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Dante Alighieri - Inferno (English)
Work rating: Medium

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  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 XXIV


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?

If thou desire to know who these two are,
  The valley whence Bisenzio descends
  Belonged to them and to their father Albert.

They from one body came, and all Caina
  Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
  More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;

Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
  At one and the same blow by Arthur`s hand;
  Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers

So with his head I see no farther forward,
  And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
  Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.

And that thou put me not to further speech,
  Know that I Camicion de` Pazzi was,
  And wait Carlino to exonerate me."

Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
  Purple with cold; whence o`er me comes a shudder,
  And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.

And while we were advancing tow`rds the middle,
  Where everything of weight unites together,
  And I was shivering in the eternal shade,

Whether `twere will, or destiny, or chance,
  I know not; but in walking `mong the heads
  I struck my foot hard in the face of one.

Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
  Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
  of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"

And I: "My Master, now wait here for me,
  That I through him may issue from a doubt;
  Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish."

The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
  Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
  "Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"

"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
  Smiting," replied he, "other people`s cheeks,
  So that, if thou wert living, `twere too much?"

"Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,"
  Was my response, "if thou demandest fame,
  That `mid the other notes thy name I place."

And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
  Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
  For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."

Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
  And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
  Or not a hair remain upon thee here."

Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my hair,
  I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
  If on my head a thousand times thou fall."

Source
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