Part 8

For with his eye he could not follow it So as to see aught else than flame alone, Even as a little cloud ascending upward,

Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment Was moving; for not one reveals the theft, And every flame a sinner steals away.

I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see, So that, if I had seized not on a rock, Down had I fallen without being pushed.

And the Leader, who beheld me so attent, Exclaimed: “Within the fires the spirits are; Each swathes himself with that wherewith he burns.”

“My Master,” I replied, “by hearing thee I am more sure; but I surmised already It might be so, and already wished to ask thee

Who is within that fire, which comes so cleft At top, it seems uprising from the pyre Where was Eteocles with his brother placed.”

He answered me: “Within there are tormented Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.

And there within their flame do they lament The ambush of the horse, which made the door Whence issued forth the Romans’ gentle seed;

Therein is wept the craft, for which being dead Deidamia still deplores Achilles, And pain for the Palladium there is borne.”

“If they within those sparks possess the power To speak,” I said, “thee, Master, much I pray, And re-pray, that the prayer be worth a thousand,

That thou make no denial of awaiting Until the horned flame shall hither come; Thou seest that with desire I lean towards it.”

And he to me: “Worthy is thy entreaty Of much applause, and therefore I accept it; But take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.

Leave me to speak, because I have conceived That which thou wishest; for they might disdain Perchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine.”

When now the flame had come unto that point, Where to my Leader it seemed time and place, After this fashion did I hear him speak:

“O ye, who are twofold within one fire, If I deserved of you, while I was living, If I deserved of you or much or little

When in the world I wrote the lofty verses, Do not move on, but one of you declare Whither, being lost, he went away to die.”

Then of the antique flame the greater horn, Murmuring, began to wave itself about Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.

Thereafterward, the summit to and fro Moving as if it were the tongue that spake, It uttered forth a voice, and said: “When I

From Circe had departed, who concealed me More than a year there near unto Gaeta, Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence For my old father, nor the due affection Which joyous should have made Penelope,

Could overcome within me the desire I had to be experienced of the world, And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

But I put forth on the high open sea With one sole ship, and that small company By which I never had deserted been.

Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain, Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes, And the others which that sea bathes round about.

I and my company were old and slow When at that narrow passage we arrived Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

That man no farther onward should adventure. On the right hand behind me left I Seville, And on the other already had left Ceuta.

‘O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand Perils,’ I said, ‘have come unto the West, To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge, Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang; Ye were not made to live like unto brutes, But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’

So eager did I render my companions, With this brief exhortation, for the voyage, That then I hardly could have held them back.

And having turned our stern unto the morning, We of the oars made wings for our mad flight, Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

Already all the stars of the other pole The night beheld, and ours so very low It did not rise above the ocean floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched Had been the splendour underneath the moon, Since we had entered into the deep pass,

When there appeared to us a mountain, dim From distance, and it seemed to me so high As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping; For out of the new land a whirlwind rose, And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters, At the fourth time it made the stern uplift, And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

Until the sea above us closed again.”

Inferno: Canto XXVII

Already was the flame erect and quiet, To speak no more, and now departed from us With the permission of the gentle Poet;

When yet another, which behind it came, Caused us to turn our eyes upon its top By a confused sound that issued from it.

As the Sicilian bull (that bellowed first With the lament of him, and that was right, Who with his file had modulated it)

Bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted, That, notwithstanding it was made of brass, Still it appeared with agony transfixed;

Thus, by not having any way or issue At first from out the fire, to its own language Converted were the melancholy words.

But afterwards, when they had gathered way Up through the point, giving it that vibration The tongue had given them in their passage out,

We heard it said: “O thou, at whom I aim My voice, and who but now wast speaking Lombard, Saying, ‘Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,’

Because I come perchance a little late, To stay and speak with me let it not irk thee; Thou seest it irks not me, and I am burning.

If thou but lately into this blind world Hast fallen down from that sweet Latian land, Wherefrom I bring the whole of my transgression,

Say, if the Romagnuols have peace or war, For I was from the mountains there between Urbino and the yoke whence Tiber bursts.”

I still was downward bent and listening, When my Conductor touched me on the side, Saying: “Speak thou: this one a Latian is.”

And I, who had beforehand my reply In readiness, forthwith began to speak: “O soul, that down below there art concealed,

Romagna thine is not and never has been Without war in the bosom of its tyrants; But open war I none have left there now.

Ravenna stands as it long years has stood; The Eagle of Polenta there is brooding, So that she covers Cervia with her vans.

The city which once made the long resistance, And of the French a sanguinary heap, Beneath the Green Paws finds itself again;

Verrucchio’s ancient Mastiff and the new, Who made such bad disposal of Montagna, Where they are wont make wimbles of their teeth.

The cities of Lamone and Santerno Governs the Lioncel of the white lair, Who changes sides ’twixt summer-time and winter;

And that of which the Savio bathes the flank, Even as it lies between the plain and mountain, Lives between tyranny and a free state.

Now I entreat thee tell us who thou art; Be not more stubborn than the rest have been, So may thy name hold front there in the world.”

After the fire a little more had roared In its own fashion, the sharp point it moved This way and that, and then gave forth such breath:

“If I believed that my reply were made To one who to the world would e’er return, This flame without more flickering would stand still;

But inasmuch as never from this depth Did any one return, if I hear true, Without the fear of infamy I answer,

I was a man of arms, then Cordelier, Believing thus begirt to make amends; And truly my belief had been fulfilled

But for the High Priest, whom may ill betide, Who put me back into my former sins; And how and wherefore I will have thee hear.

While I was still the form of bone and pulp My mother gave to me, the deeds I did Were not those of a lion, but a fox.

The machinations and the covert ways I knew them all, and practised so their craft, That to the ends of earth the sound went forth.

When now unto that portion of mine age I saw myself arrived, when each one ought To lower the sails, and coil away the ropes,

That which before had pleased me then displeased me; And penitent and confessing I surrendered, Ah woe is me! and it would have bestead me;

The Leader of the modern Pharisees Having a war near unto Lateran, And not with Saracens nor with the Jews,

For each one of his enemies was Christian, And none of them had been to conquer Acre, Nor merchandising in the Sultan’s land,

Nor the high office, nor the sacred orders, In him regarded, nor in me that cord Which used to make those girt with it more meagre;

But even as Constantine sought out Sylvester To cure his leprosy, within Soracte, So this one sought me out as an adept

To cure him of the fever of his pride. Counsel he asked of me, and I was silent, Because his words appeared inebriate.

And then he said: ‘Be not thy heart afraid; Henceforth I thee absolve; and thou instruct me How to raze Palestrina to the ground.

Heaven have I power to lock and to unlock, As thou dost know; therefore the keys are two, The which my predecessor held not dear.’

Then urged me on his weighty arguments There, where my silence was the worst advice; And said I: ‘Father, since thou washest me

Of that sin into which I now must fall, The promise long with the fulfilment short Will make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.’

Francis came afterward, when I was dead, For me; but one of the black Cherubim Said to him: ‘Take him not; do me no wrong;

He must come down among my servitors, Because he gave the fraudulent advice From which time forth I have been at his hair;

For who repents not cannot be absolved, Nor can one both repent and will at once, Because of the contradiction which consents not.’

O miserable me! how I did shudder When he seized on me, saying: ‘Peradventure Thou didst not think that I was a logician!’

He bore me unto Minos, who entwined Eight times his tail about his stubborn back, And after he had bitten it in great rage,

Said: ‘Of the thievish fire a culprit this;’ Wherefore, here where thou seest, am I lost, And vested thus in going I bemoan me.”

When it had thus completed its recital, The flame departed uttering lamentations, Writhing and flapping its sharp-pointed horn.

Onward we passed, both I and my Conductor, Up o’er the crag above another arch, Which the moat covers, where is paid the fee

By those who, sowing discord, win their burden.

Inferno: Canto XXVIII

Who ever could, e’en with untrammelled words, Tell of the blood and of the wounds in full Which now I saw, by many times narrating?

Each tongue would for a certainty fall short By reason of our speech and memory, That have small room to comprehend so much.

If were again assembled all the people Which formerly upon the fateful land Of Puglia were lamenting for their blood

Shed by the Romans and the lingering war That of the rings made such illustrious spoils, As Livy has recorded, who errs not,

With those who felt the agony of blows By making counterstand to Robert Guiscard, And all the rest, whose bones are gathered still

At Ceperano, where a renegade Was each Apulian, and at Tagliacozzo, Where without arms the old Alardo conquered,

And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off, Should show, it would be nothing to compare With the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia.

A cask by losing centre-piece or cant Was never shattered so, as I saw one Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.

Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; His heart was visible, and the dismal sack That maketh excrement of what is eaten.

While I was all absorbed in seeing him, He looked at me, and opened with his hands His bosom, saying: “See now how I rend me;

How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;

And all the others whom thou here beholdest, Disseminators of scandal and of schism While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.

A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us Thus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edge Putting again each one of all this ream,

When we have gone around the doleful road; By reason that our wounds are closed again Ere any one in front of him repass.

But who art thou, that musest on the crag, Perchance to postpone going to the pain That is adjudged upon thine accusations?”

“Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt doth bring him,” My Master made reply, “to be tormented; But to procure him full experience,

Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct him Down here through Hell, from circle unto circle; And this is true as that I speak to thee.”

More than a hundred were there when they heard him, Who in the moat stood still to look at me, Through wonderment oblivious of their torture.

“Now say to Fra Dolcino, then, to arm him, Thou, who perhaps wilt shortly see the sun, If soon he wish not here to follow me,

So with provisions, that no stress of snow May give the victory to the Novarese, Which otherwise to gain would not be easy.”

After one foot to go away he lifted, This word did Mahomet say unto me, Then to depart upon the ground he stretched it.

Another one, who had his throat pierced through, And nose cut off close underneath the brows, And had no longer but a single ear,

Staying to look in wonder with the others, Before the others did his gullet open, Which outwardly was red in every part,

And said: “O thou, whom guilt doth not condemn, And whom I once saw up in Latian land, Unless too great similitude deceive me,

Call to remembrance Pier da Medicina, If e’er thou see again the lovely plain That from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo,

And make it known to the best two of Fano, To Messer Guido and Angiolello likewise, That if foreseeing here be not in vain,

Cast over from their vessel shall they be, And drowned near unto the Cattolica, By the betrayal of a tyrant fell.

Between the isles of Cyprus and Majorca Neptune ne’er yet beheld so great a crime, Neither of pirates nor Argolic people.

That traitor, who sees only with one eye, And holds the land, which some one here with me Would fain be fasting from the vision of,

Will make them come unto a parley with him; Then will do so, that to Focara’s wind They will not stand in need of vow or prayer.”

And I to him: “Show to me and declare, If thou wouldst have me bear up news of thee, Who is this person of the bitter vision.”

Then did he lay his hand upon the jaw Of one of his companions, and his mouth Oped, crying: “This is he, and he speaks not.

This one, being banished, every doubt submerged In Caesar by affirming the forearmed Always with detriment allowed delay.”

O how bewildered unto me appeared, With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit, Curio, who in speaking was so bold!

And one, who both his hands dissevered had, The stumps uplifting through the murky air, So that the blood made horrible his face,

Cried out: “Thou shalt remember Mosca also, Who said, alas! ‘A thing done has an end!’ Which was an ill seed for the Tuscan people.”

“And death unto thy race,” thereto I added; Whence he, accumulating woe on woe, Departed, like a person sad and crazed.

But I remained to look upon the crowd; And saw a thing which I should be afraid, Without some further proof, even to recount,

If it were not that conscience reassures me, That good companion which emboldens man Beneath the hauberk of its feeling pure.

I truly saw, and still I seem to see it, A trunk without a head walk in like manner As walked the others of the mournful herd.

And by the hair it held the head dissevered, Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern, And that upon us gazed and said: “O me!”

It of itself made to itself a lamp, And they were two in one, and one in two; How that can be, He knows who so ordains it.

When it was come close to the bridge’s foot, It lifted high its arm with all the head, To bring more closely unto us its words,

Which were: “Behold now the sore penalty, Thou, who dost breathing go the dead beholding; Behold if any be as great as this.

And so that thou may carry news of me, Know that Bertram de Born am I, the same Who gave to the Young King the evil comfort.

I made the father and the son rebellious; Achitophel not more with Absalom And David did with his accursed goadings.

Because I parted persons so united, Parted do I now bear my brain, alas! From its beginning, which is in this trunk.

Thus is observed in me the counterpoise.”

Inferno: Canto XXIX

The many people and the divers wounds These eyes of mine had so inebriated, That they were wishful to stand still and weep;

But said Virgilius: “What dost thou still gaze at? Why is thy sight still riveted down there Among the mournful, mutilated shades?

Thou hast not done so at the other Bolge; Consider, if to count them thou believest, That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds,

And now the moon is underneath our feet; Henceforth the time allotted us is brief, And more is to be seen than what thou seest.”

“If thou hadst,” I made answer thereupon, “Attended to the cause for which I looked, Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned.”

Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him I went, already making my reply, And superadding: “In that cavern where

I held mine eyes with such attention fixed, I think a spirit of my blood laments The sin which down below there costs so much.”

Then said the Master: “Be no longer broken Thy thought from this time forward upon him; Attend elsewhere, and there let him remain;

For him I saw below the little bridge, Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger Fiercely, and heard him called Geri del Bello.

So wholly at that time wast thou impeded By him who formerly held Altaforte, Thou didst not look that way; so he departed.”

“O my Conductor, his own violent death, Which is not yet avenged for him,” I said, “By any who is sharer in the shame,

Made him disdainful; whence he went away, As I imagine, without speaking to me, And thereby made me pity him the more.”

Thus did we speak as far as the first place Upon the crag, which the next valley shows Down to the bottom, if there were more light.

When we were now right over the last cloister Of Malebolge, so that its lay-brothers Could manifest themselves unto our sight,

Divers lamentings pierced me through and through, Which with compassion had their arrows barbed, Whereat mine ears I covered with my hands.

What pain would be, if from the hospitals Of Valdichiana, ’twixt July and September, And of Maremma and Sardinia

All the diseases in one moat were gathered, Such was it here, and such a stench came from it As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue.

We had descended on the furthest bank From the long crag, upon the left hand still, And then more vivid was my power of sight

Down tow’rds the bottom, where the ministress Of the high Lord, Justice infallible, Punishes forgers, which she here records.

I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Aegina the whole people sick, (When was the air so full of pestilence,

The animals, down to the little worm, All fell, and afterwards the ancient people, According as the poets have affirmed,

Were from the seed of ants restored again,) Than was it to behold through that dark valley The spirits languishing in divers heaps.

This on the belly, that upon the back One of the other lay, and others crawling Shifted themselves along the dismal road.

We step by step went onward without speech, Gazing upon and listening to the sick Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies.

I saw two sitting leaned against each other, As leans in heating platter against platter, From head to foot bespotted o’er with scabs;

And never saw I plied a currycomb By stable-boy for whom his master waits, Or him who keeps awake unwillingly,

As every one was plying fast the bite Of nails upon himself, for the great rage Of itching which no other succour had.

And the nails downward with them dragged the scab, In fashion as a knife the scales of bream, Or any other fish that has them largest.

“O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,” Began my Leader unto one of them, “And makest of them pincers now and then,

Tell me if any Latian is with those Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee To all eternity unto this work.”

“Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, Both of us here,” one weeping made reply; “But who art thou, that questionest about us?”

And said the Guide: “One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, And I intend to show Hell unto him.”

Then broken was their mutual support, And trembling each one turned himself to me, With others who had heard him by rebound.

Wholly to me did the good Master gather, Saying: “Say unto them whate’er thou wishest.” And I began, since he would have it so:

“So may your memory not steal away In the first world from out the minds of men, But so may it survive ’neath many suns,

Say to me who ye are, and of what people; Let not your foul and loathsome punishment Make you afraid to show yourselves to me.”

“I of Arezzo was,” one made reply, “And Albert of Siena had me burned; But what I died for does not bring me here.

’Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest, That I could rise by flight into the air, And he who had conceit, but little wit,

Would have me show to him the art; and only Because no Daedalus I made him, made me Be burned by one who held him as his son.

But unto the last Bolgia of the ten, For alchemy, which in the world I practised, Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned.”

And to the Poet said I: “Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese? Not for a certainty the French by far.”