In that part of the youthful year wherein
\nThe Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,
\nAnd now the nights draw near to half the day,<\/p>\n
What time the hoar-frost copies on the ground
\nThe outward semblance of her sister white,
\nBut little lasts the temper of her pen,<\/p>\n
The husbandman, whose forage faileth him,
\nRises, and looks, and seeth the champaign
\nAll gleaming white, whereat he beats his flank,<\/p>\n
Returns in doors, and up and down laments,
\nLike a poor wretch, who knows not what to do;
\nThen he returns and hope revives again,<\/p>\n
Seeing the world has changed its countenance
\nIn little time, and takes his shepherd’s crook,
\nAnd forth the little lambs to pasture drives.<\/p>\n
Thus did the Master fill me with alarm,
\nWhen I beheld his forehead so disturbed,
\nAnd to the ailment came as soon the plaster.<\/p>\n
For as we came unto the ruined bridge,
\nThe Leader turned to me with that sweet look
\nWhich at the mountain’s foot I first beheld.<\/p>\n
His arms he opened, after some advisement
\nWithin himself elected, looking first
\nWell at the ruin, and laid hold of me.<\/p>\n
And even as he who acts and meditates,
\nFor aye it seems that he provides beforehand,
\nSo upward lifting me towards the summit<\/p>\n
Of a huge rock, he scanned another crag,
\nSaying: “To that one grapple afterwards,
\nBut try first if ’tis such that it will hold thee.”<\/p>\n
This was no way for one clothed with a cloak;
\nFor hardly we, he light, and I pushed upward,
\nWere able to ascend from jag to jag.<\/p>\n
And had it not been, that upon that precinct
\nShorter was the ascent than on the other,
\nHe I know not, but I had been dead beat.<\/p>\n
But because Malebolge tow’rds the mouth
\nOf the profoundest well is all inclining,
\nThe structure of each valley doth import<\/p>\n
That one bank rises and the other sinks.
\nStill we arrived at length upon the point
\nWherefrom the last stone breaks itself asunder.<\/p>\n
The breath was from my lungs so milked away,
\nWhen I was up, that I could go no farther,
\nNay, I sat down upon my first arrival.<\/p>\n
“Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,”
\nMy Master said; “for sitting upon down,
\nOr under quilt, one cometh not to fame,<\/p>\n
Withouten which whoso his life consumes
\nSuch vestige leaveth of himself on earth,
\nAs smoke in air or in the water foam.<\/p>\n
And therefore raise thee up, o’ercome the anguish
\nWith spirit that o’ercometh every battle,
\nIf with its heavy body it sink not.<\/p>\n
A longer stairway it behoves thee mount;
\n‘Tis not enough from these to have departed;
\nLet it avail thee, if thou understand me.”<\/p>\n
Then I uprose, showing myself provided
\nBetter with breath than I did feel myself,
\nAnd said: “Go on, for I am strong and bold.”<\/p>\n
Upward we took our way along the crag,
\nWhich jagged was, and narrow, and difficult,
\nAnd more precipitous far than that before.<\/p>\n
Speaking I went, not to appear exhausted;
\nWhereat a voice from the next moat came forth,
\nNot well adapted to articulate words.<\/p>\n
I know not what it said, though o’er the back
\nI now was of the arch that passes there;
\nBut he seemed moved to anger who was speaking.<\/p>\n
I was bent downward, but my living eyes
\nCould not attain the bottom, for the dark;
\nWherefore I: “Master, see that thou arrive<\/p>\n
At the next round, and let us descend the wall;
\nFor as from hence I hear and understand not,
\nSo I look down and nothing I distinguish.”<\/p>\n
“Other response,” he said, “I make thee not,
\nExcept the doing; for the modest asking
\nOught to be followed by the deed in silence.”<\/p>\n
We from the bridge descended at its head,
\nWhere it connects itself with the eighth bank,
\nAnd then was manifest to me the Bolgia;<\/p>\n
And I beheld therein a terrible throng
\nOf serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,
\nThat the remembrance still congeals my blood<\/p>\n
Let Libya boast no longer with her sand;
\nFor if Chelydri, Jaculi, and Phareae
\nShe breeds, with Cenchri and with Amphisbaena,<\/p>\n
Neither so many plagues nor so malignant
\nE’er showed she with all Ethiopia,
\nNor with whatever on the Red Sea is!<\/p>\n
Among this cruel and most dismal throng
\nPeople were running naked and affrighted.
\nWithout the hope of hole or heliotrope.<\/p>\n
They had their hands with serpents bound behind them;
\nThese riveted upon their reins the tail
\nAnd head, and were in front of them entwined.<\/p>\n
And lo! at one who was upon our side
\nThere darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him
\nThere where the neck is knotted to the shoulders.<\/p>\n
Nor ‘O’ so quickly e’er, nor ‘I’ was written,
\nAs he took fire, and burned; and ashes wholly
\nBehoved it that in falling he became.<\/p>\n
And when he on the ground was thus destroyed,
\nThe ashes drew together, and of themselves
\nInto himself they instantly returned.<\/p>\n
Even thus by the great sages ’tis confessed
\nThe phoenix dies, and then is born again,
\nWhen it approaches its five-hundredth year;<\/p>\n
On herb or grain it feeds not in its life,
\nBut only on tears of incense and amomum,
\nAnd nard and myrrh are its last winding-sheet.<\/p>\n
And as he is who falls, and knows not how,
\nBy force of demons who to earth down drag him,
\nOr other oppilation that binds man,<\/p>\n
When he arises and around him looks,
\nWholly bewildered by the mighty anguish
\nWhich he has suffered, and in looking sighs;<\/p>\n
Such was that sinner after he had risen.
\nJustice of God! O how severe it is,
\nThat blows like these in vengeance poureth down!<\/p>\n
The Guide thereafter asked him who he was;
\nWhence he replied: “I rained from Tuscany
\nA short time since into this cruel gorge.<\/p>\n
A bestial life, and not a human, pleased me,
\nEven as the mule I was; I’m Vanni Fucci,
\nBeast, and Pistoia was my worthy den.”<\/p>\n
And I unto the Guide: “Tell him to stir not,
\nAnd ask what crime has thrust him here below,
\nFor once a man of blood and wrath I saw him.”<\/p>\n
And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,
\nBut unto me directed mind and face,
\nAnd with a melancholy shame was painted.<\/p>\n
Then said: “It pains me more that thou hast caught me
\nAmid this misery where thou seest me,
\nThan when I from the other life was taken.<\/p>\n
What thou demandest I cannot deny;
\nSo low am I put down because I robbed
\nThe sacristy of the fair ornaments,<\/p>\n
And falsely once ’twas laid upon another;
\nBut that thou mayst not such a sight enjoy,
\nIf thou shalt e’er be out of the dark places,<\/p>\n
Thine ears to my announcement ope and hear:
\nPistoia first of Neri groweth meagre;
\nThen Florence doth renew her men and manners;<\/p>\n
Mars draws a vapour up from Val di Magra,
\nWhich is with turbid clouds enveloped round,
\nAnd with impetuous and bitter tempest<\/p>\n
Over Campo Picen shall be the battle;
\nWhen it shall suddenly rend the mist asunder,
\nSo that each Bianco shall thereby be smitten.<\/p>\n
And this I’ve said that it may give thee pain.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of his words, the thief
\nLifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
\nCrying: “Take that, God, for at thee I aim them.”<\/p>\n
From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
\nFor one entwined itself about his neck
\nAs if it said: “I will not thou speak more;”<\/p>\n
And round his arms another, and rebound him,
\nClinching itself together so in front,
\nThat with them he could not a motion make.<\/p>\n
Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why resolve not
\nTo burn thyself to ashes and so perish,
\nSince in ill-doing thou thy seed excellest?<\/p>\n
Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,
\nSpirit I saw not against God so proud,
\nNot he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!<\/p>\n
He fled away, and spake no further word;
\nAnd I beheld a Centaur full of rage
\nCome crying out: “Where is, where is the scoffer?”<\/p>\n
I do not think Maremma has so many
\nSerpents as he had all along his back,
\nAs far as where our countenance begins.<\/p>\n
Upon the shoulders, just behind the nape,
\nWith wings wide open was a dragon lying,
\nAnd he sets fire to all that he encounters.<\/p>\n
My Master said: “That one is Cacus, who
\nBeneath the rock upon Mount Aventine
\nCreated oftentimes a lake of blood.<\/p>\n
He goes not on the same road with his brothers,
\nBy reason of the fraudulent theft he made
\nOf the great herd, which he had near to him;<\/p>\n
Whereat his tortuous actions ceased beneath
\nThe mace of Hercules, who peradventure
\nGave him a hundred, and he felt not ten.”<\/p>\n
While he was speaking thus, he had passed by,
\nAnd spirits three had underneath us come,
\nOf which nor I aware was, nor my Leader,<\/p>\n
Until what time they shouted: “Who are you?”
\nOn which account our story made a halt,
\nAnd then we were intent on them alone.<\/p>\n
I did not know them; but it came to pass,
\nAs it is wont to happen by some chance,
\nThat one to name the other was compelled,<\/p>\n
Exclaiming: “Where can Cianfa have remained?”
\nWhence I, so that the Leader might attend,
\nUpward from chin to nose my finger laid.<\/p>\n
If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe
\nWhat I shall say, it will no marvel be,
\nFor I who saw it hardly can admit it.<\/p>\n
As I was holding raised on them my brows,
\nBehold! a serpent with six feet darts forth
\nIn front of one, and fastens wholly on him.<\/p>\n
With middle feet it bound him round the paunch,
\nAnd with the forward ones his arms it seized;
\nThen thrust its teeth through one cheek and the other;<\/p>\n
The hindermost it stretched upon his thighs,
\nAnd put its tail through in between the two,
\nAnd up behind along the reins outspread it.<\/p>\n
Ivy was never fastened by its barbs
\nUnto a tree so, as this horrible reptile
\nUpon the other’s limbs entwined its own.<\/p>\n
Then they stuck close, as if of heated wax
\nThey had been made, and intermixed their colour;
\nNor one nor other seemed now what he was;<\/p>\n
E’en as proceedeth on before the flame
\nUpward along the paper a brown colour,
\nWhich is not black as yet, and the white dies.<\/p>\n
The other two looked on, and each of them
\nCried out: “O me, Agnello, how thou changest!
\nBehold, thou now art neither two nor one.”<\/p>\n
Already the two heads had one become,
\nWhen there appeared to us two figures mingled
\nInto one face, wherein the two were lost.<\/p>\n
Of the four lists were fashioned the two arms,
\nThe thighs and legs, the belly and the chest
\nMembers became that never yet were seen.<\/p>\n
Every original aspect there was cancelled;
\nTwo and yet none did the perverted image
\nAppear, and such departed with slow pace.<\/p>\n
Even as a lizard, under the great scourge
\nOf days canicular, exchanging hedge,
\nLightning appeareth if the road it cross;<\/p>\n
Thus did appear, coming towards the bellies
\nOf the two others, a small fiery serpent,
\nLivid and black as is a peppercorn.<\/p>\n
And in that part whereat is first received
\nOur aliment, it one of them transfixed;
\nThen downward fell in front of him extended.<\/p>\n
The one transfixed looked at it, but said naught;
\nNay, rather with feet motionless he yawned,
\nJust as if sleep or fever had assailed him.<\/p>\n
He at the serpent gazed, and it at him;
\nOne through the wound, the other through the mouth
\nSmoked violently, and the smoke commingled.<\/p>\n
Henceforth be silent Lucan, where he mentions
\nWretched Sabellus and Nassidius,
\nAnd wait to hear what now shall be shot forth.<\/p>\n
Be silent Ovid, of Cadmus and Arethusa;
\nFor if him to a snake, her to fountain,
\nConverts he fabling, that I grudge him not;<\/p>\n
Because two natures never front to front
\nHas he transmuted, so that both the forms
\nTo interchange their matter ready were.<\/p>\n
Together they responded in such wise,
\nThat to a fork the serpent cleft his tail,
\nAnd eke the wounded drew his feet together.<\/p>\n
The legs together with the thighs themselves
\nAdhered so, that in little time the juncture
\nNo sign whatever made that was apparent.<\/p>\n
He with the cloven tail assumed the figure
\nThe other one was losing, and his skin
\nBecame elastic, and the other’s hard.<\/p>\n
I saw the arms draw inward at the armpits,
\nAnd both feet of the reptile, that were short,
\nLengthen as much as those contracted were.<\/p>\n
Thereafter the hind feet, together twisted,
\nBecame the member that a man conceals,
\nAnd of his own the wretch had two created.<\/p>\n
While both of them the exhalation veils
\nWith a new colour, and engenders hair
\nOn one of them and depilates the other,<\/p>\n
The one uprose and down the other fell,
\nThough turning not away their impious lamps,
\nUnderneath which each one his muzzle changed.<\/p>\n
He who was standing drew it tow’rds the temples,
\nAnd from excess of matter, which came thither,
\nIssued the ears from out the hollow cheeks;<\/p>\n
What did not backward run and was retained
\nOf that excess made to the face a nose,
\nAnd the lips thickened far as was befitting.<\/p>\n
He who lay prostrate thrusts his muzzle forward,
\nAnd backward draws the ears into his head,
\nIn the same manner as the snail its horns;<\/p>\n
And so the tongue, which was entire and apt
\nFor speech before, is cleft, and the bi-forked
\nIn the other closes up, and the smoke ceases.<\/p>\n
The soul, which to a reptile had been changed,
\nAlong the valley hissing takes to flight,
\nAnd after him the other speaking sputters.<\/p>\n
Then did he turn upon him his new shoulders,
\nAnd said to the other: “I’ll have Buoso run,
\nCrawling as I have done, along this road.”<\/p>\n
In this way I beheld the seventh ballast
\nShift and reshift, and here be my excuse
\nThe novelty, if aught my pen transgress.<\/p>\n
And notwithstanding that mine eyes might be
\nSomewhat bewildered, and my mind dismayed,
\nThey could not flee away so secretly<\/p>\n
But that I plainly saw Puccio Sciancato;
\nAnd he it was who sole of three companions,
\nWhich came in the beginning, was not changed;<\/p>\n
The other was he whom thou, Gaville, weepest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rejoice, O Florence, since thou art so great,
\nThat over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,
\nAnd throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad!<\/p>\n
Among the thieves five citizens of thine
\nLike these I found, whence shame comes unto me,
\nAnd thou thereby to no great honour risest.<\/p>\n
But if when morn is near our dreams are true,
\nFeel shalt thou in a little time from now
\nWhat Prato, if none other, craves for thee.<\/p>\n
And if it now were, it were not too soon;
\nWould that it were, seeing it needs must be,
\nFor ’twill aggrieve me more the more I age.<\/p>\n
We went our way, and up along the stairs
\nThe bourns had made us to descend before,
\nRemounted my Conductor and drew me.<\/p>\n
And following the solitary path
\nAmong the rocks and ridges of the crag,
\nThe foot without the hand sped not at all.<\/p>\n
Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,
\nWhen I direct my mind to what I saw,
\nAnd more my genius curb than I am wont,<\/p>\n
That it may run not unless virtue guide it;
\nSo that if some good star, or better thing,
\nHave given me good, I may myself not grudge it.<\/p>\n
As many as the hind (who on the hill
\nRests at the time when he who lights the world
\nHis countenance keeps least concealed from us,<\/p>\n
While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)
\nSeeth the glow-worms down along the valley,
\nPerchance there where he ploughs and makes his vintage;<\/p>\n
With flames as manifold resplendent all
\nWas the eighth Bolgia, as I grew aware
\nAs soon as I was where the depth appeared.<\/p>\n
And such as he who with the bears avenged him
\nBeheld Elijah’s chariot at departing,
\nWhat time the steeds to heaven erect uprose,<\/p>\n
For with his eye he could not follow it
\nSo as to see aught else than flame alone,
\nEven as a little cloud ascending upward,<\/p>\n
Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment
\nWas moving; for not one reveals the theft,
\nAnd every flame a sinner steals away.<\/p>\n
I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see,
\nSo that, if I had seized not on a rock,
\nDown had I fallen without being pushed.<\/p>\n
And the Leader, who beheld me so attent,
\nExclaimed: “Within the fires the spirits are;
\nEach swathes himself with that wherewith he burns.”<\/p>\n
“My Master,” I replied, “by hearing thee
\nI am more sure; but I surmised already
\nIt might be so, and already wished to ask thee<\/p>\n
Who is within that fire, which comes so cleft
\nAt top, it seems uprising from the pyre
\nWhere was Eteocles with his brother placed.”<\/p>\n
He answered me: “Within there are tormented
\nUlysses and Diomed, and thus together
\nThey unto vengeance run as unto wrath.<\/p>\n
And there within their flame do they lament
\nThe ambush of the horse, which made the door
\nWhence issued forth the Romans’ gentle seed;<\/p>\n
Therein is wept the craft, for which being dead
\nDeidamia still deplores Achilles,
\nAnd pain for the Palladium there is borne.”<\/p>\n
“If they within those sparks possess the power
\nTo speak,” I said, “thee, Master, much I pray,
\nAnd re-pray, that the prayer be worth a thousand,<\/p>\n
That thou make no denial of awaiting
\nUntil the horned flame shall hither come;
\nThou seest that with desire I lean towards it.”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “Worthy is thy entreaty
\nOf much applause, and therefore I accept it;
\nBut take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.<\/p>\n
Leave me to speak, because I have conceived
\nThat which thou wishest; for they might disdain
\nPerchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine.”<\/p>\n
When now the flame had come unto that point,
\nWhere to my Leader it seemed time and place,
\nAfter this fashion did I hear him speak:<\/p>\n
“O ye, who are twofold within one fire,
\nIf I deserved of you, while I was living,
\nIf I deserved of you or much or little<\/p>\n
When in the world I wrote the lofty verses,
\nDo not move on, but one of you declare
\nWhither, being lost, he went away to die.”<\/p>\n
Then of the antique flame the greater horn,
\nMurmuring, began to wave itself about
\nEven as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.<\/p>\n
Thereafterward, the summit to and fro
\nMoving as if it were the tongue that spake,
\nIt uttered forth a voice, and said: “When I<\/p>\n
From Circe had departed, who concealed me
\nMore than a year there near unto Gaeta,
\nOr ever yet Aeneas named it so,<\/p>\n
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
\nFor my old father, nor the due affection
\nWhich joyous should have made Penelope,<\/p>\n
Could overcome within me the desire
\nI had to be experienced of the world,
\nAnd of the vice and virtue of mankind;<\/p>\n
But I put forth on the high open sea
\nWith one sole ship, and that small company
\nBy which I never had deserted been.<\/p>\n
Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,
\nFar as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,
\nAnd the others which that sea bathes round about.<\/p>\n
I and my company were old and slow
\nWhen at that narrow passage we arrived
\nWhere Hercules his landmarks set as signals,<\/p>\n
That man no farther onward should adventure.
\nOn the right hand behind me left I Seville,
\nAnd on the other already had left Ceuta.<\/p>\n
‘O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
\nPerils,’ I said, ‘have come unto the West,
\nTo this so inconsiderable vigil<\/p>\n
Which is remaining of your senses still
\nBe ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
\nFollowing the sun, of the unpeopled world.<\/p>\n
Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
\nYe were not made to live like unto brutes,
\nBut for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’<\/p>\n
So eager did I render my companions,
\nWith this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
\nThat then I hardly could have held them back.<\/p>\n
And having turned our stern unto the morning,
\nWe of the oars made wings for our mad flight,
\nEvermore gaining on the larboard side.<\/p>\n
Already all the stars of the other pole
\nThe night beheld, and ours so very low
\nIt did not rise above the ocean floor.<\/p>\n
Five times rekindled and as many quenched
\nHad been the splendour underneath the moon,
\nSince we had entered into the deep pass,<\/p>\n
When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
\nFrom distance, and it seemed to me so high
\nAs I had never any one beheld.<\/p>\n
Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;
\nFor out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
\nAnd smote upon the fore part of the ship.<\/p>\n
Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
\nAt the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
\nAnd the prow downward go, as pleased Another,<\/p>\n
Until the sea above us closed again.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t