The Inferno (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Dante Alighieri

  And he had made a trumpet of his rump.16

  CANTO XXII

  HAVE erewhile seen horsemen moving camp, Begin the storming, and their muster make, And sometimes starting off for their escape;

  Vaunt-courierschhave I seen upon your land, O Aretines,1 and foragers go forth, Tournaments stricken, and the joustings run,

  Sometimes with trumpets and sometimes with bells, With kettle-drums, and signals of the castles, And with our own, and with outlandish things,

  But never yet with bagpipe so uncouth Did I see horsemen move, nor infantry, Nor ship by any sign of land or star.

  We went upon our way with the ten demons; Ah, savage company! but in the church With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!

  Ever upon the pitch was my intent, To see the whole condition of that Bolgia, And of the people who therein were burned.

  Even as the dolphins, when they make a sign To mariners by arching of the back, That they should counsel take to save their vessel,

  Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain, One of the sinners would display his back, And in less time conceal it than it lightens.

  As on the brink of water in a ditch The frogs stand only with their muzzles out, So that they hide their feet and other bulk,

  Canto XII Ciampole escaping from the Demon Alichino

  So upon every side the sinners stood; But ever as Barbariccia near them came, Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

  I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it, One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass One frog remains, and down another dives;

  And Graffiacan, who most confronted him, Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch, And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

  I knew, before, the names of all of them, So had I noted them when they were chosen, And when they called each other, listened how.

  “O Rubicante, see that thou do lay Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,” Cried all together the accursed ones.

  And I: “My Master, see to it, if thou canst, That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,ci Thus come into his adversaries’ hands.”

  Near to the side of him my Leader drew, Asked of him whence he was; and he replied: “I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

  My mother placed me servant to a lord, For she had borne me to a ribald knave, Destroyer of himself and of his things.

  Then I domestic was of good King Tybalt; I set me there to practise barratry, For which I pay the reckoning in this heat.“2

  And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected, On either side, a tusk, as in a boar, Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

  Among malicious cats the mouse had come; But Barbariccia clasped him in his arms, And said: “Stand ye aside, while I enfork him.”

  And to my Master he turned round his face; “Ask him again,” he said, “if more thou wish To know from him, before some one destroy him.”

  The Guide: “Now tell then of the other culprits; Knowest thou any one who is a Latian, Under the pitch?” And he: “I separated

  Lately from one who was a neighbor to it;3 Would that I still were covered up with him, For neither claw nor grapnel should I fear.“

  And Libicocco: “We have borne too much”; And with his grappling-iron seized his arm, So that, by rending, he tore off a tendon.

  Ekecj Draghignazzo wished to pounce upon him Down at the legs; whence their Decurion4 Turned round and round about with evil look.

  When they somewhat were pacified again, Of him, who still was looking at his wound, Demanded my Conductor without stay:

  “Who was that one, from whom a luckless parting Thou sayest thou hast made, to come ashore?” And he replied: “It was the Friar Gomita,5

  He of Gallura, vessel of all fraud, Who had the enemies of his Lord in hand, And dealt so with them each exults thereat;

  Money he took, and let them smoothly off, As he says; and in other offices A barrator was he, not mean but sovereign.

  Foregathers with him one Don Michael Zanche6 Of Logodoro; and of Sardinia To gossip never do their tongues feel tired.

  O me! see that one, how he grinds his teeth; Still farther would I speak, but am afraid Lest he to scratch my itch be making ready.“

  And the grand Provost,7 turned to Farfarello, Who rolled his eyes about as if to strike, Said: “Stand aside there, thou malicious bird.”

  “If you desire either to see or hear,” The terror-stricken recommenced thereon, “Tuscans or Lombards, I will make them come.

  But let the Malebranche cease a little, So that these may not their revenges fear, And I, down sitting in this very place,

  For one that I am will make seven to come, When I shall whistle, as our custom is To do whenever one of us emerges.“

  Cagnazzo at these words his muzzle lifted, Shaking his head, and said: “Just hear the trick Which he has thought of, down to throw himself!”

  Whence he, who snares in great abundance had, Responded: “I by far too cunning am, When I procure for mine a greater sadness.”

  Alichin held not in, but running counter Unto the rest, said to him: “If thou dive, I will not follow thee upon the gallop,

  But I will beat my wings above the pitch; The height be left, and be the bank a shield, To see if thou alone dost countervail us.“

  O thou who readest, thou shalt hear new sport!8 Each to the other side his eyes averted; He first, who most reluctant was to do it.

  The Navarrese selected well his time; Planted his feet on land, and in a moment Leaped, and released himself from their design.

  Whereat each one was suddenly stung with shame, But he most who was cause of the defeat; Therefore he moved, and cried: “Thou art o‘ertaken.”

  But little it availed, for wings could not Outstrip the fear; the other one went under, And, flying, upward he his breast directed.

  Not otherwise the duck upon a sudden Dives under, when the falcon is approaching, And upward he returneth cross and weary.

  Infuriate at the mockery, Calcabrina Flying behind him followed close, desirous The other should escape, to have a quarrel.

  And when the barrator had disappeared, He turned his talons upon his companion, And grappled with him right above the moat.

  But soothckthe other was a doughty sparhawkcl To clapperclaw him well; and both of them Fell in the middle of the boiling pond.

  A sudden intercessor was the heat; But ne‘ertheless of rising there was naught, To such degree they had their wings belimed.

  Lamenting with the others, Barbariccia Made four of them fly to the other side With all their gaffs, and very speedily

  This side and that they to their posts descended; They stretched their hooks towards the pitch-ensnared, Who were already baked within the crust,

  And in this manner busied did we leave them.

  CANTO XXIII

  SILENT, alone, and without company, We went, the one in front, the other after, As go the Minor Friars along their way. 1

  Upon the fable of Æsop was directed My thought, by reason of the present quarrel, Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;2

  For mo and issa are not more alike3 Than this one is to that, if well we couple End and beginning with a steadfast mind.

  And even as one thought from another springs, So afterward from that was born another, Which the first fear within me double made.

  Thus did I ponder: “These on our account Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff So great, that much I think it must annoy them.

  If anger be engrafted on ill-will, They will come after us more merciless Than dog upon the leveretcmwhich he seizes,“

  I felt my hair stand all on end already With terror, and stood backwardly intent, When said I: “Master, if thou hidest not

  Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche I am in dread; we have them now behind us; I so imagine them, I already feel them.“

  And he: “If I were made of leaded glass,4 Thine outward image I should not attract Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.

&nb
sp; Just now thy thoughts came in among my own, With similar attitude and similar face, So that of both one counsel sole I made.

  If peradventure the right bank so slope That we to the next Bolgia can descend, We shall escape from the imagined chase.“

  Not yet he finished rendering such opinion, When I beheld them come with outstretched wings, Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.

  My Leader on a sudden seized me up, Even as a mother who by noise is wakened, And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,

  Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop, Having more care of him than of herself, So that she clothes her only with a shift;

  And downward from the top of the hard bank Supine he gave him to the pendent rock, That one side of the other Bolgia walls.

  Ne‘er ran so swiftly water through a sluice To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,5 When nearest to the paddles it approaches,

  As did my Master down along that border, Bearing me with him on his breast away, As his own son,6 and not as a companion.

  Hardly the bed of the ravine below His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill Right over us; but he was not afraid;

  For the high Providence, which had ordained To place them ministers of the fifth moat, The power of thence departing took from all. 7

  A painted people there below we found, Who went about with footsteps very slow, Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.

  They had on mantles with the hoods low down Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut That in Cologne they for the monks are made.

  Canto XXlll: The Hypocrites address Dante

  Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles; But inwardly all leaden and so heavy That Frederick used to put them on of straw.8

  O everlastingly fatiguing mantle! Again we turned us, still to the left hand Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;

  But owing to the weight, that weary folk Came on so tardily, that we were new In company at each motion of the haunch.9

  Whence I unto my Leader: “See thou find Some one who may by deed or name be known, And thus in going move thine eye about.”

  And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,10 Cried to us from behind: “Stay ye your feet, Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!

  Perhaps thou‘lt have from me what thou demandest.“ Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: ”Wait, And then according to his pace proceed.“

  I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me; But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.

  When they came up, long with an eye askance They scanned me without uttering a word. Then to each other turned, and said together:

  “He by the action of his throat seems living; And if they dead are, by what privilege Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?”

  Then said to me: “Tuscan, who to the college Of miserable hypocrites art come, Do not disdain to tell us who thou art.”

  And I to them: “Born was I, and grew up In the great town on the fair river of Arno, And with the body am I’ve always had.

  But who are ye, in whom there trickles down Along your cheeks such grief as I behold? And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?“

  And one replied to me: “These orange cloaks Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights Cause in this way their balances to creak. 11

  Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese; I Catalano, and he Loderingo Named, and together taken by thy city,

  As the wont is to take one man alone, For maintenance of its peace; and we were such That still it is apparent round Gardingo.“ 12

  “O Friars,” began I, “your iniquitous ...” 13 But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed One crucified with three stakes on the ground.

  When me he saw, he writhed himself all over, Blowing into his beard with suspirations; And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,

  Said to me: “This transfixed one, who thou seest, Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet To put one man to torture for the people.

  Crosswise and naked is he on the path, As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel, Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;

  And in like mode his father-in-law is punished Within this moat, and the others of the council, Which for the Jews was a malignant seed.“14

  And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel O‘er him who was extended on the cross 15 So vilely in eternal banishment.

  Then he directed to the Friar this voice: “Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us If to the right hand any pass slope down

  By which we two may issue forth from here, Without constraining some of the black angels16 To come and extricate us from this deep.“

  Then he made answer: “Nearer than thou hopest There is a rock, that forth from the great circle Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,

  Save that at this ‘tis broken, and does not bridge it; You will be able to mount up the ruin, That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises.“

  The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down; Then said: “The business badly he recounted 17 Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder.”

  And the Friar: “Many of the Devil’s vices Once heard I at Bologna, and among them, That he’s a liar and the father of lies.”

  Thereat my Leader with great strides went on, Somewhat disturbed by anger in his looks; 18 Whence from the heavy-laden I departed

  After the prints of his beloved feet.

  CANTO XXIV

  In that part of the youthful year wherein The Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers, And now the nights draw near to half the day,

  What time the hoar-frost copies on the ground The outward semblance of her sister white, But little lasts the temper of her pen,

  The husbandman, whose forage faileth him, Rises, and looks, and seeth the champaign All gleaming white, whereat he beats his flank,

  Returns in doors, and up and down laments, Like a poor wretch, who knows not what to do; Then he returns, and hope revives again,

  Seeing the world has changed its countenance In little time, and takes his shepherd’s crook, And forth the little lambs to pasture drives.

  Thus did the Master fill me with alarm, When I beheld his forehead so disturbed, And to the ailment came as soon the plaster.

  For as we came unto the ruined bridge, The Leader turned to me with that sweet look Which at the mountain’s foot I first beheld.1

  His arms he opened, after some advisement Within himself elected, looking first Well at the ruin,2 and laid hold of me.

  And even as he who acts and meditates, For aye it seems that he provides beforehand, So upward lifting me towards the summit

  Of a huge rock, he scanned another crag, Saying: “To that one grapple afterwards, But try first if ‘tis such that it will hold thee.”

  This was no path for one clothed with a cloak; For hardly we, he light, and I pushed upward,3 Were able to ascend from jag to jag.

  And had it not been, that upon that precinct Shorter was the ascent than on the other, He I know not, but I had been dead beat.

  But because Malebolge tow‘rds the mouth Of the profoundest well is all inclining, The structure of each valley doth import

  That one bank rises and the other sinks.4 Still we arrived at length upon the point Wherefrom the last stone breaks itself asunder.

  The breath was from my lungs so milked away, When I was up, that I could go no farther, Nay, I sat down upon my first arrival.

  “Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,” My Master said; “for sitting upon down, Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame,

  Withouten which whoso his life consumes Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth, As smoke in air or in the water foam.5

  And therefore raise thee up, o‘ercome the anguish With spirit that o’ercometh every battle, If with its heavy body it sink not.

  A longer stairway it behoves thee mount; ‘Tis not enough from these to have departed; Let it avail thee, if thou understand me.“

  Then I uprose, showing
myself provided Better with breath than I did feel myself, And said: “Go on, for I am strong and bold.”

  Upward we took our way along the crag, Which jagged was, and narrow, and difficult, And more precipitous far than that before.

  Speaking I went, not to appear exhausted; Whereat a voice from the next moat came forth, Not well adapted to articulate words.

  Canto The Thieves tortured by Serpents

  I know not what it said, though o‘er the back I now was of the arch that passes there; But he seemed moved to anger who was speaking.

  I was bent downward, but my living eyes Could not attain the bottom, for the dark; Wherefore I: “Master, see that thou arrive

  At the next round, and let us descend the wall; For as from hence I hear and understand not, So I look down and nothing I distinguish.“

  “Other response,” he said, “I make thee not, Except the doing; for the modest asking Ought to be followed by the deed in silence.”

  We from the bridge descended at its head, Where it connects itself with the eighth bank, And then was manifest to me the Bolgia;

  And I beheld therein a terrible throng Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind, That the remembrance still congeals my blood.

  Let Lybia boast no longer with her sand; For it Chelydri, Jaculi, and Phareæ She breeds, with Cenchri and with Amphisbæna,6

  Neither so many plagues nor so malignant E‘er showed she with all Ethiopia, Nor with whatever on the Red Sea is!

  Among this cruel and most dismal throng People were running naked and affrighted, Without the hope of hole or heliotrope.7

  They had their hands with serpents bound behind them; These riveted upon their reins8 the tail And head, and were in front of them entwined.

  And lo! at one who was upon our side There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders.

  Nor O so quickly e‘er, nor I was written,9 As he took fire, and burned; and ashes wholly Behoved it that in falling he became.

  And when he on the ground was thus destroyed, The ashes drew together, and of themselves Into himself they instantly returned.