The Inferno (The Divine Comedy series Book 1)
Page 7
And down I fell as a dead body falls. →
OUTLINE: INFERNO VI
1–6
Dante recovers from his syncope to find a new place
7–12
the third Circle: cold downpour on stinking ground
13–21
Cerberus presides, barking; he flays the sinners
22–27
Cerberus’s opposition and Virgil’s “sop” for him
28–33
simile: dog ravenously gulping food
34–37
Dante and Virgil pass over the prone shades
38–42
Florence: Ciacco recognizes Dante and presents self
43–48
Dante does not recognize him, transfigured by pain
49–57
Ciacco identifies himself and his sin: gluttony
58–63
Dante asks his views on the likely future of the city
64–72
Ciacco: first the Whites, then the Blacks, will win
73–76
the just are few, the sinners many
77–84
Dante wants to know the afterlife of five townsmen
85–87
Ciacco: all are in hell, as Dante will perhaps see
88–90
Ciacco would like to be remembered to those above
91–93
he returns to his hebetude
94–99
Virgil: he will wake no more until the last trumpet
100–111
Virgil on the increase of eternal pain for the damned
112–115
they talk until they are ready to descend: Plutus
INFERNO VI
With my returning senses that had failed →
at the piteous state of those two kindred, →
3
which had confounded me with grief,
new torments and new souls in torment
I see about me, wherever I may move,
6
or turn, or set my gaze.
I am in the third circle, of eternal, →
hateful rain, cold and leaden,
9
changeless in its monotony.
Heavy hailstones, filthy water, and snow
pour down through gloomy air.
12
The ground it falls on reeks.
Cerberus, fierce and monstrous beast, →
barks from three gullets like a dog
15
over the people underneath that muck.
His eyes are red, his beard a greasy black,
his belly swollen. With his taloned hands
18
he claws the spirits, flays and quarters them.
The rain makes them howl like dogs.
The unholy wretches often turn their bodies,
21
making of one side a shield for the other.
When Cerberus—that huge worm—noticed us,
he opened up his jaws and showed his fangs.
24
There was no part of him he held in check.
But then my leader spread his hands, →
picked up some earth, and with full fists
27
tossed soil into the ravenous gullets.
As the dog that yelps with craving →
grows quiet while it chews its food,
30
absorbed in trying to devour it,
the foul heads of that demon Cerberus were stilled,
who otherwise so thunders on the souls
33
they would as soon be deaf.
We were passing over shades sprawled →
under heavy rain, setting our feet
36
upon their emptiness, which seems real bodies.
All of them were lying on the ground, →
except for one who sat bolt upright
39
when he saw us pass before him.
‘O you who come escorted through this Hell,’
he said, ‘if you can, bring me back to mind.
42
You were made before I was undone.’
And I to him: ‘The punishment you suffer →
may be blotting you from memory:
45
it doesn’t seem to me I’ve ever seen you.
‘But tell me who you are to have been put
into this misery with such a penalty
48
that none, though harsher, is more loathsome.’
And he to me: ‘Your city, so full of envy →
that now the sack spills over,
51
held me in its confines in the sunlit life.
‘You and my townsmen called me Ciacco. →
For the pernicious fault of gluttony,
54
as you can see, I’m prostrate in this rain.
‘And in my misery I am not alone.
All those here share a single penalty
57
for the same fault.’ He said no more.
I answered him: ‘Ciacco, your distress so weighs
on me it bids me weep. But tell me,
60
if you can, what shall be the fate
‘of the citizens within the riven city?
Are any in it just? And tell me why
63
such discord has assailed it.’
And he to me: ‘After long feuding →
they shall come to blood. The rustic faction,
66
having done great harm, shall drive the others out.
‘But it in turn must fall to them, →
within three years, by power of him
69
who now just bides his time.
‘These in their arrogance will long subject
the other faction to their heavy yoke,
72
despite its weeping and its shame.
‘Two men are just and are not heeded there. →
Pride, envy, and avarice are the sparks →
75
that have set the hearts of all on fire.’
With that he ended his distressing words.
And I to him: ‘I wish you would instruct me more,
78
granting me the gift of further speech.
‘Farinata and Tegghiaio, who were so worthy, →
Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,
81
and the rest whose minds were bent on doing good,
‘tell me where they are and how they fare.
For great desire presses me to learn
84
whether Heaven sweetens or Hell embitters them.’
And he: ‘They are among the blacker souls.
Different vices weigh them toward the bottom,
87
as you shall see if you descend that far.
‘But when you have returned to the sweet world →
I pray you bring me to men’s memory.
90
I say no more nor answer you again.’ →
With that his clear eyes lost their focus. →
He gazed at me until his head drooped down.
93
Then he fell back among his blind companions.
And my leader said: ‘He wakes no more
until angelic trumpets sound
96
the advent of the hostile Power.
‘Then each shall find again his miserable tomb,
shall take again his flesh and form,
99
and hear the judgment that eternally resounds.’ →
So we passed on through the foul mix
of shades and rain with lagging steps,
102
touching a little on the life to come. →
‘Master,’ I asked, ‘after the great Judgment
will these torments be greater, less,
105
or will they stay as harsh as they are now?
’
And he replied: ‘Return to your science, →
which has it that, in measure of a thing’s perfection,
108
it feels both more of pleasure and of pain.
‘Although these accursèd people →
will never come to true perfection,
111
they will be nearer it than they are now.’
We went along that curving road,
with much more talk than I repeat,
and reached the point of our descent.
115
And there we came on Plutus, our great foe.
OUTLINE: INFERNO VII
1–15
proem: Plutus speaks; Virgil answers; Plutus collapses
16–21
the fourth Circle and Dante’s apostrophe of Justice
22–24
simile: waves meeting between Charybdis and Scylla
25–35
the avaricious and prodigal at their “jousts”
36–96
three exchanges between Dante & Virgil:
36–39
Dante: are the tonsured ones all clerics?
40–48
Virgil’s response is affirmative
49–51
Dante expects to recognize the sinners here
52–66
Virgil: no, their sin makes them indistinguishable
67–69
Dante: what is the “Fortune” of which you speak?
70–96
Virgil’s pronouncements on the role of Fortune
97–99
Virgil prepares Dante for descent to the fifth Circle
100–108
their descent, following its source, to Styx
109–116
the bog, with the wrathful in conflict with one another
117–126
and those below the water, sighing and gurgling
127–130
coda: retrospect over Styx, prospect of tower
INFERNO VII
‘Pape Satàn, Pape Satàn, aleppe!’ →
burst out Plutus in his raucous voice.
3
And the courteous, all-discerning sage,
to comfort me, said: ‘Do not be overcome
by fear. However powerful he may be,
6
he’ll not prevent our climbing down this cliff.’
Then he turned to that bloated face
and said: ‘Silence, accursèd wolf! →
9
Let your fury feed itself inside you.
‘Not without sanction is this journey down the pit. →
It is willed on high, where Michael
12
did avenge the proud rebellion.’
As sails, swollen by the wind, →
fall in a tangle when the mainmast snaps,
15
so fell that cruel beast to the ground.
Into the fourth hollow we made our way,
descending the dismal slope
18
that crams in all the evil of the universe.
Ah, Justice of God, who heaps up →
such strange punishment and pain as I saw there?
21
And why do our sins so waste us?
Just as the waves clash above Charybdis, →
one breaking on the other when they meet,
24
so here the souls move in their necessary dance. →
Here the sinners were more numerous than elsewhere, →
and they, with great shouts, from opposite sides
27
were shoving burdens forward with their chests.
They crashed into each other, turned
and beat retreat, shoving their loads and shouting:
30
‘Why do you hoard?’ or ‘Why do you squander?’
Thus they proceeded in their dismal round →
on both sides toward the opposite point,
33
taunting each other with the same refrain.
Once at that point, each group turned back
along its semi-circle to the next encounter.
36
And I, my heart pierced almost through, →
said: ‘Master, now explain to me
who these people are. Were those with tonsured heads, →
39
the ones there to our left, all clerics?’
‘All of them had such squinting minds
in their first lives,’ he said,
42
‘they kept no measure in their spending.
‘Their voices howl this clear enough
just as they reach the twin points on the circle
45
where opposing sins divide them.
‘These were clerics who have no lid of hair →
upon their heads, and popes and cardinals,
48
in whom avarice achieves its excess.’
And I: ‘Master, in such a crew as this
I ought to recognize at least a few
51
who were befouled with these offenses.’
And he to me: ‘You muster an empty thought.
The undiscerning life that made them foul
54
now makes them hard to recognize.
‘The two groups will collide forever.
These will rise from the grave
57
with fists tight, these with hair cropped. →
‘Ill-giving and ill-keeping have stolen
the fair world from them and set them to this scuffle.
60
As for that, I prettify no words for it.
‘Now you see, my son, what brief mockery
Fortune makes of goods we trust her with, →
63
for which the race of men embroil themselves.
‘All the gold that lies beneath the moon,
or ever did, could never give a moment’s rest
66
to any of these wearied souls.’
‘Master,’ I said, ‘tell me more: this Fortune
whom you mention, who is she that holds
69
the world’s possessions tightly in her clutches?’
And he to me: ‘O foolish creatures, →
what great ignorance besets you!
72
I’ll have you feed upon my judgment of her:
‘He whose wisdom transcends all
made the heavens and gave them guides,
75
so that all parts reflect on every part
‘in equal distribution of the light. Just so,
He ordained for worldly splendors
78
a general minister and guide
‘who shifts those worthless goods, from time to time,
from race to race, from one blood to another
81
beyond the intervention of human wit.
‘One people comes to rule, another languishes,
in keeping with her judgment,
84
as secret as a serpent hidden in the grass. →
‘Your wisdom cannot stand against her.
She foresees, she judges, she maintains her reign,
87
as do the other heavenly powers. →
‘Her mutability admits no rest.
Necessity compels her to be swift,
90
and frequent are the changes in men’s state. →
‘She is reviled by the very ones
who most should praise her,
93
blaming and defaming her unjustly.
‘But she is blessed and does not hear them.
Happy with the other primal creatures,
96
she turns her sphere, rejoicing in her bliss.
‘Now we must descend to greater anguish.
For every star that rose when I set out →
99
is sinking now—we must not linger here.’
We crossed the circle to the other bank,
beside a spring that bubbles up and flows
102
into a channel it makes for itself.
The water was darker than the deepest purple.
Accompanied by its murky waves
105
we began our strange descent.
This dreary stream, once it has reached →
these malignant, ashen slopes,
108
drains out into the swamp called Styx.
And I, my gaze transfixed, could see →
people with angry faces in that bog,
111
naked, their bodies smeared with mud.
They struck each other with their hands,
their heads, their chests and feet,
114
and tore each other with their teeth.
The good master said: ‘Son, now you see
the souls of those whom anger overcame.
117
And I would have you know for certain
‘that plunged beneath these waters, →
as your eyes will tell you, are souls whose sighs
120
with bubbles make the water’s surface seethe.
‘Fixed in the slime they say: “We were sullen
in the sweet air that in the sun rejoices,
123
filled as we were with slothful fumes.
‘ “Now we are sullen in black mire.”
This hymn they gurgle in their gullets,
126
for they cannot get a word out whole.’
Thus we made our circle round that filthy bog,
keeping between the bank and swamp,
fixing our gaze on those who swallow mud.
130
And we came to the foot of a tower at last.