The Inferno (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  And the good Master: “Ere thou enter farther, Know that thou art within the second round,” Thus he began to say, “and shalt be, till

  Thou comest upon the horrible sand-waste; Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see Things that will credence give unto my speech.“

  I heard on all sides lamentations uttered, And person none beheld I who might make them, Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

  I think he thought that I perhaps might think3 So many voices issued through those trunks From people who concealed themselves for us;

  Therefore the Master said: “If thou break off Some little spray from any of these trees, The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain.“

  Canto XIII: Harpies in the Forest of the Sundes

  Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward, And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn; And the trunk cried, “Why dost thou mangle me?”

  After it had become embrowned with blood, It recommenced its cry: “Why dost thou rend me? Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

  Men once we were, and now are changed to trees; Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful, Even if the souls of serpents we had been.“

  As out of a green brand, that is on fire At one of the ends, and from the other drips And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

  So from that splinter issued forth together Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

  “Had he been able sooner to believe,” My Sage made answer, “O thou wounded soul, What only in my verses he has seen,4

  Not upon thee had he stretched forth his hand; Whereas the thing incredible has caused me To put him to an act which grieveth me.

  But tell him who thou wast, so that by way Of some amends thy fame he may refresh Up in the world, to which he can return.“

  And the trunk said: “So thy sweet words allure me, I can not silent be; and you be vexed not, ThatIalittle to discourse am tempted.

  I am the one who both keys had in keeping Of Frederick’s heart, and turned them to and fro So softly in unlocking and in locking,

  That from his secrets most men I withheld; Fidelity I bore the glorious office So great, I lost thereby my sleep and pulses.

  The courtesan5 who never from the dwelling Of Caesar turned aside her harlot eyes, Death universal and the vice of courts,

  Inflamed against me all the other minds, And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus,6 That my glad honors to dismal mournings.

  My spirit, in disdainful exultation, Thinking by dying to escape disdain, Made me unjust against myself, the just.

  I, by the roots unwonted of this wood,7 Do swear to you that never broke I faith Unto my lord, who was so worthy of honor;

  And to the world if one of you return, Let him my memory comfort, which is lying Still prostrate from the blow that envy dealt it.“

  Waited awhile, and then: “Since he is silent,” The Poet said to me, “lose not the time, But speak, and question him, if more may please thee.”

  Whence I to him: “Do thou again inquire Concerning what thou think‘st will satisfy me; For I cannot, such pity is in my heart.”8

  Therefore he recommenced: “So may the man Do for thee freely what thy speech implores, Spirit incarcerate, again be pleased

  To tell us in what way the soul is bound Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst, If any from such members e‘er is freed.“

  Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward The wind was into such a voice converted: “With brevity shall be replied to you.

  When the exasperated soul abandons The body whence it rent itself away, Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

  It falls into the forest, and no part Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it, There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

  It springs a sapling, and a forest tree; The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves, Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

  Like others for our spoils shall we return; But not that any one may them revest, For ‘tis not just to have what one casts off.

  Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal Forest our bodies shall suspended be, Each to the thorn of his molested shade.“

  We were attentive still unto the trunk, Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us, When by a tumult we were overtaken,

  In the same way as he is who perceives The boar and chase approaching to his stand, Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

  And two behold!9 upon our left-hand side, Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously, That of the forest every fan they broke.

  He who was in advance: “Now help, Death, help!” And the other one, who seemed to lag too much, Was shouting: “Lano, were not so alert

  Those legs of thine at joustings of the Toppo!“ And then, perchance because his breath was failing, He grouped himself together with a bush.

  Behind them was the forest full of black She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

  On him who had crouched down they set their teeth, And him they lacerated piece by piece, Thereafter bore away those aching members.10

  Thereat my Escort took me by the hand, And led me to the bush, that all in vain Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

  “O Jacopo,” it said, “of Sant’ Andrea, What helped it thee of me to make a screen? What blame have I in thy nefarious life?”

  When near him had the Master stayed his steps, He said: “Who wast thou, that through wounds so many Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?”

  And he to us: “O souls, that hither come To look upon the shameful massacre That has so rent away from me my leaves,

  Gather them up beneath the dismal bush; I of that city was which to the Baptist Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

  Forever with his art will make it sad. And were it not that on the pass of Arno Some glimpses of him are remaining still,11

  Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it Upon the ashes left by Attila,12 In vain had caused their labor to be done.

  Of my own house I made myself a gibbet.“

  CANTO XIV

  BECAUSE the charitybe of my native place Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves, And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.

  Then came we to the confine, where disparted The second round is from the third,1 and where A horrible form of Justice is beheld.

  Clearly to manifest these novel things, I say that we arrived upon a plain, Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;

  The dolorous forestbf is a garland to it All round about, as the sad moat to that; There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.

  The soil was of an arid and thick sand, Not of another fashion made than that Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.2

  Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou By each one to be dreaded, who doth read That which was manifest unto mine eyes!

  Of naked souls beheld I many herds, Who all were weeping very miserably, And over them seemed set a diverse law.

  Supine upon the ground some folk were lying; And some were sitting all drawn up together, And others went about continually.

  Those who were going round were far the more, And those were less who lay down to their torment, But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.3

  Canto XII The Violent, tortured in the Ram of fire.

  Ow‘er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall, Were raining down dilated flakes of fire, As of the snow on Alp without a wind.

  As Alexander, in those torrid parts Of India, beheld upon his host Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground,

  Whence he provided with his phalanxes To trample down the soil, because the vapor Better extinguished was while it was single;

  Thus was descending the eternal heat, Whereby the sand was set on fire,4 like tinder Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.

  Without repose forever was the dance Of miserable hands,5 now there, now here, Shaking away from off them the fres
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  “Master,” began I, “thou who overcomest All things except the demons dire,6 that issued Against us at the entrance of the gate,

  Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful, So that the rain seems not to ripen him?“7

  And he himself, who had become aware That I was questioning my Guide about him, Cried: “Such as I was living, am I, dead!

  If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt, Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,

  And if he wearied out by turns the others In Mongibello at the swarthy forge, Vociferating, ‘Help, good Vulcan, help!’

  Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra, And shot his bolts at me with all his might, He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance.“

  Then did my Leader speak with such great force, That I had never heard him speak so loud: “O Capaneus,8 in that is not extinguished

  Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more; Not any torment, saving thine own rage, Would be unto thy fury pain complete.“

  Then he turned round to me with better lip, Saying: “One of the Seven Kings was he Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold

  God in disdain, and little seems to prize him; But, as I said to him, his own despitesbh Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.

  Now follow me, and mind thou do not place As yet thy feet upon the burning sand, But always keep them close unto the wood.“

  Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes Forth from the wood a little rivulet, Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.

  As from the Bulicamë springs the brooklet, The sinful women later share among them,9 So downward through the sand it went its way.

  The bottom of it, and both sloping banks, Were made of stone, and the margins at the side; Whence I perceived that there the passage was.

  “In all the rest which I have shown to thee Since we have entered in within the gate Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

  Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes So notable as is the present river, Which all the little flames above it quenches.“

  These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him That he would give me largess of the food, For which he had given me largess of desire.10

  “In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,” Said he thereafterward, “whose name is Crete, Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

  There is a mountain there, that once was glad With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida; Now ‘tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

  Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle Of her own son; and to conceal him better, Whene‘er he cried, she there had clamors made.11

  A grand old man stands in the mount erect, Who holds his shoulders turned tow‘rds Damietta, And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

  His head is fashioned of refined gold, And of pure silver are the arms and breast; Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

  From that point downward all is chosen iron, Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay, And more he stands on that than on the other.

  Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears, Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

  From rock to rock they fall into this valley; Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form; Then downward go along this narrow sluice

  Unto that point where is no more descending. They form Cocytus; what that pool may be Thou shalt behold, so here ‘tis not narrated.“12

  And I to him: “If so the present runnelbi Doth take its rise in this way from our world, Why only on this vergebj appears it to us?”

  And he to me: “Thou knowest the place is round, And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far, Still to the left descending to the bottom,

  Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned. Therefore if something new appear to us, It should not bring amazement to thy face.“

  And I again: “Master, where shall be found Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou‘rt silent, And sayest the other of this rain is made?”

  “In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,” Replied he; “but the boiling of the red Water might well solve one of them thou makest.

  Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat, There where the souls repair to lavebk themselves, When sin repented of has been removed.“13

  Then said he: “It is time now to abandon The wood; take heed that thou come after me; A way the margins14 make that are not burning,

  And over them all vapors are extinguished.“

  CANTO XV

  Now bears us onward one of the hard margins, And so the brooklet’s mist o‘ershadows it, From fire it saves the water and the dikes.

  Even as the Flemings, ‘twixt Cadsand and Bruges, Fearing the flood that tow’rds them hurls itself, Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;

  And as the Paduans along the Brenta, To guard their villas and their villages, Orbl ever Chiarentana feels the heat;1

  In such similitude had those been made, Albeit not so lofty nor so thick, Whoever he might be, the masterbm made them.

  Now were we from the forest so remote, I could not have discovered where it was, Even if backward I had turned myself,

  When we a company of souls encountered, Who came beside the dike, and every one Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont

  To eye each other under a new moon, And so towards us sharpened they their brows As an old tailor at the needle’s eye.2

  Thus scrutinized by such a family, By some one I was recognized, who seized My garment’s hem, and cried out, “What a marvel!”

  And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,3 On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes, That the scorched countenance prevented not

  Canto XV: Brunetto Latini accosts Dante

  His recognition by my intellect; And bowing down my face unto his own, I made reply, “Are you here, Ser Brunetto?”4

  And he: “May’t not displease thec, O my son, If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini Backward return and let the trail go on.”

  I said to him: “With all my power I ask it; And if you wish me to sit down with you, I will, if he please, for I go with him.”

  “O son,” he said, “whoever of this herd A moment stops, lies then a hundred years, Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.

  Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come, And afterward will I rejoin my band, Which goes lamenting its eternal doom.“

  I did not dare to go down from the road Level to walk with him; but my head bowed I held as one who goeth reverently.

  And he began: “What fortune or what fate Before the last day leadeth thee down here? And who is this that showeth thee the way?”

  “Up there above us in the life serene,” I answered him, “I lost me in a valley,bn Or ever yet my age had been completed.

  But yestermorn I turned my back upon it; This one appeared to me, returning thither, And homeward leadeth me along this road.“

  And he to me: “If thou thy star do follow, Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port, If well I judged in the life beautiful.

  And if I had not died so prematurely, Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee, I would have given thee comfort in the work

  But that ungrateful and malignant people, Which of old time from Fesole descended,5 And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

  Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe; And it is right; for among crabbed sorbsbo It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.

  Old rumor in the world proclaims them blind; A people avaricious, envious, proud; Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.

  Thy fortune so much honor doth reserve thee, One party and the other shall be hungry For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

  Their litter let the beasts of Fesole Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant, If any still upon their dunghill rise,

  In which may yet revive the consecrated Seed of those Romans, who rem
ained there when The nest of such great malice it became.“

  “If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,” Replied I to him, “not yet would you be In banishment from human nature placed;

  For in my mind is fixed, and touches now My heart the dear and good paternal image Of you, when in the world from hour to hour

  You taught me how a man becomes eternal;6 And how much I am grateful, while I live Behoves that in my language be discerned.

  What you narrate of my career I write, And keep it to be glossed with other text By a Lady7 who can do it, if I reach her.

  This much will I have manifest to you; Provided that my conscience do not chide me, For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.

  Such hanselbp is not new unto mine ears; Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around As it may please her, and the churl his mattock.“bq

  My Master thereupon on his right cheek Did backward turn himself, and looked at me; Then said: “He listeneth well who noteth it.”

  Nor speaking less on that account, I go With Sir Brunetto, and I ask who are His most known and most eminent companions.

  And he to me: “To know of some is well; Of others it were laudable to be silent, For short would be the time for so much speech.

  Know then, in sum, that all of them were clerks, And men of letters great and of great fame, In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.

  Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd, And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there, If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,

  That one, who by the Servant of the Servants From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione, Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.8

  More would I say, but coming and discoursing Can be no longer; for that I behold New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.

  A people comes with whom I may not be; Commended unto thee by my Tesoro,9 In which I still live, and no more I ask.“

  Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle Across the plain; and seemed to be among them

  The one who wins, and not the one who loses.10