Dante Alighieri - Inferno

On that account my answer was so full.

Up starting suddenly, he cried out: “How

Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive?

Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”

When he became aware of some delay,

Which I before my answer made, supine

He fell again, and forth appeared no more.

But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire

I had remained, did not his aspect change,

Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.

“And if,” continuing his first discourse,

“They have that art,” he said, “not learned aright,

That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.

But fifty times shall not rekindled be

The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,

Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;

And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,

Say why that people is so pitiless

Against my race in each one of its laws?”

Whence I to him: “The slaughter and great carnage

Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause

Such orisons in our temple to be made.”

After his head he with a sigh had shaken,

“There I was not alone,” he said, “nor surely

Without a cause had with the others moved.

But there I was alone, where every one

Consented to the laying waste of Florence,

He who defended her with open face.”

“Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,”

I him entreated, “solve for me that knot,

Which has entangled my conceptions here.

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,

Beforehand whatsoe’er time brings with it,

And in the present have another mode.”

“We see, like those who have imperfect sight,

The things,” he said, “that distant are from us;

So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.

When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain

Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,

Not anything know we of your human state.

Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead

Will be our knowledge from the moment when

The portal of the future shall be closed.”

Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,

Said: “Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,

That still his son is with the living joined.

And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,

Tell him I did it because I was thinking

Already of the error you have solved me.”

And now my Master was recalling me,

Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit

That he would tell me who was with him there.

He said: “With more than a thousand here I lie;

Within here is the second Frederick,

And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not.”

Thereon he hid himself; and I towards

The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting

Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.

He moved along; and afterward thus going,

He said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?”

And I in his inquiry satisfied him.

“Let memory preserve what thou hast heard

Against thyself,” that Sage commanded me,

“And now attend here;” and he raised his finger.

“When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet

Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,

From her thou’lt know the journey of thy life.”

Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;

We left the wall, and went towards the middle,

Along a path that strikes into a valley,

Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.

Upon the margin of a lofty bank

Which great rocks broken in a circle made,

We came upon a still more cruel throng;

And there, by reason of the horrible

Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out,

We drew ourselves aside behind the cover

Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing,

Which said: “Pope Anastasius I hold,

Whom out of the right way Photinus drew.”

“Slow it behoveth our descent to be,

So that the sense be first a little used

To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it.”

The Master thus; and unto him I said,

“Some compensation find, that the time pass not

Idly;” and he: “Thou seest I think of that.

My son, upon the inside of these rocks,”

Began he then to say, “are three small circles,

From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.

They all are full of spirits maledict;

But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee,

Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint.

Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven,

Injury is the end; and all such end

Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.

But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice,

More it displeases God; and so stand lowest

The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.

All the first circle of the Violent is;

But since force may be used against three persons,

In three rounds ’tis divided and constructed.

To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we

Use force; I say on them and on their things,

As thou shalt hear with reason manifest.

A death by violence, and painful wounds,

Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance

Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;

Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,

Marauders, and freebooters, the first round

Tormenteth all in companies diverse.

Man may lay violent hands upon himself

And his own goods; and therefore in the second

Round must perforce without avail repent

Whoever of your world deprives himself,

Who games, and dissipates his property,

And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.

Violence can be done the Deity,

In heart denying and blaspheming Him,

And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.

And for this reason doth the smallest round

Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,

And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.

Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,

A man may practise upon him who trusts,

And him who doth no confidence imburse.

This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers

Only the bond of love which Nature makes;

Wherefore within the second circle nestle

Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,

Falsification, theft, and simony,

Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.

By the other mode, forgotten is that love

Which Nature makes, and what is after added,

From which there is a special faith engendered.

Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is

Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,

Whoe’er betrays for ever is consumed.”

And I: “My Master, clear enough proceeds

Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes

This cavern and the people who possess it.

But tell me, those within the fat lagoon,

Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,

And who encounter with such bitter tongues,

Wherefore are they inside of the red city

Not punished, if God has them in his wrath,

And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?”

And unto me he said: “Why wanders so

Thine intellect from that which it is wont?

Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?

Hast thou no recollection of those words

With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses

The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,—

Incontinence, and Malice, and insane

Bestiality? and how Incontinence

Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?

If thou regardest this conclusion well,

And to thy mind recallest who they are

That up outside are undergoing penance,

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons

They separated are, and why less wroth