That hue which cowardice brought out on me,
\nBeholding my Conductor backward turn,
\nSooner repressed within him his new colour.<\/p>\n
He stopped attentive, like a man who listens,
\nBecause the eye could not conduct him far
\nThrough the black air, and through the heavy fog.<\/p>\n
“Still it behoveth us to win the fight,”
\nBegan he; “Else. . .Such offered us herself. . .
\nO how I long that some one here arrive!”<\/p>\n
Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning
\nHe covered up with what came afterward,
\nThat they were words quite different from the first;<\/p>\n
But none the less his saying gave me fear,
\nBecause I carried out the broken phrase,
\nPerhaps to a worse meaning than he had.<\/p>\n
“Into this bottom of the doleful conch
\nDoth any e’er descend from the first grade,
\nWhich for its pain has only hope cut off?”<\/p>\n
This question put I; and he answered me:
\n“Seldom it comes to pass that one of us
\nMaketh the journey upon which I go.<\/p>\n
True is it, once before I here below
\nWas conjured by that pitiless Erictho,
\nWho summoned back the shades unto their bodies.<\/p>\n
Naked of me short while the flesh had been,
\nBefore within that wall she made me enter,
\nTo bring a spirit from the circle of Judas;<\/p>\n
That is the lowest region and the darkest,
\nAnd farthest from the heaven which circles all.
\nWell know I the way; therefore be reassured.<\/p>\n
This fen, which a prodigious stench exhales,
\nEncompasses about the city dolent,
\nWhere now we cannot enter without anger.”<\/p>\n
And more he said, but not in mind I have it;
\nBecause mine eye had altogether drawn me
\nTow’rds the high tower with the red-flaming summit,<\/p>\n
Where in a moment saw I swift uprisen
\nThe three infernal Furies stained with blood,
\nWho had the limbs of women and their mien,<\/p>\n
And with the greenest hydras were begirt;
\nSmall serpents and cerastes were their tresses,
\nWherewith their horrid temples were entwined.<\/p>\n
And he who well the handmaids of the Queen
\nOf everlasting lamentation knew,
\nSaid unto me: “Behold the fierce Erinnys.<\/p>\n
This is Megaera, on the left-hand side;
\nShe who is weeping on the right, Alecto;
\nTisiphone is between;” and then was silent.<\/p>\n
Each one her breast was rending with her nails;
\nThey beat them with their palms, and cried so loud,
\nThat I for dread pressed close unto the Poet.<\/p>\n
“Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!”
\nAll shouted looking down; “in evil hour
\nAvenged we not on Theseus his assault!”<\/p>\n
“Turn thyself round, and keep thine eyes close shut,
\nFor if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it,
\nNo more returning upward would there be.”<\/p>\n
Thus said the Master; and he turned me round
\nHimself, and trusted not unto my hands
\nSo far as not to blind me with his own.<\/p>\n
O ye who have undistempered intellects,
\nObserve the doctrine that conceals itself
\nBeneath the veil of the mysterious verses!<\/p>\n
And now there came across the turbid waves
\nThe clangour of a sound with terror fraught,
\nBecause of which both of the margins trembled;<\/p>\n
Not otherwise it was than of a wind
\nImpetuous on account of adverse heats,
\nThat smites the forest, and, without restraint,<\/p>\n
The branches rends, beats down, and bears away;
\nRight onward, laden with dust, it goes superb,
\nAnd puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.<\/p>\n
Mine eyes he loosed, and said: “Direct the nerve
\nOf vision now along that ancient foam,
\nThere yonder where that smoke is most intense.”<\/p>\n
Even as the frogs before the hostile serpent
\nAcross the water scatter all abroad,
\nUntil each one is huddled in the earth.<\/p>\n
More than a thousand ruined souls I saw,
\nThus fleeing from before one who on foot
\nWas passing o’er the Styx with soles unwet.<\/p>\n
From off his face he fanned that unctuous air,
\nWaving his left hand oft in front of him,
\nAnd only with that anguish seemed he weary.<\/p>\n
Well I perceived one sent from Heaven was he,
\nAnd to the Master turned; and he made sign
\nThat I should quiet stand, and bow before him.<\/p>\n
Ah! how disdainful he appeared to me!
\nHe reached the gate, and with a little rod
\nHe opened it, for there was no resistance.<\/p>\n
“O banished out of Heaven, people despised!”
\nThus he began upon the horrid threshold;
\n“Whence is this arrogance within you couched?<\/p>\n
Wherefore recalcitrate against that will,
\nFrom which the end can never be cut off,
\nAnd which has many times increased your pain?<\/p>\n
What helpeth it to butt against the fates?
\nYour Cerberus, if you remember well,
\nFor that still bears his chin and gullet peeled.”<\/p>\n
Then he returned along the miry road,
\nAnd spake no word to us, but had the look
\nOf one whom other care constrains and goads<\/p>\n
Than that of him who in his presence is;
\nAnd we our feet directed tow’rds the city,
\nAfter those holy words all confident.<\/p>\n
Within we entered without any contest;
\nAnd I, who inclination had to see
\nWhat the condition such a fortress holds,<\/p>\n
Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye,
\nAnd see on every hand an ample plain,
\nFull of distress and torment terrible.<\/p>\n
Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,
\nEven as at Pola near to the Quarnaro,
\nThat shuts in Italy and bathes its borders,<\/p>\n
The sepulchres make all the place uneven;
\nSo likewise did they there on every side,
\nSaving that there the manner was more bitter;<\/p>\n
For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,
\nBy which they so intensely heated were,
\nThat iron more so asks not any art.<\/p>\n
All of their coverings uplifted were,
\nAnd from them issued forth such dire laments,
\nSooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented.<\/p>\n
And I: “My Master, what are all those people
\nWho, having sepulture within those tombs,
\nMake themselves audible by doleful sighs?”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “Here are the Heresiarchs,
\nWith their disciples of all sects, and much
\nMore than thou thinkest laden are the tombs.<\/p>\n
Here like together with its like is buried;
\nAnd more and less the monuments are heated.”
\nAnd when he to the right had turned, we passed<\/p>\n
Between the torments and high parapets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now onward goes, along a narrow path
\nBetween the torments and the city wall,
\nMy Master, and I follow at his back.<\/p>\n
“O power supreme, that through these impious circles
\nTurnest me,” I began, “as pleases thee,
\nSpeak to me, and my longings satisfy;<\/p>\n
The people who are lying in these tombs,
\nMight they be seen? already are uplifted
\nThe covers all, and no one keepeth guard.”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “They all will be closed up
\nWhen from Jehoshaphat they shall return
\nHere with the bodies they have left above.<\/p>\n
Their cemetery have upon this side
\nWith Epicurus all his followers,
\nWho with the body mortal make the soul;<\/p>\n
But in the question thou dost put to me,
\nWithin here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
\nAnd likewise in the wish thou keepest silent.”<\/p>\n
And I: “Good Leader, I but keep concealed
\nFrom thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
\nNor only now hast thou thereto disposed me.”<\/p>\n
“O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
\nGoest alive, thus speaking modestly,
\nBe pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.<\/p>\n
Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
\nA native of that noble fatherland,
\nTo which perhaps I too molestful was.”<\/p>\n
Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
\nFrom out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
\nFearing, a little nearer to my Leader.<\/p>\n
And unto me he said: “Turn thee; what dost thou?
\nBehold there Farinata who has risen;
\nFrom the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him.”<\/p>\n
I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
\nAnd he uprose erect with breast and front
\nE’en as if Hell he had in great despite.<\/p>\n
And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
\nThrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
\nExclaiming, “Let thy words explicit be.”<\/p>\n
As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
\nSomewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
\nThen asked of me, “Who were thine ancestors?”<\/p>\n
I, who desirous of obeying was,
\nConcealed it not, but all revealed to him;
\nWhereat he raised his brows a little upward.<\/p>\n
Then said he: “Fiercely adverse have they been
\nTo me, and to my fathers, and my party;
\nSo that two several times I scattered them.”<\/p>\n
“If they were banished, they returned on all sides,”
\nI answered him, “the first time and the second;
\nBut yours have not acquired that art aright.”<\/p>\n
Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
\nDown to the chin, a shadow at his side;
\nI think that he had risen on his knees.<\/p>\n
Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
\nHe had to see if some one else were with me,
\nBut after his suspicion was all spent,<\/p>\n
Weeping, he said to me: “If through this blind
\nPrison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
\nWhere is my son? and why is he not with thee?”<\/p>\n
And I to him: “I come not of myself;
\nHe who is waiting yonder leads me here,
\nWhom in disdain perhaps your Guido had.”<\/p>\n
His language and the mode of punishment
\nAlready unto me had read his name;
\nOn that account my answer was so full.<\/p>\n
Up starting suddenly, he cried out: “How
\nSaidst thou,–he had? Is he not still alive?
\nDoes not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”<\/p>\n
When he became aware of some delay,
\nWhich I before my answer made, supine
\nHe fell again, and forth appeared no more.<\/p>\n
But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
\nI had remained, did not his aspect change,
\nNeither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.<\/p>\n
“And if,” continuing his first discourse,
\n“They have that art,” he said, “not learned aright,
\nThat more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.<\/p>\n
But fifty times shall not rekindled be
\nThe countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
\nEre thou shalt know how heavy is that art;<\/p>\n
And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
\nSay why that people is so pitiless
\nAgainst my race in each one of its laws?”<\/p>\n
Whence I to him: “The slaughter and great carnage
\nWhich have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
\nSuch orisons in our temple to be made.”<\/p>\n
After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
\n“There I was not alone,” he said, “nor surely
\nWithout a cause had with the others moved.<\/p>\n
But there I was alone, where every one
\nConsented to the laying waste of Florence,
\nHe who defended her with open face.”<\/p>\n
“Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,”
\nI him entreated, “solve for me that knot,
\nWhich has entangled my conceptions here.<\/p>\n
It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
\nBeforehand whatsoe’er time brings with it,
\nAnd in the present have another mode.”<\/p>\n
“We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
\nThe things,” he said, “that distant are from us;
\nSo much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.<\/p>\n
When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
\nOur intellect, and if none brings it to us,
\nNot anything know we of your human state.<\/p>\n
Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
\nWill be our knowledge from the moment when
\nThe portal of the future shall be closed.”<\/p>\n
Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
\nSaid: “Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
\nThat still his son is with the living joined.<\/p>\n
And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
\nTell him I did it because I was thinking
\nAlready of the error you have solved me.”<\/p>\n
And now my Master was recalling me,
\nWherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
\nThat he would tell me who was with him there.<\/p>\n
He said: “With more than a thousand here I lie;
\nWithin here is the second Frederick,
\nAnd the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not.”<\/p>\n
Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
\nThe ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
\nUpon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.<\/p>\n
He moved along; and afterward thus going,
\nHe said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?”
\nAnd I in his inquiry satisfied him.<\/p>\n
“Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
\nAgainst thyself,” that Sage commanded me,
\n“And now attend here;” and he raised his finger.<\/p>\n
“When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
\nOf her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
\nFrom her thou’lt know the journey of thy life.”<\/p>\n
Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
\nWe left the wall, and went towards the middle,
\nAlong a path that strikes into a valley,<\/p>\n
Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Upon the margin of a lofty bank
\nWhich great rocks broken in a circle made,
\nWe came upon a still more cruel throng;<\/p>\n
And there, by reason of the horrible
\nExcess of stench the deep abyss throws out,
\nWe drew ourselves aside behind the cover<\/p>\n
Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing,
\nWhich said: “Pope Anastasius I hold,
\nWhom out of the right way Photinus drew.”<\/p>\n
“Slow it behoveth our descent to be,
\nSo that the sense be first a little used
\nTo the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it.”<\/p>\n
The Master thus; and unto him I said,
\n“Some compensation find, that the time pass not
\nIdly;” and he: “Thou seest I think of that.<\/p>\n
My son, upon the inside of these rocks,”
\nBegan he then to say, “are three small circles,
\nFrom grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.<\/p>\n
They all are full of spirits maledict;
\nBut that hereafter sight alone suffice thee,
\nHear how and wherefore they are in constraint.<\/p>\n
Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven,
\nInjury is the end; and all such end
\nEither by force or fraud afflicteth others.<\/p>\n
But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice,
\nMore it displeases God; and so stand lowest
\nThe fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.<\/p>\n
All the first circle of the Violent is;
\nBut since force may be used against three persons,
\nIn three rounds ’tis divided and constructed.<\/p>\n
To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we
\nUse force; I say on them and on their things,
\nAs thou shalt hear with reason manifest.<\/p>\n
A death by violence, and painful wounds,
\nAre to our neighbour given; and in his substance
\nRuin, and arson, and injurious levies;<\/p>\n
Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,
\nMarauders, and freebooters, the first round
\nTormenteth all in companies diverse.<\/p>\n
Man may lay violent hands upon himself
\nAnd his own goods; and therefore in the second
\nRound must perforce without avail repent<\/p>\n
Whoever of your world deprives himself,
\nWho games, and dissipates his property,
\nAnd weepeth there, where he should jocund be.<\/p>\n
Violence can be done the Deity,
\nIn heart denying and blaspheming Him,
\nAnd by disdaining Nature and her bounty.<\/p>\n
And for this reason doth the smallest round
\nSeal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,
\nAnd who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.<\/p>\n
Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,
\nA man may practise upon him who trusts,
\nAnd him who doth no confidence imburse.<\/p>\n
This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers
\nOnly the bond of love which Nature makes;
\nWherefore within the second circle nestle<\/p>\n
Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,
\nFalsification, theft, and simony,
\nPanders, and barrators, and the like filth.<\/p>\n
By the other mode, forgotten is that love
\nWhich Nature makes, and what is after added,
\nFrom which there is a special faith engendered.<\/p>\n
Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is
\nOf the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,
\nWhoe’er betrays for ever is consumed.”<\/p>\n
And I: “My Master, clear enough proceeds
\nThy reasoning, and full well distinguishes
\nThis cavern and the people who possess it.<\/p>\n
But tell me, those within the fat lagoon,
\nWhom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,
\nAnd who encounter with such bitter tongues,<\/p>\n
Wherefore are they inside of the red city
\nNot punished, if God has them in his wrath,
\nAnd if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?”<\/p>\n
And unto me he said: “Why wanders so
\nThine intellect from that which it is wont?
\nOr, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?<\/p>\n
Hast thou no recollection of those words
\nWith which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses
\nThe dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,–<\/p>\n
Incontinence, and Malice, and insane
\nBestiality? and how Incontinence
\nLess God offendeth, and less blame attracts?<\/p>\n
If thou regardest this conclusion well,
\nAnd to thy mind recallest who they are
\nThat up outside are undergoing penance,<\/p>\n
Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons
\nThey separated are, and why less wroth
\nJustice divine doth smite them with its hammer.”<\/p>\n
“O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,
\nThou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,
\nThat doubting pleases me no less than knowing!<\/p>\n
Once more a little backward turn thee,” said I,
\n“There where thou sayest that usury offends
\nGoodness divine, and disengage the knot.”<\/p>\n
“Philosophy,” he said, “to him who heeds it,
\nNoteth, not only in one place alone,
\nAfter what manner Nature takes her course<\/p>\n
From Intellect Divine, and from its art;
\nAnd if thy Physics carefully thou notest,
\nAfter not many pages shalt thou find,<\/p>\n
That this your art as far as possible
\nFollows, as the disciple doth the master;
\nSo that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.<\/p>\n
From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind
\nGenesis at the beginning, it behoves
\nMankind to gain their life and to advance;<\/p>\n
And since the usurer takes another way,
\nNature herself and in her follower
\nDisdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.<\/p>\n
But follow, now, as I would fain go on,
\nFor quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,
\nAnd the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,<\/p>\n
And far beyond there we descend the crag.”<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t