave,
    And ere upon the other side they land,
    Again on this side a new troop assembles.

“My son,” the courteous Master said to me,
    “All those who perish in the wrath of God
    Here meet together out of every land;

And ready are they to pass o’er the river,
    Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
    So that their fear is turned into desire.

This way there never passes a good soul;
    And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
    Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.”

This being finished, all the dusk champaign
    Trembled so violently, that of that terror
    The recollection bathes me still with sweat.

The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
    And fulminated a vermilion light,
    Which overmastered in me every sense,

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.

Broke the deep lethargy within my head
    A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
    Like to a person who by force is wakened;

And round about I moved my rested eyes,
    Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,
    To recognise the place wherein I was.

True is it, that upon the verge I found me
    Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
    That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.

Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,
    So that by fixing on its depths my sight
    Nothing whatever I discerned therein.

“Let us descend now into the blind world,”
    Began the Poet, pallid utterly;
    “I will be first, and thou shalt second be.”

And I, who of his colour was aware,
    Said: “How shall I come, if thou art afraid,
    Who’rt wont to be a comfort to my fears?”

And he to me: “The anguish of the people
    Who are below here in my face depicts
    That pity which for terror thou hast taken.

Let us go on, for the long way impels us.”
    Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter
    The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.

There, as it seemed to me from listening,
    Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
    That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
    Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
    Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: “Thou dost not ask
    What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?
    Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
    ’Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
    Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,
    In the right manner they adored not God;
    And among such as these am I myself.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
    Lost are we and are only so far punished,
    That without hope we live on in desire.”

Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,
    Because some people of much worthiness
    I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.

“Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord,”
    Began I, with desire of being certain
    Of that Faith which o’ercometh every error,

“Came any one by his own merit hence,
    Or by another’s, who was blessed thereafter?”
    And he, who understood my covert speech,

Replied: “I was a novice in this state,
    When I saw hither come a Mighty One,
    With sign of victory incoronate.

Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,
    And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,
    Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient

Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,
    Israel with his father and his children,
    And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,

And others many, and he made them blessed;
    And thou must know, that earlier than these
    Never were any human spirits saved.”

We ceased not to advance because he spake,
    But still were passing onward through the forest,
    The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts.

Not very far as yet our way had gone
    This side the summit, when I saw a fire
    That overcame a hemisphere of darkness.

We were a little distant from it still,
    But not so far that I in part discerned not
    That honourable people held that place.

“O thou who honourest every art and science,
    Who may these be, which such great honour have,
    That from the fashion of the rest it parts them?”

And he to me: “The honourable name,
    That sounds of them above there in thy life,
    Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them.”

In the mean time a voice was heard by me:
    “All honour be to the pre-eminent Poet;
    His shade returns again, that was departed.”

After the voice had ceased and quiet was,
    Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;
    Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.

To say to me began my gracious Master:
    “Him with that falchion in his hand behold,
    Who comes before the three, even as their lord.

That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;
    He who comes next is Horace, the satirist;
    The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.

Because to each of these with me applies
    The name that solitary voice proclaimed,
    They do me honour, and in that do well.”

Thus I beheld assemble the fair school
    Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,
    Who o’er the others like an eagle soars.

When they together had discoursed somewhat,
    They turned to me with signs of salutation,
    And on beholding this, my Master smiled;

And more of honour still, much more, they did me,
    In that they made me one of their own band;
    So that the sixth was I, ’mid so much wit.

Thus we went on as far as to the light,
    Things saying ’tis becoming to keep silent,
    As was the saying of them where I was.

We came unto a noble castle’s foot,
    Seven times encompassed with lofty walls,
    Defended round by a fair rivulet;

This we passed over even as firm ground;
    Through portals seven I entered with these Sages;
    We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.

People were there with solemn eyes and slow,
    Of great authority in their countenance;
    They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.

Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side
    Into an opening luminous and lofty,
    So that they all of them were visible.

There opposite, upon the green enamel,
    Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,
    Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.

I saw Electra with companions many,
    ’Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,
    Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;

I saw Camilla and Penthesilea
    On the other side, and saw the King Latinus,
    Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;

I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth,
    Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,
    And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.

When I had lifted up my brows a little,
    The Master I beheld of those who know,
    Sit with his philosophic family.

All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.
    There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
    Who nearer him before the others stand;

Democritus, who puts the world on chance,
    Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,
    Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;

Of qualities I saw the good collector,
    Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,
    Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,

Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,
    Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,
    Averroes, who the great Comment made.

I cannot all of them pourtray in full,
    Because so drives me onward the long theme,
    That many times the word comes short of fact.

The sixfold company in two divides;
    Another way my sapient Guide conducts me
    Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

Thus I descended out of the first circle
    Down to the second, that less space begirds,
    And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
    Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
    Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

I say, that when the spirit evil-born
    Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
    And this discriminator of transgressions

Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;
    Girds himself with his tail as many times
    As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.

Always before him many of them stand;
    They go by turns each one unto the judgment;
    They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.

“O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry
    Comest,” said Minos to me, when he saw me,
    Leaving the practice of so great an office,

“Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;
    Let not the portal’s amplitude deceive thee.”
    And unto him my Guide: “Why criest thou too?

Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;
    It is so willed there where is power to do
    That which is willed; and ask no further question.”

And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
    Audible unto me; now am I come
    There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

I came into a place mute of all light,
    Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
    If by opposing winds ’t is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests
    Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
    Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,
    There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
    There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment
    The carnal malefactors were condemned,
    Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on
    In the cold season in large band and full,
    So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
    No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
    Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
    Making in air a long line of themselves,
    So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,

Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
    Whereupon said I: “Master, who are those
    People, whom the black air so castigates?”

“The first of those, of whom intelligence
    Thou fain wouldst have,” then said he unto me,
    “The empress was of many languages.

To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
    That lustful she made licit in her law,
    To remove the blame to which she had been led.

She is Semiramis, of whom we read
    That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
    She held the land which now the Sultan rules.

The next is she who killed herself for love,
    And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;
    Then Cleopatra the voluptuous.”

Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless
    Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,
    Who at the last hour combated with Love.

Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand
    Shades did he name and point out with his finger,
    Whom Love had separated from our life.

After that I had listened to my Teacher,
    Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
    Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.

And I began: “O Poet, willingly
    Speak would I to those two, who go together,
    And seem upon the wind to be so light.”

And, he to me: “Thou’lt mark, when they shall be
    Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
    By love which leadeth them, and they will come.”

Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,
    My voice uplift I: “O ye weary souls!
    Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it.”

As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,
    With open and steady wings to the sweet nest
    Fly through the air by their volition borne,

So came they from the band where Dido is,
    Approaching us athwart the air malign,
    So strong was the affectionate appeal.

“O living creature gracious and benignant,
    Who visiting goest through the purple air
    Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,

If were the King of the Universe our friend,
    We would pray unto him to give thee peace,
    Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.

Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,
    That will we hear, and we will speak to you,
    While silent is the wind, as it is now.

Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
    Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends
    To rest in peace with all his retinue.

Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,
    Seized this man for the person beautiful
    That was ta’en from me, and still the mode offends me.

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
    Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
    That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;

Love has conducted us unto one death;
    Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!”
    These words were borne along from them to us.

As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,
    I bowed my face, and so long held it down
    Until the Poet said to me: “What thinkest?”

When I made answer, I began: “Alas!
    How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
    Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!”

Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
    And I began: “Thine agonies, Francesca,
    Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.

But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
    By what and in what manner Love conceded,
    That you should know your dubious desires?”

And she to me: “There is no greater sorrow
    Than to be mindful of the happy time
    In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.

But, if to recognise the earliest root
    Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
    I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.

One day we reading were for our delight
    Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
    Alone we were and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew
    That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
    But one point only was it that o’ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
    Being by such a noble lover kissed,
    This one, who ne’er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
    Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
    That day no farther did we read therein.”

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
    The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
    I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

At the return of consciousness, that closed
    Before the pity of those two relations,
    Which utterly with sadness had confused me,

New torments I behold, and new tormented
    Around me, whichsoever way I move,
    And whichsoever way I turn, and gaze.

In the third circle am I of the rain
    Eternal, maledict, and cold, and heavy;
    Its law and quality are never new.

Huge hail, and water sombre-hued, and snow,
    Athwart the tenebrous air pour down amain;
    Noisome the earth is, that receiveth this.

Cerberus, monster cruel and uncouth,
    With his three gullets like a dog is barking
    Over the people that are there submerged.

Red eyes he has, and unctuous beard and black,
    And belly large, and armed with claws his hands;
    He rends the spirits, flays, and quarters them.

Howl the rain maketh them like unto dogs;
    One side they make a shelter for the other;
    Oft turn themselves the wretched reprobates.

When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
     His mouths he opened, and displayed his tusks;
     Not a limb had he that was motionless.

And my Conductor, with his spans extended,
    Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled,
    He threw it into those rapacious gullets.

Such as that dog is, who by barking craves,
    And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws,
    For to devour it he but thinks and struggles,

The like became those muzzles filth-begrimed
    Of Cerberus the demon, who so thunders
    Over the souls that they would fain be deaf.

We passed across the shadows, which subdues
    The heavy rain-storm, and we placed our feet
    Upon their vanity that person seems.

They all were lying prone upon the earth,
    Excepting one, who sat upright as soon
    As he beheld us passing on before him.

“O thou that art conducted through this Hell,”
    He said to me, “recall me, if thou canst;
    Thyself wast made before I was unmade.”

And I to him: “The anguish which thou hast
    Perhaps doth draw thee out of my remembrance,
    So that it seems not I have ever seen thee.

But tell me who thou art, that in so doleful
    A place art put, and in such punishment,
    If some are greater, none is so displeasing.”

And he to me: “Thy city, which is full
    Of envy so that now the sack runs over,
    Held me within it in the life serene.

You citizens were wont to call me Ciacco;
    For the pernicious sin of gluttony
    I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain.

And I, sad soul, am not the only one,
    For all these suffer the like penalty
    For the like sin;” and word no more spake he.

I answered him: “Ciacco, thy wretchedness
    Weighs on me so that it to weep invites me;
    But tell me, if thou knowest, to what shall come

The citizens of the divided city;
    If any there be just; and the occasion
    Tell me why so much discord has assailed it.”

And he to me: “They, after long contention,
    Will come to bloodshed; and the rustic party
    Will drive the other out with much offence.

Then afterwards behoves it this one fall
    Within three suns, and rise again the other
    By force of him who now is on the coast.

High will it hold its forehead a long while,
    Keeping the other under heavy burdens,
    Howe’er it weeps thereat and is indignant.

The just are two, and are not understood there;
    Envy and Arrogance and Avarice
    Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled.”

Here ended he his tearful utterance;
    And I to him: “I wish thee still to teach me,
    And make a gift to me of further speech.

Farinata and Tegghiaio, once so worthy,
    Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,
    And others who on good deeds set their thoughts,

Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;
    For great desire constraineth me to learn
    If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom.”

And he: “They are among the blacker souls;
    A different sin downweighs them to the bottom;
    If thou so far descendest, thou canst see them.

But when thou art again in the sweet world,
    I pray thee to the mind of others bring me;
    No more I tell thee and no more I answer.”

Then his straightforward eyes he turned askance,
    Eyed me a little, and then bowed his head;
    He fell therewith prone like the other blind.

And the Guide said to me: “He wakes no more
    This side the sound of the angelic trumpet;
    When shall approach the hostile Potentate,

Each one shall find again his dismal tomb,
    Shall reassume his flesh and his own figure,
    Shall hear what through eternity re-echoes.”

So we passed onward o’er the filthy mixture
    Of shadows and of rain with footsteps slow,
    Touching a little on the future life.

Wherefore I said: “Master, these torments here,
    Will they increase after the mighty sentence,
    Or lesser be, or will they be as burning?”

And he to me: “Return unto thy science,
    Which wills, that as the thing more perfect is,
    The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.

Albeit that this people maledict
    To true perfection never can attain,
    Hereafter more than now they look to be.”

Round in a circle by that road we went,
    Speaking much more, which I do not repeat;
    We came unto the point where the descent is;

There we found Plutus the great enemy.

“Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!”
    Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;
    And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,

Said, to encourage me: “Let not thy fear
    Harm thee; for any power that he may have
    Shall not prevent thy going down this crag.”

Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,
    And said: “Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
    Consume within thyself with thine own rage.

Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;
    Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought
    Vengeance upon the proud adultery.”

Even as the sails inflated by the wind
    Involved together fall when snaps the mast,
    So fell the cruel monster to the earth.

Thus we descended into the fourth chasm,
    Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore
    Which all the woe of the universe insacks.

Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many
    New toils and sufferings as I beheld?
    And why doth our transgression waste us so?

As doth the billow there upon Charybdis,
    That breaks itself on that which it encounters,
    So here the folk must dance their roundelay.

Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,
    On one side and the other, with great howls,
    Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.

They clashed together, and then at that point
    Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde,
    Crying, “Why keepest?” and, “Why squanderest thou?”

Thus they returned along the lurid circle
    On either hand unto the opposite point,
    Shouting their shameful metre evermore.

Then each, when he arrived there, wheeled about
    Through his half-circle to another joust;
    And I, who had my heart pierced as it were,

Exclaimed: “My Master, now declare to me
    What people these are, and if all were clerks,
    These shaven crowns upon the left of us.”

And he to me: “All of them were asquint
    In intellect in the first life, so much
    That there with measure they no spending made.

Clearly enough their voices bark it forth,
    Whene’er they reach the two points of the circle,
    Where sunders them the opposite defect.

Clerks those were who no hairy covering
    Have on the head, and Popes and Cardinals,
    In whom doth Avarice practise its excess.”

And I: “My Master, among such as these
    I ought forsooth to recognise some few,
    Who were infected with these maladies.”

And he to me: “Vain thought thou entertainest;
    The undiscerning life which made them sordid
    Now makes them unto all discernment dim.

Forever shall they come to these two buttings;
    These from the sepulchre shall rise again
    With the fist closed, and these with tresses shorn.

Ill giving and ill keeping the fair world
    Have ta’en from them, and placed them in this scuffle;
    Whate’er it be, no words adorn I for it.

Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farce
    Of goods that are committed unto Fortune,
    For which the human race each other buffet;

For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
    Or ever has been, of these weary souls
    Could never make a single one repose.”

“Master,” I said to him, “now tell me also
    What is this Fortune which thou speakest of,
    That has the world’s goods so within its clutches?”

And he to me: “O creatures imbecile,
    What ignorance is this which doth beset you?
    Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her.

He whose omniscience everything transcends
    The heavens created, and gave who should guide them,
    That every part to every part may shine,

Distributing the light in equal measure;
    He in like manner to the mundane splendours
    Ordained a general ministress and guide,

That she might change at times the empty treasures
    From race to race, from one blood to another,
    Beyond resistance of all human wisdom.

Therefore one people triumphs, and another
    Languishes, in pursuance of her judgment,
    Which hidden is, as in the grass a serpent.

Your knowledge has no counterstand against her;
    She makes provision, judges, and pursues
    Her governance, as theirs the other gods.

Her permutations have not any truce;
    Necessity makes her precipitate,
    So often cometh who his turn obtains.

And this is she who is so crucified
    Even by those who ought to give her praise,
    Giving her blame amiss, and bad repute.

But she is blissful, and she hears it not;
    Among the other primal creatures gladsome
    She turns her sphere, and blissful she rejoices.

Let us descend now unto greater woe;
    Already sinks each star that was ascending
    When I set out, and loitering is forbidden.”

We crossed the circle to the other bank,
    Near to a fount that boils, and pours itself
    Along a gully that runs out of it.

The water was more sombre far than perse;
    And we, in company with the dusky waves,
    Made entrance downward by a path uncouth.

A marsh it makes, which has the name of Styx,
    This tristful brooklet, when it has descended
    Down to the foot of the malign gray shores.

And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
    Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
    All of them naked and with angry look.

They smote each other not alone with hands,
    But with the head and with the breast and feet,
    Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.

Said the good Master: “Son, thou now beholdest
    The souls of those whom anger overcame;
    And likewise I would have thee know for certain

Beneath the water people are who sigh
    And make this water bubble at the surface,
    As the eye tells thee wheresoe’er it turns.

Fixed in the mire they say, ‘We sullen were
    In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,
    Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek;

Now we are sullen in this sable mire.’
    This hymn do they keep gurgling in their throats,
    For with unbroken words they cannot say it.”

Thus we went circling round the filthy fen
    A great arc ’twixt the dry bank and the swamp,
    With eyes turned unto those who gorge the mire;

Unto the foot of a tower we came at last.

I say, continuing, that long before
    We to the foot of that high tower had come,
    Our eyes went upward to the summit of it,

By reason of two flamelets we saw placed there,
    And from afar another answer them,
    So far, that hardly could the eye attain it.

And, to the sea of all discernment turned,
    I said: “What sayeth this, and what respondeth
    That other fire? and who are they that made it?”

And he to me: “Across the turbid waves
    What is expected thou canst now discern,
    If reek of the morass conceal it not.”

Cord never shot an arrow from itself
    That sped away athwart the air so swift,
    As I beheld a very little boat

Come o’er the water tow’rds us at that moment,
    Under the guidance of a single pilot,
    Who shouted, “Now art thou arrived, fell soul?”

“Phlegyas, Phlegyas, thou criest out in vain
    For this once,” said my Lord; “thou shalt not have us
    Longer than in the passing of the slough.”

As he who listens to some great deceit
    That has been done to him, and then resents it,
    Such became Phlegyas, in his gathered wrath.

My Guide descended down into the boat,
    And then he made me enter after him,
    And only when I entered seemed it laden.

Soon as the Guide and I were in the boat,
    The antique prow goes on its way, dividing
    More of the water than ’tis wont with others.

While we were running through the dead canal,
    Uprose in front of me one full of mire,
    And said, “Who ’rt thou that comest ere the hour?”

And I to him: “Although I come, I stay not;
    But who art thou that hast become so squalid?”
    “Thou seest that I am one who weeps,” he answered.

And I to him: “With weeping and with wailing,
    Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain;
    For thee I know, though thou art all defiled.”

Then stretched he both his hands unto the boat;
    Whereat my wary Master thrust him back,
    Saying, “Away there with the other dogs!”

Thereafter with his arms he clasped my neck;
    He kissed my face, and said: “Disdainful soul,
    Blessed be she who bore thee in her bosom.

That was an arrogant person in the world;
    Goodness is none, that decks his memory;
    So likewise here his shade is furious.

How many are esteemed great kings up there,
    Who here shall be like unto swine in mire,
    Leaving behind them horrible dispraises!”

And I: “My Master, much should I be pleased,
    If I could see him soused into this broth,
    Before we issue forth out of the lake.”

And he to me: “Ere unto thee the shore
    Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied;
    Such a desire ’tis meet thou shouldst enjoy.”

A little after that, I saw such havoc
    Made of him by the people of the mire,
    That still I praise and thank my God for it.

They all were shouting, “At Philippo Argenti!”
    And that exasperate spirit Florentine
    Turned round upon himself with his own teeth.

We left him there, and more of him I tell not;
    But on mine ears there smote a lamentation,
    Whence forward I intent unbar mine eyes.

And the good Master said: “Even now, my Son,
    The city draweth near whose name is Dis,
    With the grave citizens, with the great throng.”

And I: “Its mosques already, Master, clearly
    Within there in the valley I discern
    Vermilion, as if issuing from the fire

They were.” And he to me: “The fire eternal
    That kindles them within makes them look red,
    As thou beholdest in this nether Hell.”

Then we arrived within the moats profound,
    That circumvallate that disconsolate city;
    The walls appeared to me to be of iron.

Not without making first a circuit wide,
    We came unto a place where loud the pilot
    Cried out to us, “Debark, here is the entrance.”

More than a thousand at the gates I saw
    Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily
    Were saying, “Who is this that without death

Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?”
    And my sagacious Master made a sign
    Of wishing secretly to speak with them.

A little then they quelled their great disdain,
    And said: “Come thou alone, and he begone
    Who has so boldly entered these dominions.

Let him return alone by his mad road;
    Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain,
    Who hast escorted him through such dark regions.”

Think, Reader, if I was discomforted
    At utterance of the accursed words;
    For never to return here I believed.

“O my dear Guide, who more than seven times
    Hast rendered me security, and drawn me
    From imminent peril that before me stood,

Do not desert me,” said I, “thus undone;
    And if the going farther be denied us,
    Let us retrace our steps together swiftly.”

And that Lord, who had led me thitherward,
    Said unto me: “Fear not; because our passage
    None can take from us, it by Such is given.

But here await me, and thy weary spirit
    Comfort and nourish with a better hope;
    For in this nether world I will not leave thee.”

So onward goes and there abandons me
    My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt,
    For No and Yes within my head contend.

I could not hear what he proposed to them;
    But with them there he did not linger long,
    Ere each within in rivalry ran back.

They closed the portals, those our adversaries,
    On my Lord’s breast, who had remained without
    And turned to me with footsteps far between.

His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he
    Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs,
    “Who has denied to me the dolesome houses?”

And unto me: “Thou, because I am angry,
    Fear not, for I will conquer in the trial,
    Whatever for defence within be planned.

This arrogance of theirs is nothing new;
    For once they used it at less secret gate,
    Which finds itself without a fastening still.

O’er it didst thou behold the dead inscription;
    And now this side of it descends the steep,
    Passing across the circles without escort,

One by whose means the city shall be opened.”

That hue which cowardice brought out on me,
    Beholding my Conductor backward turn,
    Sooner repressed within him his new colour.

He stopped attentive, like a man who listens,
    Because the eye could not conduct him far
    Through the black air, and through the heavy fog.

“Still it behoveth us to win the fight,”
    Began he; “Else. . .Such offered us herself. . .
    O how I long that some one here arrive!”

Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning
    He covered up with what came afterward,
    That they were words quite different from the first;

But none the less his saying gave me fear,
    Because I carried out the broken phrase,
    Perhaps to a worse meaning than he had.

“Into this bottom of the doleful conch
    Doth any e’er descend from the first grade,
    Which for its pain has only hope cut off?”

This question put I; and he answered me:
    “Seldom it comes to pass that one of us
    Maketh the journey upon which I go.

True is it, once before I here below
    Was conjured by that pitiless Erictho,
    Who summoned back the shades unto their bodies.

Naked of me short while the flesh had been,
    Before within that wall she made me enter,
    To bring a spirit from the circle of Judas;

That is the lowest region and the darkest,
    And farthest from the heaven which circles all.
    Well know I the way; therefore be reassured.

This fen, which a prodigious stench exhales,
    Encompasses about the city dolent,
    Where now we cannot enter without anger.”

And more he said, but not in mind I have it;
    Because mine eye had altogether drawn me
    Tow’rds the high tower with the red-flaming summit,

Where in a moment saw I swift uprisen
    The three infernal Furies stained with blood,
    Who had the limbs of women and their mien,

And with the greenest hydras were begirt;
    Small serpents and cerastes were their tresses,
    Wherewith their horrid temples were entwined.

And he who well the handmaids of the Queen
    Of everlasting lamentation knew,
    Said unto me: “Behold the fierce Erinnys.

This is Megaera, on the left-hand side;
    She who is weeping on the right, Alecto;
    Tisiphone is between;” and then was silent.

Each one her breast was rending with her nails;
    They beat them with their palms, and cried so loud,
    That I for dread pressed close unto the Poet.

“Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!”
    All shouted looking down; “in evil hour
    Avenged we not on Theseus his assault!”

“Turn thyself round, and keep thine eyes close shut,
    For if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it,
    No more returning upward would there be.”

Thus said the Master; and he turned me round
    Himself, and trusted not unto my hands
    So far as not to blind me with his own.

O ye who have undistempered intellects,
    Observe the doctrine that conceals itself
    Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses!

And now there came across the turbid waves
    The clangour of a sound with terror fraught,
    Because of which both of the margins trembled;

Not otherwise it was than of a wind
    Impetuous on account of adverse heats,
    That smites the forest, and, without restraint,

The branches rends, beats down, and bears away;
    Right onward, laden with dust, it goes superb,
    And puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.

Mine eyes he loosed, and said: “Direct the nerve
    Of vision now along that ancient foam,
    There yonder where that smoke is most intense.”

Even as the frogs before the hostile serpent
    Across the water scatter all abroad,
    Until each one is huddled in the earth.

More than a thousand ruined souls I saw,
    Thus fleeing from before one who on foot
    Was passing o’er the Styx with soles unwet.

From off his face he fanned that unctuous air,
    Waving his left hand oft in front of him,
    And only with that anguish seemed he weary.

Well I perceived one sent from Heaven was he,
    And to the Master turned; and he made sign
    That I should quiet stand, and bow before him.

Ah! how disdainful he appeared to me!
    He reached the gate, and with a little rod
    He opened it, for there was no resistance.

“O banished out of Heaven, people despised!”
    Thus he began upon the horrid threshold;
    “Whence is this arrogance within you couched?

Wherefore recalcitrate against that will,
    From which the end can never be cut off,
    And which has many times increased your pain?

What helpeth it to butt against the fates?
    Your Cerberus, if you remember well,
    For that still bears his chin and gullet peeled.”

Then he returned along the miry road,
    And spake no word to us, but had the look
    Of one whom other care constrains and goads

Than that of him who in his presence is;
    And we our feet directed tow’rds the city,
    After those holy words all confident.

Within we entered without any contest;
    And I, who inclination had to see
    What the condition such a fortress holds,

Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye,
    And see on every hand an ample plain,
    Full of distress and torment terrible.

Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,
    Even as at Pola near to the Quarnaro,
    That shuts in Italy and bathes its borders,

The sepulchres make all the place uneven;
    So likewise did they there on every side,
    Saving that there the manner was more bitter;

For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,
    By which they so intensely heated were,
    That iron more so asks not any art.

All of their coverings uplifted were,
    And from them issued forth such dire laments,
    Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented.

And I: “My Master, what are all those people
    Who, having sepulture within those tombs,
    Make themselves audible by doleful sighs?”

And he to me: “Here are the Heresiarchs,
    With their disciples of all sects, and much
    More than thou thinkest laden are the tombs.

Here like together with its like is buried;
    And more and less the monuments are heated.”
    And when he to the right had turned, we passed

Between the torments and high parapets.

Now onward goes, along a narrow path
    Between the torments and the city wall,
    My Master, and I follow at his back.

“O power supreme, that through these impious circles
    Turnest me,” I began, “as pleases thee,
    Speak to me, and my longings satisfy;

The people who are lying in these tombs,
    Might they be seen? already are uplifted
    The covers all, and no one keepeth guard.”

And he to me: “They all will be closed up
    When from Jehoshaphat they shall return
    Here with the bodies they have left above.

Their cemetery have upon this side
    With Epicurus all his followers,
    Who with the body mortal make the soul;

But in the question thou dost put to me,
    Within here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
    And likewise in the wish thou keepest silent.”

And I: “Good Leader, I but keep concealed
    From thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
    Nor only now hast thou thereto disposed me.”

“O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
    Goest alive, thus speaking modestly,
    Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.

Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
    A native of that noble fatherland,
    To which perhaps I too molestful was.”

Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
    From out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
    Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.

And unto me he said: “Turn thee; what dost thou?
    Behold there Farinata who has risen;
    From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him.”

I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
    And he uprose erect with breast and front
    E’en as if Hell he had in great despite.

And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
    Thrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
    Exclaiming, “Let thy words explicit be.”

As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
    Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
    Then asked of me, “Who were thine ancestors?”

I, who desirous of obeying was,
    Concealed it not, but all revealed to him;
    Whereat he raised his brows a little upward.

Then said he: “Fiercely adverse have they been
    To me, and to my fathers, and my party;
    So that two several times I scattered them.”

“If they were banished, they returned on all sides,”
    I answered him, “the first time and the second;
    But yours have not acquired that art aright.”

Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
    Down to the chin, a shadow at his side;
    I think that he had risen on his knees.

Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
    He had to see if some one else were with me,
    But after his suspicion was all spent,

Weeping, he said to me: “If through this blind
    Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
    Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?”

And I to him: “I come not of myself;
    He who is waiting yonder leads me here,
    Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had.”

His language and the mode of punishment
    Already unto me had read his name;
    On that account my answer was so full.

Up starting suddenly, he cried out: “How
    Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive?
    Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”

When he became aware of some delay,
    Which I before my answer made, supine
    He fell again, and forth appeared no more.

But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
    I had remained, did not his aspect change,
    Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.

“And if,” continuing his first discourse,
    “They have that art,” he said, “not learned aright,
    That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.

But fifty times shall not rekindled be
    The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
    Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;

And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
    Say why that people is so pitiless
    Against my race in each one of its laws?”

Whence I to him: “The slaughter and great carnage
    Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
    Such orisons in our temple to be made.”

After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
    “There I was not alone,” he said, “nor surely
    Without a cause had with the others moved.

But there I was alone, where every one
    Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
    He who defended her with open face.”

“Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,”
    I him entreated, “solve for me that knot,
    Which has entangled my conceptions here.

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
    Beforehand whatsoe’er time brings with it,
    And in the present have another mode.”

“We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
    The things,” he said, “that distant are from us;
    So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.

When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
    Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
    Not anything know we of your human state.

Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
    Will be our knowledge from the moment when
    The portal of the future shall be closed.”

Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
    Said: “Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
    That still his son is with the living joined.

And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
    Tell him I did it because I was thinking
    Already of the error you have solved me.”

And now my Master was recalling me,
    Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
    That he would tell me who was with him there.

He said: “With more than a thousand here I lie;
    Within here is the second Frederick,
    And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not.”

Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
    The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
    Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.

He moved along; and afterward thus going,
    He said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?”
    And I in his inquiry satisfied him.

“Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
    Against thyself,” that Sage commanded me,
    “And now attend here;” and he raised his finger.

“When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
    Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
    From her thou’lt know the journey of thy life.”

Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
    We left the wall, and went towards the middle,
    Along a path that strikes into a valley,

Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.

Upon the margin of a lofty bank
    Which great rocks broken in a circle made,
    We came upon a still more cruel throng;

And there, by reason of the horrible
    Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out,
    We drew ourselves aside behind the cover

Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing,
    Which said: “Pope Anastasius I hold,
    Whom out of the right way Photinus drew.”

“Slow it behoveth our descent to be,
    So that the sense be first a little used
    To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it.”

The Master thus; and unto him I said,
    “Some compensation find, that the time pass not
    Idly;” and he: “Thou seest I think of that.

My son, upon the inside of these rocks,”
    Began he then to say, “are three small circles,
    From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.

They all are full of spirits maledict;
    But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee,
    Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint.

Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven,
    Injury is the end; and all such end
    Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.

But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice,
    More it displeases God; and so stand lowest
    The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.

All the first circle of the Violent is;
    But since force may be used against three persons,
    In three rounds ’tis divided and constructed.

To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we
    Use force; I say on them and on their things,
    As thou shalt hear with reason manifest.

A death by violence, and painful wounds,
    Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance
    Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;

Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,
    Marauders, and freebooters, the first round
    Tormenteth all in companies diverse.

Man may lay violent hands upon himself
    And his own goods; and therefore in the second
    Round must perforce without avail repent

Whoever of your world deprives himself,
    Who games, and dissipates his property,
    And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.

Violence can be done the Deity,
    In heart denying and blaspheming Him,
    And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.

And for this reason doth the smallest round
    Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,
    And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.

Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,
    A man may practise upon him who trusts,
    And him who doth no confidence imburse.

This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers
    Only the bond of love which Nature makes;
    Wherefore within the second circle nestle

Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,
    Falsification, theft, and simony,
    Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.

By the other mode, forgotten is that love
    Which Nature makes, and what is after added,
    From which there is a special faith engendered.

Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is
    Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,
    Whoe’er betrays for ever is consumed.”

And I: “My Master, clear enough proceeds
    Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes
    This cavern and the people who possess it.

But tell me, those within the fat lagoon,
    Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,
    And who encounter with such bitter tongues,

Wherefore are they inside of the red city
    Not punished, if God has them in his wrath,
    And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?”

And unto me he said: “Why wanders so
    Thine intellect from that which it is wont?
    Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?

Hast thou no recollection of those words
    With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses
    The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,—

Incontinence, and Malice, and insane
    Bestiality? and how Incontinence
    Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?

If thou regardest this conclusion well,
    And to thy mind recallest who they are
    That up outside are undergoing penance,

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons
    They separated are, and why less wroth
    Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.”

“O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,
    Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,
    That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!

Once more a little backward turn thee,” said I,
    “There where thou sayest that usury offends
    Goodness divine, and disengage the knot.”

“Philosophy,” he said, “to him who heeds it,
    Noteth, not only in one place alone,
    After what manner Nature takes her course

From Intellect Divine, and from its art;
    And if thy Physics carefully thou notest,
    After not many pages shalt thou find,

That this your art as far as possible
    Follows, as the disciple doth the master;
    So that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.

From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind
    Genesis at the beginning, it behoves
    Mankind to gain their life and to advance;

And since the usurer takes another way,
    Nature herself and in her follower
    Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.

But follow, now, as I would fain go on,
    For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,
    And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,

And far beyond there we descend the crag.”

The place where to descend the bank we came
    Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover,
    Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.

Such as that ruin is which in the flank
    Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,
    Either by earthquake or by failing stay,

For from the mountain’s top, from which it moved,
    Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,
    Some path ’twould give to him who was above;

Even such was the descent of that ravine,
    And on the border of the broken chasm
    The infamy of Crete was stretched along,

Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;
    And when he us beheld, he bit himself,
    Even as one whom anger racks within.

My Sage towards him shouted: “Peradventure
    Thou think’st that here may be the Duke of Athens,
    Who in the world above brought death to thee?

Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not
    Instructed by thy sister, but he comes
    In order to behold your punishments.”

As is that bull who breaks loose at the moment
    In which he has received the mortal blow,
    Who cannot walk, but staggers here and there,

The Minotaur beheld I do the like;
    And he, the wary, cried: “Run to the passage;
    While he wroth, ’tis well thou shouldst descend.”

Thus down we took our way o’er that discharge
    Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves
    Beneath my feet, from the unwonted burden.

Thoughtful I went; and he said: “Thou art thinking
    Perhaps upon this ruin, which is guarded
    By that brute anger which just now I quenched.

Now will I have thee know, the other time
    I here descended to the nether Hell,
    This precipice had not yet fallen down.

But truly, if I well discern, a little
    Before His coming who the mighty spoil
    Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle,

Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley
    Trembled so, that I thought the Universe
    Was thrilled with love, by which there are who think

The world ofttimes converted into chaos;
    And at that moment this primeval crag
    Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.

But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near
    The river of blood, within which boiling is
    Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.”

O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
    That spurs us onward so in our short life,
    And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!

I saw an ample moat bent like a bow,
    As one which all the plain encompasses,
    Conformable to what my Guide had said.

And between this and the embankment’s foot
    Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows,
    As in the world they used the chase to follow.

Beholding us descend, each one stood still,
    And from the squadron three detached themselves,
    With bows and arrows in advance selected;

And from afar one cried: “Unto what torment
    Come ye, who down the hillside are descending?
    Tell us from there; if not, I draw the bow.”

My Master said: “Our answer will we make
    To Chiron, near you there; in evil hour,
    That will of thine was evermore so hasty.”

Then touched he me, and said: “This one is Nessus,
    Who perished for the lovely Dejanira,
    And for himself, himself did vengeance take.

And he in the midst, who at his breast is gazing,
    Is the great Chiron, who brought up Achilles;
    That other Pholus is, who was so wrathful.

Thousands and thousands go about the moat
    Shooting with shafts whatever soul emerges
    Out of the blood, more than his crime allots.”

Near we approached unto those monsters fleet;
    Chiron an arrow took, and with the notch
    Backward upon his jaws he put his beard.

After he had uncovered his great mouth,
    He said to his companions: “Are you ware
    That he behind moveth whate’er he touches?

Thus are not wont to do the feet of dead men.”
    And my good Guide, who now was at his breast,
    Where the two natures are together joined,

Replied: “Indeed he lives, and thus alone
    Me it behoves to show him the dark valley;
    Necessity, and not delight, impels us.

Some one withdrew from singing Halleluja,
    Who unto me committed this new office;
    No thief is he, nor I a thievish spirit.

But by that virtue through which I am moving
    My steps along this savage thoroughfare,
    Give us some one of thine, to be with us,

And who may show us where to pass the ford,
    And who may carry this one on his back;
    For ’tis no spirit that can walk the air.”

Upon his right breast Chiron wheeled about,
    And said to Nessus: “Turn and do thou guide them,
    And warn aside, if other band may meet you.”

We with our faithful escort onward moved
    Along the brink of the vermilion boiling,
    Wherein the boiled were uttering loud laments.

People I saw within up to the eyebrows,
    And the great Centaur said: “Tyrants are these,
    Who dealt in bloodshed and in pillaging.

Here they lament their pitiless mischiefs; here
    Is Alexander, and fierce Dionysius
    Who upon Sicily brought dolorous years.

That forehead there which has the hair so black
    Is Azzolin; and the other who is blond,
    Obizzo is of Esti, who, in truth,

Up in the world was by his stepson slain.”
    Then turned I to the Poet; and he said,
    “Now he be first to thee, and second I.”

A little farther on the Centaur stopped
    Above a folk, who far down as the throat
    Seemed from that boiling stream to issue forth.

A shade he showed us on one side alone,
    Saying: “He cleft asunder in God’s bosom
    The heart that still upon the Thames is honoured.”

Then people saw I, who from out the river
    Lifted their heads and also all the chest;
    And many among these I recognised.

Thus ever more and more grew shallower
    That blood, so that the feet alone it covered;
    And there across the moat our passage was.

“Even as thou here upon this side beholdest
    The boiling stream, that aye diminishes,”
    The Centaur said, “I wish thee to believe

That on this other more and more declines
    Its bed, until it reunites itself
    Where it behoveth tyranny to groan.

Justice divine, upon this side, is goading
    That Attila, who was a scourge on earth,
    And Pyrrhus, and Sextus; and for ever milks

The tears which with the boiling it unseals
    In Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo,
    Who made upon the highways so much war.”

Then back he turned, and passed again the ford.

Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
    When we had put ourselves within a wood,
    That was not marked by any path whatever.

Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
    Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
    Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.

Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,
    Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold
    ’Twixt Cecina and Corneto the tilled places.

There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,
    Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,
    With sad announcement of impending doom;

Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human,
    And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged;
    They make laments upon the wondrous trees.

And the good Master: “Ere thou enter farther,
    Know that thou art within the second round,”
    Thus he began to say, “and shalt be, till

Thou comest out upon the horrible sand;
    Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see
    Things that will credence give unto my speech.”

I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
    And person none beheld I who might make them,
    Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

I think he thought that I perhaps might think
    So many voices issued through those trunks
    From people who concealed themselves from us;

Therefore the Master said: “If thou break off
    Some little spray from any of these trees,
    The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain.”

Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,
    And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;
    And the trunk cried, “Why dost thou mangle me?”

After it had become embrowned with blood,
    It recommenced its cry: “Why dost thou rend me?
    Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
    Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,
    Even if the souls of serpents we had been.”

As out of a green brand, that is on fire
    At one of the ends, and from the other drips
    And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

So from that splinter issued forth together
    Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip
    Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

“Had he been able sooner to believe,”
    My Sage made answer, “O thou wounded soul,
    What only in my verses he has seen,

Not upon thee had he stretched forth his hand;
    Whereas the thing incredible has caused me
    To put him to an act which grieveth me.

But tell him who thou wast, so that by way
    Of some amends thy fame he may refresh
    Up in the world, to which he can return.”

And the trunk said: “So thy sweet words allure me,
    I cannot silent be; and you be vexed not,
    That I a little to discourse am tempted.

I am the one who both keys had in keeping
    Of Frederick’s heart, and turned them to and fro
    So softly in unlocking and in locking,

That from his secrets most men I withheld;
    Fidelity I bore the glorious office
    So great, I lost thereby my sleep and pulses.

The courtesan who never from the dwelling
    Of Caesar turned aside her strumpet eyes,
    Death universal and the vice of courts,

Inflamed against me all the other minds,
    And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus,
    That my glad honours turned to dismal mournings.

My spirit, in disdainful exultation,
    Thinking by dying to escape disdain,
    Made me unjust against myself, the just.

I, by the roots unwonted of this wood,
    Do swear to you that never broke I faith
    Unto my lord, who was so worthy of honour;

And to the world if one of you return,
    Let him my memory comfort, which is lying
    Still prostrate from the blow that envy dealt it.”

Waited awhile, and then: “Since he is silent,”
    The Poet said to me, “lose not the time,
    But speak, and question him, if more may please thee.”

Whence I to him: “Do thou again inquire
    Concerning what thou thinks’t will satisfy me;
    For I cannot, such pity is in my heart.”

Therefore he recommenced: “So may the man
    Do for thee freely what thy speech implores,
    Spirit incarcerate, again be pleased

To tell us in what way the soul is bound
    Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst,
    If any from such members e’er is freed.”

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
    The wind was into such a voice converted:
    “With brevity shall be replied to you.

When the exasperated soul abandons
    The body whence it rent itself away,
    Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
    Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
    There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
    The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
    Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
    But not that any one may them revest,
    For ’tis not just to have what one casts off.

Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
    Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
    Each to the thorn of his molested shade.”

We were attentive still unto the trunk,
    Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us,
    When by a tumult we were overtaken,

In the same way as he is who perceives
    The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
    Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

And two behold! upon our left-hand side,
    Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously,
    That of the forest, every fan they broke.

He who was in advance: “Now help, Death, help!”
    And the other one, who seemed to lag too much,
    Was shouting: “Lano, were not so alert

Those legs of thine at joustings of the Toppo!”
    And then, perchance because his breath was failing,
    He grouped himself together with a bush.

Behind them was the forest full of black
    She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot
    As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

On him who had crouched down they set their teeth,
    And him they lacerated piece by piece,
    Thereafter bore away those aching members.

Thereat my Escort took me by the hand,
    And led me to the bush, that all in vain
    Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

“O Jacopo,” it said, “of Sant’ Andrea,
    What helped it thee of me to make a screen?
    What blame have I in thy nefarious life?”

When near him had the Master stayed his steps,
    He said: “Who wast thou, that through wounds so many
    Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?”

And he to us: “O souls, that hither come
    To look upon the shameful massacre
    That has so rent away from me my leaves,

Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
    I of that city was which to the Baptist
    Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

Forever with his art will make it sad.
    And were it not that on the pass of Arno
    Some glimpses of him are remaining still,

Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it
    Upon the ashes left by Attila,
    In vain had caused their labour to be done.

Of my own house I made myself a gibbet.”

Because the charity of my native place
    Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves,
    And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.

Then came we to the confine, where disparted
    The second round is from the third, and where
    A horrible form of Justice is beheld.

Clearly to manifest these novel things,
    I say that we arrived upon a plain,
    Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;

The dolorous forest is a garland to it
    All round about, as the sad moat to that;
    There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.

The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
    Not of another fashion made than that
    Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.

Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou
    By each one to be dreaded, who doth read
    That which was manifest unto mine eyes!

Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
    Who all were weeping very miserably,
    And over them seemed set a law diverse.

Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
    And some were sitting all drawn up together,
    And others went about continually.

Those who were going round were far the more,
    And those were less who lay down to their torment,
    But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.

O’er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
    Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
    As of the snow on Alp without a wind.

As Alexander, in those torrid parts
    Of India, beheld upon his host
    Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.

Whence he provided with his phalanxes
    To trample down the soil, because the vapour
    Better extinguished was while it was single;

Thus was descending the eternal heat,
    Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder
    Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.

Without repose forever was the dance
    Of miserable hands, now there, now here,
    Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.

“Master,” began I, “thou who overcomest
    All things except the demons dire, that issued
    Against us at the entrance of the gate,

Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not
    The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,
    So that the rain seems not to ripen him?”

And he himself, who had become aware
    That I was questioning my Guide about him,
    Cried: “Such as I was living, am I, dead.

If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom
    He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,
    Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,

And if he wearied out by turns the others
    In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,
    Vociferating, ‘Help, good Vulcan, help!’

Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,
    And shot his bolts at me with all his might,
    He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance.”

Then did my Leader speak with such great force,
    That I had never heard him speak so loud:
    “O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished

Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;
    Not any torment, saving thine own rage,
    Would be unto thy fury pain complete.”

Then he turned round to me with better lip,
    Saying: “One of the Seven Kings was he
    Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold

God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;
    But, as I said to him, his own despites
    Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.

Now follow me, and mind thou do not place
    As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,
    But always keep them close unto the wood.”

Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes
    Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
    Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.

As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,
    The sinful women later share among them,
    So downward through the sand it went its way.

The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,
    Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;
    Whence I perceived that there the passage was.

“In all the rest which I have shown to thee
    Since we have entered in within the gate
    Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes
    So notable as is the present river,
    Which all the little flames above it quenches.”

These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
    That he would give me largess of the food,
    For which he had given me largess of desire.

“In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,”
    Said he thereafterward, “whose name is Crete,
    Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

There is a mountain there, that once was glad
    With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
    Now ’tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
    Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
    Whene’er he cried, she there had clamours made.

A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
    Who holds his shoulders turned tow’rds Damietta,
    And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of refined gold,
    And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
    Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

From that point downward all is chosen iron,
    Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
    And more he stands on that than on the other.

Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
    Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
    Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
    Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
    Then downward go along this narrow sluice

Unto that point where is no more descending.
    They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
    Thou shalt behold, so here ’tis not narrated.”

And I to him: “If so the present runnel
    Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
    Why only on this verge appears it to us?”

And he to me: “Thou knowest the place is round,
    And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
    Still to the left descending to the bottom,

Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
    Therefore if something new appear to us,
    It should not bring amazement to thy face.”

And I again: “Master, where shall be found
    Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou’rt silent,
    And sayest the other of this rain is made?”

“In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,”
    Replied he; “but the boiling of the red
    Water might well solve one of them thou makest.

Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
    There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
    When sin repented of has been removed.”

Then said he: “It is time now to abandon
    The wood; take heed that thou come after me;
    A way the margins make that are not burning,

And over them all vapours are extinguished.”

Now bears us onward one of the hard margins,
    And so the brooklet’s mist o’ershadows it,
    From fire it saves the water and the dikes.

Even as the Flemings, ’twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
    Fearing the flood that tow’rds them hurls itself,
    Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;

And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
    To guard their villas and their villages,
    Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;

In such similitude had those been made,
    Albeit not so lofty nor so thick,
    Whoever he might be, the master made them.

Now were we from the forest so remote,
    I could not have discovered where it was,
    Even if backward I had turned myself,

When we a company of souls encountered,
    Who came beside the dike, and every one
    Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont

To eye each other under a new moon,
    And so towards us sharpened they their brows
    As an old tailor at the needle’s eye.

Thus scrutinised by such a family,
    By some one I was recognised, who seized
    My garment’s hem, and cried out, “What a marvel!”

And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
    On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
    That the scorched countenance prevented not

His recognition by my intellect;
    And bowing down my face unto his own,
    I made reply, “Are you here, Ser Brunetto?”

And he: “May’t not displease thee, O my son,
    If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
    Backward return and let the trail go on.”

I said to him: “With all my power I ask it;
    And if you wish me to sit down with you,
    I will, if he please, for I go with him.”

“O son,” he said, “whoever of this herd
    A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,
    Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.

Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
    And afterward will I rejoin my band,
    Which goes lamenting its eternal doom.”

I did not dare to go down from the road
    Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
    I held as one who goeth reverently.

And he began: “What fortune or what fate
    Before the last day leadeth thee down here?
    And who is this that showeth thee the way?”

“Up there above us in the life serene,”
    I answered him, “I lost me in a valley,
    Or ever yet my age had been completed.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
    This one appeared to me, returning thither,
    And homeward leadeth me along this road.”

And he to me: “If thou thy star do follow,
    Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
    If well I judged in the life beautiful.

And if I had not died so prematurely,
    Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
    I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people,
    Which of old time from Fesole descended,
    And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;
    And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs
    It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.

Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
    A people avaricious, envious, proud;
    Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.

Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
    One party and the other shall be hungry
    For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
    Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
    If any still upon their dunghill rise,

In which may yet revive the consecrated
    Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
    The nest of such great malice it became.”

“If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,”
    Replied I to him, “not yet would you be
    In banishment from human nature placed;

For in my mind is fixed, and touches now
    My heart the dear and good paternal image
    Of you, when in the world from hour to hour

You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
    And how much I am grateful, while I live
    Behoves that in my language be discerned.

What you narrate of my career I write,
    And keep it to be glossed with other text
    By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.

This much will I have manifest to you;
    Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
    For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.

Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
    Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
    As it may please her, and the churl his mattock.”

My Master thereupon on his right cheek
    Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
    Then said: “He listeneth well who noteth it.”

Nor speaking less on that account, I go
    With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
    His most known and most eminent companions.

And he to me: “To know of some is well;
    Of others it were laudable to be silent,
    For short would be the time for so much speech.

Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
    And men of letters great and of great fame,
    In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.

Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
    And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there
    If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,

That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
    From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
    Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.

More would I say, but coming and discoursing
    Can be no longer; for that I behold
    New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.

A people comes with whom I may not be;
    Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
    In which I still live, and no more I ask.”

Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
    Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
    Across the plain; and seemed to be among them

The one who wins, and not the one who loses.

Now was I where was heard the reverberation
    Of water falling into the next round,
    Like to that humming which the beehives make,

When shadows three together started forth,
    Running, from out a company that passed
    Beneath the rain of the sharp martyrdom.

Towards us came they, and each one cried out:
    “Stop, thou; for by thy garb to us thou seemest
    To be some one of our depraved city.”

Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs,
    Recent and ancient by the flames burnt in!
    It pains me still but to remember it.

Unto their cries my Teacher paused attentive;
    He turned his face towards me, and “Now wait,”
    He said; “to these we should be courteous.

And if it were not for the fire that darts
    The nature of this region, I should say
    That haste were more becoming thee than them.”

As soon as we stood still, they recommenced
    The old refrain, and when they overtook us,
    Formed of themselves a wheel, all three of them.

As champions stripped and oiled are wont to do,
    Watching for their advantage and their hold,
    Before they come to blows and thrusts between them,

Thus, wheeling round, did every one his visage
    Direct to me, so that in opposite wise
    His neck and feet continual journey made.

And, “If the misery of this soft place
    Bring in disdain ourselves and our entreaties,”
    Began one, “and our aspect black and blistered,

Let the renown of us thy mind incline
    To tell us who thou art, who thus securely
    Thy living feet dost move along through Hell.

He in whose footprints thou dost see me treading,
    Naked and skinless though he now may go,
    Was of a greater rank than thou dost think;

He was the grandson of the good Gualdrada;
    His name was Guidoguerra, and in life
    Much did he with his wisdom and his sword.

The other, who close by me treads the sand,
    Tegghiaio Aldobrandi is, whose fame
    Above there in the world should welcome be.

And I, who with them on the cross am placed,
    Jacopo Rusticucci was; and truly
    My savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me.”

Could I have been protected from the fire,
    Below I should have thrown myself among them,
    And think the Teacher would have suffered it;

But as I should have burned and baked myself,
    My terror overmastered my good will,
    Which made me greedy of embracing them.

Then I began: “Sorrow and not disdain
    Did your condition fix within me so,
    That tardily it wholly is stripped off,

As soon as this my Lord said unto me
    Words, on account of which I thought within me
    That people such as you are were approaching.

I of your city am; and evermore
    Your labours and your honourable names
    I with affection have retraced and heard.

I leave the gall, and go for the sweet fruits
    Promised to me by the veracious Leader;
    But to the centre first I needs must plunge.”

“So may the soul for a long while conduct
    Those limbs of thine,” did he make answer then,
    “And so may thy renown shine after thee,

Valour and courtesy, say if they dwell
    Within our city, as they used to do,
    Or if they wholly have gone out of it;

For Guglielmo Borsier, who is in torment
    With us of late, and goes there with his comrades,
    Doth greatly mortify us with his words.”

“The new inhabitants and the sudden gains,
    Pride and extravagance have in thee engendered,
    Florence, so that thou weep’st thereat already!”

In this wise I exclaimed with face uplifted;
    And the three, taking that for my reply,
    Looked at each other, as one looks at truth.

“If other times so little it doth cost thee,”
    Replied they all, “to satisfy another,
    Happy art thou, thus speaking at thy will!

Therefore, if thou escape from these dark places,
    And come to rebehold the beauteous stars,
    When it shall pleasure thee to say, ‘I was,’

See that thou speak of us unto the people.”
    Then they broke up the wheel, and in their flight
    It seemed as if their agile legs were wings.

Not an Amen could possibly be said
    So rapidly as they had disappeared;
    Wherefore the Master deemed best to depart.

I followed him, and little had we gone,
    Before the sound of water was so near us,
    That speaking we should hardly have been heard.

Even as that stream which holdeth its own course
    The first from Monte Veso tow’rds the East,
    Upon the left-hand slope of Apennine,

Which is above called Acquacheta, ere
    It down descendeth into its low bed,
    And at Forli is vacant of that name,

Reverberates there above San Benedetto
    From Alps, by falling at a single leap,
    Where for a thousand there were room enough;

Thus downward from a bank precipitate,
    We found resounding that dark-tinted water,
    So that it soon the ear would have offended.

I had a cord around about me girt,
    And therewithal I whilom had designed
    To take the panther with the painted skin.

After I this had all from me unloosed,
    As my Conductor had commanded me,
    I reached it to him, gathered up and coiled,

Whereat he turned himself to the right side,
    And at a little distance from the verge,
    He cast it down into that deep abyss.

“It must needs be some novelty respond,”
    I said within myself, “to the new signal
    The Master with his eye is following so.”

Ah me! how very cautious men should be
    With those who not alone behold the act,
    But with their wisdom look into the thoughts!

He said to me: “Soon there will upward come
    What I await; and what thy thought is dreaming
    Must soon reveal itself unto thy sight.”

Aye to that truth which has the face of falsehood,
    A man should close his lips as far as may be,
    Because without his fault it causes shame;

But here I cannot; and, Reader, by the notes
    Of this my Comedy to thee I swear,
    So may they not be void of lasting favour,

Athwart that dense and darksome atmosphere
    I saw a figure swimming upward come,
    Marvellous unto every steadfast heart,

Even as he returns who goeth down
    Sometimes to clear an anchor, which has grappled
    Reef, or aught else that in the sea is hidden,

Who upward stretches, and draws in his feet.

“Behold the monster with the pointed tail,
    Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,
    Behold him who infecteth all the world.”

Thus unto me my Guide began to say,
    And beckoned him that he should come to shore,
    Near to the confine of the trodden marble;

And that uncleanly image of deceit
    Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
    But on the border did not drag its tail.

The face was as the face of a just man,
    Its semblance outwardly was so benign,
    And of a serpent all the trunk beside.

Two paws it had, hairy unto the armpits;
    The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
    Depicted o’er with nooses and with shields.

With colours more, groundwork or broidery
    Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
    Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.

As sometimes wherries lie upon the shore,
    That part are in the water, part on land;
    And as among the guzzling Germans there,

The beaver plants himself to wage his war;
    So that vile monster lay upon the border,
    Which is of stone, and shutteth in the sand.

His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
    Contorting upwards the envenomed fork,
    That in the guise of scorpion armed its point.

The Guide said: “Now perforce must turn aside
    Our way a little, even to that beast
    Malevolent, that yonder coucheth him.”

We therefore on the right side descended,
    And made ten steps upon the outer verge,
    Completely to avoid the sand and flame;

And after we are come to him, I see
    A little farther off upon the sand
    A people sitting near the hollow place.

Then said to me the Master: “So that full
    Experience of this round thou bear away,
    Now go and see what their condition is.

There let thy conversation be concise;
    Till thou returnest I will speak with him,
    That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders.”

Thus farther still upon the outermost
    Head of that seventh circle all alone
    I went, where sat the melancholy folk.

Out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe;
    This way, that way, they helped them with their hands
    Now from the flames and now from the hot soil.

Not otherwise in summer do the dogs,
    Now with the foot, now with the muzzle, when
    By fleas, or flies, or gadflies, they are bitten.

When I had turned mine eyes upon the faces
    Of some, on whom the dolorous fire is falling,
    Not one of them I knew; but I perceived

That from the neck of each there hung a pouch,
    Which certain colour had, and certain blazon;
    And thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding.

And as I gazing round me come among them,
    Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw
    That had the face and posture of a lion.

Proceeding then the current of my sight,
    Another of them saw I, red as blood,
    Display a goose more white than butter is.

And one, who with an azure sow and gravid
    Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,
    Said unto me: “What dost thou in this moat?

Now get thee gone; and since thou’rt still alive,
    Know that a neighbour of mine, Vitaliano,
    Will have his seat here on my left-hand side.

A Paduan am I with these Florentines;
    Full many a time they thunder in mine ears,
    Exclaiming, ‘Come the sovereign cavalier,

He who shall bring the satchel with three goats;’”
    Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
    His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.

And fearing lest my longer stay might vex
    Him who had warned me not to tarry long,
    Backward I turned me from those weary souls.

I found my Guide, who had already mounted
    Upon the back of that wild animal,
    And said to me: “Now be both strong and bold.

Now we descend by stairways such as these;
    Mount thou in front, for I will be midway,
    So that the tail may have no power to harm thee.”

Such as he is who has so near the ague
    Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
    And trembles all, but looking at the shade;

Even such became I at those proffered words;
    But shame in me his menaces produced,
    Which maketh servant strong before good master.

I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;
    I wished to say, and yet the voice came not
    As I believed, “Take heed that thou embrace me.”

But he, who other times had rescued me
    In other peril, soon as I had mounted,
    Within his arms encircled and sustained me,

And said: “Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;
    The circles large, and the descent be little;
    Think of the novel burden which thou hast.”

Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,
    Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;
    And when he wholly felt himself afloat,

There where his breast had been he turned his tail,
    And that extended like an eel he moved,
    And with his paws drew to himself the air.

A greater fear I do not think there was
    What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,
    Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;

Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks
    Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,
    His father crying, “An ill way thou takest!”

Than was my own, when I perceived myself
    On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished
    The sight of everything but of the monster.

Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly;
    Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only
    By wind upon my face and from below.

I heard already on the right the whirlpool
    Making a horrible crashing under us;
    Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.

Then was I still more fearful of the abyss;
    Because I fires beheld, and heard laments,
    Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.

I saw then, for before I had not seen it,
    The turning and descending, by great horrors
    That were approaching upon divers sides.

As falcon who has long been on the wing,
    Who, without seeing either lure or bird,
    Maketh the falconer say, “Ah me, thou stoopest,”

Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly,
    Thorough a hundred circles, and alights
    Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;

Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom,
    Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock,
    And being disencumbered of our persons,

He sped away as arrow from the string.

There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
    Wholly of stone and of an iron colour,
    As is the circle that around it turns.

Right in the middle of the field malign
    There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep,
    Of which its place the structure will recount.

Round, then, is that enclosure which remains
    Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
    And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.

As where for the protection of the walls
    Many and many moats surround the castles,
    The part in which they are a figure forms,

Just such an image those presented there;
    And as about such strongholds from their gates
    Unto the outer bank are little bridges,

So from the precipice’s base did crags
    Project, which intersected dikes and moats,
    Unto the well that truncates and collects them.

Within this place, down shaken from the back
    Of Geryon, we found us; and the Poet
    Held to the left, and I moved on behind.

Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish,
    New torments, and new wielders of the lash,
    Wherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.

Down at the bottom were the sinners naked;
    This side the middle came they facing us,
    Beyond it, with us, but with greater steps;

Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
    The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
    Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;

For all upon one side towards the Castle
    Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter’s;
    On the other side they go towards the Mountain.

This side and that, along the livid stone
    Beheld I horned demons with great scourges,
    Who cruelly were beating them behind.

Ah me! how they did make them lift their legs
    At the first blows! and sooth not any one
    The second waited for, nor for the third.

While I was going on, mine eyes by one
    Encountered were; and straight I said: “Already
    With sight of this one I am not unfed.”

Therefore I stayed my feet to make him out,
    And with me the sweet Guide came to a stand,
    And to my going somewhat back assented;

And he, the scourged one, thought to hide himself,
    Lowering his face, but little it availed him;
    For said I: “Thou that castest down thine eyes,

If false are not the features which thou bearest,
    Thou art Venedico Caccianimico;
    But what doth bring thee to such pungent sauces?”

And he to me: “Unwillingly I tell it;
    But forces me thine utterance distinct,
    Which makes me recollect the ancient world.

I was the one who the fair Ghisola
    Induced to grant the wishes of the Marquis,
    Howe’er the shameless story may be told.

Not the sole Bolognese am I who weeps here;
    Nay, rather is this place so full of them,
    That not so many tongues to-day are taught

’Twixt Reno and Savena to say ‘sipa;’
    And if thereof thou wishest pledge or proof,
    Bring to thy mind our avaricious heart.”

While speaking in this manner, with his scourge
    A demon smote him, and said: “Get thee gone
    Pander, there are no women here for coin.”

I joined myself again unto mine Escort;
    Thereafterward with footsteps few we came
    To where a crag projected from the bank.

This very easily did we ascend,
    And turning to the right along its ridge,
    From those eternal circles we departed.

When we were there, where it is hollowed out
    Beneath, to give a passage to the scourged,
    The Guide said: “Wait, and see that on thee strike

The vision of those others evil-born,
    Of whom thou hast not yet beheld the faces,
    Because together with us they have gone.”

From the old bridge we looked upon the train
    Which tow’rds us came upon the other border,
    And which the scourges in like manner smite.

And the good Master, without my inquiring,
    Said to me: “See that tall one who is coming,
    And for his pain seems not to shed a tear;

Still what a royal aspect he retains!
    That Jason is, who by his heart and cunning
    The Colchians of the Ram made destitute.

He by the isle of Lemnos passed along
    After the daring women pitiless
    Had unto death devoted all their males.

There with his tokens and with ornate words
    Did he deceive Hypsipyle, the maiden
    Who first, herself, had all the rest deceived.

There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;
    Such sin unto such punishment condemns him,
    And also for Medea is vengeance done.

With him go those who in such wise deceive;
    And this sufficient be of the first valley
    To know, and those that in its jaws it holds.”

We were already where the narrow path
    Crosses athwart the second dike, and forms
    Of that a buttress for another arch.

Thence we heard people, who are making moan
    In the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles,
    And with their palms beating upon themselves

The margins were incrusted with a mould
    By exhalation from below, that sticks there,
    And with the eyes and nostrils wages war.

The bottom is so deep, no place suffices
    To give us sight of it, without ascending
    The arch’s back, where most the crag impends.

Thither we came, and thence down in the moat
    I saw a people smothered in a filth
    That out of human privies seemed to flow;

And whilst below there with mine eye I search,
    I saw one with his head so foul with ordure,
    It was not clear if he were clerk or layman.

He screamed to me: “Wherefore art thou so eager
    To look at me more than the other foul ones?”
    And I to him: “Because, if I remember,

I have already seen thee with dry hair,
    And thou’rt Alessio Interminei of Lucca;
    Therefore I eye thee more than all the others.”

And he thereon, belabouring his pumpkin:
    “The flatteries have submerged me here below,
    Wherewith my tongue was never surfeited.”

Then said to me the Guide: “See that thou thrust
    Thy visage somewhat farther in advance,
    That with thine eyes thou well the face attain

Of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab,
    Who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails,
    And crouches now, and now on foot is standing.

Thais the harlot is it, who replied
    Unto her paramour, when he said, ‘Have I
    Great gratitude from thee?’—‘Nay, marvellous;’

And herewith let our sight be satisfied.”

O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,
    Ye who the things of God, which ought to be
    The brides of holiness, rapaciously

For silver and for gold do prostitute,
    Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound,
    Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

We had already on the following tomb
    Ascended to that portion of the crag
    Which o’er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest
    In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,
    And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
    The livid stone with perforations filled,
    All of one size, and every one was round.

To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater
    Than those that in my beautiful Saint John
    Are fashioned for the place of the baptisers,

And one of which, not many years ago,
    I broke for some one, who was drowning in it;
    Be this a seal all men to undeceive.

Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
    The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
    Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

In all of them the soles were both on fire;
    Wherefore the joints so violently quivered,
    They would have snapped asunder withes and bands.

Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont
    To move upon the outer surface only,
    So likewise was it there from heel to point.

“Master, who is that one who writhes himself,
    More than his other comrades quivering,”
    I said, “and whom a redder flame is sucking?”

And he to me: “If thou wilt have me bear thee
    Down there along that bank which lowest lies,
    From him thou’lt know his errors and himself.”

And I: “What pleases thee, to me is pleasing;
    Thou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not
    From thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken.”

Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived;
    We turned, and on the left-hand side descended
    Down to the bottom full of holes and narrow.

And the good Master yet from off his haunch
    Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me
    Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

“Whoe’er thou art, that standest upside down,
    O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,”
    To say began I, “if thou canst, speak out.”

I stood even as the friar who is confessing
    The false assassin, who, when he is fixed,
    Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

And he cried out: “Dost thou stand there already,
    Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?
    By many years the record lied to me.

Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,
    For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud
    The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?”

Such I became, as people are who stand,
    Not comprehending what is answered them,
    As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

Then said Virgilius: “Say to him straightway,
    ‘I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.’”
    And I replied as was imposed on me.

Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,
    Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation
    Said to me: “Then what wantest thou of me?

If who I am thou carest so much to know,
    That thou on that account hast crossed the bank,
    Know that I vested was with the great mantle;

And truly was I son of the She-bear,
    So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth
    Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

Beneath my head the others are dragged down
    Who have preceded me in simony,
    Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever
    That one shall come who I believed thou wast,
    What time the sudden question I proposed.

But longer I my feet already toast,
    And here have been in this way upside down,
    Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

For after him shall come of fouler deed
    From tow’rds the west a Pastor without law,
    Such as befits to cover him and me.

New Jason will he be, of whom we read
    In Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,
    So he who governs France shall be to this one.”

I do not know if I were here too bold,
    That him I answered only in this metre:
    “I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,
    Before he put the keys into his keeping?
    Truly he nothing asked but ‘Follow me.’

Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias
    Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen
    Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.

Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,
    And keep safe guard o’er the ill-gotten money,
    Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.

And were it not that still forbids it me
    The reverence for the keys superlative
    Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

I would make use of words more grievous still;
    Because your avarice afflicts the world,
    Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,
    When she who sitteth upon many waters
    To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

The same who with the seven heads was born,
    And power and strength from the ten horns received,
    So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.

Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
    And from the idolater how differ ye,
    Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
    Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower
    Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!”

And while I sang to him such notes as these,
    Either that anger or that conscience stung him,
    He struggled violently with both his feet.

I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,
    With such contented lip he listened ever
    Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

Therefore with both his arms he took me up,
    And when he had me all upon his breast,
    Remounted by the way where he descended.

Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;
    But bore me to the summit of the arch
    Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

There tenderly he laid his burden down,
    Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep,
    That would have been hard passage for the goats:

Thence was unveiled to me another valley.

Of a new pain behoves me to make verses
    And give material to the twentieth canto
    Of the first song, which is of the submerged.

I was already thoroughly disposed
    To peer down into the uncovered depth,
    Which bathed itself with tears of agony;

And people saw I through the circular valley,
    Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
    Which in this world the Litanies assume.

As lower down my sight descended on them,
    Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted
    From chin to the beginning of the chest;

For tow’rds the reins the countenance was turned,
    And backward it behoved them to advance,
    As to look forward had been taken from them.

Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
    Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;
    But I ne’er saw it, nor believe it can be.

As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
    From this thy reading, think now for thyself
    How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,

When our own image near me I beheld
    Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes
    Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.

Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
    Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
    To me: “Art thou, too, of the other fools?

Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
    Who is a greater reprobate than he
    Who feels compassion at the doom divine?

Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom
    Opened the earth before the Thebans’ eyes;
    Wherefore they all cried: ‘Whither rushest thou,

Amphiaraus? Why dost leave the war?’
    And downward ceased he not to fall amain
    As far as Minos, who lays hold on all.

See, he has made a bosom of his shoulders!
    Because he wished to see too far before him
    Behind he looks, and backward goes his way:

Behold Tiresias, who his semblance changed,
    When from a male a female he became,
    His members being all of them transformed;

And afterwards was forced to strike once more
    The two entangled serpents with his rod,
    Ere he could have again his manly plumes.

That Aruns is, who backs the other’s belly,
    Who in the hills of Luni, there where grubs
    The Carrarese who houses underneath,

Among the marbles white a cavern had
    For his abode; whence to behold the stars
    And sea, the view was not cut off from him.

And she there, who is covering up her breasts,
    Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,
    And on that side has all the hairy skin,