Inferno
CANTO I
ONE night, when half my life behind me lay, I wandered from the
straight lost path afar. Through the great dark was no releasing way; Above
that dark was no relieving star. If yet that terrored night I think or say, As
death's cold hands its fears resuming are. Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire
to tell, The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot, I turn my tale to
that which next befell, When the dawn opened, and the night was not. The
hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot, Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A
blinding splendour hot Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,
And though it kindled from the nether hell, Or from the Star that all men
leads, alike It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike The wide east,
and the utmost peaks of snow. How first I entered on that path astray, Beset
with sleep, I know not. This I know. When gained my feet the upward, lighted
way, I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea, The deep strong tides, has
baffled, and panting lies, On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see The
league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes Surveyed that fear, the while my
wearied frame Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became More quiet. Then
from that pass released, which yet With living feet had no man left, I set My
forward steps aslant the steep, that so, My right foot still the lower, I
climbed. Below No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand Was sterile of all
growth on either hand, Or moving life, a spotted pard except, That yawning
rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt So closely round my feet, that scarce
I kept The course I would. That sleek and lovely thing, The broadening light,
the breath of morn and spring, The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay, As
when Divine Love on Creation's day First gave these fair things motion, all at
one Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none When down the slope there
came with lifted head And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red, A lion,
roaring, all the air ashake That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take No
heart was mine, for where the further way Mine anxious eyes explored, a
she-wolf lay, That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she In aspect
ruthless that I quaked to see, And where she lay among her bones had brought
So many to grief before, that all my thought Aghast turned backward to the
sunless night I left. But while I plunged in headlong flight To that most
feared before, a shade, or man (Either he seemed), obstructing where I ran,
Called to me with a voice that few should know, Faint from forgetful silence,
"Where ye go, Take heed. Why turn ye from the upward way?" I cried, "Or come
ye from warm earth, or they The grave hath taken, in my mortal need Have mercy
thou!" He answered, "Shade am I, That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky,
In the late years of Julius born, and bred In Mantua, till my youthful steps
were led To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man; And when the great
Augustan age began, I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how Anchises' son
forth-pushed a venturous prow, Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou
To thus return to all the ills ye fled, The while the mountain of thy hope
ahead Lifts into light, the source and cause of all Delectable things that may
to man befall?" I answered, "Art thou then that Virgil, he From whom all grace
of measured speech in me Derived? O glorious and far-guiding star! Now may the
love-led studious hours and long In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,
Master and Author mine of Light and Song, Befriend me now, who knew thy voice,
that few Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won Is thine of right, from
whom I learned. To thee, Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun No more
I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see The beast that turned me, nor faint hope
have I To force that passage if thine aid deny." He answered, "Would ye leave
this wild and live, Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies Shall no
man pass, except the path he tries Her craft entangle. No way fugitive Avoids
the seeking of her greeds, that give Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse
As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse Her craving. And the beasts with
which she breed The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require, Bare all the
desirable lands in which she feeds; Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings
tire Until she woos, in evil hour for her, The wolfhound that shall rend her.
His desire Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir Of her base heart; but
wisdoms, and devoirs Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer. The
Italian lowlands he shall reach and save, For which Camilla of old, the virgin
brave, Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase He shall not cease, nor any
cowering-place Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back, From city to
city exiled, from wrack to wrack Slain out of life, to find the native hell
Whence envy loosed her. For thyself were well To follow where I lead, and thou
shalt see The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe, The unending cries,
of those whose only plea Is judgment, that the second death to be Fall
quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go To those who burn, but in their pain
content With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high, Holier than opens to
such souls as I, The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one Worthier, and
she shall guide thee there, where none Who did the Lord of those fair realms
deny May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there Rules and pervades in
every part, and calls His chosen ever within the sacred walls. O happiest,
they!" I answered, "By that Go Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,
And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet I safety find, within the Sacred Gate
That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see Who look with longing for their
end to be." Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.
Canto II
THE day was
falling, and the darkening air Released earth's creatures from their toils,
while I, I only, faced the bitter road and bare My Master led. I only, must
defy The powers of pity, and the night to be. So thought I, but the things I
came to see, Which memory holds, could never thought forecast. O Muses high! O
Genius, first and last! Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine To meet
this need. For never theme as mine Strained vainly, where your loftiest
nobleness Must fail to be sufficient. First I said, Fearing, to him who
through the darkness led, "O poet, ere the arduous path ye press Too far, look
in me, if the worth there be To make this transit. &Aelig;neas once, I
know, Went down in life, and crossed the infernal sea; And if the Lord of All
Things Lost Below Allowed it, reason seems, to those who see The enduring
greatness of his destiny, Who in the Empyrean Heaven elect was called Sire of
the Eternal City, that throned and walled Made Empire of the world beyond, to
be The Holy Place at last, by God's decree, Where the great Peter's follower
rules. For he Learned there the causes of his victory. "And later to the third
great Heaven was caught The last Apostle, and thence returning brought The
proofs of our salvation. But, for me, I am not &Aelig;neas, nay, nor Paul,
to see Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show, And if this road
for no sure end I go What folly is mine? But any words are weak. Thy wisdom
further than the things I speak Can search the event that would be." Here I
stayed My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade That led me heard and turned,
magnanimous, And saw me drained of purpose halting thus, And answered, "If thy
coward-born thoughts be clear, And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,
Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy From shadows, surely that they
know not why Nor wherefore. . . Hearken, to confound thy fear, The things
which first I heard, and brought me here. One came where, in the Outer Place, I
dwell, Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, Radiant in light that
native round her clung, And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among (Eyes with
no earthly like but heaven's own blue), And called me to her in such voice as
few In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear, So toned and cadenced from
the Utmost Sphere, The Unattainable Heaven from which she came. 'O Mantuan
Spirit,' she said, 'whose lasting fame Continues on the earth ye left, and
still With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me, - My friend, not
fortune's - climbs a path so ill That all the night-bred fears he hastes to
flee Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale Moved through the peace of I
leaven, and swift I sped Downward, to aid my friend in love's avail, With
scanty time therefor, that half I dread Too late I came. But thou shalt haste,
and go With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so For me be consolation. Thou
shalt say, "I come from Beatric?." Downward far, From Heaven to I leaven I
sank, from star to star, To find thee, and to point his rescuing way. Fain
would I to my place of light return; Love moved me from it, and gave me power
to learn Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand I very oft shall praise
thee.' Here she ceased, And I gave answer to that dear command, 'Lady, alone
through whom the whole race of those The smallest Heaven the moon's short
orbits hold Excels in its creation, not thy least, Thy lightest wish in this
dark realm were told Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose To loose thee
from them, and thyself content Couldst thus continue in such strange descent
From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn, And while ye further left,
would fain return.' " 'That which thou wouldst,' she said, 'I briefly tell.
There is no fear nor any hurt in Hell, Except that it be powerful. God in me
Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see I share not, nor myself can shrink
to feel The flame of all this burning. One there is In height among the
Holiest placed, and she - Mercy her name - among God's mysteries Dwells in the
midst, and hath the power to see His judgments, and to break them. This sharp
I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so Leaned Lucia toward her while
she spake - and said, "One that is faithful to thy name is sped, Except that
now ye aid him." She thereat, - Lucia, to all men's wrongs inimical - Left her
High Place, and crossed to where I sat In speech with Rachel (of the first of
all God saved). "O Beatrice, Praise of God," - So said she to me - "sitt'st
thou here so slow To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so That all he
left to serve thee? Hear'st thou not The anguish of his plaint? and dost not
see, By that dark stream that never seeks a sea, The death that threats him?"
None, as thus she said, None ever was swift on earth his good to chase, None
ever on earth was swift to leave his dread, As came I downward from that sacred
place To find thee and invoke thee, confident Not vainly for his need the gold
were spent Of thy word-wisdom.' Here she turned away, Her bright eyes clouded
with their tears, and I, Who saw them, therefore made more haste to reach The
place she told, and found thee. Canst thou say I failed thy rescue? Is the
beast anigh From which ye quailed? When such dear saints beseech - Three from
the Highest - that Heaven thy course allow Why halt ye fearful? In such guards
as thou The faintest-hearted might be bold." As flowers, Close-folded through
the cold and lightless hours, Their bended stems erect, and opening fair
Accept the white light and the warmer air Of morning, so my fainting heart anew
Lifted, that heard his comfort. Swift I spake, "O courteous thou, and she
compassionate! Thy haste that saved me, and her warning true, Beyond my worth
exalt me. Thine I make My will. In concord of one mind from now, O Master and
my Guide, where leadest thou I follow." And we, with no more words' delay,
Went forward on that hard and dreadful way.
Canto III
THE gateway to the city
of Doom. Through me The entrance to the Everlasting Pain. The Gateway of the
Lost. The Eternal Three Justice impelled to build me. Here ye see Wisdom
Supreme at work, and Primal Power, And Love Supernal in their dawnless day.
Ere from their thought creation rose in flower Eternal first were all things
fixed as they. Of Increate Power infinite formed am I That deathless as
themselves I do not die. Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All
hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here. This scroll in gloom above the gate I
read, And found it fearful. "Master, hard," I said, "This saying to me." And
he, as one that long Was customed, answered, "No distrust must wrong Its
Maker, nor thy cowarder mood resume If here ye enter. This the place of doom I
told thee, where the lost in darkness dwell. Here, by themselves divorced from
light, they fell, And are as ye shall see them." Here he lent A hand to draw
me through the gate, and bent A glance upon my fear so confident That I, too
nearly to my former dread Returned, through all my heart was comforted, And
downward to the secret things we went. Downward to night, but not of moon and
cloud, Not night with all its stars, as night we know, But burdened with an
ocean-weight of woe The darkness closed us. Sighs, and wailings loud,
Outcries perpetual of recruited pain, Sounds of strange tongues, and angers
that remain Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd Of discords
pressed, that needs I wept to hear, First hearing. There, with reach of hands
anear, And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright, The tumult of the
everlasting night, As sand that dances in continual wind, Turns on itself for
ever. And I, my head Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned With
outcries round me, to my leader said, "Master, what hear I? Who so overborne
With woes are these?" He answered, "These be they That praiseless lived and
blameless. Now the scorn Of Height and Depth alike, abortions drear; Cast with
those abject angels whose delay To join rebellion, or their Lord defend,
Waiting their proved advantage, flung them here. - Chased forth from Heaven,
lest else its beauties end The pure perfection of their stainless claim,
Out-herded from the shining gate they came, Where the deep hells refused them,
lest the lost Boast something baser than themselves." And I, "Master, what
grievance hath their failure cost, That through the lamentable dark they cry?"
He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope
in death They have not. Memory of them on the earth Where once they lived
remains not. Nor the breath Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead, But all
alike disdain them. That they know Themselves so mean beneath aught else
constrains The envious outcries that too long ye heed. Move past, but speak
not." Then I looked, and lo, Were souls in ceaseless and unnumbered trains
That past me whirled unending, vainly led Nowhither, in useless and unpausing
haste. A fluttering ensign all their guide, they chased Themselves for ever. I
had not thought the dead, The whole world's dead, so many as these. I saw The
shadow of him elect to Peter's seat Who made the great refusal, and the law,
The unswerving law that left them this retreat To seal the abortion of their
lives, became Illumined to me, and themselves I knew, To God and all his foes
the futile crew How hateful in their everlasting shame. I saw these victims of
continued death - For lived they never - were naked all, and loud Around them
closed a never-ceasing cloud Of hornets and great wasps, that buzzed and clung,
- Weak pain for weaklings meet, - and where they stung, Blood from their faces
streamed, with sobbing breath, And all the ground beneath with tears and blood
Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud There were great worms that
drank it. Gladly thence I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood That
flowed before us. On the nearer shore Were people waiting. "Master, show me
whence These came, and who they be, and passing hence Where go they? Wherefore
wait they there content, - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er
The unbridged abyss?" He answered, "When we stand Together, waiting on the
joyless strand, In all it shall be told thee." If he meant Reproof I know not,
but with shame I bent My downward eyes, and no more spake until The bank we
reached, and on the stream beheld A bark ply toward us. Of exceeding eld, And
hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill, With horrid glee the while he
neared us, "Woe To ye, depraved! - Is here no Heaven, but ill The place where
I shall herd ye. Ice and fire And darkness are the wages of their hire Who
serve unceasing here - But thou that there Dost wait though live, depart ye.
Yea, forbear! A different passage and a lighter fare Is destined thine." But
here my guide replied, "Nay, Charon, cease; or to thy grief ye chide. It There
is willed, where that is willed shall be, That ye shall pass him to the further
side, Nor question more." The fleecy cheeks thereat, Blown with fierce speech
before, were drawn and flat, And his flame-circled eyes subdued, to hear That
mandate given. But those of whom he spake In bitter glee, with naked limbs
ashake, And chattering teeth received it. Seemed that then They first were
conscious where they came, and fear Abject and frightful shook them; curses
burst In clamorous discords forth; the race of men, Their parents, and their
God, the place, the time, Of their conceptions and their births, accursed
Alike they called, blaspheming Heaven. But yet Slow steps toward the waiting
bark they set, With terrible wailing while they moved. And so They came
reluctant to the shore of woe That waits for all who fear not God, and not
Them only. Then the demon Charon rose To herd them in, with eyes that
furnace-hot Glowed at the task, and lifted oar to smite Who lingered. As the
leaves, when autumn shows, One after one descending, leave the bough, Or doves
come downward to the call, so now The evil seed of Adam to endless night, As
Charon signalled, from the shore's bleak height, Cast themselves downward to
the bark. The brown And bitter flood received them, and while they passed Were
others gathering, patient as the last, Not conscious of their nearing doom.
"My son," - Replied my guide the unspoken thought - "is none Beneath God's
wrath who dies in field or town, Or earth's wide space, or whom the waters
drown, But here he cometh at last, and that so spurred By Justice, that his
fear, as those ye heard, Impels him forward like desire. Is not One spirit of
all to reach the fatal spot That God's love holdeth, and hence, if Char chide,
Ye well may take it. - Raise thy heart, for now, Constrained of Heaven, he
must thy course allow." Yet how I passed I know not. For the ground Trembled
that heard him, and a fearful sound Of issuing wind arose, and blood-red light
Broke from beneath our feet, and sense and sight Left me. The memory with cold
sweat once more Reminds me of the sudden-crimsoned night, As sank I senseless
by the dreadful shore.
Canto IV
ARISING thunder from the vast Abyss First
roused me, not as he that rested wakes From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury
shakes Untimely, and around I gazed to know The place of my confining. Deep,
profound, Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound, Sheer sank the
Valley of the Lost Abyss, Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood, And like
the winds of some unresting wood The gathered murmur from those depths of woe
Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this The unceasing sound comes ever. I
might not tell How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell, It was so
clouded and so dark no sight Could pierce it. "Downward through the worlds of
night We will descend together. I first, and thou My footsteps taking," spake
my guide, and I Gave answer, "Master, when thyself art pale, Fear-daunted,
shall my weaker heart avail That on thy strength was rested?" "Nay," said he,
"Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry So pales me. Come ye, for the path we
tread Is long, and time requires it." Here he led Through the first entrance
of the ringed abyss, Inward, and I went after, and the woe Softened behind us,
and around I heard Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word, But round us
sighs so many and deep there came That all the air was motioned. I beheld
Concourse of men and women and children there Countless. No pain was theirs of
cold or flame, But sadness only. And my Master said, "Art silent here? Before
ye further go Among them wondering, it is meet ye know They are not sinful,
nor the depths below Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness
Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed, Being born too soon, we did not pass
( for I, Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less Our doom is weighed, -
to feel of Heaven the need, To long, and to be hopeless." Grief was mine That
heard him, thinking what great names must be In this suspense around me.
"Master, tell," I questioned, "from this outer girth of Hell Pass any to the
blessed spheres exalt, Through other's merits or their own the fault.
Condoned?" And he, my covert speech that read, - For surance sought I of my
faith, - replied, "Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned
And garmented with conquest. Of the dead, He rescued from us him who earliest
died, Abel, and our first parent. Here He found, Abraham, obedient to the
Voice he heard; And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word; Isaac, and Israel
and his sons, and she, Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king; And
many beside unnumbered, whom he led Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be
Among the blest for ever. Until this thing I witnessed, none, of all the
countless dead, But hopeless through the somber gate he came." Now while he
spake he paused not, but pursued, Through the dense woods of thronging spirits,
his aim Straight onward, nor was long our path until Before us rose a widening
light, to fill One half of all the darkness, and I knew While yet some
distance, that such Shades were there As nobler moved than others, and
questioned, "Who, Master, are those that in their aspect bear Such difference
from the rest?" "All these," he said, "Were named so glorious in thy earth
above That Heaven allows their larger claim to be Select, as thus ye see
them." While he spake A voice rose near us: "Hail!" it cried, "for he
Returns, who was departed." Scarce it ceased When four great spirits
approached. They did not show Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though
Content in their dominion moved. My guide Before I questioned told, "That first
ye see, With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he Is Homer, sovereign of
the craft we tried, Leader and lord of even the following three, - Horace, and
Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard, That hailed me, caused them by one impulse
stirred Approach to do me honour, for these agree In that one name we boast,
and so do well Owning it in me." There was I joyed to meet Those shades, who
closest to his place belong, The eagle course of whose out-soaring song Is
lonely in height. Some space apart (to tell, It may be, something of myself ),
my guide Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet Me also, and my
Master smiled to see They made me sixth and equal. Side by side We paced
toward the widening light, and spake Such things as well were spoken there, and
here Were something less than silence. Strong and wide Before us rose a
castled height, beset With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable, And girdled
with a rivulet round, but yet We passed thereover, and the water clear As dry
land bore me; and the walls ahead Their seven strong gates made open one by
one, As each we neared, that where my Master led With ease I followed,
although without were none But deep that stream beyond their wading spread,
And closed those gates beyond their breach had been, Had they sought entry with
us. Of coolest green Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there,
Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair To accord with its containing. Grave,
austere, Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they That walked that
verdure. To a place aside Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here
Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey Of such great spirits as are my
glory and pride That once I saw them. There, direct in view, Electra passed,
among her sons. I knew Hector and &Aelig;neas there; and C?sar too Was of
them, armed and falcon-eyed; and there Camilla and Penthesilea. Near there sate
Lavinia, with her sire the Latian king; Brutus, who drave the Tarquin; and
Lucrece Julia, Cornelia, Marcia, and their kin; And, by himself apart, the
Saladin. Somewhat beyond I looked. A place more high Than where these heroes
moved I gazed, and knew The Master of reasoned thought, whose hand withdrew
The curtain of the intellect, and bared The secret things of nature; while
anigh, But lowlier, grouped the greatest names that shared His searchings. All
regard and all revere They gave him. Plato there, and Socrates I marked, who
closeliest reached his height; and near Democritus, who dreamed a world of
chance Born blindly in the whirl of circumstance; And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,
Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Zeno, were there; and Dioscorides Who searched
the healing powers of herbs and trees; And Orpheus, Tullius, Livius, Seneca,
Euclid and Ptolem?us; Avicenna, Galen, Hippocrates; Averrho?s, The Master's
great interpreter, - but these Are few to those I saw, an endless dream Of
shades before whom Hell quietened and cowered. My theme, With thronging
recollections of mighty names That there I marked impedes me. All too long
They chase me, envious that my burdened song Forgets. - But onward moves my
guide anew: The light behind us fades: the six are two: Again the shuddering
air, the cries of Hell Compassed, and where we walked the darkness fell.
Canto V
MOST like the spirals of a pointed shell, But separate each, go downward,
hell from hell, The ninefold circles of the damned; but each Smaller,
concentrate in its greater pain, Than that which overhangs it. Those who reach
The second whorl, on entering, learn their bane Where Minos, hideous, sits and
snarls. He hears, Decides, and as he girds himself they go. Before his seat
each ill-born spirit appear, And tells its tale of evil, loath or no, While
he, their judge, of all sins cognizant, Hears, and around himself his circling
tail Twists to the number of the depths below To which they doom themselves in
telling. Alway The crowding sinners: their turn they wait: they show Their
guilt: the circles of his tail convey Their doom: and downward they are whirled
away. "O thou who callest at this doleful inn," Cried Minos to me, while the
child of sin That stood confessing before him, trembling stayed, "Heed where
thou enterest in thy trust, nor say, I walk in safety, for the width of way
Suffices." But my guide the answer took, "Why dost thou cry? or leave thine
ordered trade For that which nought belongs thee? Hinder not His destined
path. For where he goeth is willed, Where that is willed prevaileth." Now was
filled The darker air with wailing. Wailing shook My soul to hear it. Where we
entered now No light attempted. Only sound arose, As ocean with the tortured
air contends, What time intolerable tempest rends The darkness; so the
shrieking winds oppose For ever, and bear they, as they swerve and sweep, The
doomed disastrous spirits, and whirl aloft, Backward, and down, nor any rest
allow, Nor pause of such contending wraths as oft Batter them against the
precipitous sides, and there The shrieks and moanings quench the screaming air,
The cries of their blaspheming. These are they That lust made sinful. As the
starlings rise At autumn, darkening all the colder skies, In crowded troops
their wings up-bear, so here These evil-doers on each contending blast Were
lifted upward, whirled, and downward cast, And swept around unceasing. Striving
airs Lift them, and hurl, nor ever hope is theirs Of rest or respite or
decreasing pains, But like the long streaks of the calling cranes So came they
wailing down the winds, to meet Upsweeping blasts that ever backward beat Or
sideward flung them on their walls. And I - "Master who are they next that
drive anigh So scourged amidst the blackness?" "These," he said, "So lashed
and harried, by that queen are led, Empress of alien tongues, Semiramis, Who
made her laws her lawless lusts to kiss, So was she broken by desire; and this
Who comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus, Love's fool, who broke her faith
to Sich?us, Dido; and bare of all her luxury, Nile's queen, who lost her realm
for Antony." And after these, amidst that windy train, Helen, who soaked in
blood the Trojan plain, And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet The same
net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed; And thousand other along the
fated road Whom love led deathward through disastrous things He pointed as
they passed, until my mind Was wildered in this heavy pass to find Ladies so
many, and cavaliers and kings Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said,
"Poet, those next that on the wind appear So light, and constant as they drive
or veer Are parted never, I fain would speak." And he, - "Conjure them by
their love, and thou shalt see Their flight come hither." And when the
swerving blast Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed, "O wearied
souls, come downward, if the Power That drives allow ye, for one restful hour."
As doves, desirous of their nest at night, Cleave through the dusk with swift
and open flight Of level-lifting wings, that love makes light, Will-borne, so
downward through the murky air Came those sad spirits, that not deep Hell's
despair Could sunder, parting from the faithless band That Dido led, and with
one voice, as though One soul controlled them, spake, "O Animate! Who comest
through the black malignant air, Benign among us who this exile bear For earth
ensanguined, if the King of All Heard those who from the outer darkness call
Entreat him would we for thy peace, that thou Hast pitied us condemned,
misfortunate. - Of that which please thee, if the winds allow, Gladly I tell.
Ravenna, on that shore Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew; And
there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart So quick to take dominion,
overthrew Him with my own fair body, and overbore Me with delight to please
him. Love, which gives No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me Was empired,
that its rule, as here ye see, Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives To
part us. Love to one death led us. The mode Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The
place of Cain Awaits our slayer." They ceased, and I my head Bowed down, and
made no answer, till my guide Questioned, "What wouldst thou more?" and
replied, "Alas my thought I what sweet keen longings led These spirits,
woeful, to their dark abode!" And then to them, - "Francesca, all thy pain Is
mine. With pity and grief I weep. But say How, in the time of sighing, and in
what way, Love gave you of the dubious deeds to know." And she to me, "There
is no greater woe In all Hell's depths than cometh when those who Look back to
Eden. But if thou wouldst learn Our love's first root, I can but weep and tell.
One day, and for delight in idleness, - Alone we were, without suspicion, -
We read together, and chanced the page to turn Where Galahad tells the tale of
Lancelot, How love constrained him. Oft our meeting eyes, Confessed the theme,
and conscious cheeks were hot, Reading, but only when that instant came Where
the surrendering lips were kissed, no less Desire beat in us, and whom, for all
this pain, No hell shall sever (so great at least our gain), Trembling, he
kissed my mouth, and all forgot, We read no more." As thus did one confess
Their happier days, the other wept, and I Grew faint with pity, and sank as
those who die.
Canto VI
THE misery of that sight of souls in Hell Condemned,
and constant in their loss, prevailed So greatly in me, that I may not tell
How passed I from them, sense and memory failed So far. But here new torments
I discern, And new tormented, wheresoe'er I turn. For sodden around me was the
place of bane, The third doomed circle, where the culprits know The cold,
unceasing, and relentless rain Pour down without mutation. Heavy with hail,
With turbid waters mixed, and cold with snow, It streams from out the darkness,
and below The soil is putrid, where the impious lie Grovelling, and howl like
dogs, beneath the flail That flattens to the foul soaked ground, and try
Vainly for ease by turning. And the while Above them roams and ravens the
loathsome hound Cerberus, and feeds upon them. The swampy ground He ranges;
with his long clawed hands he grips The sinners, and the fierce and hairy lips
(Thrice-headed is he) tear, and the red blood drips From all his jaws. He
clutches, and flays, and rends, And treads them, growling: and the flood
descends Straight downward. When he saw us, the loathly worm Showed all his
fangs, and eager trembling frame Nerved for the leap. But undeterred my guide.
Stooped down, and gathered in full hands the soil, And cast it in the gaping
gullets, to foil Gluttonous blind greed, and those fierce mouths and wide
Closed on the filth, and as the craving cur Quietens, that strained and howled
to reach his food, Biting the bone, those squalid mouths subdued And silenced,
wont above the empty dead To bark insatiate, while they tore unfed The
writhing shadows. The straight persistent rain, That altered never, had
pressed the miry plain With flattened shades that in their emptiness Still
showed as bodies. We might not here progress Except we trod them. Of them all,
but one Made motion as we passed. Against the rain Rising, and resting on one
hand, he said, "O thou, who through the drenching murk art led, Recall me if
thou canst. Thou wast begun Before I ended." I, who looked in vain For human
semblance in that bestial shade, Made answer, "Misery here hath all unmade, It
may be, that thou wast on earth, for nought Recalls thee to me. But thyself
shalt tell The sins that scourged thee to this foul resort, That more
displeasing not the scope of Hell Can likely yield, though greater pains may
lie More deep." And he to me, "Thy city, so high With envious hates that
swells, that now the sack Bursts, and pours out in ruin, and spreads its wrack
Far outward, was mine alike, while clearer air Still breathed I. Citizens who
knew me there Called me Ciacco. For the vice I fed At rich men's tables, in
this filth I lie Drenched, beaten, hungered, cold, uncomforted, Mauled by that
ravening greed; and these, as I, With gluttonous lives the like reward have
won." I answered, "Piteous is thy state to one Who knew thee in thine old
repute, but say, If yet persists thy previous mind, which way The feuds of our
rent city shall end, and why These factions vex us, and if still there be One
just man left among us." "Two," said he, "Are just, but none regards them. Yet
more high The strife, till bloodshed from their long contend Shall issue at
last: the barbarous Cerchi clan Cast the Donati exiled out, and they Within
three years return, and more offend Than they were erst offended, helped by him
So long who palters with both parts. The fire Three sparks have lighted -
Avarice, Envy, Pride, - And there is none may quench it." Here he ceased His
lamentable tale, and I replied, "Of one thing more I ask thee. Great desire Is
mine to learn it. Where are those who sought Our welfare earlier? Those whose
names at least Are fragrant for the public good they wrought, Arrigo, Mosca,
and the Tegghiaio Worthiest, and Farinata, and with these Jacopo Rusticucci. I
would know If soft in Heaven or bitter-hard in Hell Their lives continue."
"Cast in hells more low Than yet thou hast invaded, deep they lie, For
different crimes from ours, and shouldst thou go So far, thou well mayst see
them. If thou tread Again the sweet light land, and overhead Converse with
those I knew there, then recall, I pray, my memory to my friends of yore. But
ask no further, for I speak no more." Thereon his eyes, that straight had gazed
before Squinted and failed, and slowly sank his head, And blindly with his
sodden mates he lay. And spake my guide, "He shall not lift nor stir, Until
the trumpet shrills that wakens Hell; And these, who must inimical Power obey,
Shall each return to his sad grave, and there In carnal form the sinful spirit
shall dwell Once more, and that time only, from the tomb Rising to hear the
irrevocable doom Which shall reverberate through eternity." So paced we slowly
through the rain that fell Unchanging, over that foul ground, and trod The
dismal spirits it held, and somewhat spake Of life beyond us, and the things of
God; And asked I, "Master, shall these torments cease, Continue as they are,
or more increase, When calls the trumpet, and the graves shall break, And the
great Sentence sound?" And he to me, "Recall thy learning, as thou canst. We
know With more perfection, greater pain or bliss Resolves, and though
perfection may not be To these accurs'd, yet nearer then than this It may be
they shall reach it." More to show He sought, as turned we to the fresh
descent, But speaking all in such strange words as went Past me. - But ceased
our downward path, and Plutus, of human weal the hateful foe.
Canto VII
HAH,
strange! ho, Satan!" such the sounds half-heard The thick voice gobbled, the
while the foul, inflamed, Distended visage toward us turned, and cast
Invective from its bestial throat, that slurred Articulate speech. But here the
gentle sage, Who knew beforehand that we faced, to me Spake first, "Regard
not; for a threat misaimed Falls idle. Fear not to continue past. His power to
us, however else it be, Is not to hinder." Then, that bulk inflate
Confronting, - "Peace, thou greed! thy lusting rage Consume thee inward! Not
thy word we wait The path to open. It is willed on high, - There, where the
Angel of the Sword ye know Took ruin upon the proud adultery Of him thou
callest as thy prince." Thereat As sails, wind-rounded, when the mast gives
way, Sink tangled to the deck, deflated so Collapsed that bulk that heard him,
shrunk and flat; And we went downward till before us lay The fourth sad
circle. Ah! what woes contain, Justice of God! what woes those narrowing deeps
Contain; for all the universe down-heaps In this pressed space its continent of
pain, So voiding all that mars its peace. But why This guilt that so degrades
us? As the surge Above Charybdis meets contending surge, Breaks and is
broken, and rages and recoils For ever, so here the sinners. More numerous
Than in the circles past are these. They urge Huge weights before them. On,
with straining breasts, They roll them, howling in their ceaseless toils. And
those that to the further side belong l)o likewise, meeting in the midst, and
thus Crash vainly, and recoil, reverse, and cry, "Why dost thou hold?" "Why
dost thou loose?" No rest Their doom permits them. Backward course they bend;
Continual crescents trace, at either end Meeting again in fresh rebound, and
high Above their travail reproachful howlings rise Incessant at those who
thwart their round. And I, Who felt my heart stung through with anguish, said,
"O Master, show me who these peoples be, And if those tonsured shades that
left we see Held priestly office ere they joined the dead." He answered,
"These, who with such squinting eyes Regarded God's providing, that they spent
In waste immoderate, indicate their guilt In those loud barkings that ye hear.
They spilt Their wealth distemperate; and those they meet Who cry 'Why loose
ye?' avarice ruled: they bent Their minds on earth to seize and hoard. Of these
Hairless, are priests, and popes, and cardinals, For greed makes empire in
such hearts complete." And I, "Among them that these vices eat Are none that I
have known on earth before?" He answered, "Vainly wouldst thou seek; a life So
blind to bounties has obscured too far The souls once theirs, for that which
once they wore Of mortal likeness in their shades to show. Waste was their
choice, and this abortive strife And toil unmeaning is the end they are They
butt for ever, until the last award Shall call them from their graves.
Ill-holding those Ill-loosing these, alike have doomed to know This darkness,
and the fairer world forgo. Behold what mockery doth their fate afford! It
needs no fineness of spun words to tell. For this they did their subtle wits
oppose, Contending for the gifts that Fortune straws So blindly, - for this
blind contending hell. "Beneath the moon there is not gold so great In worth,
it could one moment's grief abate, Or rest one only of these weary souls."
"Master, this Fortune that ye speak, whose claws Grasp all desirable things of
earth," I said, "What is she?" "O betrayed in foolishness I Blindness of
creatures born of earth, whose goals Are folly and loss!" he answered, "I would
make Thy mouth an opening for this truth I show. "Transcendent Wisdom, when
the spheres He built Gave each a guide to rule it: more nor less Their light
distributes. For the earth he gave Like guide to rule its splendours. As we
know The heavenly lights move round us, and is spilt Light here, and darkness
yonder, so doth she From man to man, from race and kindred take Alternate
wealth, or yield it. None may save The spoil that she depriveth: none may flee
The bounty that she wills. No human wits May hinder, nor may human lore reject
Her choice, that like a hidden snake is set To reach the feet unheeding. Where
she sits In judgment, she resolves, and whom she wills Is havened, chased by
petulant storms, or wreck ' Remedeless. Races cease, and men forget They were.
Slaves rise to rule their lords. She And empties, godlike in her mood. No pause
Her changes leave, so many are those who call About her gates, so many she
dowers, and all Revile her after, and would crucify If words could reach her,
but she heeds nor hears, Who dwells beyond the noise of human laws In the
blest silence of the Primal Spheres. - But let us to the greater woes descend.
The stars from their meridian fall, that rose When first these hells we
entered. Long to stay Our right of path allows not." While he spake We
crossed the circle to the bank beyond, And found a hot spring boiling, and a
way, Dark, narrow, and steep, that down beside it goes, By which we clambered.
Purple-black the pond Beneath it, widening to a marsh that spreads Far out,
and struggling in that slime malign Were muddied shades, that not with hands,
heads, And teeth and feet besides, contending tore, And maimed each other in
beast-like rage. My guide Expounded, "Those whom anger overbore On earth,
behold ye. Mark the further sign Of bubbles countless on the slime that show.
These from the sobs of those immersed arise; For buried in the choking filth
they cry, We once were sullen in the rain-sweet air, When waked the light, and
all the earth was fair, How sullen in the murky swamp we lie Forbidden from
the blessed light on high. This song they gurgle in their throats, that so The
bubbles rising from the depths below Break all the surface of the slime."
Between The high bank and the putrid swamp was seen A narrow path, and this, a
sweeping arc, We traversed; outward o'er the surface dark Still gazing, at the
choking shades who took That diet for their wrath. Till livelier look Was
forward drawn, for where at last we came A great tower fronted, and a beacon's
flame.
Canto VIII
I SAY, while yet from that tower's base afar, We saw two
flames of sudden signal rise, And further, like a small and distant star, A
beacon answered. "What before us lies? Who signals our approach, and who
replies?" I asked, and answered he who all things knew, "Already, if the
swamp's dank fumes permit, The outcome of their beacon shows in view, Severing
the liquid filth." No shaft can slit Impalpable air, from any corded bow, As
came that craft towards us, cleaving so, And with incredible speed, the miry
wave. To where we paused its meteor course it clave, A steersman rising in the
stern, who cried, "Behold thy doom, lost spirit!" To whom my guide, "Nay,
Phlegyas, Phlegyas, here thy cries are We need thine aid the further shore to
gain; But power thou hast not." One amazed to meet With most unlooked and
undeserved deceit So rages inly; yet no dared reply There came, as down my
Leader stept, and I Deepened the skiff with earthly weight undue, Which while
we seated swung its bows anew Outward, and onward once again it flew,
Labouring more deep than wont, and slowlier now, So burdened. While that
kennel of filth we clave, There rose among the bubbles a mud-soaked head. "Who
art thou, here before thy time?" it said, And answer to the unfeatured mask I
gave, "I come, but stay not. Who art thou, so blind And blackened from the
likeness of thy kind?" "I have no name, but only tears," said he. I answered,
"Nay, however caked thou be, I know thee through the muddied drench. For thee
Be weeping ever, accursed spirit." At that, He reached his hands to grasp the
boat, whereat My watchful Master thrust him down, and cried, "Away, among the
dogs, thy fellows!" and then To me with approbation, "Blest art thou, Who
wouldst not pity in thy heart allow For these, in arrogance of empty pride Who
lived so vainly. In the minds of men Is no good thing of this one left to tell,
And hence his rage. How many above that dwell, Now kinglike in their ways, at
last shall lie Wallowing in these wide marshes, swine in sty, With all men's
scorn to chase them down." And I, "Master, it were a seemly thing to see This
boaster trampled in the putrid sea, Who dared approach us, knowing of all we
know." He answered, "Well thy wish, and surely so It shall be, e'er the
distant shore we view." And I looked outward through the gloom, and lo! The
envious eaters of that dirt combined Against him, leapt upon him, before,
behind, Dragged in their fury, and rent, and tore him through, Screaming
derisive, "Philip! whose horse-hooves shine With silver," and the rageful
Florentine Turned on himself his gnashing teeth and tore. But he deserveth,
and I speak, no more. Now, as we neared the further beach, I heard The
lamentable and unceasing wail By which the air of all the hells is stirred
Increasing ever, which caused mine eyes unveil Their keenest vision to search
what came, and he Who marked, indulgent, told. "Ahead we see The city of Dis,
with all its dolorous crew, Numerous, and burdened with reliefless pain, And
guilt intolerable to think." I said, "Master, already through the night I view
The mosques of that sad city, that fiery red As heated metal extend, and crowd
the plain." He answered, "These the eternal fire contain, That pulsing through
them sets their domes aglow." At this we came those joyless walls below, - Of
iron I thought them, - with a circling moat; But saw no entrance, and the
burdened boat Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before The steersman
warned us. "Get ye forth. The shore Is here, - and there the Entrance." There,
indeed, The entrance. On the barred and burning gate I gazed; a thousand of
the fiends that rained From Heaven, to fill that place disconsolate, Looked
downward, and derided. "Who," they said, "Before his time comes hither? As
though the dead Arrive too slowly for the joys they would," And laughter
rocked along their walls. My guide Their mockery with an equal mien withstood,
Signalling their leaders he would speak aside, And somewhat closing their
contempt they cried, "Then come thou hither, and let him backward go, Who came
so rashly. Let him find his way Through the five hells ye traversed, the best
he may. He can but try it awhile! - But thou shalt stay, And learn the welcome
of these halls of woe." Ye well may think how I, discomforted By these
accursed words, was moved. The dead, Nay, nor the living were ever placed as I,
If this fiends' counsel triumphed. And who should try That backward path
unaided? "Lord," I said, "Loved Master, who hast shared my steps so far, And
rescued ever, if these our path would bar, Then lead me backward in most haste,
nor let Their malice part us." He with cheerful mien, Gave answer. "Heed not
that they boast. Forget The fear thou showest, and in good heart abide, While
I go forward. Not these fiends obscene Shall thwart the mandate that the Power
supplied By which we came, nor any force to do The things they threaten is
theirs; nor think that I Should leave thee helpless here." The gentle Sage At
this went forward. Feared I? Half I knew Despair, and half contentment. Yes and
no Denied each other; and of so great a woe Small doubt is anguish. In their
orgulous rage The fiends out-crowded from the gates to meet My Master; what he
spake I could not hear; But nothing his words availed to cool their heat, For
inward thronged they with a jostling rear That clanged the gates before he
reached, and he Turned backward slowly, muttering, "Who to me Denies the
woeful houses?" This he said Sighing, with downcast aspect and disturbed
Beyond concealment; yet some length he curbed His anxious thought to cheer me.
"Doubt ye nought Of power to hurt in these fiends insolent; For once the wider
gate on which ye read The words of doom, with greater pride, they sought To
close against the Highest. Already is bent A great One hereward, whose
unhindered way Descends the steeps unaided. He shall say Such words as must
the trembling hells obey."
Canto IX
I THINK the paleness of the fear I showed
When he, rejected from that conference, Rejoined me, caused him speak more
confident Than felt he inly. For the glance he sent Through the dense darkness
of the backward road Denied the valour of his words' pretence; And pausing
there with anxious listening mien, While came no sound, nor any help was seen,
He muttered, "Yet we must this conflict win, For else - But whom her aid has
pledged herein - How long before he cometh!" And plain I knew His words turned
sideward from the ending due They first portended. Faster beat my fear,
Methinks, than had he framed in words more clear The meaning that his care
withheld. I said, "Do others of the hopeless, sinless, dead, Who with thee in
the outmost circle dwell, Come ever downward to the narrowing hell That now we
traverse?" "Once Erichtho fell," He answered, "conjured to such end that I, -
Who then short time had passed to those who die, - Came here, controlled by her
discerning spell, And entered through these hostile gates, and drew A spirit
from the darkest, deepest pit, The place of Judas named, that centres Hell.
The path I learnt, and all its dangers well. Content thine heart. This
foul-stretched marsh surrounds The dolorous city to its furthest bounds.
Without, the dense mirk, and the bubbling mire: Within, the white-hot pulse of
eating fire, Whence this fiend-anger thwarts. . .," and more he said, To save
me doubtless from my thoughts, but I Heeded no more, for by the beacons red
That on the lofty tower before us glowed, Three bloodstained and infernal
furies showed, Erect, of female form in guise and limb, But clothed in coils
of hydras green and grim; And with cerastes bound was every head, And for its
crown of hair was serpented; And he, who followed my diverted gaze, The
handmaids of the Queen of Woeful Days Well knowing, told me, "These the Furies
three. Meg?ra leftward: on the right is she Alecto, wailing: and Tisiphone
Midmost." These hateful, in their need of prey, Tore their own breasts with
bloodied claws, and when They saw me, from the living world of men, Beneath
them standing, with one purpose they Cried, and so loudly that I shrank for
fear, "Medusa! let her from her place appear, To change him into stone! Our
first default That venged no wrath on Theseus' deep assault, So brings him."
"Turn thou from their sight," my guide Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied,
But placed his hands across mine eyes the while He told me further "Risk no
glance. The sight Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night From which
were no returning." Ye that read With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed The
hidden meaning of the truth that lies Beneath the shadow-words of mysteries
That here I show ye. While I turned away, Across the blackness of the putrid
bay, There crashed a thunder of most fearful sound, At which the opposing
shores, from bound to bound, Trembled. As when an entering tempest rends The
brooding heat, and nought its course can stay, That through the forest its
dividing way Tears open, and tramples down, and strips, and bends, And levels.
The wild things in the woods that be Cower down. The herdsmen from its trumpets
flee. With clouds of dust to trace its course it goes, Superb, and leaving
ruin. Such sound arose. And he that held me loosened mine eyes, and said,
"Look back, and see what foam the black waves bear." As frogs, the while the
serpent picks his prey, In panic scatter through the stream, and there Flatten
themselves upon its bouldered bed, I saw a thousand ruined spirits that fled
Before the coming of One who held his way Dry-shod across the water. His left
hand He waved before him, and the stagnant air Retreated. Simple it were to
understand A Messenger of Heaven he came. My guide Signed me to silence, and
to reverence due, While to one stroke of his indignant wand The gate swung
open. "Outcast spawn!" he cried, His voice heard vibrant through the aperture
grim, "Why spurn ye at the Will that, once defied, Here cast ye grovelling?
Have ye felt from Him Aught ever for fresh revolt but harder pains? Has
Cerberus' throat, skinned with the threefold chains, No meaning? Why, to fate
most impotent, Contend ye vainly?" Then he turned and went, Nor one glance
gave us, but he seemed as one Whom larger issue than the instant done Engages
wholly. By that Power compelled, The gates stood open, and our course we held
Unhindered. As the threshold dread we crossed, My eager glances swept the scene
to know, In those doomed walls imprisoned, how lived the lost. On either hand
a wide plain stretched, to show A sight of torment, and most dismal woe. At
Arles, where the stagnant Rhone extends, Or Pola, where the gulf Quarnero
bends, As with old tombs the plains are ridged, so here, All sides, did rows
of countless tombs appear, But in more bitter a guise, for everywhere Shone
flames, that moved among them. Every tomb Stood open, white with heat. No
craft requires More heated metal than the crawling fires Made hot the sides of
those sad sepulchres; And cries of torture and most dire despair Came from
them, as the spirits wailed their doom. I said, "Who are they, in these chests
that lie Confined, and join in this lamenting cry?" My Master answered, "These
in life denied The faith that saves, and that resisting pride Here brought
them. With their followers, like to like, Assorted are they, and the keen
flames strike With differing anguish, to the same degree They reached in their
rebellion." While he spake Rightward he turned, a narrow path to take Between
them and that high-walled boundary.
Canto X
FIRST went my Master, for the
space was small Between the torments and the lofty wall, And I behind him. "O
controlling Will," I spake, "who leadest through such hates, and still
Prevailest for me, wilt thou speak, that who Within these tombs are held mine
eyes may see? For lifted are they, and unwatched." And he, - "The lids stand
open till the time arrive When to the valley of Jehoshaphat They each must
wend, and earthly flesh resume, And back returning, as the swarming hive, From
condemnation, each the doleful tomb Re-enter wailing, and the lids thereat Be
bolted. Here in fitting torment lie The Epicurean horde, who dared deny That
soul outlasts its mortal home. Is here Their leader, and his followers round
him. Soon Shall all thy wish be granted, - and the boon Ye hold in secret."
"Kind my guide," I said, "I was not silent to conceal, but thou Didst teach,
when in thy written words I read, That in brief speech is wisdom." Here a
voice Behind me, "Tuscan, who canst walk at choice Untouched amidst the
torments, wilt thou stay? For surely native of the noble land Where once I
held my too-audacious way, Discreet of speech, thou comest." The sudden cry
So close behind me from the chests that came, First drove me closer to my
guide, but he, - "What dost thou? Turn thee!" - and a kindly hand Impelled me,
fearful, where the crawling flame Was all around me, - "Lift thine eyes and
see, For there is Farinata. Be thou short In speech, for time is failing."
Scorn of hell Was in the eyes that met me. Hard he wrought To raise himself,
till girdle-deep I knew The greatest of the fierce Uberti crew, Who asked me,
with contempt near-waiting, "Tell Of whom thou art descended?" I replied,
Concealing nothing. With lifted brows he eyed My face in silence some brief
while, and then, - "Foes were they ever to my part, and me. It yet must linger
in the minds of men How twice I broke them." "Twice ye learned them flee," -
I answered boldly, - "but they twice returned; And others fled more late who
have not learned The mode of that returning." Here a shade Arose beside him,
only to the chin Revealed: I think it knelt. Beyond and round It rather looked
than at me. Nought it found. Thereat it wept, and asked me, "Ye that go
Unhindered through these homes of gateless woe, - Is my son with thee? Hast
thou nought to tell?" I answered, "Single through the gates of hell
ONE night, when half my life behind me lay, I wandered from the
straight lost path afar. Through the great dark was no releasing way; Above
that dark was no relieving star. If yet that terrored night I think or say, As
death's cold hands its fears resuming are. Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire
to tell, The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot, I turn my tale to
that which next befell, When the dawn opened, and the night was not. The
hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot, Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A
blinding splendour hot Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,
And though it kindled from the nether hell, Or from the Star that all men
leads, alike It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike The wide east,
and the utmost peaks of snow. How first I entered on that path astray, Beset
with sleep, I know not. This I know. When gained my feet the upward, lighted
way, I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea, The deep strong tides, has
baffled, and panting lies, On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see The
league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes Surveyed that fear, the while my
wearied frame Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became More quiet. Then
from that pass released, which yet With living feet had no man left, I set My
forward steps aslant the steep, that so, My right foot still the lower, I
climbed. Below No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand Was sterile of all
growth on either hand, Or moving life, a spotted pard except, That yawning
rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt So closely round my feet, that scarce
I kept The course I would. That sleek and lovely thing, The broadening light,
the breath of morn and spring, The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay, As
when Divine Love on Creation's day First gave these fair things motion, all at
one Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none When down the slope there
came with lifted head And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red, A lion,
roaring, all the air ashake That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take No
heart was mine, for where the further way Mine anxious eyes explored, a
she-wolf lay, That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she In aspect
ruthless that I quaked to see, And where she lay among her bones had brought
So many to grief before, that all my thought Aghast turned backward to the
sunless night I left. But while I plunged in headlong flight To that most
feared before, a shade, or man (Either he seemed), obstructing where I ran,
Called to me with a voice that few should know, Faint from forgetful silence,
"Where ye go, Take heed. Why turn ye from the upward way?" I cried, "Or come
ye from warm earth, or they The grave hath taken, in my mortal need Have mercy
thou!" He answered, "Shade am I, That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky,
In the late years of Julius born, and bred In Mantua, till my youthful steps
were led To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man; And when the great
Augustan age began, I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how Anchises' son
forth-pushed a venturous prow, Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou
To thus return to all the ills ye fled, The while the mountain of thy hope
ahead Lifts into light, the source and cause of all Delectable things that may
to man befall?" I answered, "Art thou then that Virgil, he From whom all grace
of measured speech in me Derived? O glorious and far-guiding star! Now may the
love-led studious hours and long In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,
Master and Author mine of Light and Song, Befriend me now, who knew thy voice,
that few Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won Is thine of right, from
whom I learned. To thee, Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun No more
I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see The beast that turned me, nor faint hope
have I To force that passage if thine aid deny." He answered, "Would ye leave
this wild and live, Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies Shall no
man pass, except the path he tries Her craft entangle. No way fugitive Avoids
the seeking of her greeds, that give Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse
As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse Her craving. And the beasts with
which she breed The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require, Bare all the
desirable lands in which she feeds; Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings
tire Until she woos, in evil hour for her, The wolfhound that shall rend her.
His desire Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir Of her base heart; but
wisdoms, and devoirs Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer. The
Italian lowlands he shall reach and save, For which Camilla of old, the virgin
brave, Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase He shall not cease, nor any
cowering-place Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back, From city to
city exiled, from wrack to wrack Slain out of life, to find the native hell
Whence envy loosed her. For thyself were well To follow where I lead, and thou
shalt see The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe, The unending cries,
of those whose only plea Is judgment, that the second death to be Fall
quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go To those who burn, but in their pain
content With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high, Holier than opens to
such souls as I, The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one Worthier, and
she shall guide thee there, where none Who did the Lord of those fair realms
deny May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there Rules and pervades in
every part, and calls His chosen ever within the sacred walls. O happiest,
they!" I answered, "By that Go Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,
And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet I safety find, within the Sacred Gate
That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see Who look with longing for their
end to be." Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.
Canto II
THE day was
falling, and the darkening air Released earth's creatures from their toils,
while I, I only, faced the bitter road and bare My Master led. I only, must
defy The powers of pity, and the night to be. So thought I, but the things I
came to see, Which memory holds, could never thought forecast. O Muses high! O
Genius, first and last! Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine To meet
this need. For never theme as mine Strained vainly, where your loftiest
nobleness Must fail to be sufficient. First I said, Fearing, to him who
through the darkness led, "O poet, ere the arduous path ye press Too far, look
in me, if the worth there be To make this transit. &Aelig;neas once, I
know, Went down in life, and crossed the infernal sea; And if the Lord of All
Things Lost Below Allowed it, reason seems, to those who see The enduring
greatness of his destiny, Who in the Empyrean Heaven elect was called Sire of
the Eternal City, that throned and walled Made Empire of the world beyond, to
be The Holy Place at last, by God's decree, Where the great Peter's follower
rules. For he Learned there the causes of his victory. "And later to the third
great Heaven was caught The last Apostle, and thence returning brought The
proofs of our salvation. But, for me, I am not &Aelig;neas, nay, nor Paul,
to see Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show, And if this road
for no sure end I go What folly is mine? But any words are weak. Thy wisdom
further than the things I speak Can search the event that would be." Here I
stayed My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade That led me heard and turned,
magnanimous, And saw me drained of purpose halting thus, And answered, "If thy
coward-born thoughts be clear, And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,
Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy From shadows, surely that they
know not why Nor wherefore. . . Hearken, to confound thy fear, The things
which first I heard, and brought me here. One came where, in the Outer Place, I
dwell, Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, Radiant in light that
native round her clung, And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among (Eyes with
no earthly like but heaven's own blue), And called me to her in such voice as
few In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear, So toned and cadenced from
the Utmost Sphere, The Unattainable Heaven from which she came. 'O Mantuan
Spirit,' she said, 'whose lasting fame Continues on the earth ye left, and
still With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me, - My friend, not
fortune's - climbs a path so ill That all the night-bred fears he hastes to
flee Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale Moved through the peace of I
leaven, and swift I sped Downward, to aid my friend in love's avail, With
scanty time therefor, that half I dread Too late I came. But thou shalt haste,
and go With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so For me be consolation. Thou
shalt say, "I come from Beatric?." Downward far, From Heaven to I leaven I
sank, from star to star, To find thee, and to point his rescuing way. Fain
would I to my place of light return; Love moved me from it, and gave me power
to learn Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand I very oft shall praise
thee.' Here she ceased, And I gave answer to that dear command, 'Lady, alone
through whom the whole race of those The smallest Heaven the moon's short
orbits hold Excels in its creation, not thy least, Thy lightest wish in this
dark realm were told Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose To loose thee
from them, and thyself content Couldst thus continue in such strange descent
From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn, And while ye further left,
would fain return.' " 'That which thou wouldst,' she said, 'I briefly tell.
There is no fear nor any hurt in Hell, Except that it be powerful. God in me
Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see I share not, nor myself can shrink
to feel The flame of all this burning. One there is In height among the
Holiest placed, and she - Mercy her name - among God's mysteries Dwells in the
midst, and hath the power to see His judgments, and to break them. This sharp
I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so Leaned Lucia toward her while
she spake - and said, "One that is faithful to thy name is sped, Except that
now ye aid him." She thereat, - Lucia, to all men's wrongs inimical - Left her
High Place, and crossed to where I sat In speech with Rachel (of the first of
all God saved). "O Beatrice, Praise of God," - So said she to me - "sitt'st
thou here so slow To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so That all he
left to serve thee? Hear'st thou not The anguish of his plaint? and dost not
see, By that dark stream that never seeks a sea, The death that threats him?"
None, as thus she said, None ever was swift on earth his good to chase, None
ever on earth was swift to leave his dread, As came I downward from that sacred
place To find thee and invoke thee, confident Not vainly for his need the gold
were spent Of thy word-wisdom.' Here she turned away, Her bright eyes clouded
with their tears, and I, Who saw them, therefore made more haste to reach The
place she told, and found thee. Canst thou say I failed thy rescue? Is the
beast anigh From which ye quailed? When such dear saints beseech - Three from
the Highest - that Heaven thy course allow Why halt ye fearful? In such guards
as thou The faintest-hearted might be bold." As flowers, Close-folded through
the cold and lightless hours, Their bended stems erect, and opening fair
Accept the white light and the warmer air Of morning, so my fainting heart anew
Lifted, that heard his comfort. Swift I spake, "O courteous thou, and she
compassionate! Thy haste that saved me, and her warning true, Beyond my worth
exalt me. Thine I make My will. In concord of one mind from now, O Master and
my Guide, where leadest thou I follow." And we, with no more words' delay,
Went forward on that hard and dreadful way.
Canto III
THE gateway to the city
of Doom. Through me The entrance to the Everlasting Pain. The Gateway of the
Lost. The Eternal Three Justice impelled to build me. Here ye see Wisdom
Supreme at work, and Primal Power, And Love Supernal in their dawnless day.
Ere from their thought creation rose in flower Eternal first were all things
fixed as they. Of Increate Power infinite formed am I That deathless as
themselves I do not die. Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All
hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here. This scroll in gloom above the gate I
read, And found it fearful. "Master, hard," I said, "This saying to me." And
he, as one that long Was customed, answered, "No distrust must wrong Its
Maker, nor thy cowarder mood resume If here ye enter. This the place of doom I
told thee, where the lost in darkness dwell. Here, by themselves divorced from
light, they fell, And are as ye shall see them." Here he lent A hand to draw
me through the gate, and bent A glance upon my fear so confident That I, too
nearly to my former dread Returned, through all my heart was comforted, And
downward to the secret things we went. Downward to night, but not of moon and
cloud, Not night with all its stars, as night we know, But burdened with an
ocean-weight of woe The darkness closed us. Sighs, and wailings loud,
Outcries perpetual of recruited pain, Sounds of strange tongues, and angers
that remain Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd Of discords
pressed, that needs I wept to hear, First hearing. There, with reach of hands
anear, And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright, The tumult of the
everlasting night, As sand that dances in continual wind, Turns on itself for
ever. And I, my head Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned With
outcries round me, to my leader said, "Master, what hear I? Who so overborne
With woes are these?" He answered, "These be they That praiseless lived and
blameless. Now the scorn Of Height and Depth alike, abortions drear; Cast with
those abject angels whose delay To join rebellion, or their Lord defend,
Waiting their proved advantage, flung them here. - Chased forth from Heaven,
lest else its beauties end The pure perfection of their stainless claim,
Out-herded from the shining gate they came, Where the deep hells refused them,
lest the lost Boast something baser than themselves." And I, "Master, what
grievance hath their failure cost, That through the lamentable dark they cry?"
He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope
in death They have not. Memory of them on the earth Where once they lived
remains not. Nor the breath Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead, But all
alike disdain them. That they know Themselves so mean beneath aught else
constrains The envious outcries that too long ye heed. Move past, but speak
not." Then I looked, and lo, Were souls in ceaseless and unnumbered trains
That past me whirled unending, vainly led Nowhither, in useless and unpausing
haste. A fluttering ensign all their guide, they chased Themselves for ever. I
had not thought the dead, The whole world's dead, so many as these. I saw The
shadow of him elect to Peter's seat Who made the great refusal, and the law,
The unswerving law that left them this retreat To seal the abortion of their
lives, became Illumined to me, and themselves I knew, To God and all his foes
the futile crew How hateful in their everlasting shame. I saw these victims of
continued death - For lived they never - were naked all, and loud Around them
closed a never-ceasing cloud Of hornets and great wasps, that buzzed and clung,
- Weak pain for weaklings meet, - and where they stung, Blood from their faces
streamed, with sobbing breath, And all the ground beneath with tears and blood
Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud There were great worms that
drank it. Gladly thence I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood That
flowed before us. On the nearer shore Were people waiting. "Master, show me
whence These came, and who they be, and passing hence Where go they? Wherefore
wait they there content, - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er
The unbridged abyss?" He answered, "When we stand Together, waiting on the
joyless strand, In all it shall be told thee." If he meant Reproof I know not,
but with shame I bent My downward eyes, and no more spake until The bank we
reached, and on the stream beheld A bark ply toward us. Of exceeding eld, And
hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill, With horrid glee the while he
neared us, "Woe To ye, depraved! - Is here no Heaven, but ill The place where
I shall herd ye. Ice and fire And darkness are the wages of their hire Who
serve unceasing here - But thou that there Dost wait though live, depart ye.
Yea, forbear! A different passage and a lighter fare Is destined thine." But
here my guide replied, "Nay, Charon, cease; or to thy grief ye chide. It There
is willed, where that is willed shall be, That ye shall pass him to the further
side, Nor question more." The fleecy cheeks thereat, Blown with fierce speech
before, were drawn and flat, And his flame-circled eyes subdued, to hear That
mandate given. But those of whom he spake In bitter glee, with naked limbs
ashake, And chattering teeth received it. Seemed that then They first were
conscious where they came, and fear Abject and frightful shook them; curses
burst In clamorous discords forth; the race of men, Their parents, and their
God, the place, the time, Of their conceptions and their births, accursed
Alike they called, blaspheming Heaven. But yet Slow steps toward the waiting
bark they set, With terrible wailing while they moved. And so They came
reluctant to the shore of woe That waits for all who fear not God, and not
Them only. Then the demon Charon rose To herd them in, with eyes that
furnace-hot Glowed at the task, and lifted oar to smite Who lingered. As the
leaves, when autumn shows, One after one descending, leave the bough, Or doves
come downward to the call, so now The evil seed of Adam to endless night, As
Charon signalled, from the shore's bleak height, Cast themselves downward to
the bark. The brown And bitter flood received them, and while they passed Were
others gathering, patient as the last, Not conscious of their nearing doom.
"My son," - Replied my guide the unspoken thought - "is none Beneath God's
wrath who dies in field or town, Or earth's wide space, or whom the waters
drown, But here he cometh at last, and that so spurred By Justice, that his
fear, as those ye heard, Impels him forward like desire. Is not One spirit of
all to reach the fatal spot That God's love holdeth, and hence, if Char chide,
Ye well may take it. - Raise thy heart, for now, Constrained of Heaven, he
must thy course allow." Yet how I passed I know not. For the ground Trembled
that heard him, and a fearful sound Of issuing wind arose, and blood-red light
Broke from beneath our feet, and sense and sight Left me. The memory with cold
sweat once more Reminds me of the sudden-crimsoned night, As sank I senseless
by the dreadful shore.
Canto IV
ARISING thunder from the vast Abyss First
roused me, not as he that rested wakes From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury
shakes Untimely, and around I gazed to know The place of my confining. Deep,
profound, Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound, Sheer sank the
Valley of the Lost Abyss, Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood, And like
the winds of some unresting wood The gathered murmur from those depths of woe
Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this The unceasing sound comes ever. I
might not tell How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell, It was so
clouded and so dark no sight Could pierce it. "Downward through the worlds of
night We will descend together. I first, and thou My footsteps taking," spake
my guide, and I Gave answer, "Master, when thyself art pale, Fear-daunted,
shall my weaker heart avail That on thy strength was rested?" "Nay," said he,
"Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry So pales me. Come ye, for the path we
tread Is long, and time requires it." Here he led Through the first entrance
of the ringed abyss, Inward, and I went after, and the woe Softened behind us,
and around I heard Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word, But round us
sighs so many and deep there came That all the air was motioned. I beheld
Concourse of men and women and children there Countless. No pain was theirs of
cold or flame, But sadness only. And my Master said, "Art silent here? Before
ye further go Among them wondering, it is meet ye know They are not sinful,
nor the depths below Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness
Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed, Being born too soon, we did not pass
( for I, Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less Our doom is weighed, -
to feel of Heaven the need, To long, and to be hopeless." Grief was mine That
heard him, thinking what great names must be In this suspense around me.
"Master, tell," I questioned, "from this outer girth of Hell Pass any to the
blessed spheres exalt, Through other's merits or their own the fault.
Condoned?" And he, my covert speech that read, - For surance sought I of my
faith, - replied, "Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned
And garmented with conquest. Of the dead, He rescued from us him who earliest
died, Abel, and our first parent. Here He found, Abraham, obedient to the
Voice he heard; And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word; Isaac, and Israel
and his sons, and she, Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king; And
many beside unnumbered, whom he led Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be
Among the blest for ever. Until this thing I witnessed, none, of all the
countless dead, But hopeless through the somber gate he came." Now while he
spake he paused not, but pursued, Through the dense woods of thronging spirits,
his aim Straight onward, nor was long our path until Before us rose a widening
light, to fill One half of all the darkness, and I knew While yet some
distance, that such Shades were there As nobler moved than others, and
questioned, "Who, Master, are those that in their aspect bear Such difference
from the rest?" "All these," he said, "Were named so glorious in thy earth
above That Heaven allows their larger claim to be Select, as thus ye see
them." While he spake A voice rose near us: "Hail!" it cried, "for he
Returns, who was departed." Scarce it ceased When four great spirits
approached. They did not show Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though
Content in their dominion moved. My guide Before I questioned told, "That first
ye see, With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he Is Homer, sovereign of
the craft we tried, Leader and lord of even the following three, - Horace, and
Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard, That hailed me, caused them by one impulse
stirred Approach to do me honour, for these agree In that one name we boast,
and so do well Owning it in me." There was I joyed to meet Those shades, who
closest to his place belong, The eagle course of whose out-soaring song Is
lonely in height. Some space apart (to tell, It may be, something of myself ),
my guide Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet Me also, and my
Master smiled to see They made me sixth and equal. Side by side We paced
toward the widening light, and spake Such things as well were spoken there, and
here Were something less than silence. Strong and wide Before us rose a
castled height, beset With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable, And girdled
with a rivulet round, but yet We passed thereover, and the water clear As dry
land bore me; and the walls ahead Their seven strong gates made open one by
one, As each we neared, that where my Master led With ease I followed,
although without were none But deep that stream beyond their wading spread,
And closed those gates beyond their breach had been, Had they sought entry with
us. Of coolest green Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there,
Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair To accord with its containing. Grave,
austere, Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they That walked that
verdure. To a place aside Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here
Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey Of such great spirits as are my
glory and pride That once I saw them. There, direct in view, Electra passed,
among her sons. I knew Hector and &Aelig;neas there; and C?sar too Was of
them, armed and falcon-eyed; and there Camilla and Penthesilea. Near there sate
Lavinia, with her sire the Latian king; Brutus, who drave the Tarquin; and
Lucrece Julia, Cornelia, Marcia, and their kin; And, by himself apart, the
Saladin. Somewhat beyond I looked. A place more high Than where these heroes
moved I gazed, and knew The Master of reasoned thought, whose hand withdrew
The curtain of the intellect, and bared The secret things of nature; while
anigh, But lowlier, grouped the greatest names that shared His searchings. All
regard and all revere They gave him. Plato there, and Socrates I marked, who
closeliest reached his height; and near Democritus, who dreamed a world of
chance Born blindly in the whirl of circumstance; And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,
Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Zeno, were there; and Dioscorides Who searched
the healing powers of herbs and trees; And Orpheus, Tullius, Livius, Seneca,
Euclid and Ptolem?us; Avicenna, Galen, Hippocrates; Averrho?s, The Master's
great interpreter, - but these Are few to those I saw, an endless dream Of
shades before whom Hell quietened and cowered. My theme, With thronging
recollections of mighty names That there I marked impedes me. All too long
They chase me, envious that my burdened song Forgets. - But onward moves my
guide anew: The light behind us fades: the six are two: Again the shuddering
air, the cries of Hell Compassed, and where we walked the darkness fell.
Canto V
MOST like the spirals of a pointed shell, But separate each, go downward,
hell from hell, The ninefold circles of the damned; but each Smaller,
concentrate in its greater pain, Than that which overhangs it. Those who reach
The second whorl, on entering, learn their bane Where Minos, hideous, sits and
snarls. He hears, Decides, and as he girds himself they go. Before his seat
each ill-born spirit appear, And tells its tale of evil, loath or no, While
he, their judge, of all sins cognizant, Hears, and around himself his circling
tail Twists to the number of the depths below To which they doom themselves in
telling. Alway The crowding sinners: their turn they wait: they show Their
guilt: the circles of his tail convey Their doom: and downward they are whirled
away. "O thou who callest at this doleful inn," Cried Minos to me, while the
child of sin That stood confessing before him, trembling stayed, "Heed where
thou enterest in thy trust, nor say, I walk in safety, for the width of way
Suffices." But my guide the answer took, "Why dost thou cry? or leave thine
ordered trade For that which nought belongs thee? Hinder not His destined
path. For where he goeth is willed, Where that is willed prevaileth." Now was
filled The darker air with wailing. Wailing shook My soul to hear it. Where we
entered now No light attempted. Only sound arose, As ocean with the tortured
air contends, What time intolerable tempest rends The darkness; so the
shrieking winds oppose For ever, and bear they, as they swerve and sweep, The
doomed disastrous spirits, and whirl aloft, Backward, and down, nor any rest
allow, Nor pause of such contending wraths as oft Batter them against the
precipitous sides, and there The shrieks and moanings quench the screaming air,
The cries of their blaspheming. These are they That lust made sinful. As the
starlings rise At autumn, darkening all the colder skies, In crowded troops
their wings up-bear, so here These evil-doers on each contending blast Were
lifted upward, whirled, and downward cast, And swept around unceasing. Striving
airs Lift them, and hurl, nor ever hope is theirs Of rest or respite or
decreasing pains, But like the long streaks of the calling cranes So came they
wailing down the winds, to meet Upsweeping blasts that ever backward beat Or
sideward flung them on their walls. And I - "Master who are they next that
drive anigh So scourged amidst the blackness?" "These," he said, "So lashed
and harried, by that queen are led, Empress of alien tongues, Semiramis, Who
made her laws her lawless lusts to kiss, So was she broken by desire; and this
Who comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus, Love's fool, who broke her faith
to Sich?us, Dido; and bare of all her luxury, Nile's queen, who lost her realm
for Antony." And after these, amidst that windy train, Helen, who soaked in
blood the Trojan plain, And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet The same
net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed; And thousand other along the
fated road Whom love led deathward through disastrous things He pointed as
they passed, until my mind Was wildered in this heavy pass to find Ladies so
many, and cavaliers and kings Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said,
"Poet, those next that on the wind appear So light, and constant as they drive
or veer Are parted never, I fain would speak." And he, - "Conjure them by
their love, and thou shalt see Their flight come hither." And when the
swerving blast Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed, "O wearied
souls, come downward, if the Power That drives allow ye, for one restful hour."
As doves, desirous of their nest at night, Cleave through the dusk with swift
and open flight Of level-lifting wings, that love makes light, Will-borne, so
downward through the murky air Came those sad spirits, that not deep Hell's
despair Could sunder, parting from the faithless band That Dido led, and with
one voice, as though One soul controlled them, spake, "O Animate! Who comest
through the black malignant air, Benign among us who this exile bear For earth
ensanguined, if the King of All Heard those who from the outer darkness call
Entreat him would we for thy peace, that thou Hast pitied us condemned,
misfortunate. - Of that which please thee, if the winds allow, Gladly I tell.
Ravenna, on that shore Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew; And
there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart So quick to take dominion,
overthrew Him with my own fair body, and overbore Me with delight to please
him. Love, which gives No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me Was empired,
that its rule, as here ye see, Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives To
part us. Love to one death led us. The mode Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The
place of Cain Awaits our slayer." They ceased, and I my head Bowed down, and
made no answer, till my guide Questioned, "What wouldst thou more?" and
replied, "Alas my thought I what sweet keen longings led These spirits,
woeful, to their dark abode!" And then to them, - "Francesca, all thy pain Is
mine. With pity and grief I weep. But say How, in the time of sighing, and in
what way, Love gave you of the dubious deeds to know." And she to me, "There
is no greater woe In all Hell's depths than cometh when those who Look back to
Eden. But if thou wouldst learn Our love's first root, I can but weep and tell.
One day, and for delight in idleness, - Alone we were, without suspicion, -
We read together, and chanced the page to turn Where Galahad tells the tale of
Lancelot, How love constrained him. Oft our meeting eyes, Confessed the theme,
and conscious cheeks were hot, Reading, but only when that instant came Where
the surrendering lips were kissed, no less Desire beat in us, and whom, for all
this pain, No hell shall sever (so great at least our gain), Trembling, he
kissed my mouth, and all forgot, We read no more." As thus did one confess
Their happier days, the other wept, and I Grew faint with pity, and sank as
those who die.
Canto VI
THE misery of that sight of souls in Hell Condemned,
and constant in their loss, prevailed So greatly in me, that I may not tell
How passed I from them, sense and memory failed So far. But here new torments
I discern, And new tormented, wheresoe'er I turn. For sodden around me was the
place of bane, The third doomed circle, where the culprits know The cold,
unceasing, and relentless rain Pour down without mutation. Heavy with hail,
With turbid waters mixed, and cold with snow, It streams from out the darkness,
and below The soil is putrid, where the impious lie Grovelling, and howl like
dogs, beneath the flail That flattens to the foul soaked ground, and try
Vainly for ease by turning. And the while Above them roams and ravens the
loathsome hound Cerberus, and feeds upon them. The swampy ground He ranges;
with his long clawed hands he grips The sinners, and the fierce and hairy lips
(Thrice-headed is he) tear, and the red blood drips From all his jaws. He
clutches, and flays, and rends, And treads them, growling: and the flood
descends Straight downward. When he saw us, the loathly worm Showed all his
fangs, and eager trembling frame Nerved for the leap. But undeterred my guide.
Stooped down, and gathered in full hands the soil, And cast it in the gaping
gullets, to foil Gluttonous blind greed, and those fierce mouths and wide
Closed on the filth, and as the craving cur Quietens, that strained and howled
to reach his food, Biting the bone, those squalid mouths subdued And silenced,
wont above the empty dead To bark insatiate, while they tore unfed The
writhing shadows. The straight persistent rain, That altered never, had
pressed the miry plain With flattened shades that in their emptiness Still
showed as bodies. We might not here progress Except we trod them. Of them all,
but one Made motion as we passed. Against the rain Rising, and resting on one
hand, he said, "O thou, who through the drenching murk art led, Recall me if
thou canst. Thou wast begun Before I ended." I, who looked in vain For human
semblance in that bestial shade, Made answer, "Misery here hath all unmade, It
may be, that thou wast on earth, for nought Recalls thee to me. But thyself
shalt tell The sins that scourged thee to this foul resort, That more
displeasing not the scope of Hell Can likely yield, though greater pains may
lie More deep." And he to me, "Thy city, so high With envious hates that
swells, that now the sack Bursts, and pours out in ruin, and spreads its wrack
Far outward, was mine alike, while clearer air Still breathed I. Citizens who
knew me there Called me Ciacco. For the vice I fed At rich men's tables, in
this filth I lie Drenched, beaten, hungered, cold, uncomforted, Mauled by that
ravening greed; and these, as I, With gluttonous lives the like reward have
won." I answered, "Piteous is thy state to one Who knew thee in thine old
repute, but say, If yet persists thy previous mind, which way The feuds of our
rent city shall end, and why These factions vex us, and if still there be One
just man left among us." "Two," said he, "Are just, but none regards them. Yet
more high The strife, till bloodshed from their long contend Shall issue at
last: the barbarous Cerchi clan Cast the Donati exiled out, and they Within
three years return, and more offend Than they were erst offended, helped by him
So long who palters with both parts. The fire Three sparks have lighted -
Avarice, Envy, Pride, - And there is none may quench it." Here he ceased His
lamentable tale, and I replied, "Of one thing more I ask thee. Great desire Is
mine to learn it. Where are those who sought Our welfare earlier? Those whose
names at least Are fragrant for the public good they wrought, Arrigo, Mosca,
and the Tegghiaio Worthiest, and Farinata, and with these Jacopo Rusticucci. I
would know If soft in Heaven or bitter-hard in Hell Their lives continue."
"Cast in hells more low Than yet thou hast invaded, deep they lie, For
different crimes from ours, and shouldst thou go So far, thou well mayst see
them. If thou tread Again the sweet light land, and overhead Converse with
those I knew there, then recall, I pray, my memory to my friends of yore. But
ask no further, for I speak no more." Thereon his eyes, that straight had gazed
before Squinted and failed, and slowly sank his head, And blindly with his
sodden mates he lay. And spake my guide, "He shall not lift nor stir, Until
the trumpet shrills that wakens Hell; And these, who must inimical Power obey,
Shall each return to his sad grave, and there In carnal form the sinful spirit
shall dwell Once more, and that time only, from the tomb Rising to hear the
irrevocable doom Which shall reverberate through eternity." So paced we slowly
through the rain that fell Unchanging, over that foul ground, and trod The
dismal spirits it held, and somewhat spake Of life beyond us, and the things of
God; And asked I, "Master, shall these torments cease, Continue as they are,
or more increase, When calls the trumpet, and the graves shall break, And the
great Sentence sound?" And he to me, "Recall thy learning, as thou canst. We
know With more perfection, greater pain or bliss Resolves, and though
perfection may not be To these accurs'd, yet nearer then than this It may be
they shall reach it." More to show He sought, as turned we to the fresh
descent, But speaking all in such strange words as went Past me. - But ceased
our downward path, and Plutus, of human weal the hateful foe.
Canto VII
HAH,
strange! ho, Satan!" such the sounds half-heard The thick voice gobbled, the
while the foul, inflamed, Distended visage toward us turned, and cast
Invective from its bestial throat, that slurred Articulate speech. But here the
gentle sage, Who knew beforehand that we faced, to me Spake first, "Regard
not; for a threat misaimed Falls idle. Fear not to continue past. His power to
us, however else it be, Is not to hinder." Then, that bulk inflate
Confronting, - "Peace, thou greed! thy lusting rage Consume thee inward! Not
thy word we wait The path to open. It is willed on high, - There, where the
Angel of the Sword ye know Took ruin upon the proud adultery Of him thou
callest as thy prince." Thereat As sails, wind-rounded, when the mast gives
way, Sink tangled to the deck, deflated so Collapsed that bulk that heard him,
shrunk and flat; And we went downward till before us lay The fourth sad
circle. Ah! what woes contain, Justice of God! what woes those narrowing deeps
Contain; for all the universe down-heaps In this pressed space its continent of
pain, So voiding all that mars its peace. But why This guilt that so degrades
us? As the surge Above Charybdis meets contending surge, Breaks and is
broken, and rages and recoils For ever, so here the sinners. More numerous
Than in the circles past are these. They urge Huge weights before them. On,
with straining breasts, They roll them, howling in their ceaseless toils. And
those that to the further side belong l)o likewise, meeting in the midst, and
thus Crash vainly, and recoil, reverse, and cry, "Why dost thou hold?" "Why
dost thou loose?" No rest Their doom permits them. Backward course they bend;
Continual crescents trace, at either end Meeting again in fresh rebound, and
high Above their travail reproachful howlings rise Incessant at those who
thwart their round. And I, Who felt my heart stung through with anguish, said,
"O Master, show me who these peoples be, And if those tonsured shades that
left we see Held priestly office ere they joined the dead." He answered,
"These, who with such squinting eyes Regarded God's providing, that they spent
In waste immoderate, indicate their guilt In those loud barkings that ye hear.
They spilt Their wealth distemperate; and those they meet Who cry 'Why loose
ye?' avarice ruled: they bent Their minds on earth to seize and hoard. Of these
Hairless, are priests, and popes, and cardinals, For greed makes empire in
such hearts complete." And I, "Among them that these vices eat Are none that I
have known on earth before?" He answered, "Vainly wouldst thou seek; a life So
blind to bounties has obscured too far The souls once theirs, for that which
once they wore Of mortal likeness in their shades to show. Waste was their
choice, and this abortive strife And toil unmeaning is the end they are They
butt for ever, until the last award Shall call them from their graves.
Ill-holding those Ill-loosing these, alike have doomed to know This darkness,
and the fairer world forgo. Behold what mockery doth their fate afford! It
needs no fineness of spun words to tell. For this they did their subtle wits
oppose, Contending for the gifts that Fortune straws So blindly, - for this
blind contending hell. "Beneath the moon there is not gold so great In worth,
it could one moment's grief abate, Or rest one only of these weary souls."
"Master, this Fortune that ye speak, whose claws Grasp all desirable things of
earth," I said, "What is she?" "O betrayed in foolishness I Blindness of
creatures born of earth, whose goals Are folly and loss!" he answered, "I would
make Thy mouth an opening for this truth I show. "Transcendent Wisdom, when
the spheres He built Gave each a guide to rule it: more nor less Their light
distributes. For the earth he gave Like guide to rule its splendours. As we
know The heavenly lights move round us, and is spilt Light here, and darkness
yonder, so doth she From man to man, from race and kindred take Alternate
wealth, or yield it. None may save The spoil that she depriveth: none may flee
The bounty that she wills. No human wits May hinder, nor may human lore reject
Her choice, that like a hidden snake is set To reach the feet unheeding. Where
she sits In judgment, she resolves, and whom she wills Is havened, chased by
petulant storms, or wreck ' Remedeless. Races cease, and men forget They were.
Slaves rise to rule their lords. She And empties, godlike in her mood. No pause
Her changes leave, so many are those who call About her gates, so many she
dowers, and all Revile her after, and would crucify If words could reach her,
but she heeds nor hears, Who dwells beyond the noise of human laws In the
blest silence of the Primal Spheres. - But let us to the greater woes descend.
The stars from their meridian fall, that rose When first these hells we
entered. Long to stay Our right of path allows not." While he spake We
crossed the circle to the bank beyond, And found a hot spring boiling, and a
way, Dark, narrow, and steep, that down beside it goes, By which we clambered.
Purple-black the pond Beneath it, widening to a marsh that spreads Far out,
and struggling in that slime malign Were muddied shades, that not with hands,
heads, And teeth and feet besides, contending tore, And maimed each other in
beast-like rage. My guide Expounded, "Those whom anger overbore On earth,
behold ye. Mark the further sign Of bubbles countless on the slime that show.
These from the sobs of those immersed arise; For buried in the choking filth
they cry, We once were sullen in the rain-sweet air, When waked the light, and
all the earth was fair, How sullen in the murky swamp we lie Forbidden from
the blessed light on high. This song they gurgle in their throats, that so The
bubbles rising from the depths below Break all the surface of the slime."
Between The high bank and the putrid swamp was seen A narrow path, and this, a
sweeping arc, We traversed; outward o'er the surface dark Still gazing, at the
choking shades who took That diet for their wrath. Till livelier look Was
forward drawn, for where at last we came A great tower fronted, and a beacon's
flame.
Canto VIII
I SAY, while yet from that tower's base afar, We saw two
flames of sudden signal rise, And further, like a small and distant star, A
beacon answered. "What before us lies? Who signals our approach, and who
replies?" I asked, and answered he who all things knew, "Already, if the
swamp's dank fumes permit, The outcome of their beacon shows in view, Severing
the liquid filth." No shaft can slit Impalpable air, from any corded bow, As
came that craft towards us, cleaving so, And with incredible speed, the miry
wave. To where we paused its meteor course it clave, A steersman rising in the
stern, who cried, "Behold thy doom, lost spirit!" To whom my guide, "Nay,
Phlegyas, Phlegyas, here thy cries are We need thine aid the further shore to
gain; But power thou hast not." One amazed to meet With most unlooked and
undeserved deceit So rages inly; yet no dared reply There came, as down my
Leader stept, and I Deepened the skiff with earthly weight undue, Which while
we seated swung its bows anew Outward, and onward once again it flew,
Labouring more deep than wont, and slowlier now, So burdened. While that
kennel of filth we clave, There rose among the bubbles a mud-soaked head. "Who
art thou, here before thy time?" it said, And answer to the unfeatured mask I
gave, "I come, but stay not. Who art thou, so blind And blackened from the
likeness of thy kind?" "I have no name, but only tears," said he. I answered,
"Nay, however caked thou be, I know thee through the muddied drench. For thee
Be weeping ever, accursed spirit." At that, He reached his hands to grasp the
boat, whereat My watchful Master thrust him down, and cried, "Away, among the
dogs, thy fellows!" and then To me with approbation, "Blest art thou, Who
wouldst not pity in thy heart allow For these, in arrogance of empty pride Who
lived so vainly. In the minds of men Is no good thing of this one left to tell,
And hence his rage. How many above that dwell, Now kinglike in their ways, at
last shall lie Wallowing in these wide marshes, swine in sty, With all men's
scorn to chase them down." And I, "Master, it were a seemly thing to see This
boaster trampled in the putrid sea, Who dared approach us, knowing of all we
know." He answered, "Well thy wish, and surely so It shall be, e'er the
distant shore we view." And I looked outward through the gloom, and lo! The
envious eaters of that dirt combined Against him, leapt upon him, before,
behind, Dragged in their fury, and rent, and tore him through, Screaming
derisive, "Philip! whose horse-hooves shine With silver," and the rageful
Florentine Turned on himself his gnashing teeth and tore. But he deserveth,
and I speak, no more. Now, as we neared the further beach, I heard The
lamentable and unceasing wail By which the air of all the hells is stirred
Increasing ever, which caused mine eyes unveil Their keenest vision to search
what came, and he Who marked, indulgent, told. "Ahead we see The city of Dis,
with all its dolorous crew, Numerous, and burdened with reliefless pain, And
guilt intolerable to think." I said, "Master, already through the night I view
The mosques of that sad city, that fiery red As heated metal extend, and crowd
the plain." He answered, "These the eternal fire contain, That pulsing through
them sets their domes aglow." At this we came those joyless walls below, - Of
iron I thought them, - with a circling moat; But saw no entrance, and the
burdened boat Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before The steersman
warned us. "Get ye forth. The shore Is here, - and there the Entrance." There,
indeed, The entrance. On the barred and burning gate I gazed; a thousand of
the fiends that rained From Heaven, to fill that place disconsolate, Looked
downward, and derided. "Who," they said, "Before his time comes hither? As
though the dead Arrive too slowly for the joys they would," And laughter
rocked along their walls. My guide Their mockery with an equal mien withstood,
Signalling their leaders he would speak aside, And somewhat closing their
contempt they cried, "Then come thou hither, and let him backward go, Who came
so rashly. Let him find his way Through the five hells ye traversed, the best
he may. He can but try it awhile! - But thou shalt stay, And learn the welcome
of these halls of woe." Ye well may think how I, discomforted By these
accursed words, was moved. The dead, Nay, nor the living were ever placed as I,
If this fiends' counsel triumphed. And who should try That backward path
unaided? "Lord," I said, "Loved Master, who hast shared my steps so far, And
rescued ever, if these our path would bar, Then lead me backward in most haste,
nor let Their malice part us." He with cheerful mien, Gave answer. "Heed not
that they boast. Forget The fear thou showest, and in good heart abide, While
I go forward. Not these fiends obscene Shall thwart the mandate that the Power
supplied By which we came, nor any force to do The things they threaten is
theirs; nor think that I Should leave thee helpless here." The gentle Sage At
this went forward. Feared I? Half I knew Despair, and half contentment. Yes and
no Denied each other; and of so great a woe Small doubt is anguish. In their
orgulous rage The fiends out-crowded from the gates to meet My Master; what he
spake I could not hear; But nothing his words availed to cool their heat, For
inward thronged they with a jostling rear That clanged the gates before he
reached, and he Turned backward slowly, muttering, "Who to me Denies the
woeful houses?" This he said Sighing, with downcast aspect and disturbed
Beyond concealment; yet some length he curbed His anxious thought to cheer me.
"Doubt ye nought Of power to hurt in these fiends insolent; For once the wider
gate on which ye read The words of doom, with greater pride, they sought To
close against the Highest. Already is bent A great One hereward, whose
unhindered way Descends the steeps unaided. He shall say Such words as must
the trembling hells obey."
Canto IX
I THINK the paleness of the fear I showed
When he, rejected from that conference, Rejoined me, caused him speak more
confident Than felt he inly. For the glance he sent Through the dense darkness
of the backward road Denied the valour of his words' pretence; And pausing
there with anxious listening mien, While came no sound, nor any help was seen,
He muttered, "Yet we must this conflict win, For else - But whom her aid has
pledged herein - How long before he cometh!" And plain I knew His words turned
sideward from the ending due They first portended. Faster beat my fear,
Methinks, than had he framed in words more clear The meaning that his care
withheld. I said, "Do others of the hopeless, sinless, dead, Who with thee in
the outmost circle dwell, Come ever downward to the narrowing hell That now we
traverse?" "Once Erichtho fell," He answered, "conjured to such end that I, -
Who then short time had passed to those who die, - Came here, controlled by her
discerning spell, And entered through these hostile gates, and drew A spirit
from the darkest, deepest pit, The place of Judas named, that centres Hell.
The path I learnt, and all its dangers well. Content thine heart. This
foul-stretched marsh surrounds The dolorous city to its furthest bounds.
Without, the dense mirk, and the bubbling mire: Within, the white-hot pulse of
eating fire, Whence this fiend-anger thwarts. . .," and more he said, To save
me doubtless from my thoughts, but I Heeded no more, for by the beacons red
That on the lofty tower before us glowed, Three bloodstained and infernal
furies showed, Erect, of female form in guise and limb, But clothed in coils
of hydras green and grim; And with cerastes bound was every head, And for its
crown of hair was serpented; And he, who followed my diverted gaze, The
handmaids of the Queen of Woeful Days Well knowing, told me, "These the Furies
three. Meg?ra leftward: on the right is she Alecto, wailing: and Tisiphone
Midmost." These hateful, in their need of prey, Tore their own breasts with
bloodied claws, and when They saw me, from the living world of men, Beneath
them standing, with one purpose they Cried, and so loudly that I shrank for
fear, "Medusa! let her from her place appear, To change him into stone! Our
first default That venged no wrath on Theseus' deep assault, So brings him."
"Turn thou from their sight," my guide Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied,
But placed his hands across mine eyes the while He told me further "Risk no
glance. The sight Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night From which
were no returning." Ye that read With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed The
hidden meaning of the truth that lies Beneath the shadow-words of mysteries
That here I show ye. While I turned away, Across the blackness of the putrid
bay, There crashed a thunder of most fearful sound, At which the opposing
shores, from bound to bound, Trembled. As when an entering tempest rends The
brooding heat, and nought its course can stay, That through the forest its
dividing way Tears open, and tramples down, and strips, and bends, And levels.
The wild things in the woods that be Cower down. The herdsmen from its trumpets
flee. With clouds of dust to trace its course it goes, Superb, and leaving
ruin. Such sound arose. And he that held me loosened mine eyes, and said,
"Look back, and see what foam the black waves bear." As frogs, the while the
serpent picks his prey, In panic scatter through the stream, and there Flatten
themselves upon its bouldered bed, I saw a thousand ruined spirits that fled
Before the coming of One who held his way Dry-shod across the water. His left
hand He waved before him, and the stagnant air Retreated. Simple it were to
understand A Messenger of Heaven he came. My guide Signed me to silence, and
to reverence due, While to one stroke of his indignant wand The gate swung
open. "Outcast spawn!" he cried, His voice heard vibrant through the aperture
grim, "Why spurn ye at the Will that, once defied, Here cast ye grovelling?
Have ye felt from Him Aught ever for fresh revolt but harder pains? Has
Cerberus' throat, skinned with the threefold chains, No meaning? Why, to fate
most impotent, Contend ye vainly?" Then he turned and went, Nor one glance
gave us, but he seemed as one Whom larger issue than the instant done Engages
wholly. By that Power compelled, The gates stood open, and our course we held
Unhindered. As the threshold dread we crossed, My eager glances swept the scene
to know, In those doomed walls imprisoned, how lived the lost. On either hand
a wide plain stretched, to show A sight of torment, and most dismal woe. At
Arles, where the stagnant Rhone extends, Or Pola, where the gulf Quarnero
bends, As with old tombs the plains are ridged, so here, All sides, did rows
of countless tombs appear, But in more bitter a guise, for everywhere Shone
flames, that moved among them. Every tomb Stood open, white with heat. No
craft requires More heated metal than the crawling fires Made hot the sides of
those sad sepulchres; And cries of torture and most dire despair Came from
them, as the spirits wailed their doom. I said, "Who are they, in these chests
that lie Confined, and join in this lamenting cry?" My Master answered, "These
in life denied The faith that saves, and that resisting pride Here brought
them. With their followers, like to like, Assorted are they, and the keen
flames strike With differing anguish, to the same degree They reached in their
rebellion." While he spake Rightward he turned, a narrow path to take Between
them and that high-walled boundary.
Canto X
FIRST went my Master, for the
space was small Between the torments and the lofty wall, And I behind him. "O
controlling Will," I spake, "who leadest through such hates, and still
Prevailest for me, wilt thou speak, that who Within these tombs are held mine
eyes may see? For lifted are they, and unwatched." And he, - "The lids stand
open till the time arrive When to the valley of Jehoshaphat They each must
wend, and earthly flesh resume, And back returning, as the swarming hive, From
condemnation, each the doleful tomb Re-enter wailing, and the lids thereat Be
bolted. Here in fitting torment lie The Epicurean horde, who dared deny That
soul outlasts its mortal home. Is here Their leader, and his followers round
him. Soon Shall all thy wish be granted, - and the boon Ye hold in secret."
"Kind my guide," I said, "I was not silent to conceal, but thou Didst teach,
when in thy written words I read, That in brief speech is wisdom." Here a
voice Behind me, "Tuscan, who canst walk at choice Untouched amidst the
torments, wilt thou stay? For surely native of the noble land Where once I
held my too-audacious way, Discreet of speech, thou comest." The sudden cry
So close behind me from the chests that came, First drove me closer to my
guide, but he, - "What dost thou? Turn thee!" - and a kindly hand Impelled me,
fearful, where the crawling flame Was all around me, - "Lift thine eyes and
see, For there is Farinata. Be thou short In speech, for time is failing."
Scorn of hell Was in the eyes that met me. Hard he wrought To raise himself,
till girdle-deep I knew The greatest of the fierce Uberti crew, Who asked me,
with contempt near-waiting, "Tell Of whom thou art descended?" I replied,
Concealing nothing. With lifted brows he eyed My face in silence some brief
while, and then, - "Foes were they ever to my part, and me. It yet must linger
in the minds of men How twice I broke them." "Twice ye learned them flee," -
I answered boldly, - "but they twice returned; And others fled more late who
have not learned The mode of that returning." Here a shade Arose beside him,
only to the chin Revealed: I think it knelt. Beyond and round It rather looked
than at me. Nought it found. Thereat it wept, and asked me, "Ye that go
Unhindered through these homes of gateless woe, - Is my son with thee? Hast
thou nought to tell?" I answered, "Single through the gates of hell