Array Dante Alighieri - Harvard Classics Volume 20

Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn’d, and changed

To ashes all, pour’d out upon the earth.

When there dissolved he lay, the dust again

Uproll’d spontaneous, and the self-same form

Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell,

The Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years

Have well-nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith

Renascent: blade nor herb throughout his life

He tastes, but tears of frankincense alone

And odorous amomum: swaths of nard

And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,

He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg’d

To earth, or through obstruction fettering up

In chains invisible the powers of man,

Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around,

Bewilder’d with the monstrous agony

He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs;

So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.

Oh! how severe God’s judgment, that deals out

Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was,

My teacher next inquired; and thus in few

He answer’d: “Vanni Fucci [161]am I call’d,

Not long since rained down from Tuscany

To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life

And not the human pleased, mule that I was,

Who in Pistoia found my worthy den.”

I then to Virgil: “Bid him stir not hence;

And ask what crime did thrust him thither: once

A man I knew him, choleric and bloody.”

The sinner heard and feign’d not, but toward me

His mind directing and his face, wherein

Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake:

“It grieves me more to have been caught by thee

In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than

When I was taken from the other life.

I have no power permitted to deny

What thou inquirest. I am doom’d thus low

To dwell, for that the sacristy by me

Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,

And with the guilt another falsely charged.

But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,

So as thou e’er shalt ’scape this darksome realm,

Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.

Reft of the Neri first Pistoia [162]pines;

Then Florence [163]changeth citizens and laws;

From Valdimagra, [164]drawn by wrathful Mars,

A vapor rises, wrapt in turbid mists,

And sharp and eager driveth on the storm

With Arrowy hurtling o’er Piceno’s field,

Whence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike

Each helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground.

This have I told, that grief may rend thy heart.”

Argument.—The sacrilegious Fucci vents his fury in blasphemy, is seized by serpents, and flying is pursued by Cacus in the form of a Centaur, who is described with a swarm of serpents on his haunch, and a dragon on his shoulders breathing forth fire. Our Poet then meets with the spirits of three of his countrymen, two of whom undergo a marvelous transformation in his presence.

When he had spoke, the sinner raised his hands [165]

Pointed in mockery and cried” “Take them, God!

I level them at thee.” From that day forth

The serpents were my friends; for round his neck

One of them rolling twisted, as it said,

“Be silent, tongue!” Another, to his arms

Upgliding, tied them, riveting itself

So close, it took from them the power to move.

Pistoia! ah, Pistoia! why dost doubt

To turn thee into ashes, cumbering earth

No longer, since in evil act so far

Thou hast outdone thy seed? I did not mark,

Through all the gloomy circles of the abyss,

Spirit, that swell’d so proudly ’gainst his God;

Not him, [166]who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled,

Nor utter’d more; and after him there came

A Centaur full of fury, shouting, “Where,

Where is the caitiff?” On Maremma’s marsh [167]

Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch

They swarm’d, to where the human face begins.

Behind his head, upon the shoulders, lay

With open wings a dragon, breathing fire

On whomsoe’er he met. To me my guide:

“Cacus is this, who underneath the rock

Of Aventine spread oft a lake of blood.

He, from his brethren parted, here must tread

A different journey, for his fraudful theft

Of the great herd that near him stall’d; whence found

His felon deeds their end, beneath the mace

Of stout Alcides, that perchance laid on

A hundred blows, and not the tenth was felt.”

While yet he spake, the Centaur sped away:

And under us three spirits came, of whom

Nor I nor he was ware, till they exclaim’d,

“Say who are ye!” We then brake off discourse,

Intent on these alone. I knew them not:

But, as it chanceth oft, befell that one

Had need to name another. “Where,” said he,

“Doth Cianfa [168]lurk?” I, for a sign my guide

Should stand attentive, placed against my lips

The finger lifted. If, O reader! now

Thou be not apt to credit what I tell,

No marvel; for myself do scarce allow

The witness of mine eyes. But as I look’d

Toward them, lo! a serpent with six feet

Springs forth on one, and fastens full upon him:

His midmost grasp’d the belly, a forefoot

Seized on each arm (while deep in either cheek

He flesh’d his fangs); the hinder on the thighs

Were spread, ’twixt which the tail inserted curl’d

Upon the reins behind. Ivy ne’er clasp’d

A dodder’d oak, as round the other’s limbs

The hideous monster intertwined his own.

Then, as they both had been of burning wax,

Each melted into other, mingling hues,

That which was either now was seen no more.

Thus up the shrinking paper, ere it burns,

A brown tint glides, not turning yet to black,

And the clean white expires. The other two

Look’d on exclaiming, “Ah! how dost thou change,

Agnello! [169]See! Thou art nor double now,

Nor only one.” The two heads now became

One, and two figures blended in one form

Appear’d, where both were lost. Of the four lengths

Two arms were made: the belly and the chest,

The thighs and legs, into such members changed

As never eye hath seen. Of former shape

All trace was vanish’d. Two, yet neither, seem’d

That image miscreate, and so pass’d on

With tardy steps. As underneath the scourge

Of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields,

Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems

A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road;

So toward the entrails of the other two

Approaching seem’d an adder all on fire,

As the dark pepper-grain livid and swart.

In that part, whence our life is nourish’d first,

Once he transpierced; then down before him fell

Stretch’d out. The pierced spirit look’d on him,

But spake not; yea, stood motionless and yawn’d,

As if by sleep or feverous fit assail’d.

He eyed the serpent, and the serpent him.

One from the wound, the other from the mouth

Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapory columns join’d.

Lucan in mute attention now may hear,

Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus, tell,

Nor thine, Nasidius. Ovid now be mute.

What if in warbling fiction he record

Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake

Him changed, and her into a fountain clear,

I envy not; for never face to face

Two natures thus transmuted did he sing,

Wherein both shapes were ready to assume

The other’s substance. They in mutual guise

So answer’d that the serpent split his train

Divided to a fork, and the pierced spirit

Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs

Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon

Was visible: the tail, disparted, took