by Dante
15
perhaps you would have let me stay there longer.’
All the while my guide was moving on,
with me, intent on my reply, behind him.
18
And then I added: ‘Within that hole
‘where I had fixed my gaze, I do believe I saw
someone of my own blood lament
21
the sin that costs so dear down there.’
Then the master said: ‘Trouble your mind →
no more because of him.
24
Turn it to other things and let him be,
‘for I saw him there below the bridge,
pointing his finger at you, fierce with threats,
27
and I heard him called Geri del Bello.
‘Just then you were so thoroughly engrossed
in him who once was lord of Hautefort
30
you did not glance that way before your kinsman left.’
‘O my leader, the violent death he died, →
for which no vengeance has been taken yet,’
33
I said, ‘by any person partner to his shame,
‘made him indignant. That is why he went away
without addressing me—or so I think—
36
and why he’s made me pity him the more.’
Thus we continued talking till we reached →
the first point on the ridge that could have shown
39
the next pit’s bottom, had there been more light.
When we stood above the final cloister →
of Malebolge and all of its lay brothers
42
became discernible to us,
strange arrows of lament, their shafts,
with pity at their tips, pierced me,
45
so that I pressed my hands against my ears.
If the contagion of every hospital →
in Valdichiana, from July until September,
48
and in the Maremma and Sardegna, were amassed
in one malarial ditch, just such suffering
was in that place. And from it rose
51
the stench of festering limbs.
We came down, always to our left, and reached →
the last bank of the lengthy crag.
54
And then my eyes could have a better view →
into the pit, there where the minister
of God on high, unerring justice, punishes
57
the counterfeiters whom she here records.
I think it could have been no greater sorrow →
to see the people of Aegina stricken,
60
with such corruption in the very air
that every animal, even the smallest worm,
perished, and, later, as the poets hold for certain,
63
these ancient people were restored to life,
hatched from the eggs of ants—
no greater sorrow, than in that somber valley
66
to see those spirits, heaped on one another, languishing.
Some lay upon the bellies or the backs
of others, still others dragged themselves
69
on hands and knees along that gloomy path.
Step by step we went ahead in silence,
looking and listening to the stricken spirits,
72
who could not raise their bodies from the ground.
Two I saw seated, propped against each other →
as pans are propped to warm before the fire,
75
each of them blotched with scabs from head to foot.
And never did I see a stable-boy,
with his master waiting, nor youth whose chore
78
keeps him from sleep, ply his curry-comb
more hurriedly than each one clawed his nails
across his skin because of that mad itch,
81
which knows no other remedy,
and their nails tore off those scabs
as a knife strips scales from bream
84
or other fish with even larger scales.
‘You there, stripping off your coat of mail,’ →
began my leader, addressing one of them,
87
‘and sometimes making pincers of your fingers,
‘tell us whether, among those gathered here,
any are Italian, so may your nails
90
last you in this task for all eternity.’
‘We whom you see so blasted are Italian,’
answered one of them, through his tears,
93
‘but who are you, that you inquire of us?’
And my leader: ‘I am one who makes his way
down with this living man from ledge to ledge.
96
And my intention is to show him Hell.’
They stopped propping one another up
and each one, trembling, turned in my direction,
99
as others did who’d overheard those words.
The good master drew up close to me,
saying, ‘Ask them what you will.’
102
And I began, since this had been his wish:
‘So that your memory may not fade away
from minds of men in the world above
105
but live on yet for many suns to come,
‘tell me who you are, and where you hail from.
Do not let your foul and sickening torment
108
keep you from telling me your names.’
And one of them replied: ‘I was of Arezzo. →
Albero of Siena had me burned alive.
111
But what I died for does not bring me here.
‘It is true I said to him in jest:
“I do know how to rise into the air and fly!”
114
And he, who had the will but not the wit,
‘asked me to show him how. And just because
I failed to make him Daedalus, he had me set
117
on fire by one who took him as his son.
‘But Minos, incapable of error,
damned me to the last of these ten ditches
120
for the alchemy I practiced in the world.’
And I said to the poet: ‘Were people ever →
quite so fatuous as are the Sienese?
123
Why, not even the French can match them!’
Whereupon the other leper, hearing me, →
replied: ‘Except, of course for Stricca—
126
he knew how to moderate his spending—
‘and for Niccolò—the first one to devise
a costly use for cloves,
129
there in the garden where such seeds take root—
‘and for that band in whose company
Caccia d’Asciano squandered his vineyards
132
and his fields, and Abbagliato showed his wit.
‘But, to let you know who’s in your camp
against the Sienese, look close at me
135
so that my face itself may answer you.
‘You will see I am the shade of Capocchio, →
who altered metal by means of alchemy.
And, if you are the man I take you for,
139
you will recall how good an ape I was of nature.’
OUTLINE: INFERNO XXX
1–27
opening double simile:
1–12
(Juno vs. Thebes): Athamas
13–21
(Fortuna vs. Troy): Hecuba
22–27
Gianni Schicchi and Myrrha
28–33
Griffolino identifies Gianni, attacking Capocchio
34–36
Dante asks Griffolino about the second shade
37–45
Griffolino: Myrrha became another, as did Gianni
46–57
Dante observes a lute-shaped sinner
58–75
Master Adam: his dropsical thirst; his sin
76–90
Master Adam: his desires for revenge
91–93
Dante: who are those “wet hands in winter”?
94–99
Master Adam: Potiphar’s wife and Sinon
100–129
Sinon and Master Adam: battle of blows and words
130–132
Dante fixed upon their quarrel; Virgil’s rebuke
133–135
Dante’s shame
136–141
simile: dreamer dreaming he’s not dreaming
142–148
Virgil’s acceptance of Dante’s blush
INFERNO XXX
Once when Juno, furious with Semele, →
vented her rage against the house of Thebes,
3
as she had done on more than one occasion,
Athamas went so raving mad that when he saw
his wife come near with both their children,
6
holding one on this arm, one on that,
he shouted: “Let’s spread the nets so I can trap
the lioness with her cubs as they go past!”
9
Then he reached out and with pitiless claws
he seized the one who was called Learchus,
whirled him round and dashed him on a rock.
12
At that she drowned herself with her other burden.
And when Fortune had subdued the haughty, →
all-daring spirit of the Trojans,
15
so that both king and kingdom were brought low,
Hecuba—wretched, sorrowing, a captive—
when she saw Polyxena slaughtered and,
18
grieving woman, when she saw
Polydorus lying dead upon the shore,
went mad and started barking like a dog,
21
so greatly had her grief deranged her mind.
But no Theban crazed with rage— →
or Trojan—did ever seem as cruel
24
in rending beasts, much less human parts,
as did two pallid, naked shades I saw,
snapping their jaws as they rushed up
27
like swine charging from an opened sty.
The one came at Capocchio, set its tusks →
into his neck, then dragged him
30
so his belly scraped the rock-hard ground.
And the Aretine, who stood there, trembling,
said to me: ‘That demon’s Gianni Schicchi,
33
and in his rabid rage he mauls the others.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘so may that other not fix
its teeth in you, be kind enough to tell me
36
just who it is before it runs away.’
And he answered: ‘That is the ancient soul →
of wicked Myrrha, who became enamored
39
of her father with more than lawful love.
‘She contrived to sin with him
by taking on another person’s shape,
42
as did that other, eager to decamp, →
‘to gain the queen mule of the herd,
take on the shape of Buoso Donati,
45
drawing up a will and giving it due form.’
When those two frenzied shades, on whom →
I’d fixed my eyes, had hurried off,
48
I turned to look at others born for sorrow.
One I saw, fashioned like a lute— →
had he been sundered at the groin
51
from the joining where a man goes forked.
The heavy dropsy, which afflicts the body →
with its ill-digesting humor
54
so that the face and belly do not match,
forced his lips to draw apart
as a person parched with hectic fever curls
57
one lip to his chin and twists the other up.
‘O you who go unpunished here—I know not why— →
through this world of misery,’
60
he said, ‘behold and then consider
‘the suffering of Master Adam.
Alive, I had in plenty all I wanted.
63
And now I crave a single drop of water!
‘The streams that, in the Casentino, →
run down along green hillsides to the Arno,
66
keeping their channels cool and moist,
‘flow before my eyes forever, and not in vain,
because their image makes me thirst still more
69
than does the malady that wastes my features.
‘The rigid justice that torments me
employs the landscape where I sinned
72
to make my sighs come faster.
‘In those parts lies Romena, where I forged
the coinage stamped with John the Baptist.
75
For that I left my body burned above.
‘If I could only see down here the wretched souls →
of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,
78
I’d not give up that sight for Fonte Branda.
‘One of them is here with us already, →
if the furious shades who move about don’t lie.
81
What good is that to me whose limbs are bound?
‘If I were only light enough to budge →
a single inch each hundred years,
84
I would by now have started on my way
‘to seek him out in this pit’s bloated shapes,
even though it runs eleven miles around
87
and spreads not less than half a mile across.
‘It is their fault that I have such companions, →
for it was they who made me strike the florins
90
that held three carats’ worth of dross.’
And I to him: ‘Who are these two wretches
who steam as wet hands do in winter
93
and lie so very near you on your right?’
‘I found them when I rained into this trough,’
he said, ‘and even then they did not move about,
96
nor do I think they will for all eternity.
‘One is the woman who lied accusing Joseph, →
the other is false Sinon, the lying Greek from Troy.
99
Putrid fever makes them reek with such a stench.’
And one of them, who took offense, perhaps →
at being named so vilely, hit him
102
with a fist right on his rigid paunch.
It boomed out like a drum. Then Master Adam,
whose arm seemed just as sturdy,
105
used it, striking Sinon in the face,
saying: ‘Although I cannot move about
because my legs are heavy,
108
my arm is loose enough for such a task.’
To which the other answered: ‘When they put you
to the fire, your arm was not so nimble,
111
though it was quick enough when you were coining.’
And the dropsied one: ‘Well, that is true,
but you were hardly such a truthful witness
114
when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy.’
> ‘If I spoke falsely, you falsified the coin,’ →
said Sinon, ‘and I am here for one offense alone,
117
but you for more than any other devil!’
‘You perjurer, keep the horse in mind,’ →
replied the sinner with the swollen paunch,
120
‘and may it pain you that the whole world knows.’
‘And may you suffer from the thirst,’ the Greek replied,
‘that cracks your tongue, and from the fetid humor
123
that turns your belly to a hedge before your eyes!’
Then the forger: ‘And so, as usual,
your mouth gapes open from your fever.
126
If I am thirsty, and swollen by this humor, →
‘you have your hot spells and your aching head.
For you to lick the mirror of Narcissus
129
would not take much by way of invitation.’
I was all intent in listening to them,
when the master said: ‘Go right on looking →
132
and it is I who’ll quarrel with you.’
When I heard him speak to me in anger
I turned and faced him with a shame
135
that circles in my memory even now.
As a man who dreams that he is being harmed →
and, even as he dreams, hopes he is dreaming,
138
longing for what is, as though it weren’t—
so it was with me, deprived of speech:
I longed to seek his pardon—and all the while
141
I did so without knowing that I did.
‘Less shame would cleanse a greater fault than yours,’ →
my master said, ‘and that is why