Array Dante Alighieri - Harvard Classics Volume 20

The figure which the spirit lost; its skin

Softening, his indurated to a rind.

The shoulders next I mark’d, that entering join’d

The monster’s arm-pits, whose two shorter feet

So lengthen’d, as the others dwindling shrunk.

The feet behind then twisting up became

That part that man conceals, which in the wretch

Was cleft in twain. While both the shadowy smoke

With a new color veils, and generates

The excrescent pile on one, peeling it off

From the other body, lo! upon his feet

One upright rose, and prone the other fell.

Nor yet their glaring and malignant lamps

Were shifted, though each feature changed beneath.

Of him who stood erect, the mounting face

Retreated toward the temples, and what there

Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears

From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward dragg’d,

Of its excess did shape the nose; and swell’d

Into due size protuberant the lips.

He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends

His sharpen’d visage, and draws down the ears

Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.

His tongue, continuous before and apt

For utterance, severs; and the other’s fork

Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.

The soul, transform’d into the brute, glides off,

Hissing along the vale, and after him

The other talking sputters; but soon turn’d

His new-grown shoulders on him, and in few

Thus to another spake: “Along this path

Crawling, as I have done, speed Buoso now!”

So saw I fluctuate in successive change

The unsteady ballast of the seventh hold:

And here if aught my pen have swerved, events

So strange may be its warrant. O’er mine eyes

Confusion hung, and on my thoughts amaze.

Yet ’scaped they not so covertly, but well

I mark’d Sciancato: he alone it was

Of the three first that came, who changed not: tho’

The other’s fate, Gaville! still dost rue.

Argument.—Remounting by the steps, down which they have descended to the seventh gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors, each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses, the latter of whom relates the manner of his death.

Florence, exult! for thou so mightily

Hast thriven, that o’er land and sea thy wings

Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.

Among the plunderers, such the three I found

Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,

And no proud honour to thyself redounds.

But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,

Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long

Shalt feel what Prato [170](not to say the rest)

Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance

Were in good time, if it befell thee now.

Would so it were, since it must needs befall!

For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.

We from the depth departed; and my guide

Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late

We downward traced, and drew me up the steep.

Pursuing thus our solitary way

Among the crags and splinters of the rock,

Sped not our feet without the help of hands.

Then sorrow seized me, which e’en now revives,

As my thought turns again to what I saw,

And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb

The powers of nature in me, lest they run

Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good

My gentle star or something better gave me,

I envy not myself the precious boon.

As in that season, when the sun least veils

His face that lightens all, what time the fly

Gives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then,

Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees

Fire-flies innumerous spangling o’er the vale,

Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labor lies;

With flames so numberless throughout its space

Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth

Was to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs

The bears avenged, as its departure saw

Elijah’s chariot, when the steeds erect

Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes meanwhile,

Straining pursued them, till the flame alone,

Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenn’d:

E’en thus along the gulf moves every flame,

A sinner so enfolded close in each,

That none exhibits token of the theft.

Upon the bridge I forward bent to look

And grasp’d a flinty mass, or else had fallen,

Though push’d not from the height. The guide, who mark’d

How I did gaze attentive, thus began:

“Within these ardours are the spirits; each

Swatched in confining fire.” “Master! thy word,”

I answer’d, “hath assured me; yet I deem’d

Already of the truth, already wish’d

To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes

So parted at the summit, as it seem’d

Ascending from that funeral pile [171]where lay

The Theban brothers.” He replied: “Within,

Ulysses there and Diomede endure

Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now

Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath

These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore

The ambush of the horse, [172]that open’d wide

A portal for the goodly seed to pass,

Which sow’d imperial Rome; nor less the guile

Lament they, whence, of her Achilles ’reft,

Deidamia yet in death complains.

And there is rued the stratagem that Troy

Of her Palladium spoil’d.”—“If they have power

Of utterance from within these sparks,” said I,

“O master! think my prayer a thousand-fold

In repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe

To pause till here the horned flame arrive.

See, how toward it with desires I bend.”

He thus: “Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,

And I accept it therefore; but do thou

Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;

For I divine thy wish: and they perchance,

For they were Greeks, [173]might shun discourse with thee.”

When there the flame had come, where time and place

Seem’d fitting to my guide, he thus began:

“O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!

If, living, I of you did merit aught,

Whate’er the measure were of that desert,

When in the world my lofty strain I pour’d,

Move ye not on, till one of you unfold

In what clime death o’ertook him self-destroy’d.”

Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn

Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire

That labors with the wind, then to and fro

Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,

Threw out its voice, and spake: “When I escaped

From Circe, who beyond a circling year

Had held me near Caieta by her charms,

Ere thus Æneas yet had named the shore;

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence

Of my old father, nor return of love,

That should have crown’d Penelope with joy,

Could overcome in me the zeal I had

To explore the world, and search the ways of life,

Man’s evil and his virtue. Forth I sail’d

Into the deep illimitable main,

With but one bark, and the small faithful band

That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,

Far as Marocco, either shore I saw,

And the Sardinian and each isle beside

Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age

Were I and my companions, when we came

To the strait pass, [174]where Hercules ordain’d

The boundaries not to be o’erstepp’d by man.

The walls of Seville to my right I left,

On the other hand already Ceuta past.

‘O brothers!’ I began, ‘who to the west