The Inferno (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

Thais the harlot10 is it, who replied Unto her paramour, when he said, ‘Have I Great gratitude from thee?’—‘Nay, marvellous’;

  And herewith let our sight be satisfied.“

  CANTO XIX

  O Simon Magus,1 O forlorn disciples, Ye who the things of God, which ought to be The brides of holiness, rapaciously

  For silver and for gold do prostitute, Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound, Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

  We had already on the following tombbz Ascended to that portion of the crag Which o‘er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

  Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world, And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

  I saw upon the sides and on the bottom The livid stone with perforations filled, All of one size, and every one was round,

  To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater Than those that in my beautiful Saint John Are fashioned for the place of the baptizers,

  And one of which, not many years ago, I broke for some one, who was drowning in it; Be this a seal all men to undeceive.

  Out of the mouth of each one there protuded The feet of a transgressor, and the legs Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

  In all of them the soles were both on fire;2 Wherefore the joints so violently quivered, They would have snapped asunder withes and bands.

  Canto XIX Dante addresses Pope “Nicholas III

  Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont To move upon the outer surface only. So likewise was it there from heel to point.

  “Master, who is that one who writhes himself, More than his other comrades quivering,” I said, “and whom a redder flame is sucking?”

  And he to me: “If thou wilt have me bear thee Down there along that bank which lowest lies, From him thou‘lt know his errors and himself.”

  And I: “What pleases thee, to me is pleasing; Thou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not From thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken.”

  Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived; We turned, and on the left-hand side descended Down to the bottom full of holes and narrow.

  And the good Master yet from off his haunch Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

  “Whoe‘er thou art, that standest upside down, O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,” To say began I, “if thou canst, speak out.”

  I stood even as the friar who is confessing The false assassin, who, when he is fixed, Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

  And he cried out: “Dost thou stand there already, Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?3 By many years the record lied to me.

  Art thou so early satiate with that wealth, For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud The beautiful Lady,ca and then work her woe?“

  Such I became, as people are who stand, Not comprehending what is answered them, As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

  Then said Virgilius: “Say to him straightway, I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.” And I replied as was imposed on me.

  Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet, Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation Said to me: “Then what wantest thou of me?

  If who I am thou carest so much to know, That thou on that account hast crossed the bank, Know that I vested was with the great mantle;cb

  And truly was I son of the She-bear,4 So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

  Beneath my head the others are dragged down Who have preceded me in simony, Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

  Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever That one shall come who I believed thou wast, What time the sudden question I proposed.

  But longer I my feet already toast, And here have been in this way upside down, Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

  For after him shall come of fouler deed From tow‘rds the west a Pastor without law, Such as befits to cover him and me.

  New Jason will he be, of whom we read In Maccabees;5 and as his king was pliant, So he who governs France shall be to this one.“

  I do not know if I were here too bold, That him I answered only in this metre: “I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

  Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first, Before he put the keys into his keeping? Truly he nothing asked but ‘Follow me.’

  Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.6

  Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished, And keep safe guard o‘er the ill-gotten money, Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.7

  And were it not that still forbids it me The reverence for the keys superlative Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

  I would make use of words more grievous still; Because your avarice afflicts the world, Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

  The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind, When she who sitteth upon many waters To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

  The same who with the seven heads was born, And power and strength from the ten horns received, So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.8

  Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver; And from the idolater how differ ye, Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

  Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother, Not thy conversion, but that marriage-dower Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!“9

  And while I sang to him such notes as these, Either that anger or that conscience stung him, He struggled violently with both his feet.10

  I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased, With such contented lip he listened ever Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

  Therefore with both his arms he took me up, And when he had me all upon his breast, Remounted by the way where he descended. Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him; But bore me to the summit of the arch Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

  There tenderly he laid his burden down, Tenderly on the crag11 uneven and steep, That would have been hard passage for the goats:

  Thence was unveiled to me another valley.

  CANTO XX

  OF a new pain behoves me to make verses And give material to the twentieth canto Of the first song, which is of the submerged,1

  I was already thoroughly disposed To peer down into the uncovered depth, Which bathed itself with tears of agony;

  And people saw I through the circular valley, Silent and weeping, coming at the pace Which in this world the Litanies assume.2

  As lower down my sight descended on them, Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted From chin to the beginning of the chest;

  For tow‘rds the reins the countenance was turned, And backward it behoved them to advance, As to look forward had been taken from them.3

  Perchance indeed by violence of palsy Some one has been thus wholly turned awry; But I ne‘er saw it, nor believe it can be.

  As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit From this thy reading, think now for thyself How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,

  When our own image near me I beheld, Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.

  Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said To me: “Art thou, too, of the other fools?

  Here pity lives when it is wholly dead; Who is a greater reprobate than he Who feels compassion at the doom divine?4

  Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom Opened the earth before the Thebans’ eyes; Wherefore they all cried: ‘Whither rushest thou,

  Amphiaraus?5 Why dost leave the war?‘ And downward ceased he not to fall amaincc As far as Minos, who lays hold on all.

  See, he has made a bosom of his shoulders! Because he wished to see too far before him Behind he looks, and backward makes his way:

  Behold Tiresias,6 who his semblance changed, When from a male a female he became, His members being all of them transformed;

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bsp; And afterwards was forced to strike once more The two entangled serpents with his rod, Ere he could have again his manly plumes.

  That Aruns is, who backs the other’s belly, Who in the hills of Luni, there where grubs The Carrarese who houses underneath,

  Among the marbles white a cavern had7 For his abode; whence to behold the stars And sea, the view was not cut off from him.

  And she there, who is covering up her breasts, Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses, And on that side has all the hairy skin,

  Was Manto,8 who made quest through many lands, Afterwards tarried there where I was born; Whereof I would thou list to me a little.

  After her father had from life departed, And the city of Bacchus had become enslaved, She a long season wandered through the world.

  Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake At the Alp’s foot that shuts in Germany Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.

  By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed, ‘Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino, With water that grows stagnant in that lake.

  Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor, And he of Brescia, and the Veronese Might give his blessing,9 if he passed that way.

  Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong, To front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,10 Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.

  There of necessity must fall whatever In bosom of Benaco cannot stay, And grows a river down through verdant pastures.

  Soon as the water doth begin to run, No more Benaco is it called, but Mincio, Far as Governo, where it falls in Po.11

  Not far it runs before it finds a plain In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy, And oft ‘tis wont in summer to be sickly.

  Passing that way the virgin pitiless12 Land in the middle of the fencd descried, Untilled and naked of inhabitants;

  There to escape all human intercourse, She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise, And lived, and left her empty body there.

  The men, thereafter, who were scattered round, Collected in that place, which was made strong By the lagoon it had on every side;

  They built their city over those dead bones, And, after her who first the place selected, Mantua named it, without other omen.

  Its people once within more crowded were, Ere the stupidity of Casalodi From Pinamonte had received deceit.13

  Therefore I caution thee, if e‘er thou hearest Originate my city otherwise, No falsehood may the verity defraud.“14

  And I: “My Master, thy discourses are To me so certain, and so take my faith, That unto me the rest would be spent coals.

  But tell me of the people who are passing, If any one note-worthy thou beholdest, For only unto that my mind reverts.“

  Then said he to me: “He who from the cheek Thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders Was, at the time when Greece was void of males,

  So that there scarce remained one in the cradle, An augur, and with Calchas gave the moment, In Aulis, when to sever the first cable.

  Eryphylus his name was,15 and so sings My lofty Tragedy16 in some part or other; That knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.

  The next, who is so slender in the flanks, Was Michael Scott,17 who of a verity Of magical illusions knew the game.

  Behold Guido Bonatti, behold Asdente,18 Who now unto his leather and his thread Would faince have stuck, but he too late repents.

  Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle, The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers; They wrought their magic spells with herb and image.

  But come now, for already holds the confines Of both the hemispheres, and under Seville Touches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns,

  And yesternight the moon was round already; Thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee From time to time within the forest deep.“19

  Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.20

  CANTO XXI

  FROM bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things Of which my Comedy cares not to sing, 1 We came along, and held the summit, when

  We halted to behold another fissure Of Malebolge2 and other vain laments; And I beheld it marvellously dark.

  As in the Arsenal of the Venetians3 Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch To smear their unsound vessels o‘er again,

  For sail they cannot; and instead thereof One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

  One hammers at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen;

  Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine, Was boiling down below there a dense pitch Which upon every side the bank belimed.

  I saw it, but I did not see within it Aught but the bubbles that the boiling raised, And all swell up and resubside compressed,

  The while below there fixedly I gazed, My leader crying out: “Beware, beware!” Drew me unto himself from where I stood.

  Then I turned round, as one who is impatient To see what it behoves him to escape, And whom a sudden terror doth unman,

  Who, while he looks, delays not his departure; And I beheld behind us a black devil, Running along upon the crag, approach.

  Canto XXI The Demons threaten Virgil

  Ah, how ferocious was he in his aspect! And how he seemed to me in action ruthless, With open wings and light upon his feet!

  His shoulders, which sharp-pointed were and high, A sinner did encumber with both haunches, And he held clutched the sinews of the feet.

  From off our bridge, he said: “O Malebranche,4 Behold one of the elders of Saint Zita.5 Plunge him beneath, for I return for others

  Unto that town, which is well furnished with them. All there are barrators, except Bonturo;6 No into Yes for money there is changed.“

  He hurled him down, and over the hard crag Turned round, and never was a mastiff loosened In so much hurry to pursue a thief.

  The other sank, and rose again face downward; But the demons, under cover of the bridge, Cried: “Here the Santo Volto has no place!

  Here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio;7 Therefore, if for our gaffs thou wishest not, Do not uplift thyself above the pitch.“

  They seized him then with more than a hundred rakes; They said: “It here behoves thee to dance covered, That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer.”

  Not otherwise the cooks their scullions make Immerse into the middle of the caldron The meat with hooks, so that it may not float.

  Said the good Master to me: “That it be not Apparent thou art here, crouch thyself down Behind a jag, that thou mayest have some screen;

  And for no outrage that is done to me Be thou afraid, because these things I know, For once before was I in such a scuffle.“

  Then he passed on beyond the bridge’s head, And as upon the sixth bank he arrived, Need was for him to have a steadfast front.

  With the same fury, and the same uproar, As dogs leap out upon a mendicant,cf Who on a sudden begs, where‘er he stops,

  They issued from beneath the little bridge, And turned against him all their grappling-irons; But he cried out: “Be none of you malignant!

  Before those hooks of yours lay hold of me, Let one of you step forward, who may hear me, And then take counsel as to grappling me.“

  They all cried: “Let Malacoda go”;8 Whereat one started, and the rest stood still, And he came to him, saying, “What avails it?”

  “Thinkest thou, Malacoda, to behold me Advanced into this place,” my Master said, “Safe hitherto from all your skill of fence,cg

  Without the will divine, and fate auspicious? Let me go on, for it in Heaven is willed That I another show this savage road.“

  Then was his arrogance so humbled in him, That he let fall his grapnel at his feet, And to the others said: “Now strike him not.”

  And unto me my Guide: “O thou, who sittest Among the splinters of the bridge crouched down, Securely now return to me again.”

  Wherefore I started and came swiftly to him; And all the devils f
orward thrust themselves,9 So that I feared they would not keep their compact.

  And thus beheld I once afraid the soldiers Who issued under safeguard from Caprona, Seeing themselves among so many foes.10

  Close did I press myself with all my person Beside my Leader, and turned not mine eyes From off their countenance, which was not good.

  They lowered their rakes, and “Wilt thou have me hit him,” They said to one another, “on the rump?” And answered: “Yes; see that thou nick him with it.”

  But the same demon who was holding parley With my Conductor turned him very quickly, And said: “Be quiet, be quiet, Scarmiglione”;11

  Then said to us: “You can no farther go Forward upon this crag, because is lying All shattered, at the bottom, the sixth arch.

  And if it still doth please you to go onward, Pursue your way along upon this rock; Near is another crag that yields a path.12

  Yesterday, five hours later than this hour, One thousand and two hundred sixty-six Years were complete, that here the way was broken.13

  I send in that direction some of mine To see if any one doth air himself; Go ye with them; for they will not be vicious.

  Step forward, Alichino and Calcabrina.“ Began he to cry out, ”and thou, Cagnazzo; And Barbariccia do thou guide the ten.

  Come forward, Libicocco and Draghignazzo, And tuskëd Ciriatto and Graffiacane, And Farfarello and mad Rubicante;14

  Search ye all round about the boiling pitch; Let these be safe as far as the next crag, That all unbroken passes o‘er the dens.“

  “O me! what is it, Master, that I see? Pray let us go,” I said, “without an escort, If thou knowest how, since for myself I ask none.

  If thou art as observant as thy wont is, Dost thou not see that they do gnash their teeth, And with their brows are threatening woe to us?“15

  And he to me: “I will not have thee fear; Let them gnash on, according to their fancy, Because they do it for those boiling wretches.”

  Along the left-hand dike they wheeled about; But first had each one thrust his tongue between His teeth towards their leader for a signal;