Array Dante Alighieri - Harvard Classics Volume 20

Nor from his side my leader set me down,

Till to his orifice he brought, whose limb

Quivering express’d his pang. “Whoe’er thou art,

Sad spirit! thus reversed, and as a stake

Driven in the soil,”—I in these words began;

“If thou be able, utter forth thy voice.”

There stood I like the friar, that doth shrive

A wretch for murder doom’d, who, e’en when fix’d,

Calleth him back, whence death awhile delays.

He shouted: “Ha! already standest there?

Already standest there, O Boniface! [129]

By many a year the writing play’d me false.

So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,

For which thou fearedst not in guile to take

The lovely lady, and then mangle her?”

I felt as those who, piercing not the drift

Of answer made them, stand as if exposed

In mockery, nor know what to reply;

When Virgil thus admonish’d: “Tell him quick,

‘I am not he, not he whom thou believest.’”

And I, as was enjoin’d me, straight replied.

That heard, the spirit all did wrench his feet,

And, sighing, next in woeful accent spake:

“What then of me requirest? If to know

So much imports thee, who I am, that thou

Hast therefore down the bank descended, learn

That in the mighty mantle I was robed, [130]

And of a she-bear was indeed the son,

So eager to advance my whelps, that there

My having in my purse above I stow’d,

And here myself. Under my head are dragg’d

The rest, my predecessors in the guilt

Of simony. Stretch’d at their length, they lie

Along an opening in the rock. ’Midst them

I also low shall fall, soon as he comes,

For whom I took thee, when so hastily

I question’d. But already longer time

Hath past, since my soles kindled, and I thus

Upturn’d have stood, than is his doom to stand

Planted with fiery feet. For after him,

One yet of deeds more ugly shall arrive,

From forth the west, a shepherd without law, [131]

Fated a cover both his form and mine.

He a new Jason [132]shall be call’d, of whom

In Maccabees we read; and favor such

As to that priest his King indulgent show’d,

Shall be of France’s monarch [133]shown to him.”

I know not if I here too far presumed,

But in this strain I answer’d: “Tell me now

What treasures from Saint Peter at the first

Our Lord demanded, when he put the keys

Into his charge? Surely he ask’d no more

But ‘Follow me!’ Nor Peter, [134]nor the rest,

Or gold or silver of Matthias took,

When lots were cast upon the forfeit place

Of the condemned soul. [135]Abide thou then;

Thy punishment of right is merited:

And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin,

Which against Charles [136]thy hardihood inspired.

If reverence of the keys restrain’d me not,

Which thou in happier time didst hold, I yet

Severer speech might use. Your avarice

O’ercasts the world with mourning, under foot

Treading the good, and raising bad men up.

Of shepherds like to you, the Evangelist

Was ware, when her, who sits upon the waves,

With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld;

She who with seven heads tower’d at her birth,

And from ten horns her proof of glory drew,

Long as her spouse in virtue took delight.

Of gold and silver ye have made your god,

Differing wherein from the idolater,

But that he worships one, a hundred ye?

Ah, Constantine! [137]to how much ill gave birth,

Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower,

Which the first wealthy Father gain’d from thee.”

Meanwhile, as thus I sung, he, whether wrath

Or conscience smote him, violent upsprang

Spinning on either sole. I do believe

My teacher well was pleased, with so composed

A lip he listen’d ever to the sound

Of the true words I utter’d. In both arms

He caught, and, to his bosom lifting me,

Upward retraced the way of his descent.

Nor weary of his weight, he press’d me close,

Till to the summit of the rock we came,

Our passage from the fourth to the fifth pier.

His cherish’d burden there gently he placed

Upon the rugged rock and steep, a path

Not easy for the clambering goat to mount.

Thence to my view another vale appear’d.

Argument.—The Poet relates the punishment of such as presumed, while living, to predict future events. It is to have their faces reversed and set the contrary way on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before them, they are constrained ever to walk backward. Among these Virgil points out to him Amphiaraüs, Tiresias, Aruns, and Manto (from the mention of whom he takes occasion to speak of the origin of Mantua), together with several others, who had practised the arts of divination and astrology.

And now the verse proceeds to torments new,

Fit argument of this the twentieth strain

Of the first song, whose awful theme records

The spirits whelm’d in woe. Earnest I look’d

Into the depth, that open’d to my view,

Moisten’d with tears of anguish, and beheld

A tribe, that came along the hollow vale,

In silence weeping: such their step as walk

Quires, chanting solemn litanies, on earth.

As on them more direct mine eye descends,

Each wonderously seem’d to be reversed

At the neck-bone, so that the countenance

Was from the reins averted; and because

None might before him look, they were compell’d

To advance with backward gait. Thus one perhaps

Hath been by force of palsy clean transposed,

But I ne’er saw it nor believe it so.

Now, reader! think within thyself, so God

Fruit of thy reading give thee! how I long

Could keep my visage dry, when I beheld

Near me our form distorted in such guise,

That on the hinder parts fallen from the face

The tears down-streaming roll’d. Against a rock

I leant and wept, so that my guide exclaim’d:

“What, and art thou, too, witless as the rest?

Here pity most doth show herself alive,

When she is dead. What guilt exceedeth his,

Who with Heaven’s judgment in his passion strives?

Raise up thy head, raise up, and see the man

Before whose eyes [138]earth gaped in Thebes, when all

Cried out ‘Amphiaraüs, whither rushest?

Why leavest thou the war?’ He not the less

Fell ruining far as to Minos down,

Whose grapple none eludes. Lo! how he makes

The breast his shoulders; and who once too far

Before him wish’d to see, now backward looks,

And treads reverse his path. Tiresias note,

Who semblance changed, when woman he became

Of male, through every limb transform’d; and then

Once more behoved him with his rod to strike

The two entwining serpents, ere the plumes,

That mark’d the better sex, might shoot again.

“Aruns, [139]with rere his belly facing, comes.

Luni’s mountains ’midst the marbles white,

Where delves Carrara’s hind, who wons beneath,

A cavern was his dwelling, whence the stars

And main-sea whide in boundless view he held.

“The next, whose loosen’d tresses overspread

Her bosom, which thou seest not (for each hair

On that side grows) was Manto, she who search’d

Through many regions, and at length her seat

Fix’d in my native land: whence a short space

My words detain thy audience. When her sire

From life departed, and in servitude

The city dedicate to Bacchus mourn’d,

Long time she went a wanderer through the world.

Aloft in Italy’s delightful land