One and the selfsame tongue first wounded me,
\nSo that it tinged the one cheek and the other,
\nAnd then held out to me the medicine;<\/p>\n
Thus do I hear that once Achilles’ spear,
\nHis and his father’s, used to be the cause
\nFirst of a sad and then a gracious boon.<\/p>\n
We turned our backs upon the wretched valley,
\nUpon the bank that girds it round about,
\nGoing across it without any speech.<\/p>\n
There it was less than night, and less than day,
\nSo that my sight went little in advance;
\nBut I could hear the blare of a loud horn,<\/p>\n
So loud it would have made each thunder faint,
\nWhich, counter to it following its way,
\nMine eyes directed wholly to one place.<\/p>\n
After the dolorous discomfiture
\nWhen Charlemagne the holy emprise lost,
\nSo terribly Orlando sounded not.<\/p>\n
Short while my head turned thitherward I held
\nWhen many lofty towers I seemed to see,
\nWhereat I: “Master, say, what town is this?”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “Because thou peerest forth
\nAthwart the darkness at too great a distance,
\nIt happens that thou errest in thy fancy.<\/p>\n
Well shalt thou see, if thou arrivest there,
\nHow much the sense deceives itself by distance;
\nTherefore a little faster spur thee on.”<\/p>\n
Then tenderly he took me by the hand,
\nAnd said: “Before we farther have advanced,
\nThat the reality may seem to thee<\/p>\n
Less strange, know that these are not towers, but giants,
\nAnd they are in the well, around the bank,
\nFrom navel downward, one and all of them.”<\/p>\n
As, when the fog is vanishing away,
\nLittle by little doth the sight refigure
\nWhate’er the mist that crowds the air conceals,<\/p>\n
So, piercing through the dense and darksome air,
\nMore and more near approaching tow’rd the verge,
\nMy error fled, and fear came over me;<\/p>\n
Because as on its circular parapets
\nMontereggione crowns itself with towers,
\nE’en thus the margin which surrounds the well<\/p>\n
With one half of their bodies turreted
\nThe horrible giants, whom Jove menaces
\nE’en now from out the heavens when he thunders.<\/p>\n
And I of one already saw the face,
\nShoulders, and breast, and great part of the belly,
\nAnd down along his sides both of the arms.<\/p>\n
Certainly Nature, when she left the making
\nOf animals like these, did well indeed,
\nBy taking such executors from Mars;<\/p>\n
And if of elephants and whales she doth not
\nRepent her, whosoever looketh subtly
\nMore just and more discreet will hold her for it;<\/p>\n
For where the argument of intellect
\nIs added unto evil will and power,
\nNo rampart can the people make against it.<\/p>\n
His face appeared to me as long and large
\nAs is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter’s,
\nAnd in proportion were the other bones;<\/p>\n
So that the margin, which an apron was
\nDown from the middle, showed so much of him
\nAbove it, that to reach up to his hair<\/p>\n
Three Frieslanders in vain had vaunted them;
\nFor I beheld thirty great palms of him
\nDown from the place where man his mantle buckles.<\/p>\n
“Raphael mai amech izabi almi,”
\nBegan to clamour the ferocious mouth,
\nTo which were not befitting sweeter psalms.<\/p>\n
And unto him my Guide: “Soul idiotic,
\nKeep to thy horn, and vent thyself with that,
\nWhen wrath or other passion touches thee.<\/p>\n
Search round thy neck, and thou wilt find the belt
\nWhich keeps it fastened, O bewildered soul,
\nAnd see it, where it bars thy mighty breast.”<\/p>\n
Then said to me: “He doth himself accuse;
\nThis one is Nimrod, by whose evil thought
\nOne language in the world is not still used.<\/p>\n
Here let us leave him and not speak in vain;
\nFor even such to him is every language
\nAs his to others, which to none is known.”<\/p>\n
Therefore a longer journey did we make,
\nTurned to the left, and a crossbow-shot oft
\nWe found another far more fierce and large.<\/p>\n
In binding him, who might the master be
\nI cannot say; but he had pinioned close
\nBehind the right arm, and in front the other,<\/p>\n
With chains, that held him so begirt about
\nFrom the neck down, that on the part uncovered
\nIt wound itself as far as the fifth gyre.<\/p>\n
“This proud one wished to make experiment
\nOf his own power against the Supreme Jove,”
\nMy Leader said, “whence he has such a guerdon.<\/p>\n
Ephialtes is his name; he showed great prowess.
\nWhat time the giants terrified the gods;
\nThe arms he wielded never more he moves.”<\/p>\n
And I to him: “If possible, I should wish
\nThat of the measureless Briareus
\nThese eyes of mine might have experience.”<\/p>\n
Whence he replied: “Thou shalt behold Antaeus
\nClose by here, who can speak and is unbound,
\nWho at the bottom of all crime shall place us.<\/p>\n
Much farther yon is he whom thou wouldst see,
\nAnd he is bound, and fashioned like to this one,
\nSave that he seems in aspect more ferocious.”<\/p>\n
There never was an earthquake of such might
\nThat it could shake a tower so violently,
\nAs Ephialtes suddenly shook himself.<\/p>\n
Then was I more afraid of death than ever,
\nFor nothing more was needful than the fear,
\nIf I had not beheld the manacles.<\/p>\n
Then we proceeded farther in advance,
\nAnd to Antaeus came, who, full five ells
\nWithout the head, forth issued from the cavern.<\/p>\n
“O thou, who in the valley fortunate,
\nWhich Scipio the heir of glory made,
\nWhen Hannibal turned back with all his hosts,<\/p>\n
Once brought’st a thousand lions for thy prey,
\nAnd who, hadst thou been at the mighty war
\nAmong thy brothers, some it seems still think<\/p>\n
The sons of Earth the victory would have gained:
\nPlace us below, nor be disdainful of it,
\nThere where the cold doth lock Cocytus up.<\/p>\n
Make us not go to Tityus nor Typhoeus;
\nThis one can give of that which here is longed for;
\nTherefore stoop down, and do not curl thy lip.<\/p>\n
Still in the world can he restore thy fame;
\nBecause he lives, and still expects long life,
\nIf to itself Grace call him not untimely.”<\/p>\n
So said the Master; and in haste the other
\nHis hands extended and took up my Guide,–
\nHands whose great pressure Hercules once felt.<\/p>\n
Virgilius, when he felt himself embraced,
\nSaid unto me: “Draw nigh, that I may take thee;”
\nThen of himself and me one bundle made.<\/p>\n
As seems the Carisenda, to behold
\nBeneath the leaning side, when goes a cloud
\nAbove it so that opposite it hangs;<\/p>\n
Such did Antaeus seem to me, who stood
\nWatching to see him stoop, and then it was
\nI could have wished to go some other way.<\/p>\n
But lightly in the abyss, which swallows up
\nJudas with Lucifer, he put us down;
\nNor thus bowed downward made he there delay,<\/p>\n
But, as a mast does in a ship, uprose.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
\nAs were appropriate to the dismal hole
\nDown upon which thrust all the other rocks,<\/p>\n
I would press out the juice of my conception
\nMore fully; but because I have them not,
\nNot without fear I bring myself to speak;<\/p>\n
For ’tis no enterprise to take in jest,
\nTo sketch the bottom of all the universe,
\nNor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.<\/p>\n
But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
\nWho helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
\nThat from the fact the word be not diverse.<\/p>\n
O rabble ill-begotten above all,
\nWho’re in the place to speak of which is hard,
\n‘Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!<\/p>\n
When we were down within the darksome well,
\nBeneath the giant’s feet, but lower far,
\nAnd I was scanning still the lofty wall,<\/p>\n
I heard it said to me: “Look how thou steppest!
\nTake heed thou do not trample with thy feet
\nThe heads of the tired, miserable brothers!”<\/p>\n
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
\nAnd underfoot a lake, that from the frost
\nThe semblance had of glass, and not of water.<\/p>\n
So thick a veil ne’er made upon its current
\nIn winter-time Danube in Austria,
\nNor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,<\/p>\n
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
\nHad fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
\nE’en at the edge ‘twould not have given a creak.<\/p>\n
And as to croak the frog doth place himself
\nWith muzzle out of water,–when is dreaming
\nOf gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,–<\/p>\n
Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
\nWere the disconsolate shades within the ice,
\nSetting their teeth unto the note of storks.<\/p>\n
Each one his countenance held downward bent;
\nFrom mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
\nAmong them witness of itself procures.<\/p>\n
When round about me somewhat I had looked,
\nI downward turned me, and saw two so close,
\nThe hair upon their heads together mingled.<\/p>\n
“Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,”
\nI said, “who are you;” and they bent their necks,
\nAnd when to me their faces they had lifted,<\/p>\n
Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
\nGushed o’er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
\nThe tears between, and locked them up again.<\/p>\n
Clamp never bound together wood with wood
\nSo strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
\nButted together, so much wrath o’ercame them.<\/p>\n
And one, who had by reason of the cold
\nLost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
\nSaid: “Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?<\/p>\n
If thou desire to know who these two are,
\nThe valley whence Bisenzio descends
\nBelonged to them and to their father Albert.<\/p>\n
They from one body came, and all Caina
\nThou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
\nMore worthy to be fixed in gelatine;<\/p>\n
Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
\nAt one and the same blow by Arthur’s hand;
\nFocaccia not; not he who me encumbers<\/p>\n
So with his head I see no farther forward,
\nAnd bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
\nWell knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.<\/p>\n
And that thou put me not to further speech,
\nKnow that I Camicion de’ Pazzi was,
\nAnd wait Carlino to exonerate me.”<\/p>\n
Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
\nPurple with cold; whence o’er me comes a shudder,
\nAnd evermore will come, at frozen ponds.<\/p>\n
And while we were advancing tow’rds the middle,
\nWhere everything of weight unites together,
\nAnd I was shivering in the eternal shade,<\/p>\n
Whether ’twere will, or destiny, or chance,
\nI know not; but in walking ‘mong the heads
\nI struck my foot hard in the face of one.<\/p>\n
Weeping he growled: “Why dost thou trample me?
\nUnless thou comest to increase the vengeance
\nof Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?”<\/p>\n
And I: “My Master, now wait here for me,
\nThat I through him may issue from a doubt;
\nThen thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish.”<\/p>\n
The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
\nWho was blaspheming vehemently still:
\n“Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?”<\/p>\n
“Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
\nSmiting,” replied he, “other people’s cheeks,
\nSo that, if thou wert living, ’twere too much?”<\/p>\n
“Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,”
\nWas my response, “if thou demandest fame,
\nThat ‘mid the other notes thy name I place.”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “For the reverse I long;
\nTake thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
\nFor ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow.”<\/p>\n
Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
\nAnd said: “It must needs be thou name thyself,
\nOr not a hair remain upon thee here.”<\/p>\n
Whence he to me: “Though thou strip off my hair,
\nI will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
\nIf on my head a thousand times thou fall.”<\/p>\n
I had his hair in hand already twisted,
\nAnd more than one shock of it had pulled out,
\nHe barking, with his eyes held firmly down,<\/p>\n
When cried another: “What doth ail thee, Bocca?
\nIs’t not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
\nBut thou must bark? what devil touches thee?”<\/p>\n
“Now,” said I, “I care not to have thee speak,
\nAccursed traitor; for unto thy shame
\nI will report of thee veracious news.”<\/p>\n
“Begone,” replied he, “and tell what thou wilt,
\nBut be not silent, if thou issue hence,
\nOf him who had just now his tongue so prompt;<\/p>\n
He weepeth here the silver of the French;
\n‘I saw,’ thus canst thou phrase it, ‘him of Duera
\nThere where the sinners stand out in the cold.’<\/p>\n
If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
\nThou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
\nOf whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;<\/p>\n
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
\nYonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
\nWho oped Faenza when the people slep.”<\/p>\n
Already we had gone away from him,
\nWhen I beheld two frozen in one hole,
\nSo that one head a hood was to the other;<\/p>\n
And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
\nThe uppermost on the other set his teeth,
\nThere where the brain is to the nape united.<\/p>\n
Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
\nThe temples of Menalippus in disdain,
\nThan that one did the skull and the other things.<\/p>\n
“O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
\nThy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
\nTell me the wherefore,” said I, “with this compact,<\/p>\n
That if thou rightfully of him complain,
\nIn knowing who ye are, and his transgression,
\nI in the world above repay thee for it,<\/p>\n
If that wherewith I speak be not dried up.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His mouth uplifted from his grim repast,
\nThat sinner, wiping it upon the hair
\nOf the same head that he behind had wasted.<\/p>\n
Then he began: “Thou wilt that I renew
\nThe desperate grief, which wrings my heart already
\nTo think of only, ere I speak of it;<\/p>\n
But if my words be seed that may bear fruit
\nOf infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw,
\nSpeaking and weeping shalt thou see together.<\/p>\n
I know not who thou art, nor by what mode
\nThou hast come down here; but a Florentine
\nThou seemest to me truly, when I hear thee.<\/p>\n
Thou hast to know I was Count Ugolino,
\nAnd this one was Ruggieri the Archbishop;
\nNow I will tell thee why I am such a neighbour.<\/p>\n
That, by effect of his malicious thoughts,
\nTrusting in him I was made prisoner,
\nAnd after put to death, I need not say;<\/p>\n
But ne’ertheless what thou canst not have heard,
\nThat is to say, how cruel was my death,
\nHear shalt thou, and shalt know if he has wronged me.<\/p>\n
A narrow perforation in the mew,
\nWhich bears because of me the title of Famine,
\nAnd in which others still must be locked up,<\/p>\n
Had shown me through its opening many moons
\nAlready, when I dreamed the evil dream
\nWhich of the future rent for me the veil.<\/p>\n
This one appeared to me as lord and master,
\nHunting the wolf and whelps upon the mountain
\nFor which the Pisans cannot Lucca see.<\/p>\n
With sleuth-hounds gaunt, and eager, and well trained,
\nGualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi
\nHe had sent out before him to the front.<\/p>\n
After brief course seemed unto me forespent
\nThe father and the sons, and with sharp tushes
\nIt seemed to me I saw their flanks ripped open.<\/p>\n
When I before the morrow was awake,
\nMoaning amid their sleep I heard my sons
\nWho with me were, and asking after bread.<\/p>\n
Cruel indeed art thou, if yet thou grieve not,
\nThinking of what my heart foreboded me,
\nAnd weep’st thou not, what art thou wont to weep at?<\/p>\n
They were awake now, and the hour drew nigh
\nAt which our food used to be brought to us,
\nAnd through his dream was each one apprehensive;<\/p>\n
And I heard locking up the under door
\nOf the horrible tower; whereat without a word
\nI gazed into the faces of my sons.<\/p>\n
I wept not, I within so turned to stone;
\nThey wept; and darling little Anselm mine
\nSaid: ‘Thou dost gaze so, father, what doth ail thee?’<\/p>\n
Still not a tear I shed, nor answer made
\nAll of that day, nor yet the night thereafter,
\nUntil another sun rose on the world.<\/p>\n
As now a little glimmer made its way
\nInto the dolorous prison, and I saw
\nUpon four faces my own very aspect,<\/p>\n
Both of my hands in agony I bit;
\nAnd, thinking that I did it from desire
\nOf eating, on a sudden they uprose,<\/p>\n
And said they: ‘Father, much less pain ’twill give us
\nIf thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us
\nWith this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off.’<\/p>\n
I calmed me then, not to make them more sad.
\nThat day we all were silent, and the next.
\nAh! obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open?<\/p>\n
When we had come unto the fourth day, Gaddo
\nThrew himself down outstretched before my feet,
\nSaying, ‘My father, why dost thou not help me?’<\/p>\n
And there he died; and, as thou seest me,
\nI saw the three fall, one by one, between
\nThe fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me,<\/p>\n
Already blind, to groping over each,
\nAnd three days called them after they were dead;
\nThen hunger did what sorrow could not do.”<\/p>\n
When he had said this, with his eyes distorted,
\nThe wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
\nWhich, as a dog’s, upon the bone were strong.<\/p>\n
Ah! Pisa, thou opprobrium of the people
\nOf the fair land there where the ‘S\u00ec’ doth sound,
\nSince slow to punish thee thy neighbours are,<\/p>\n
Let the Capraia and Gorgona move,
\nAnd make a hedge across the mouth of Arno
\nThat every person in thee it may drown!<\/p>\n
For if Count Ugolino had the fame
\nOf having in thy castles thee betrayed,
\nThou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons.<\/p>\n
Guiltless of any crime, thou modern Thebes!
\nTheir youth made Uguccione and Brigata,
\nAnd the other two my song doth name above!<\/p>\n
We passed still farther onward, where the ice
\nAnother people ruggedly enswathes,
\nNot downward turned, but all of them reversed.<\/p>\n
Weeping itself there does not let them weep,
\nAnd grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
\nTurns itself inward to increase the anguish;<\/p>\n
Because the earliest tears a cluster form,
\nAnd, in the manner of a crystal visor,
\nFill all the cup beneath the eyebrow full.<\/p>\n
And notwithstanding that, as in a callus,
\nBecause of cold all sensibility
\nIts station had abandoned in my face,<\/p>\n
Still it appeared to me I felt some wind;
\nWhence I: “My Master, who sets this in motion?
\nIs not below here every vapour quenched?”<\/p>\n
Whence he to me: “Full soon shalt thou be where
\nThine eye shall answer make to thee of this,
\nSeeing the cause which raineth down the blast.”<\/p>\n
And one of the wretches of the frozen crust
\nCried out to us: “O souls so merciless
\nThat the last post is given unto you,<\/p>\n
Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I
\nMay vent the sorrow which impregns my heart
\nA little, e’er the weeping recongeal.”<\/p>\n
Whence I to him: “If thou wouldst have me help thee
\nSay who thou wast; and if I free thee not,
\nMay I go to the bottom of the ice.”<\/p>\n
Then he replied: “I am Friar Alberigo;
\nHe am I of the fruit of the bad garden,
\nWho here a date am getting for my fig.”<\/p>\n
“O,” said I to him, “now art thou, too, dead?”
\nAnd he to me: “How may my body fare
\nUp in the world, no knowledge I possess.<\/p>\n
Such an advantage has this Ptolomaea,
\nThat oftentimes the soul descendeth here
\nSooner than Atropos in motion sets it.<\/p>\n
And, that thou mayest more willingly remove
\nFrom off my countenance these glassy tears,
\nKnow that as soon as any soul betrays<\/p>\n
As I have done, his body by a demon
\nIs taken from him, who thereafter rules it,
\nUntil his time has wholly been revolved.<\/p>\n
Itself down rushes into such a cistern;
\nAnd still perchance above appears the body
\nOf yonder shade, that winters here behind me.<\/p>\n
This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down;
\nIt is Ser Branca d’ Oria, and many years
\nHave passed away since he was thus locked up.”<\/p>\n
“I think,” said I to him, “thou dost deceive me;
\nFor Branca d’ Oria is not dead as yet,
\nAnd eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes.”<\/p>\n
“In moat above,” said he, “of Malebranche,
\nThere where is boiling the tenacious pitch,
\nAs yet had Michel Zanche not arrived,<\/p>\n
When this one left a devil in his stead
\nIn his own body and one near of kin,
\nWho made together with him the betrayal.<\/p>\n
But hitherward stretch out thy hand forthwith,
\nOpen mine eyes;”–and open them I did not,
\nAnd to be rude to him was courtesy.<\/p>\n
Ah, Genoese! ye men at variance
\nWith every virtue, full of every vice
\nWherefore are ye not scattered from the world?<\/p>\n
For with the vilest spirit of Romagna
\nI found of you one such, who for his deeds
\nIn soul already in Cocytus bathes,<\/p>\n
And still above in body seems alive!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“‘Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni’
\nTowards us; therefore look in front of thee,”
\nMy Master said, “if thou discernest him.”<\/p>\n
As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when
\nOur hemisphere is darkening into night,
\nAppears far off a mill the wind is turning,<\/p>\n
Methought that such a building then I saw;
\nAnd, for the wind, I drew myself behind
\nMy Guide, because there was no other shelter.<\/p>\n
Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,
\nThere where the shades were wholly covered up,
\nAnd glimmered through like unto straws in glass.<\/p>\n
Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
\nThis with the head, and that one with the soles;
\nAnother, bow-like, face to feet inverts.<\/p>\n
When in advance so far we had proceeded,
\nThat it my Master pleased to show to me
\nThe creature who once had the beauteous semblance,<\/p>\n
He from before me moved and made me stop,
\nSaying: “Behold Dis, and behold the place
\nWhere thou with fortitude must arm thyself.”<\/p>\n
How frozen I became and powerless then,
\nAsk it not, Reader, for I write it not,
\nBecause all language would be insufficient.<\/p>\n
I did not die, and I alive remained not;
\nThink for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit,
\nWhat I became, being of both deprived.<\/p>\n
The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous
\nFrom his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;
\nAnd better with a giant I compare<\/p>\n
Than do the giants with those arms of his;
\nConsider now how great must be that whole,
\nWhich unto such a part conforms itself.<\/p>\n
Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
\nAnd lifted up his brow against his Maker,
\nWell may proceed from him all tribulation.<\/p>\n
O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
\nWhen I beheld three faces on his head!
\nThe one in front, and that vermilion was;<\/p>\n
Two were the others, that were joined with this
\nAbove the middle part of either shoulder,
\nAnd they were joined together at the crest;<\/p>\n
And the right-hand one seemed ‘twixt white and yellow;
\nThe left was such to look upon as those
\nWho come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.<\/p>\n
Underneath each came forth two mighty wings,
\nSuch as befitting were so great a bird;
\nSails of the sea I never saw so large.<\/p>\n
No feathers had they, but as of a bat
\nTheir fashion was; and he was waving them,
\nSo that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.<\/p>\n
Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.
\nWith six eyes did he weep, and down three chins
\nTrickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.<\/p>\n
At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
\nA sinner, in the manner of a brake,
\nSo that he three of them tormented thus.<\/p>\n
To him in front the biting was as naught
\nUnto the clawing, for sometimes the spine
\nUtterly stripped of all the skin remained.<\/p>\n
“That soul up there which has the greatest pain,”
\nThe Master said, “is Judas Iscariot;
\nWith head inside, he plies his legs without.<\/p>\n
Of the two others, who head downward are,
\nThe one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
\nSee how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.<\/p>\n
And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.
\nBut night is reascending, and ’tis time
\nThat we depart, for we have seen the whole.”<\/p>\n
As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck,
\nAnd he the vantage seized of time and place,
\nAnd when the wings were opened wide apart,<\/p>\n
He laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides;
\nFrom fell to fell descended downward then
\nBetween the thick hair and the frozen crust.<\/p>\n
When we were come to where the thigh revolves
\nExactly on the thickness of the haunch,
\nThe Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath,<\/p>\n
Turned round his head where he had had his legs,
\nAnd grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,
\nSo that to Hell I thought we were returning.<\/p>\n
“Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,”
\nThe Master said, panting as one fatigued,
\n“Must we perforce depart from so much evil.”<\/p>\n
Then through the opening of a rock he issued,
\nAnd down upon the margin seated me;
\nThen tow’rds me he outstretched his wary step.<\/p>\n
I lifted up mine eyes and thought to see
\nLucifer in the same way I had left him;
\nAnd I beheld him upward hold his legs.<\/p>\n
And if I then became disquieted,
\nLet stolid people think who do not see
\nWhat the point is beyond which I had passed.<\/p>\n
“Rise up,” the Master said, “upon thy feet;
\nThe way is long, and difficult the road,
\nAnd now the sun to middle-tierce returns.”<\/p>\n
It was not any palace corridor
\nThere where we were, but dungeon natural,
\nWith floor uneven and unease of light.<\/p>\n
“Ere from the abyss I tear myself away,
\nMy Master,” said I when I had arisen,
\n“To draw me from an error speak a little;<\/p>\n
Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed
\nThus upside down? and how in such short time
\nFrom eve to morn has the sun made his transit?”<\/p>\n
And he to me: “Thou still imaginest
\nThou art beyond the centre, where I grasped
\nThe hair of the fell worm, who mines the world.<\/p>\n
That side thou wast, so long as I descended;
\nWhen round I turned me, thou didst pass the point
\nTo which things heavy draw from every side,<\/p>\n
And now beneath the hemisphere art come
\nOpposite that which overhangs the vast
\nDry-land, and ‘neath whose cope was put to death<\/p>\n
The Man who without sin was born and lived.
\nThou hast thy feet upon the little sphere
\nWhich makes the other face of the Judecca.<\/p>\n
Here it is morn when it is evening there;
\nAnd he who with his hair a stairway made us
\nStill fixed remaineth as he was before.<\/p>\n
Upon this side he fell down out of heaven;
\nAnd all the land, that whilom here emerged,
\nFor fear of him made of the sea a veil,<\/p>\n
And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure
\nTo flee from him, what on this side appears
\nLeft the place vacant here, and back recoiled.”<\/p>\n
A place there is below, from Beelzebub
\nAs far receding as the tomb extends,
\nWhich not by sight is known, but by the sound<\/p>\n
Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth
\nThrough chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed
\nWith course that winds about and slightly falls.<\/p>\n
The Guide and I into that hidden road
\nNow entered, to return to the bright world;
\nAnd without care of having any rest<\/p>\n
We mounted up, he first and I the second,
\nTill I beheld through a round aperture
\nSome of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;<\/p>\n
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t