Part 9

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.”

Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, Replied unto my speech: “Taking out Stricca, Who knew the art of moderate expenses,

And Niccolo, who the luxurious use Of cloves discovered earliest of all Within that garden where such seed takes root;

And taking out the band, among whom squandered Caccia d’Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered!

But, that thou know who thus doth second thee Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye Tow’rds me, so that my face well answer thee,

And thou shalt see I am Capocchio’s shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee,

How I a skilful ape of nature was.”

Inferno: Canto XXX

’Twas at the time when Juno was enraged, For Semele, against the Theban blood, As she already more than once had shown,

So reft of reason Athamas became, That, seeing his own wife with children twain Walking encumbered upon either hand,

He cried: “Spread out the nets, that I may take The lioness and her whelps upon the passage;” And then extended his unpitying claws,

Seizing the first, who had the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock; And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;—

And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan’s arrogance, that all things dared, So that the king was with his kingdom crushed,

Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, And of her Polydorus on the shore

Of ocean was the dolorous one aware, Out of her senses like a dog she barked, So much the anguish had her mind distorted;

But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan Were ever seen in any one so cruel In goading beasts, and much more human members,

As I beheld two shadows pale and naked, Who, biting, in the manner ran along That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.

One to Capocchio came, and by the nape Seized with its teeth his neck, so that in dragging It made his belly grate the solid bottom.

And the Aretine, who trembling had remained, Said to me: “That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi, And raving goes thus harrying other people.”

“O,” said I to him, “so may not the other Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence.”

And he to me: “That is the ancient ghost Of the nefarious Myrrha, who became Beyond all rightful love her father’s lover.

She came to sin with him after this manner, By counterfeiting of another’s form; As he who goeth yonder undertook,

That he might gain the lady of the herd, To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati, Making a will and giving it due form.”

And after the two maniacs had passed On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back To look upon the other evil-born.

I saw one made in fashion of a lute, If he had only had the groin cut off Just at the point at which a man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions The limbs with humours, which it ill concocts, That the face corresponds not to the belly,

Compelled him so to hold his lips apart As does the hectic, who because of thirst One tow’rds the chin, the other upward turns.

“O ye, who without any torment are, And why I know not, in the world of woe,” He said to us, “behold, and be attentive

Unto the misery of Master Adam; I had while living much of what I wished, And now, alas! a drop of water crave.

The rivulets, that from the verdant hills Of Cassentin descend down into Arno, Making their channels to be cold and moist,

Ever before me stand, and not in vain; For far more doth their image dry me up Than the disease which strips my face of flesh.

The rigid justice that chastises me Draweth occasion from the place in which I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight.

There is Romena, where I counterfeited The currency imprinted with the Baptist, For which I left my body burned above.

But if I here could see the tristful soul Of Guido, or Alessandro, or their brother, For Branda’s fount I would not give the sight.

One is within already, if the raving Shades that are going round about speak truth; But what avails it me, whose limbs are tied?

If I were only still so light, that in A hundred years I could advance one inch, I had already started on the way,

Seeking him out among this squalid folk, Although the circuit be eleven miles, And be not less than half a mile across.

For them am I in such a family; They did induce me into coining florins, Which had three carats of impurity.”

And I to him: “Who are the two poor wretches That smoke like unto a wet hand in winter, Lying there close upon thy right-hand confines?”

“I found them here,” replied he, “when I rained Into this chasm, and since they have not turned, Nor do I think they will for evermore.

One the false woman is who accused Joseph, The other the false Sinon, Greek of Troy; From acute fever they send forth such reek.”

And one of them, who felt himself annoyed At being, peradventure, named so darkly, Smote with the fist upon his hardened paunch.

It gave a sound, as if it were a drum; And Master Adam smote him in the face, With arm that did not seem to be less hard,

Saying to him: “Although be taken from me All motion, for my limbs that heavy are, I have an arm unfettered for such need.”

Whereat he answer made: “When thou didst go Unto the fire, thou hadst it not so ready: But hadst it so and more when thou wast coining.”

The dropsical: “Thou sayest true in that; But thou wast not so true a witness there, Where thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy.”

“If I spake false, thou falsifiedst the coin,” Said Sinon; “and for one fault I am here, And thou for more than any other demon.”

“Remember, perjurer, about the horse,” He made reply who had the swollen belly, “And rueful be it thee the whole world knows it.”

“Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks Thy tongue,” the Greek said, “and the putrid water That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes.”

Then the false-coiner: “So is gaping wide Thy mouth for speaking evil, as ’tis wont; Because if I have thirst, and humour stuff me

Thou hast the burning and the head that aches, And to lick up the mirror of Narcissus Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee.”

In listening to them was I wholly fixed, When said the Master to me: “Now just look, For little wants it that I quarrel with thee.”

When him I heard in anger speak to me, I turned me round towards him with such shame That still it eddies through my memory.

And as he is who dreams of his own harm, Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream, So that he craves what is, as if it were not;

Such I became, not having power to speak, For to excuse myself I wished, and still Excused myself, and did not think I did it.

“Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,” The Master said, “than this of thine has been; Therefore thyself disburden of all sadness,

And make account that I am aye beside thee, If e’er it come to pass that fortune bring thee Where there are people in a like dispute;

For a base wish it is to wish to hear it.”

Inferno: Canto XXXI

One and the selfsame tongue first wounded me, So that it tinged the one cheek and the other, And then held out to me the medicine;

Thus do I hear that once Achilles’ spear, His and his father’s, used to be the cause First of a sad and then a gracious boon.

We turned our backs upon the wretched valley, Upon the bank that girds it round about, Going across it without any speech.

There it was less than night, and less than day, So that my sight went little in advance; But I could hear the blare of a loud horn,

So loud it would have made each thunder faint, Which, counter to it following its way, Mine eyes directed wholly to one place.

After the dolorous discomfiture When Charlemagne the holy emprise lost, So terribly Orlando sounded not.

Short while my head turned thitherward I held When many lofty towers I seemed to see, Whereat I: “Master, say, what town is this?”

And he to me: “Because thou peerest forth Athwart the darkness at too great a distance, It happens that thou errest in thy fancy.

Well shalt thou see, if thou arrivest there, How much the sense deceives itself by distance; Therefore a little faster spur thee on.”

Then tenderly he took me by the hand, And said: “Before we farther have advanced, That the reality may seem to thee

Less strange, know that these are not towers, but giants, And they are in the well, around the bank, From navel downward, one and all of them.”

As, when the fog is vanishing away, Little by little doth the sight refigure Whate’er the mist that crowds the air conceals,

So, piercing through the dense and darksome air, More and more near approaching tow’rd the verge, My error fled, and fear came over me;

Because as on its circular parapets Montereggione crowns itself with towers, E’en thus the margin which surrounds the well

With one half of their bodies turreted The horrible giants, whom Jove menaces E’en now from out the heavens when he thunders.

And I of one already saw the face, Shoulders, and breast, and great part of the belly, And down along his sides both of the arms.

Certainly Nature, when she left the making Of animals like these, did well indeed, By taking such executors from Mars;

And if of elephants and whales she doth not Repent her, whosoever looketh subtly More just and more discreet will hold her for it;

For where the argument of intellect Is added unto evil will and power, No rampart can the people make against it.

His face appeared to me as long and large As is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter’s, And in proportion were the other bones;

So that the margin, which an apron was Down from the middle, showed so much of him Above it, that to reach up to his hair

Three Frieslanders in vain had vaunted them; For I beheld thirty great palms of him Down from the place where man his mantle buckles.

“Raphael mai amech izabi almi,” Began to clamour the ferocious mouth, To which were not befitting sweeter psalms.

And unto him my Guide: “Soul idiotic, Keep to thy horn, and vent thyself with that, When wrath or other passion touches thee.

Search round thy neck, and thou wilt find the belt Which keeps it fastened, O bewildered soul, And see it, where it bars thy mighty breast.”

Then said to me: “He doth himself accuse; This one is Nimrod, by whose evil thought One language in the world is not still used.

Here let us leave him and not speak in vain; For even such to him is every language As his to others, which to none is known.”

Therefore a longer journey did we make, Turned to the left, and a crossbow-shot oft We found another far more fierce and large.

In binding him, who might the master be I cannot say; but he had pinioned close Behind the right arm, and in front the other,

With chains, that held him so begirt about From the neck down, that on the part uncovered It wound itself as far as the fifth gyre.

“This proud one wished to make experiment Of his own power against the Supreme Jove,” My Leader said, “whence he has such a guerdon.

Ephialtes is his name; he showed great prowess. What time the giants terrified the gods; The arms he wielded never more he moves.”

And I to him: “If possible, I should wish That of the measureless Briareus These eyes of mine might have experience.”

Whence he replied: “Thou shalt behold Antaeus Close by here, who can speak and is unbound, Who at the bottom of all crime shall place us.

Much farther yon is he whom thou wouldst see, And he is bound, and fashioned like to this one, Save that he seems in aspect more ferocious.”

There never was an earthquake of such might That it could shake a tower so violently, As Ephialtes suddenly shook himself.

Then was I more afraid of death than ever, For nothing more was needful than the fear, If I had not beheld the manacles.

Then we proceeded farther in advance, And to Antaeus came, who, full five ells Without the head, forth issued from the cavern.

“O thou, who in the valley fortunate, Which Scipio the heir of glory made, When Hannibal turned back with all his hosts,

Once brought’st a thousand lions for thy prey, And who, hadst thou been at the mighty war Among thy brothers, some it seems still think

The sons of Earth the victory would have gained: Place us below, nor be disdainful of it, There where the cold doth lock Cocytus up.

Make us not go to Tityus nor Typhoeus; This one can give of that which here is longed for; Therefore stoop down, and do not curl thy lip.

Still in the world can he restore thy fame; Because he lives, and still expects long life, If to itself Grace call him not untimely.”

So said the Master; and in haste the other His hands extended and took up my Guide,— Hands whose great pressure Hercules once felt.

Virgilius, when he felt himself embraced, Said unto me: “Draw nigh, that I may take thee;” Then of himself and me one bundle made.

As seems the Carisenda, to behold Beneath the leaning side, when goes a cloud Above it so that opposite it hangs;

Such did Antaeus seem to me, who stood Watching to see him stoop, and then it was I could have wished to go some other way.

But lightly in the abyss, which swallows up Judas with Lucifer, he put us down; Nor thus bowed downward made he there delay,

But, as a mast does in a ship, uprose.

Inferno: Canto XXXII

If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous, As were appropriate to the dismal hole Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,

I would press out the juice of my conception More fully; but because I have them not, Not without fear I bring myself to speak;

For ’tis no enterprise to take in jest, To sketch the bottom of all the universe, Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.

But may those Ladies help this verse of mine, Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes, That from the fact the word be not diverse.

O rabble ill-begotten above all, Who’re in the place to speak of which is hard, ’Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!

When we were down within the darksome well, Beneath the giant’s feet, but lower far, And I was scanning still the lofty wall,

I heard it said to me: “Look how thou steppest! Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!”

Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me And underfoot a lake, that from the frost The semblance had of glass, and not of water.

So thick a veil ne’er made upon its current In winter-time Danube in Austria, Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,

As there was here; so that if Tambernich Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana, E’en at the edge ’twould not have given a creak.

And as to croak the frog doth place himself With muzzle out of water,—when is dreaming Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,—

Livid, as far down as where shame appears, Were the disconsolate shades within the ice, Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.

Each one his countenance held downward bent; From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart Among them witness of itself procures.

When round about me somewhat I had looked, I downward turned me, and saw two so close, The hair upon their heads together mingled.

“Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,” I said, “who are you;” and they bent their necks, And when to me their faces they had lifted,

Their eyes, which first were only moist within, Gushed o’er the eyelids, and the frost congealed The tears between, and locked them up again.

Clamp never bound together wood with wood So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats, Butted together, so much wrath o’ercame them.

And one, who had by reason of the cold Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward, Said: “Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?