I was a man of arms, then Cordelier,7 Believing thus begirt to make amends; And truly my belief had been fulfilled
But for the High Priest,8 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.9
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,10
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,11 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.‘12
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 short13 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;14
He must come down among my servitors, Because he gave the fraudulent advice 15 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: ‘Peradventurecy Thou didst not think that I was a logician!’
He bore me unto Minos, who entwined Eight times his tail16 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.17
CANTO XXVIII
WHO ever could, e‘enczwith 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 1 That of the rings made such illustrious spoils, As Livy has recorded,2 who errs not,
With those who felt the agony of blows By making counterstandda to Robert Guiscard,3 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,4
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;5 In front of me doth Ali weeping go, Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;6
And all the others whom thou here beholdest, Sowers of scandal and of schism7 have been While living, and therefore are thus cleft asunder.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us Thus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edgedb 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 has reached him yet, nor guilt doth lead 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,8 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,9 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 who had left him 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.10
That traitor, who sees only with one eye, And holds the land,11 which some one here with me Would fain be fasting from the vision of,
Will make them come unto parley with him; Then will do so, that to Focara’s wind They will not stand in need of vow or prayer.“12
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.
Canto XXVIII: The Severed Head of Bertrand de Born speaks
This one, being banished, every doubt submerged In Cæsar by affirming the forearmed Always with detriment allowed delay.“
O how bewildered unto me appeared, With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit, Curio,13 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” ;14
“And death unto thy race,” thereto I added; Whence he, accumulating woe on woe, Departed, like a person sad and crazed.
B
ut 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 hauberkdc 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 to 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 Absalom15 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.“16
CANTO XXIX
THE many people and the diverse 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, 1
And now the moon is underneath our feet;2 Henceforth the time allotted us is brief, And more is to be seen than what thou seest.“
“If thou,” I thereupon made answer, “hadst 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.3
So wholly at that time wast thou impeded By him who formerly held Altaforte,4 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,5 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 Sardinia6
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 Ægina 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)7 Than was it to behold through that dark valley The spirits languishing in divers heaps.
Canto XXIX: Virgil reproves Dante’s Curiosity
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 a 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 succor 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;8 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 Dædalus 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.”9
Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, Replied unto my speech: “Taking out Stricca, Who knew the art of moderate expenses,
And Niccolò, 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 answers thee,
And thou shalt see I am Capocchio’s shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee,
HowIaskilful ape of nature was.“10
CANTO XXX
‘I WAS 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, wi
th the other burthen,dddrowned herself;—1
And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojans’ 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 did bark, So much the anguish had her mind distorted;2
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.3
And the Aretine, who trembling had remained, Said to me: “That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi,4 And raving goes5 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,6 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 humors, which it ill concocts, That the face corresponds not to the belly,
Compelled him so to hold his lips apart As does the hectic,de 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
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