There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
\nWholly of stone and of an iron colour,
\nAs is the circle that around it turns.<\/p>\n
Right in the middle of the field malign
\nThere yawns a well exceeding wide and deep,
\nOf which its place the structure will recount.<\/p>\n
Round, then, is that enclosure which remains
\nBetween the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
\nAnd has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.<\/p>\n
As where for the protection of the walls
\nMany and many moats surround the castles,
\nThe part in which they are a figure forms,<\/p>\n
Just such an image those presented there;
\nAnd as about such strongholds from their gates
\nUnto the outer bank are little bridges,<\/p>\n
So from the precipice’s base did crags
\nProject, which intersected dikes and moats,
\nUnto the well that truncates and collects them.<\/p>\n
Within this place, down shaken from the back
\nOf Geryon, we found us; and the Poet
\nHeld to the left, and I moved on behind.<\/p>\n
Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish,
\nNew torments, and new wielders of the lash,
\nWherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.<\/p>\n
Down at the bottom were the sinners naked;
\nThis side the middle came they facing us,
\nBeyond it, with us, but with greater steps;<\/p>\n
Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
\nThe year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
\nHave chosen a mode to pass the people over;<\/p>\n
For all upon one side towards the Castle
\nTheir faces have, and go unto St. Peter’s;
\nOn the other side they go towards the Mountain.<\/p>\n
This side and that, along the livid stone
\nBeheld I horned demons with great scourges,
\nWho cruelly were beating them behind.<\/p>\n
Ah me! how they did make them lift their legs
\nAt the first blows! and sooth not any one
\nThe second waited for, nor for the third.<\/p>\n
While I was going on, mine eyes by one
\nEncountered were; and straight I said: “Already
\nWith sight of this one I am not unfed.”<\/p>\n
Therefore I stayed my feet to make him out,
\nAnd with me the sweet Guide came to a stand,
\nAnd to my going somewhat back assented;<\/p>\n
And he, the scourged one, thought to hide himself,
\nLowering his face, but little it availed him;
\nFor said I: “Thou that castest down thine eyes,<\/p>\n
If false are not the features which thou bearest,
\nThou art Venedico Caccianimico;
\nBut what doth bring thee to such pungent sauces?”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “Unwillingly I tell it;
\nBut forces me thine utterance distinct,
\nWhich makes me recollect the ancient world.<\/p>\n
I was the one who the fair Ghisola
\nInduced to grant the wishes of the Marquis,
\nHowe’er the shameless story may be told.<\/p>\n
Not the sole Bolognese am I who weeps here;
\nNay, rather is this place so full of them,
\nThat not so many tongues to-day are taught<\/p>\n
‘Twixt Reno and Savena to say ‘sipa;’
\nAnd if thereof thou wishest pledge or proof,
\nBring to thy mind our avaricious heart.”<\/p>\n
While speaking in this manner, with his scourge
\nA demon smote him, and said: “Get thee gone
\nPander, there are no women here for coin.”<\/p>\n
I joined myself again unto mine Escort;
\nThereafterward with footsteps few we came
\nTo where a crag projected from the bank.<\/p>\n
This very easily did we ascend,
\nAnd turning to the right along its ridge,
\nFrom those eternal circles we departed.<\/p>\n
When we were there, where it is hollowed out
\nBeneath, to give a passage to the scourged,
\nThe Guide said: “Wait, and see that on thee strike<\/p>\n
The vision of those others evil-born,
\nOf whom thou hast not yet beheld the faces,
\nBecause together with us they have gone.”<\/p>\n
From the old bridge we looked upon the train
\nWhich tow’rds us came upon the other border,
\nAnd which the scourges in like manner smite.<\/p>\n
And the good Master, without my inquiring,
\nSaid to me: “See that tall one who is coming,
\nAnd for his pain seems not to shed a tear;<\/p>\n
Still what a royal aspect he retains!
\nThat Jason is, who by his heart and cunning
\nThe Colchians of the Ram made destitute.<\/p>\n
He by the isle of Lemnos passed along
\nAfter the daring women pitiless
\nHad unto death devoted all their males.<\/p>\n
There with his tokens and with ornate words
\nDid he deceive Hypsipyle, the maiden
\nWho first, herself, had all the rest deceived.<\/p>\n
There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;
\nSuch sin unto such punishment condemns him,
\nAnd also for Medea is vengeance done.<\/p>\n
With him go those who in such wise deceive;
\nAnd this sufficient be of the first valley
\nTo know, and those that in its jaws it holds.”<\/p>\n
We were already where the narrow path
\nCrosses athwart the second dike, and forms
\nOf that a buttress for another arch.<\/p>\n
Thence we heard people, who are making moan
\nIn the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles,
\nAnd with their palms beating upon themselves<\/p>\n
The margins were incrusted with a mould
\nBy exhalation from below, that sticks there,
\nAnd with the eyes and nostrils wages war.<\/p>\n
The bottom is so deep, no place suffices
\nTo give us sight of it, without ascending
\nThe arch’s back, where most the crag impends.<\/p>\n
Thither we came, and thence down in the moat
\nI saw a people smothered in a filth
\nThat out of human privies seemed to flow;<\/p>\n
And whilst below there with mine eye I search,
\nI saw one with his head so foul with ordure,
\nIt was not clear if he were clerk or layman.<\/p>\n
He screamed to me: “Wherefore art thou so eager
\nTo look at me more than the other foul ones?”
\nAnd I to him: “Because, if I remember,<\/p>\n
I have already seen thee with dry hair,
\nAnd thou’rt Alessio Interminei of Lucca;
\nTherefore I eye thee more than all the others.”<\/p>\n
And he thereon, belabouring his pumpkin:
\n“The flatteries have submerged me here below,
\nWherewith my tongue was never surfeited.”<\/p>\n
Then said to me the Guide: “See that thou thrust
\nThy visage somewhat farther in advance,
\nThat with thine eyes thou well the face attain<\/p>\n
Of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab,
\nWho there doth scratch herself with filthy nails,
\nAnd crouches now, and now on foot is standing.<\/p>\n
Thais the harlot is it, who replied
\nUnto her paramour, when he said, ‘Have I
\nGreat gratitude from thee?’–‘Nay, marvellous;’<\/p>\n
And herewith let our sight be satisfied.”<\/p>\n
O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,
\nYe who the things of God, which ought to be
\nThe brides of holiness, rapaciously<\/p>\n
For silver and for gold do prostitute,
\nNow it behoves for you the trumpet sound,
\nBecause in this third Bolgia ye abide.<\/p>\n
We had already on the following tomb
\nAscended to that portion of the crag
\nWhich o’er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.<\/p>\n
Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest
\nIn heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,
\nAnd with what justice doth thy power distribute!<\/p>\n
I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
\nThe livid stone with perforations filled,
\nAll of one size, and every one was round.<\/p>\n
To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater
\nThan those that in my beautiful Saint John
\nAre fashioned for the place of the baptisers,<\/p>\n
And one of which, not many years ago,
\nI broke for some one, who was drowning in it;
\nBe this a seal all men to undeceive.<\/p>\n
Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
\nThe feet of a transgressor, and the legs
\nUp to the calf, the rest within remained.<\/p>\n
In all of them the soles were both on fire;
\nWherefore the joints so violently quivered,
\nThey would have snapped asunder withes and bands.<\/p>\n
Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont
\nTo move upon the outer surface only,
\nSo likewise was it there from heel to point.<\/p>\n
“Master, who is that one who writhes himself,
\nMore than his other comrades quivering,”
\nI said, “and whom a redder flame is sucking?”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “If thou wilt have me bear thee
\nDown there along that bank which lowest lies,
\nFrom him thou’lt know his errors and himself.”<\/p>\n
And I: “What pleases thee, to me is pleasing;
\nThou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not
\nFrom thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken.”<\/p>\n
Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived;
\nWe turned, and on the left-hand side descended
\nDown to the bottom full of holes and narrow.<\/p>\n
And the good Master yet from off his haunch
\nDeposed me not, till to the hole he brought me
\nOf him who so lamented with his shanks.<\/p>\n
“Whoe’er thou art, that standest upside down,
\nO doleful soul, implanted like a stake,”
\nTo say began I, “if thou canst, speak out.”<\/p>\n
I stood even as the friar who is confessing
\nThe false assassin, who, when he is fixed,
\nRecalls him, so that death may be delayed.<\/p>\n
And he cried out: “Dost thou stand there already,
\nDost thou stand there already, Boniface?
\nBy many years the record lied to me.<\/p>\n
Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,
\nFor which thou didst not fear to take by fraud
\nThe beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?”<\/p>\n
Such I became, as people are who stand,
\nNot comprehending what is answered them,
\nAs if bemocked, and know not how to answer.<\/p>\n
Then said Virgilius: “Say to him straightway,
\n‘I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.'”
\nAnd I replied as was imposed on me.<\/p>\n
Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,
\nThen, sighing, with a voice of lamentation
\nSaid to me: “Then what wantest thou of me?<\/p>\n
If who I am thou carest so much to know,
\nThat thou on that account hast crossed the bank,
\nKnow that I vested was with the great mantle;<\/p>\n
And truly was I son of the She-bear,
\nSo eager to advance the cubs, that wealth
\nAbove, and here myself, I pocketed.<\/p>\n
Beneath my head the others are dragged down
\nWho have preceded me in simony,
\nFlattened along the fissure of the rock.<\/p>\n
Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever
\nThat one shall come who I believed thou wast,
\nWhat time the sudden question I proposed.<\/p>\n
But longer I my feet already toast,
\nAnd here have been in this way upside down,
\nThan he will planted stay with reddened feet;<\/p>\n
For after him shall come of fouler deed
\nFrom tow’rds the west a Pastor without law,
\nSuch as befits to cover him and me.<\/p>\n
New Jason will he be, of whom we read
\nIn Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,
\nSo he who governs France shall be to this one.”<\/p>\n
I do not know if I were here too bold,
\nThat him I answered only in this metre:
\n“I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure<\/p>\n
Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,
\nBefore he put the keys into his keeping?
\nTruly he nothing asked but ‘Follow me.’<\/p>\n
Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias
\nSilver or gold, when he by lot was chosen
\nUnto the place the guilty soul had lost.<\/p>\n
Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,
\nAnd keep safe guard o’er the ill-gotten money,
\nWhich caused thee to be valiant against Charles.<\/p>\n
And were it not that still forbids it me
\nThe reverence for the keys superlative
\nThou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,<\/p>\n
I would make use of words more grievous still;
\nBecause your avarice afflicts the world,
\nTrampling the good and lifting the depraved.<\/p>\n
The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,
\nWhen she who sitteth upon many waters
\nTo fornicate with kings by him was seen;<\/p>\n
The same who with the seven heads was born,
\nAnd power and strength from the ten horns received,
\nSo long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.<\/p>\n
Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
\nAnd from the idolater how differ ye,
\nSave that he one, and ye a hundred worship?<\/p>\n
Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
\nNot thy conversion, but that marriage dower
\nWhich the first wealthy Father took from thee!”<\/p>\n
And while I sang to him such notes as these,
\nEither that anger or that conscience stung him,
\nHe struggled violently with both his feet.<\/p>\n
I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,
\nWith such contented lip he listened ever
\nUnto the sound of the true words expressed.<\/p>\n
Therefore with both his arms he took me up,
\nAnd when he had me all upon his breast,
\nRemounted by the way where he descended.<\/p>\n
Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;
\nBut bore me to the summit of the arch
\nWhich from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.<\/p>\n
There tenderly he laid his burden down,
\nTenderly on the crag uneven and steep,
\nThat would have been hard passage for the goats:<\/p>\n
Thence was unveiled to me another valley.<\/p>\n
Of a new pain behoves me to make verses
\nAnd give material to the twentieth canto
\nOf the first song, which is of the submerged.<\/p>\n
I was already thoroughly disposed
\nTo peer down into the uncovered depth,
\nWhich bathed itself with tears of agony;<\/p>\n
And people saw I through the circular valley,
\nSilent and weeping, coming at the pace
\nWhich in this world the Litanies assume.<\/p>\n
As lower down my sight descended on them,
\nWondrously each one seemed to be distorted
\nFrom chin to the beginning of the chest;<\/p>\n
For tow’rds the reins the countenance was turned,
\nAnd backward it behoved them to advance,
\nAs to look forward had been taken from them.<\/p>\n
Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
\nSome one has been thus wholly turned awry;
\nBut I ne’er saw it, nor believe it can be.<\/p>\n
As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
\nFrom this thy reading, think now for thyself
\nHow I could ever keep my face unmoistened,<\/p>\n
When our own image near me I beheld
\nDistorted so, the weeping of the eyes
\nAlong the fissure bathed the hinder parts.<\/p>\n
Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
\nOf the hard crag, so that my Escort said
\nTo me: “Art thou, too, of the other fools?<\/p>\n
Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
\nWho is a greater reprobate than he
\nWho feels compassion at the doom divine?<\/p>\n
Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom
\nOpened the earth before the Thebans’ eyes;
\nWherefore they all cried: ‘Whither rushest thou,<\/p>\n
Amphiaraus? Why dost leave the war?’
\nAnd downward ceased he not to fall amain
\nAs far as Minos, who lays hold on all.<\/p>\n
See, he has made a bosom of his shoulders!
\nBecause he wished to see too far before him
\nBehind he looks, and backward goes his way:<\/p>\n
Behold Tiresias, who his semblance changed,
\nWhen from a male a female he became,
\nHis members being all of them transformed;<\/p>\n
And afterwards was forced to strike once more
\nThe two entangled serpents with his rod,
\nEre he could have again his manly plumes.<\/p>\n
That Aruns is, who backs the other’s belly,
\nWho in the hills of Luni, there where grubs
\nThe Carrarese who houses underneath,<\/p>\n
Among the marbles white a cavern had
\nFor his abode; whence to behold the stars
\nAnd sea, the view was not cut off from him.<\/p>\n
And she there, who is covering up her breasts,
\nWhich thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,
\nAnd on that side has all the hairy skin,<\/p>\n
Was Manto, who made quest through many lands,
\nAfterwards tarried there where I was born;
\nWhereof I would thou list to me a little.<\/p>\n
After her father had from life departed,
\nAnd the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,
\nShe a long season wandered through the world.<\/p>\n
Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake
\nAt the Alp’s foot that shuts in Germany
\nOver Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.<\/p>\n
By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,
\n‘Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,
\nWith water that grows stagnant in that lake.<\/p>\n
Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor,
\nAnd he of Brescia, and the Veronese
\nMight give his blessing, if he passed that way.<\/p>\n
Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong,
\nTo front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,
\nWhere round about the bank descendeth lowest.<\/p>\n
There of necessity must fall whatever
\nIn bosom of Benaco cannot stay,
\nAnd grows a river down through verdant pastures.<\/p>\n
Soon as the water doth begin to run,
\nNo more Benaco is it called, but Mincio,
\nFar as Governo, where it falls in Po.<\/p>\n
Not far it runs before it finds a plain
\nIn which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,
\nAnd oft ’tis wont in summer to be sickly.<\/p>\n
Passing that way the virgin pitiless
\nLand in the middle of the fen descried,
\nUntilled and naked of inhabitants;<\/p>\n
There to escape all human intercourse,
\nShe with her servants stayed, her arts to practise
\nAnd lived, and left her empty body there.<\/p>\n
The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,
\nCollected in that place, which was made strong
\nBy the lagoon it had on every side;<\/p>\n
They built their city over those dead bones,
\nAnd, after her who first the place selected,
\nMantua named it, without other omen.<\/p>\n
Its people once within more crowded were,
\nEre the stupidity of Casalodi
\nFrom Pinamonte had received deceit.<\/p>\n
Therefore I caution thee, if e’er thou hearest
\nOriginate my city otherwise,
\nNo falsehood may the verity defraud.”<\/p>\n
And I: “My Master, thy discourses are
\nTo me so certain, and so take my faith,
\nThat unto me the rest would be spent coals.<\/p>\n
But tell me of the people who are passing,
\nIf any one note-worthy thou beholdest,
\nFor only unto that my mind reverts.”<\/p>\n
Then said he to me: “He who from the cheek
\nThrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders
\nWas, at the time when Greece was void of males,<\/p>\n
So that there scarce remained one in the cradle,
\nAn augur, and with Calchas gave the moment,
\nIn Aulis, when to sever the first cable.<\/p>\n
Eryphylus his name was, and so sings
\nMy lofty Tragedy in some part or other;
\nThat knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.<\/p>\n
The next, who is so slender in the flanks,
\nWas Michael Scott, who of a verity
\nOf magical illusions knew the game.<\/p>\n
Behold Guido Bonatti, behold Asdente,
\nWho now unto his leather and his thread
\nWould fain have stuck, but he too late repents.<\/p>\n
Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle,
\nThe spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;
\nThey wrought their magic spells with herb and image.<\/p>\n
But come now, for already holds the confines
\nOf both the hemispheres, and under Seville
\nTouches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns,<\/p>\n
And yesternight the moon was round already;
\nThou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee
\nFrom time to time within the forest deep.”<\/p>\n
Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t