The Inferno
From the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Translated by S. Fowler Wright
Fowler Wright Ltd 1928

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The 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. Šneas 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 Šneas, 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 BeatricÛ." 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 Aeneas there; and Caesar 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 PtolemŠus; Avicenna, 
Galen, Hippocrates; AverrhoÛs, 
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 SichŠus, 
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. 
MegŠra 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 
I had no power to enter. Near my guide 
Awaits me yonder. - Whom in foolish pride, 
Thy Guido held so lightly." 
		At the word 
He leapt erect from out the tomb, and cried, 
"How saidst thou? Held? Already he hath not died? 
Doth not the sweet light meet him? The clear air 
Breathes he not yet?" 
		The imploring cries I heard 
But checked awhile to answer, and in despair 
He fell flat forward, and was seen no more. 
But he, magnanimous, who first delayed 
My steps, had heeded nought, nor turned his head, 
And now continued that he spake before. 
"If with the coin ye forged they have not paid, 
It more torments me than this flaming bed. 
Yet thou thyself, before the Queen of Night 
Shall fifty times revoke and raise her light, 
Shalt learn the hardship of that art. But tell, 
As thou wouldst feel the cool winds' pinions beat 
Once more upon thee, and the sweet light fall 
Around the feet of morning, for this heat 
And fetid air we writhe in, why were all 
Those exiles pardoned by thy laws, to dwell 
In their dear homes once more, and only mine, 
My kindred, find no mercy?" 
		I to him, - 
"The rout and chase that dyed the Arbia red 
To thy descendants dealt this bitter bread; 
The memory of that slaughter doth not dim, 
But leaves thee to our prayers a name of hate 
In all our churches." 
		Here he sighed, and said, 
"I was not single in that strife, nor lacked 
Good cause to strike; but when your remnant fled, 
And Florence, naked to her foes elate, 
Cowered, waiting, all with one consent agreed 
To tread her out to dust, and extirpate 
All life within her, I, and only I, 
Stood out against it, and refused the deed, 
And with my swords I saved them. Is this thing 
Less memoried than my wrath?" 
		I answered, "Yea: 
But what I can I will, and that thy seed 
Have rest at my returning, solve, I pray, 
A doubt that disconcerts me. Ye that dwell 
In these abodes beneath us, each foretell 
- Or so ye claim - what distant times shall bring, 
Yet plead for knowledge of the passing day, - 
Or mock me, asking that yourselves could say." 

He answered, "As in age a man may see 
Far off, while nearer sights are blurred, so we 
See clearly times long passed, and times to be. 
Foresight is ours, and long remembering, 
In each an anguish, while the anxious mind 
Is void to all around it, foiled and blind 
Where most it longs for knowledge. Nought we know 
Thine earthly present, save as here below 
One after one descending bears his tale; 
And therefore, when the wings of Time shall fail, 
And sealed in these accursed tombs we lie, 
All knowledge from our vacant minds shall die, 
As well ye may perceive it." 
		Here I said, 
Compunctious for a fault now seen, "Wilt tell 
That other, fallen, that I did not well 
Withholding answer? Guido is not dead. 
My silence from the earlier doubt was bred, 
From which thou hast resolved me." 
		Now my guide 
Was calling, and in greater haste I said, 
"Thy comrades in thy grief I charge thee tell, 
Ere I go from thee." 
		Shortly he replied, 
"The second Frederick, and the Cardinal, 
Are with me, and a thousand more beside 
Of whom I speak not." 
		With the word he fell; 
And I went onward, turning in my thought 
The hostile presage of his words that taught 
Mine own near exile, till my guide at last 
Questioned, "What cloud thine eyes hath overcast? 
What thought hath wildered all thy mind?" and I 
Answered, and told. 
		He said, "The things thou hear'st 
That threat thee, hold them in thy memory well. 
Yet know that soon, beneath a fairer sky, 
When she, whose sight hath no blank space, shall tell 
What cometh, then shalt thou read, ungapped and clear, 
The journey of thy life." 
		The while he spake 
He turned him leftward from the wall, to take 
A path that to the midmost vale declined, 
A fetid rising odour first to find. 


Canto XI 

BUT boldly outward from the wall we went, 
Down sloping, till a sudden steep descent 
Before us yawned. The sides, extending far, 
Of broken rocks, a great pit circular 
Enclosed. Beneath our feet a fouler throng 
Than that we left, upcast a stench so vile 
We might not face, but left our course awhile 
To crouch behind a stone-built monument, 
Whereon I read, "Pope Anastasius 
Is here, who sold his faith for Photinus." 

Then spake my Master. "Till the fetid air 
By gradual use we take, we must not dare 
Continue downward." 
		"Show me, while we stay, 
The meanings of this foul and dreadful way." 

"I meant it, surely," said my guide. "Behold 
The space beneath us. There three circlets lie, 
Alike to those we left behind, but why 
This deeper fate is theirs, I first will show; 
And when we pass them in the depths below 
Ye need not wait to question what ye see. 

"All malice of men's hearts in injury 
Results, and hence to Heaven is odious; 
And all the malice that aggrieveth thus 
Strikes in two ways, by either force or fraud; 
And fraud in man is vice peculiar, 
That from Hell's centre to the utmost star 
Is else unknown, and is to God therefore 
Most hateful Hence the violent-sinful lie 
Outward, and inmost are the fraudulent. 
And as the sinful-violent make their war 
On God, their neighbours, or themselves, so they 
Are portioned in the outer wards. 
		I say, 
To them, or to the things they own, the wrong 
May aim. By violence, wounds or death may be, 
Extortions, burnings, wastes; and ye shall see 
That equal in the outmost round belong 
Reivers of life alike, and plunderers. 
And in the second round are those whose sin 
Is violence to themselves; they weep therein, 
Repenting when too late, whose hands destroy 
Their earthly bodies; and condemned alike 
Are those with profligate wasteful hands who strike 
At their own wealth, or having cause for joy 
Reject it, weeping with no need. The third 
And smallest of the outer circlets holds 
All those with violence of blaspheming words, 
Or in their hearts, the Lord of Life deny, 
The wealth of Nature that the world enfolds 
Contemning. Hence by lust or usury, 
Sodom or Cahors, the downward path may be 
That ends in this destruction. 
		Fraud, that gnaws 
The universal conscience of mankind, 
Is also different in its guilt, because 
It either at the stranger strikes behind, 
Or makes the sacred bond of confidence 
The means of its prevailing; and the first 
Breaks but the kindly general bond, and hence 
More outward in the final depths are cast 
Deceivers, flatterers, cheats, and sorcerers, 
Thieves, panders, and such filth. 
		The last and worst 
And smallest circle holds such souls as break 
Not only in their guilt the natural bond 
That all men own, but in some trust, beyond 
The usual course, are faithless. In this lake, 
The base and centre of Dis, the inmost hell, 
All traitors in relentless torments dwell." 

I answered, "Master, clearer words than these 
I could not ask, the ranks of guilt to show, 
That gather in the dreadful gulfs below; 
But tell me, - those that in so great dis-ease 
We earlier passed, wind-beaten, choked with slime, 
Or chilled and flattened with unending rain, 
If God's wrath reach them, why they yet remain 
Outside the hot walls of the Place of Pain? 
Or why they suffer through the night of Time 
So greatly, if they are not judged to Hell?" 

He answered, "Surely ye recall not well 
The Ethics that your schools have taught, or wide 
Your thoughts have wandered from their wont, to cause 
A doubt so simple. Are there not three laws 
By which the ways of Hell from Heaven divide - 
Beast-treason, malice, and incontinence, 
And of these three the third the least offence 
To God provoketh, and receives less blame? 
Bethink the faults of those where first ye came 
Through circles loftier than the heated wall 
That now surrounds us, and ye well shall see 
Why with less wrath the strokes of justice fall 
On those left outward by divine decree." 

"O Light!" I said, "whose cheering rays dispel 
The mists that blind me, wilt thou further tell 
Why stands the customed toll of usury 
Condemned in thy discourse as direst sin, 
Abhorrent to the bounty of God?" 
		He said, 
"The teaching of thine own Philosophy 
Is pregnant with this truth unborn. Therein 
Thou learn'st of God himself, interpreted 
In Nature's ways; and as a child may tread 
Unsurely in its Master's steps, thine art 
Interprets Nature in its turn, and is 
God's grandchild therefore. Through these mysteries 
Look backward. When the Law of Eden came, 
How spake the Eternal Wisdom? Toil; It said, 
And in that labour find thy guerdon-bread: 
Be fruitful, and increase thy kind. His part 
God gave to man, so saying. The usurer 
Seeks not his profit in the path designed, 
But looks the fruit of others' toils to find, 
And pluck where nought he planted. 
		More to say 
The time permits not; but the downward way 
We needs must venture. In the outer skies 
The Fishes from the pale horizon rise, 
And the Great Wain its shining course descends 
Where the night-lair of Caurus dark extends." 


Canto XII 

NOW came we to the steep cliff-side. As where 
The Adige at the mountain bored until 
Fell the huge ruin of half its bulk, and there 
Turned the swift stream a further course to fill 
Beneath the scarred precipitous side, so here 
The shattered ominous cliffs descended sheer; 
And sprawled across the verge, Crete's infamy, 
The fruit of that false cow, PasiphaÛ, 
Was fearsome, that the boldest heart should flee. 

To us he turned his red malignant eyes, 
Gnawing his own side, the while he strove to rise, 
As one made rageful past restraint, but loud 
My leader hailed him, "Think'st thou, overproud, 
That Theseus cometh, who gave thy death 
Not one that Ariadne taught is here, 
Nor destined victim for thy rage to gore, 
But one who walketh through the place of fear 
In safety, to behold the stripes ye bore." 
As some roped bull, whose throat is stretched to feel 
The knife's sharp doom, against the rending steel 
So madly wrenches that he breaks away, 
Already slaughtered, plunging while he may, 
But blindly and vainly, at this word I saw 
Heaving the huge bulk of the Minotaur, 
And cried my careful guide, "Descend with speed, 
The whilst he rages." 
		Down with watchful heed, 
But swiftly, clomb we by the rocks' rough side, 
The jutting stones that lightly held my guide 
Trembling beneath my earthlier weight. 
		He said, 
Who watched my silence, "Likely turns thy thought 
To this rent ruin the gross beast guards. Before, 
When downward came I, of this fall was nought, 
But nearly after came that Lord who bore 
Out from the horror of Dis its choicer prey. 
Hell, to its loathliest entrails, felt that day 
Love's coming, and trembled, and this mountain fell. 
The power of Love, that thus discomfits Hell, 
Oft in forgotten times, as sages tell, 
Hath changed our world to chaos. - But heed thy way. 
Before us is the gulf of blood wherein 
Murderers by violence purge their briefer sin. 
O blindness of their greed, or bestial rage! 
So short the war that on their kind they wage; 
So long is their repenting." 
		I beheld 
A wide moat, curving either hand, as though 
Its sweep surrounded all the plain. Below 
On the near bank, were Centaurs, each who held 
A spear for casting, or a bended bow, 
The while they raced along the brink, as when 
Their game they hunted in the world of men. 

Seeing us, they stayed, and of the nearest, three 
Approached us, with the threats of shaft on string. 
One cried, "What torments do your guilts decree, 
Who cross Hell's gaps in such strange wandering? 
How came ye loosened from your dooming? - Say, 
Lest the cord teach ye." 
		Unperturbed, my guide 
Gave answer. "Not for such vain threats we stay. 
To Chiron only will we speak. Thy will 
For rashness cost thee once thy life, and still 
Inciteth folly." And then to me, "Behold 
Nessus, who once for Deianira died; 
Beyond is Chiron, round whose mighty knees 
Played once the infant years of Achilles; 
The rageful Pholus is the last; they go 
With thousand others around the moat, that so 
If any spirits the boiling blood would quit 
Beyond the licence of their dooms, they know 
A different anguish from the shafts that slit 
The parts shown naked." 
		These swift beasts and we 
Approached each other the while he spake, and he, 
Great Chiron, with a shaft's notched end put back 
The beard that hindered both his jaws, and said, 
To those his comrades, "Not as walk the dead 
Doth this one coming, but with the weight they lack 
Disturbs the stones he treadeth." 
		My guide by now 
Stood where the human and the brute combined, 
Beneath his breast, and answered for me. "Yea, 
He lives indeed, and I, to lead his way, 
I race this dark valley. No sportive choice to find, 
But driven of need, he threads this night of flame; 
And She from singing Alleluias came 
Who bade me do it. No spirit condemned am I, 
Nor he deserving of thy doom. I pray, 
By virtue of the Name I will not say, 
l hat of thy comrades one thy care supply 
To guide us to the ford, and him to bear 
Across, who may not tread the yielding air 
As those discarnate." 
		Chiron's bearded head 
Bent round to Nessus at his right, and said, 
"Turn, as they ask, and guide, and bear him through, 
And warn thy comrades that no wrong they do 
To these in passing." 
		In this trusty ward 
We held the margin of the purple flood 
That seethed beneath us. In the boiling blood 
Were spirits to the brows immersed. 
		"Ye see," 
Said Nessus, "tyrants who by weight of sword 
Spread death and rapine in their lands. Is here 
Fierce Dionysius, who the doleful year 
Made long to those he ruled in Sicily; 
And Alexander here repents; and he 
Whose brows o'erhung with night-black hair ye see 
Is Azzolino; and the head beyond 
Where on the stream the trailing mane is blonde, 
Obizzo, whom his stepson choked." 
		We came 
Where other spirits in the boiling pond 
Showed from the neck, and in this place beheld 
That Guy who to avenge his father's name 
The English Henry at Viterbo felled, 
Even in the presence of God. The victim's heart 
Yet raised in reverence on the bank of Thame, 
Recalls it, and the assassin boils apart 
Placed separate for the deed's high blasphemy. 

And further passed we those whose guilt allowed 
Of freedom to the waist. Among the crowd, 
More numerous now, were more in clearer view, 
That by themselves or by their deeds I knew, 
As shallower yet the seething purple grew, 
Till all except the miscreants' feet was free. 

"Here must we cross the fosse," the Centaur said, 
And I, sole living in this world of dead, 
Climbed upward, and my earthly weight he bore, 
And while he waded to the further shore 
Continued, "As the boiling stream ye see 
Diminish, so its bottom sinks anew 
Rounding the circle, till it comes once more 
To those whose ruling choked their world in gore, 
In which they suffer. High Justice here torments 
The pirate Sextus, and fierce Pyrrhus here; 
Attila with eternal tears laments; 
And Rinier Pazzo, once a word of fear, 
With Rinier of Corneto boils, to pay 
For bandit-murders on the State's highway." 


Canto XIII 

WHILE Nessus yet recrossed the purple stream 
A wood we entered where no path appeared, 
No cool wind stirred, nor any sun came through, 
But all the foliage, as by winter seared, 
Was brittle and brown, and gnarled and twisted grew 
The branches, and if any fruit did seem 
They were but poisonous pods to closer view. 
No denser holts the lurking beasts have found 
Beneath Corneto, where the marshy ground, 
Uncoultered, to Cecina's stream declines. 

Foul harpies nest amidst the loathly vines, 
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades, 
With their drear wail of some awaiting woe. 
Their wings are wide: and like gross birds below 
Their bellies feathered, and their feet are clawed. 
Strange cries come from them through the sickly trees. 

My Master told me, "Through this dismal land, 
The second circlet pass we, till we reach 
The place of that intolerable sand 
Which forms the third, and in its place completes 
The outer round. Recall my earlier speech 
That taught the order of these woes. Look well 
For confirmation of the things I tell " 

I looked, but saw not. Every side there rose 
A wailing burdened with unnumbered woes, 
While all the woods were vacant. From ground 
It came not - rather from the boughs around 
It beat upon us, as voiced by those who hid 
Before our coming, the tangled growth amid. 

My Master taught me. "If thou break away 
The nearest twig that meets thine hand, wilt see 
How far thy dreaming from the truth astray." 

Thereat I reached, and from a twisted thorn 
That rose before us, withered, gaunt, forlorn, 
Broke short a twig, and from the trunk a cry 
Came sharply, "Tear not!" and a blood-gout 
Dark on the wound, the while the trunk anew 
Entreated, "Rend not; does no mercy lie 
In those that still their human forms retain? 
Men were we, till we left on earth self-slain 
The bodies given of God. But had we been 
The souls of serpents, in this hopeless dole 
We had not thought that any mortal soul 
Would wound us, helpless to their hands." 
		Hast seen 
Cast on the coals a living branch and green? 
One end already burns, and one projects 
Clear of the heat, but from the fire's effects 
Moisture exudes and hissing wind. So here 
Blood welled and words from out the wound. The fear 
Of this strange voice, and pity, so in me wrought 
I dropt the broken shoot, and fixed in thought 
Stood silent. 
		On my side my leader spake, 
"O wounded spirit, had his heart believed 
The truth that earlier in my verse he read, 
He had not with unthinking violence grieved 
The most unhappy of the hapless dead. 
But mine the word that caused his hand to break, 
Who knew that truth's incredibility 
Would else confound him. It was grief to me 
To prompt him to it. But if thou speak and tell 
Of whom thou wast, he may requite thee well, 
Thy fame renewing in the world, for there 
He soon returneth." 
		And the voice replied, 
"The sound of thy seducing words and fair 
Constrains me to forgive thee, and confide 
The bitter grief that in my trunk I hide, 
Which else were silent always. With me bear 
In patience somewhat, if I talk too long, 
Caught in this bait of words, when all my wrong 
Returneth to me. In this toil is he, 
The second Frederick's confident, who held 
His heart's two keys, and turned them. Here ye see 
The ruin of too great fidelity, 
That sleep and life gave forfeit. Yea, for she, 
That harlot who in CŠsar's court rebelled 
Against all virtue round his throne, the bane 
And vice of all high concourse, Envy, stirred 
And slandered, till my Master half believed. 
And I, who all things at his hands received, 
And all myself had rendered, in disdain 
Gave silence only to the accusing word, 
And in contempt of life I broke the chain 
That held me to it. Just to others, I wrought 
Injustice to myself. But here I swear, 
By these sad roots that hold me, word nor thought, 
Nor deed nor negligence was mine in aught 
Against him faithless. Ye that upward bear 
The news and burden of our griefs below, 
Rebuild my memory in the world, I pray, 
That my rash hand prostrated." 
		Here his woe 
Found silence, and the things I sought to say 
I lacked the heart. Until, at last, my guide 
Enquired me, "Wouldst thou more?" and I replied, 
"Ask for me." 
		To the prisoned grief he said, 
"That this man gladly when he leave the dead 
Uplift thy record, as thy words entreat, 
Inform us further how this fate ye meet, 
How the bent soul these twisted knots allows; 
Or ever any from these tortured boughs 
Erect himself to manhood." 
		Then the tree 
Blew strongly, and the wind was words that said, 
"In brief thou shalt be answered. When the dead, 
Self-slaughtered, from the unready corse is torn, 
Then Minos, in the seventh gulf to mourn, 
Consigns it. Here on no set space it falls, 
But cast at random, and its roots it strikes 
In marsh or rock, and boughs and thorny spikes 
Grow upward. On its leaves the harpies feed, 
Tearing, and where the broken twiglets bleed 
Pain finds its outlet. 
		When the trumpet calls, 
We all, with those who earthly flesh regain, 
Shall upward troop, but that our hand hath slain 
We may not enter, as is just. The Vale 
Of Judgment when we leave we each shall hale 
Our bodies slain behind us, till we reach 
The dismal thorns we left, and each on each 
Shall hang them. Every trunk of every shade 
Bent with the weight of that itself betrayed." 

We still were listening, lest more words should come 
From this sad spirit, when rose such noise anear 
That all the wailings of the woods were dumb 
Before it, and we paused, as those who hear 
The boar-hunt plunging through the brake, and nigh, 
Crashed boughs, and rush of beasts that chase and fly, 
Approaching where they stand; and forth there burst 
Two spirits torn and bare, and cried the first, 
"Befriend me, Death!" and cried the one behind, 
"Ah, Lano, swifter legs than mine ye show, 
But Toppo's tourney found thy limbs more slow." 

Thereat he made no further pace, but low 
Crawled 'neath the densest bush the woods contained, 
And the next instant, as the shade he gained, 
A rush of hell-hounds on his chase there came. 
Wild on the bush they leapt to trace and claim 
Their hiding victim, sinking fang and claw 
In him who squatted in its midst. They rent 
The writhing limbs, and diverse ways they went, 
Carrying the fragments that they tore. 
		My guide 
Now led my steps the damaged bush beside, 
That loud lamented. Severed boughs we saw, 
And torn twigs bleeding. In its pain it made 
Protest, "Jacopo da Sant' Andrea! 
What gain was here to make my leaves thy shade? 
What condemnation for thy sins is mine?" 

My Master questioned it, "Who art thou, say, 
So bruised and injured in a strife not thine?" 

It answered, "Ye that some strange fate hath led 
To see me mangled and discomfited, 
I pray ye closely round my foot to lay 
The boughs and leaves their violence strawed away. 
In that fair city of the plain I dwelt 
Which once to Mars, its earliest patron, knelt, 
And then the Baptist in his place preferred, 
And earned thereby the war-god's enmity. 
So that, except on Arno's bridge there stands 
His statue yet, those men with useless hands 
Had toiled, from ashes of the Huns, again 
To build it in the years of Charlemagne. 

"I have no name: I have no tale to say. 
I made a gibbet of my house. Ye see 
The end in this, the doleful price I pay." 


Canto XIV 

LOVE in my heart for that dear home of mine 
Compelled me. To the nameless Florentine 
I did the service that he asked. I laid 
The gathered twigs against his trunk. 
		We left 
That grove of men, of human form bereft 
By their own violence, and before us lay 
A space so hateful that I shrank afraid, 
For surely none might cross it. 
		Here, I say, 
The third sad circlet wide before us spread, 
A desert, by the dark wood garlanded, 
As that is belted by the boiling fosse. 
A desert which the hardiest might not cross 
Was here. The Libyan waste where Cato led 
The remnant of the host of Pompey, shows 
Dry sand alike, but oh, what heavier woes, 
Vengeance of God! what woes were here! Who boast 
They fear not Heaven, before that dreadful coast 
Have come not, or they would not doubt their dread! 
Strewn on the sands the naked souls I saw 
Lamenting loudly. Some by diverse law 
Lay flat: some crouched: some madly raced, and these, 
More numerous far, by milder cries conveyed 
A lesser torment than the souls that stayed 
Fixed on one spot. 
		Upon that concourse dire 
Slow flakes were falling of dilated fire, 
Straight downward, as the Alpine snows descend, 
When no wind stirs the stillness. 
		As there came 
From burning skies the separate flakes of flame 
Upon the host that Alexander led 
Across the torrid Indian plains - and they 
Stamped the red ashes lest they join and spread, 
And all be conflagration - so the heat 
Flaked downward in a slow unceasing sheet, 
On sand re-kindled with recruited fire, 
Like tinder that the flint and steel ignite. 
Here was the dance of woven hands I in vain 
That brushed aside the settling points of pain. 

I said, "O thou, whom all these different hells 
Obey - save those gate-demons obdurate - 
Who yonder lies, whose fierce disdain repels 
The eternal doom, and with a heart as great 
As all his ruin, beneath the torturing rain 
Contorted, moves not, nor laments?" 
		My guide 
I questioned, but the rebel shade replied, 
"Dead am I, but yet my living heart unslain 
Outequals Heaven. Though this relentless rain 
Fall ever; though Jove the toiling knave should tire 
From whom he snatched the bolt of previous fire 
That first transfixed me; though he tire alike 
All Etna's smiths, there is no power to strike 
Shall make me quail. Let all His force employ, 
He shall not taste the fierce exultant joy 
To break me, suppliant." 
		I had yet to learn 
My guide's hard voice, that in slow words and stern 
Made answer. "Think'st thou then, O Capaneus, 
Thy wrath makes answer to the wrath of Zeus? 
Or God regards it? But thy rageful pride, 
Against thee with the outer fires allied, 
Makes heavier torment for thy bane, and so 
Is penal only to thyself - Behold," 
- With gentler voice again assumed, my guide 
Turned to me, as the sinner's tale he told - 
"That lord, who once with six like kings was foe 
To Thebes, and sieged it. Then his boast, as now, 
That God he equalled. But his words avow 
The justice of his doom, and impotent 
Against regardless Heaven, they ornament 
His breast most fitly - Follow where I tread - 
- Avoid the sand." 
		With careful steps he led 
Along the margin of the mournful wood, 
And spake no more, until at length we stood 
Where-a thin river of most doleful red 
(I shudder, thinking), from the sighing trees 
Flowed outward. As the stream the harlots share 
Flows outward from beneath Bulicame, 
So this ran forward through the sand. Stone-bare 
Its bottom, stone its shelving sides, and grey 
The stony margins of its course. By these 
I judged that here we crossed the fiery plain 
Which else repelled us - But my guide again 
Was speaking. 
		"Since the doleful gate ye passed, 
Which still for all creation, first and last, 
Stands wide, no sights of wonder seen compare 
With this slight stream, whose margins cold and bare 
No fires can vanquish, whose red waters quench 
Hell's heat, and burn not." 
		"Master," I desired, 
"For hunger wakened, grant the food required." 

"Far out in ocean lies an island waste 
Whose King, when once the early world was chaste, 
Ruled all men. In the midst a mountain lies, 
Ida, that once was fair to stormless skies, 
Peace of still nights and languorous noons it had, 
With murmuring leaves and falling waters glad 
(Cybele there the Heavenly Child concealed); 
Now lies it barer than a salted field, 
Than some outdated use more desolate, 
Abandoned, naked, in the change of fate. 

"A giant of Eld within this mountain stands; 
From Damietta with rejecting hands 
He turns, and Romeward holds his eyes, as she 
Who in her mirror gazes fixedly. 
His head is all of purest gold: his breast 
And arms are silver of the finest test: 
Then all is brazen to the forking cleft: 
Iron is the right leg only, but the left 
Hath the foot also of the like: of clay 
The dexter foot, on which he leans alway. 
This giant throughout, except the golden head, 
Is cracked, and from the fissure tears are shed, 
And these sink downward through the rocks, until 
They reach Hell's levels, and form the springs that fill 
The sunless gulf we passed of Acheron, 
And, draining thence, the Styx, and Phlegethon, 
Till downward by this straitened conduit passed 
Where all descent is ended, form at last 
The lake I tell not, for thine eyes shall see." 
I asked him, "If this stream from hell to hell 
Descend continuous, I discern not well 
Why in the loftier circles nought I saw?" 

He said, "As downward, tier by tier, we draw 
Toward the narrowing centre, still the bound 
We circle leftward, yet the slanting round 
Is incompleted; hence new sights to meet 
Ye must not marvel " 
		"Master," I replied, 
"One question more. Of Lethe nought ye say, 
Nor speak of Phlegethon. Across our way 
Comes either?" 
		"Surely, in this scarlet tide 
The one flows past ye. But at Lethe's side 
Thy feet shall stand in other air than this, 
For Lethe flows not through the lost abyss, 
But those repentant, from their guilt made free, 
Shall find it. - Follow boldly where I tread 
The stone. Not here the burning sand can spread; 
Nor the red rain molest from overhead." 


Canto XV 

WE held the margin of the scarlet stream, 
The cold grey stones beneath our feet. A steam 
Arising from the water, overhead 
A canopy that roofed the causeway spread, 
Which quenched the fire descending. 
		As the dyke 
From Bruges to Cadsand, where the burghers dread 
The arising tide, or as the bank alike 
The Paduans build in winter, to forbear 
The Brenta's floods, when Chiarentana knows 
The feet of summer on the mountain snows, 
Such were the bulwarks of the stream, though less 
In height and thickness. 
		Far that wilderness 
Of wailing boughs we left, till backward glance 
Had failed to find it. Once a troop we met 
That racing past us in their mournful dance 
Reversed, and sharply were their glances set 
To read us, as a tailor frowns to thread 
The needle, when long years of toil have 
The needed sight, or as men meeting peer 
At twilight, when the rising moon is thin. 

Of these, one caught me by the skirt, and said, 
"O marvel!" and the face that heat had skimmed, 
I yet recalled, and answered, "Art thou here, 
My master?" 
		He replied, "Brief words to win, 
I pray thee, O my son, consent that I 
Go backward somewhat with thee, while my kin 
Continue on the path we held." 
		I said, 
"I do not grant it, but beseech: and more, 
For those old days, when all thy learning's store 
Was mine to pillage, if my guide permit, 
Sit will I with thee here some space." 
		But he 
Made answer, "Nay, for if we pause or sit, 
There must we for a hundred years remain, 
Powerless to writhe beneath the falling rain. 
But I will walk beside thy skirts as now, 
No farther than these penal laws allow, 
And then my station in our band resume, 
Who race, and wail our everlasting doom." 

I dared not from my higher stand descend, 
Nor might he to the causeway climb, and so 
I walked as those in humble prayer who bend, 
The while he paced the burning sand below. 

He first enquired, "What chance or fate hath led 
Thy feet, before thy mortal loss, to tread 
A path so vacant?" 
		"In mid-life," I said, 
"I wandered in a pathless waste, and there, 
Refused of exit, in my last despair, 
I was returning to its midst, when he 
Who guides me came, and by this dreadful way 
Will bring me home at last." 
		And he to me, 
"I doubt it nought, for if thy destined star 
Perceived I rightly, when fair life and clear 
I with thee breathed, a different haven lay 
Before thee than this heat to which we steer, 
Who tempt High Heaven in all we speak and are. 
And but for death's too soon determining, 
Mine aid had cheered thee in thy later spring. 

"But those, the thankless and malign, who came 
To Florence from the rocks of Fiesole, 
Who mixed not with a nobler race than they, 
Still in their children hate thee, deed and name. 
Where the sour sorb-trees fruit, shall figs abound? 
Like are they even as our fathers found. 
Greed envy, hauteur, are the signs they show. 
Look that thou walk not in their ways. For though 
The path be stony for thy feet today, 
The time is near when in thy larger fame 
Both parties for thy potent aid shall pray. 
Then from the he-goat's teeth the grass be far! 
But those thy kind, if any yet there be 
Surviving of the sacred Roman seed, 
Amidst the dense growth of the ranker weed, 
Let the Fiesolan beasts, the where they lie, 
Make their own litter for their natural sty." 

I answered, "Master, had it lain with me 
To choose my boon from Heaven, not where we are, 
But in the clear air of the world above, 
Thy words had guided. All my heart in love 
Returns toward thee, as my thoughts recall 
Thine image, patient, kind, beneficent, 
That taught me, tireless, hour by hour, in all, 
How by the growth of that which Heaven hath lent, 
Man wins to life immortal. While I live, 
In nought but words - and grateful words I give- 
Is still my power to thank thee. All you tell, 
Mind-treasured, with a text remembered well, 
I keep for One on whom I hope, that she 
May comment further, as shall surely be 
If her I reach hereafter. This I say 
Meantime, let Fortune at her worst of will, 
So conscience chide not, wreck my days: and still 
The boor his mattock's baser laws obey." 

My leader heard me, and a backward glance 
Across his shoulder, to the right, he cast, 
To where we talked, and answered, "What ye say, 
Forget not in the days undawned." 
		But yet 
I questioned Ser Brunetto, "Tell me they 
Most famed on earth, who pay the godless debt 
In torment of this fiery rain at last?" 

He answered, "Some there be ye well may know, 
But more that better should the world forget, 
And time for speech is shortened. Briefly, here 
Are clerks and scholars, all betrayed so low 
By one defiling. Priscian here must run. 
And of our city here Accorso's son, 
Francesco. If such scurf thy mind admits, 
That base one of the Arno howling sits, 
Who, to Bacchiglione's bank transferred, 
There left his sin-wrecked nerves. - But further word 
I may not. - Yonder in the distance see 
New smoke arising from the sandy waste. 
Fresh folk race on with whom I must not be. - 
Those writings mine by which on earth I live 
Remember. - More I ask not." 
		Here in haste 
He loosed my skirts, and turned, and seemed as they 
Who at Verona's summer sports compete, 
Naked, across the fields with flying feet, 
To win the vesture green their speed to pay. 


Canto XVI 

THE sandy plain was almost past. There rose 
Such noise as murmurs through the hive. For near 
We came to where the tainted water sheer 
Falls to the level of the fraudulent, 
The next sad circle. Ever past us went 
The flying bands beneath the fiery rain, 
Scattering the sharp tormenting flakes. Of those, 
Three runners from a troop dividing came, 
Who called me with one impulse, "Stranger, stay, 
Who by the garb hast found this dreadful way 
From our perverted city." 
		The searing flame 
Had baked their limbs, and in the hardened flesh 
New wounds were formed with every flake. Ah me 
Again in thought the piteous sight I see, 
And make their anguish mine. My guide the while 
Turned as they ran. "Wait here. For courtesy 
Deserve they from thyself, than theirs to thee 
More urgent. Only that the falling heat 
Forbids, thyself with greater haste should meet 
Their coming, than their own." 
		At that we paused, 
And when they saw it their arresting cry 
They ceased, and recommenced the general wail. 

I might not reach them through the burning hail, 
Nor might they to the causeway climb, nor run 
Beside me, for the end was now so nigh, 
Nor might they, lest more grief the torture caused, 
Remain unmotioned in one place, and so 
They circled, as the nude, oiled champions go, 
Rotating, for the chance of grasp or blow 
Watchful, but these their eyes so held on me, 
That feet and neck perforce moved contrary, 
As round they wheeled. 
		One hailed me first, "O thou, 
Whose living feet, as some strange powers allow, 
Resound among the shadows, if aught so base 
As we who bake in this unfertile place 
Thy mind regard, recall our earthly fame, 
And heed our plea to learn thy later name. 
He in whose footsteps I rotate, though now 
So peeled and bare, when in clear light, was he, 
Gualdrada's grandson, who so nobly wrought 
In field and counsel both; the one ye see 
Who treads the sand behind, in all men's thought 
Should still be fragrant, Aldobrandi he; 
And I, Jacopo Rusticucci. She, 
That savage wife an ill fate gave, has brought 
This misery on me." 
		Had some shelter shown 
To guard me from the slow unceasing rain, 
I had not shrunk to cross the heated plain, 
To greet them in their grief, whose names are known 
So highly, nor I think my Master's voice 
Had chid me; but their aspects, baked and dried, 
Repelled and warned me. 
		"Not contempt," I cried, 
"But sorrow in my heart since first my guide 
Prepared me to expect such names, has grown, 
And will not leave me soon. Alike we own 
The same fair city, where your deeds today 
Are told not seldom, and true men rejoice 
Who hear them. From the bitter gall I go 
The fruit to find, and yet descend more low 
To Hell's deep centre ere I climb." 
		He said, 
"Thy spirit long within thy members dwell, 
And fame behind thee shine! But speak I pray 
If valour quite and noble grace have fled 
From our loved city. For one, whose place in Hell 
Was filled but late, - with yonder troop he burns, 
Torments us largelier than the pain he learns, 
With tales of its befalling. Is there now 
Such dearth of honour, lifted once so high?" 
And my heart failed me for direct reply, 
But with uplifted face I cried, "O thou, 
My Florence! Not thy fallen tears are dry 
For plebeian strangers in thy halls, and pride 
And riot extolled, and honour crucified." 

And these that heard, their glances from me drew, 
And at each other gazed, as men that knew 
My confirmation, and divined it true. 

At length they answered in one voice, "If there, 
As here, the truth unharmed thy lips may dare, 
Blest art thou! If from this unlighted air 
Again ye climb to where the stars are bare, 
When with rejoicing heart I once was there 
Thy thought looks backward, let thy words to men 
Exalt our names for that which late we were." 

At this they broke their giddy wheel, and then 
More swiftly than the heart could breathe Amen 
With legs like wings, across the sand they fled, 
And we went forward once again. 
		So near 
The sound of waters now, I scarce could hear 
My leader's voice. As that first stream to head 
From Monte Viso's height a separate way 
Seaward, its quieter name and loftier bed 
Forgets at Forli, and in sheer descent 
Above San Benedetto's towers resounds 
(There where a thousand in its wealthy bounds 
Might refuge, hindered by the sheltered few), 
So here the red stream to the nether pit 
Fell headlong, echoing through the void. 
		I wore 
A cord girt round me (once I thought to snare 
That painted pard of which I spoke before, 
So noosed), and this my guide commanded me 
To loose, and reached it from me coiled, and there 
Far outward flung it in the blank abyss. 

The blackness gulped it, while I thought, "From this, 
An act so strange, must spring new mystery, - 
How fixed he gazes where it sank, - and he, 
As though he heard me, answered. Ah, what care, 
What caution should we yield to Those who see 
Not the deed only, but the thought! 
		He said, 
"I signalled That which rises while I speak, 
And makes thy question clear." 
		A man may dread 
Truth more than falsehood to his friends to speak, 
When truth than falsehood shows more wild, and weak 
Of proof is that he inly knows, but I 
Am barred from silence. Reader, truth I swear, 
By all my hope of fame this work shall bear, 
That slowly through the gross and fetid air 
A Shape swam upward. As the mariners see 
Their comrade rising from the depths, who dived 
An anchor tangled in the rocks to free, 
Against the brink the wingless bulk arrived. 


Canto XVII 

BEHOLD the reptile with the stinging tail, 
That mountains hold not, nor strong walls avail 
To bar, nor any weapons wound. Behold 
Him who diseases all the world with guile." 

So spake my guide, and to the monster signed 
To join us where the causeway ceased, and he, 
That shape of loathsome fraud, swam warily 
Landward, and rested there his bust, the while 
The undulations of his tail unrolled 
Trailed outward in the hollow dark behind. 

His face was human, with a glance benign, 
Kindly, and just, and mild, but all beside 
Was reptile to the venomed fork. Two paws 
Were hairy to the armpits. Bright design 
And various colour patterned all his hide 
On breast and flank, in knots and circles drawn; 
Splendid as broidered cloths that mock the dawn, 
From Smyrna, or the looms of Tartary, 
Or those Arachne wove. 
		As oft we see 
The wherries half afloat and half ashore, 
Or as the German beaver waits his prey, 
So on the brink the unclean monster lay, 
Which brims the desert with containing stone; 
The bust reposing, and the tail alone 
Still twisting, restless in the void: it bore 
A forked end, venomed as the scorpions are. 

Then spake my guide, "Along the dreadful beach 
Now must we for a little space, to reach 
This shape malignant where it rests." We went 
Down from the causeway on the right, and then 
Ten steps across the stony marge, that so 
Clear of the sand and fire our path should go 
Along the skirting of the void, and when 
We reached the monster, near at hand I knew 
Along the edge of sand and stone, a row 
Of sinners crouching. 
		Here my Master said, 
"All kinds who suffer in this round to view, 
Before we leave it, mark their mien who sit 
Around the margin of the deeper pit. 
Go forward to them, but be brief. The while 
Converse I shortly with this beast of guile, 
That his broad shoulders bear us down." 
		Thereat 
Approached I to the doleful folk who sat 
Thus on the torture's utmost bound. Their woe 
Was streaming from their eyes Above, below, 
With restless movements, like the dog that lies 
In summer, sleepless from the teasing flies, 
And turns, now here, now there, with snout and paw 
Smiting, so they with ceaseless hands and vain 
Brushed the hot sand, or flicked the burning rain. 

From face to face I looked, but nought I saw 
Familiar, only that a purse there hung 
From every neck, of various prints, and each, 
The while they baked along the dismal beach, 
Gazed down, as though his sure salvation lay 
The emblazoned pouch within. 
		The shades among, 
One gilded pouch an azure lion bore, 
And one of gules a white goose showed, but more, 
I paused at one who on a silver ground 
A pregnant sow gave azure, and thereon 
He looked, and growled, "What dost thou? Get thee gone. 
Thou art not of us. But since thy live return 
My word may carry, let the Paduans learn 
The place at my left side, that's vacant now, 
Awaits Vitaliano." Like a cow 
He writhed his mouth, and licked his nose, and said, 
"Of Padua I; but these are Florentines 
Around me. Oft they din my ears and cry, 
We wait the sovereign cavalier, who shines 
In silver. He shall bear the he goats red 
Upon the pouch that decks his throat." 
		But I 
Would wait no longer, lest my guide were wroth, 
And left these dolorous souls, pain-wearied now, 
Beneath their burden of eternity, 
While backward to the beast I went. 
		His haunch 
My guide had climbed, and now to venture forth 
He called me likewise. "Here I mount, that thou 
Shalt ride before me; so the swinging tail, 
More distant from thy fears, when out we launch, 
Shall steer us downward. Here no steadier stair 
Avails, but through the empty dark we sail. 
Be bold, and fear not. For the fetid air 
Shall bear us safely." 
		As the man that fears 
The nearing ague, pale and shivering stands, 
Already gazing on a bloodless nail, 
Not strengthful even to leave the harmful shade, 
Was I that heard. But yet with trembling hands 
(As some poor knave his craven heart conceals, 
Emboldened by his master's calm), I made 
My passage to the shoulders broad. I tried 
For words in which to beg my gentle guide 
To lend his arm, but no sound came, and he, 
Who knew my thoughts, and aided all, thereon 
Reached round me while he ordered, - "Geryon, 
Now start, and widely be thy circles spread, 
And slow thy sinking." As the wherries slide 
Downward and backward to the waiting tide, 
So slid the monster from the bank, until, 
Launched in free space, he outward turned his head 
To face the void, and like an eel his tail 
Was twisting, and his paws outreached to fill 
With gathered air. 
		Did greater fears assail 
When PhaÛthon let the loose reins fall, that they 
Were trailed through heaven, and burnt the Milky Way? 
Or when Icarus felt the wax divide 
From feathered loins, the while his father cried, 
Far under, Evil road is thine? No sight 
Was left me, save the beast I rode. The night 
Was hollow where he swam. I might not know 
That sank we, saving that the wind below 
Beat upward, and against my face it blew 
As round we wheeled in gradual loops. I knew, 
Right-hand, the thunder of the whirlpool rise, 
And outward stretched my head, with downward eyes, 
And then shrank backward in more fear, for high 
Through the gross darkness pierced a wailing cry, 
And flickering lights were far beneath, whereby 
I learnt our height, and by these sights aware 
Of how we wheeled, and in what space of air, 
And how descending, colder fear I knew. 

But as the falcon, soaring long in vain, 
Wing-wearied, stoops to reach the empty plain, 
Though neither bird nor lure attract, the while 
The falconer cries Alas I and winging slow 
Disdainful, sullen, not for bait or guile 
Is lured, but from his master sulks, - below 
The ragged rocks at last, this Geryon, 
By us defeated of his customed freight, 
Alit, but lightened of my earthly weight 
Like arrow from the loosened string was gone. 


Canto XVIII 

Now stood we in the utter depth of Hell, 
For here ten trenches, with a central well, 
Contain all traitors in their kinds. The wall 
Is iron-grey stone that rings it round, and all 
Its floors and bastions are alike. Its name 
Is Malebolge. In this central shame 
There lie ten moats that like a tenfold chain 
Circle the wide and deep and dreadful well 
That midmost sinks, - but in its place I tell 
That horror. 
		As succeeding moats begird 
A fortress, so, between the outer wall 
And central shaft, the ten great chasms extend 
In which the sin-divided traitors herd, 
And as such moats are bridged, so cliffs remain 
Connecting bank to bank, converging all 
Where, at the margin of the pit, they end. 

By the first fosse we stood, when Geryon shook 
His back in anger from my weight, and shot 
Upward again for his familiar prey. 
My guide, left-hand, beneath the rampart took 
narrow path the ditch that edged, to find 
The nearest crossing. In his steps behind 
I walked, nor spared upon my right to look 
Down on the crowd that filled the trench. Their lot 
Revealed new torments, and new griefs, for they 
Had live tormentors for their bane, unlike 
The circles past. 
		Beneath the demons' ban 
All-naked here in two great crowds they ran, 
In opposite ways. For close beneath the dyke 
The advancing concourse faced us all, but those 
Lined in the further rank beside us moved, 
Though livelier-motioned. 
		As at Rome were seen 
The pilgrims in the year of Jubilee 
Divided on the bridge, - one crowd was sent 
Toward St. Peter's, one reversed that went 
Toward Giordano, - so these shades I see 
Herded. Behind them demons, horned and hooved, 
With swinging scourges move. Their backs are grooved 
And whealed with beating where the thongs have been. 
Ah, how the first cut lifts their legs! Not one 
That waits a second stroke to make him run. 

As on we passed, a sinner stayed mine eye 
Whose face familiar seemed. With bended head 
He shunned my gaze, but to my guide I said, 
"One was there in the troop that passed us by 
Already that my sight had known." Thereat 
He paused not only, but in courtesy 
Some steps allowed me to return, that I 
Might question whom I sought; and when we found 
That hiding shade I cried aloud, "O thou! 
In vain that wouldst, with careful glance on ground, 
Avoid, except that features feigned ye wear, 
I know ye, Venedico. What curst prank 
Hath cast thee pickling in so foul a tank?" 

He answered, sullen, "Nought I seek to tell, 
But thy clear speech, that through the murk of Hell, 
With recollection of the former air, 
Resounds so strangely, all compels. I run 
For no gained greed or spoil my lust had won. 
Persuasions only brought my bane. I weep 
That fair Ghisola shared the Marquis' sleep 
By my contriving. That the truth, whate'er 
The aspect that a viler tale may wear 
In lips of gossip. Tell the Bolognese 
It is not only I that run with these 
From our false city. They crowd more numerous 
Than all the infant tongues on earth today 
That Sipa in their speech are taught to say, 
Between the Reno and the Savena. 
If witness wouldst thou seek, recall of us 
Our avarice, that thyself hast known." But here 
A chasing demon smote his haunch. "Away, 
Pander! no women here are coin." He leapt 
Wildly, and raced, and I returned, and kept 
Behind mine escort. 
		In few steps a ridge 
We reached, that jutted from the wall. A bridge 
It made, outhollowed where the crowd below 
Went through it. Here we inward turned and left 
Forever all the loftier woes, wherein 
They weep who wrought direct inferior sin; 
And on the centre of the span my guide 
Paused, in his thought for my desire, to show 
Those shades who late, because they raced beside, 
And did not meet us, might have passed unseen. 

This train we faced, and watched the scourges plied 
As hard as on the nearer side had been. 
But one there came who shed no tears for pain, 
And spake my guide, "Behold, his looks retain 
Their regal right, as when his craft bereft 
The Colchians of the ram; or passed his way 
By Lemnos, where the women merciless 
Their males had slain. The young Hypsipyle 
(Who for her father's life had all misled) 
In turn he cheated. Words of meaning fair, 
And marriage gifts he gave, and left her there 

Alone and pregnant. For that guilt to pay 
He runs, and Medea weights his doom. All they 
Whose hidden lives the like deceit confess 
In this direction race. But longer stay 
Deserves not. Pass we to the further trench." 

The narrow path ran on, and somewhat sank, 
But arching where it bridged the chasms. 
		A stench 
Assailed us as we neared the next, beyond 
The vapour cast from any stagnant pond 
Of earth's excretions, scent and sight alike 
Assailing. Moaning from the depth arose, 
And gasping, and the noise of beating hands. 
The banks were caked with filth the vapour left 
In rolling upward from the dismal cleft, 
Which sinks so deep that he alone who stands 
On the mid archway of the bridge can see 
Its hidden baseness. There, with useless blows, 
I saw the wallowing crowd of culprits strike 
The flowing filth from off their mouths. A head 
Was there so soiled, I looked in doubt if he 
Were priest or layman, till in wrath he bawled, 
"Why dost thou scan me in my filthiness? 
I am not soaking in a different mess 
From those around me." 
		In return I called, 
"Because I knew thee when thy hair was dry. 
If rightly through thy present dirt I guess 
Thou art Alessio." 
		Striving still to clear 
His head, that like a rotten pumpkin showed, 
He answered, "Yea, my flatteries brought me here. 
Fair words alone have filled this dismal road." 

Then spake my guide, "Look further out, for she, 
That fouled sprawled harlot, whom in vain you see 
Scrape off the filth with filthy nails, and try, 
Now crouching at the side, now straining high, 
To avoid the deluge of the dung, on earth 
Was Thais, whose sweet tongue her lovers' worth 
Exalted past her own. But longer stay 
This trench deserves not, nor a look's delay." 


Canto XIX 

O SIMON MAGUS! O ye pestilent! 
Followers and thieves of him; who prostitute 
For gold and silver things divine I Lament, 
For here is your abiding. Here for you 
The trumpet sounds damnation. Here I stand 
On the third arch, by which your trench is spanned, 
And what behold I? Heaven and earth unite 
With these dark horrors, O Wisdom infinite! 
To show the balance of thy scales is true. 

Smooth on each wall the livid stone was dressed, 
And pierced with holes, as where the martins nest, 
But larger, and the stony floor contained 
Round holes alike, in size and shape the same 
As in my beauteous San Giovanni 
The stands for the baptizers. Lately one 
I broke to save a drowning life: let none 
Revile me with an altered tale. There came 
From out each hole two legs: the rest remained 
Housed in the rock. The soles unceasingly 
Burned, and the legs, that to the calf were bare, 
So strained and kicked that any rope had burst 
That held them. On the soles of these accurst 
Bright flames that licked the outer surface were; 
As on things oiled, they moved from heel to toe, 
Flickering and dancing. 
		"Master, show the name 
Of him whose legs from out the flood I see, 
That twist and writhe and strain more furiously 
Than all beside, and licked by livelier flame?" 

He answered, "Somewhat if we leave the bridge, 
And sideways follow the dividing ridge, 
This fosse that severs from the next below, 
There is a passage in the wall, too steep 
For any human feet or hands to go, 
But I will bear thee, if thou wilt, and so 
Himself shall tell thee why so strongly leap 
His fire-licked members." 
		I replied, "Thy will 
Is mine, thou knowest. For if my voice were still, 
My mind were naked to thy thought." 
		Left-hand 
We turned along the lower boundary, 
And here my Master bore me down, until 
Upon the perforated flood to stand 
He set me safely. Where he placed me down 
I saw the lamentable legs of him 
Who writhed so hardly. 
		"Whosoe'er thou be, 
Who hast thy body thus reversed," I cried, 
"Save by thy doom the power of speech has died, 
Unhappy, answer!" As the friar must bend, 
Confessing him who in his grave is penned, 
For some perfidious murder judged to die 
Head downwards; who, to more his fate extend, 
Prolongs confession, while the spades delay, 
So to the entrance of the hole did I 
Stoop down, and upward rose a voice, "Art here 
Already, Boniface? Before the year 
The writ foretold me? Hast thou tired so soon 
Of that dear wealth which was the tempting boon 
For which thou didst the Bride of Christ betray? 
- Won by deceit, and cast in spoils away." 

And I stood wildered, till my Master said, 
"Delay not thy reply, I am not he 
Whom thou believest." 
		This I called, whereon 
The spirit madly wrenched his feet, and cried 
With weeping voice, "Then what concern with me 
Thy steps to this unholy place has led? 
By that Great Mantle from my shoulders gone, 
The She-bear whelped me, and her cubs I tried 
To feed and foster, and exalt their pride. 
Much gold I pursed, and straitly pursed am I; 
And here I wait until the next shall die 
And take my place, and in that joyful hour 
I join the earlier of our kind, acower 
Beneath the fissures of the stones that lie. 

"But more already have I baked," he said, 
"And longer stood on my inverted head, 
Than he that follows in my place shall know. 
There comes a shepherd from the West. Bordeaux 
Shall give the Church a viler lord than he 
And I together in our deeds should be. 
For like that Jason of the Maccabees 
Who bought God's church, and bent his heathen knees 
To alien altars, shall he prove, and so, 
As to his guilt his king complaisant showed, 
The king of France shall take that impious road." 

I know not if I spoke too foolish-bold 
But in this strain I answered, "Say what gold 
Our Lord from Peter for His keys required? 
Or by Matthias next was Peter hired 
To yield that office that the guilty lost? 
But justly dost thou pay the penal cost 
Of thy betrayal. Keep that golden fee 
That made thee false to Charles of Sicily 
As best thou mayst. And but those Keys revered, 
Which in glad life thy hands have turned, repress 
Mine heart s indignant wrath, the nakedness 
Of all thou wast, my harder words should say. 
For avarice in thy Seat its guilt hath scared 
Upon the conscience of mankind. It treads 
The just man downward, and exalts the base. 
A wrath foreshown by that Evangelist 
Who saw the harlot with the seven heads 
And the ten horns, who kept her virtuous place, 
Pleasing her spouse, until the kings she kissed 
In acts of fornication. Gods to you 
Are gold and silver. In your eyes they shine 
Deities a hundred, while the idolater, 
That in your pride you excommunicate, 
To one false god bends only. Constantine! 
What countless evils through the years accrue, 
Not that thou lovedst God's spouse, but gave to her 
A wealth unseemly for her lowly state." 

As thus mine indignation spake, below 
If conscience waked or rage I may not know, 
But wild and furious sprawled his feet. My guide 
I glanced at, fearful lest his looks should chide, 
And faced assent. Again he lifted me, 
And by that path the boldest goat had shunned, 
He bore me to the crossway back. Beneath, 
The fifth great cleft gave other woes to see. 


Canto XX 

ANOTHER valley in its turn I tell. 
Another guilt, another depth of hell, 
Extends beneath. The great trench circular 
We gazed on from the crossing arch, and far 
I saw that silent weeping crowd and slow 
That moves around it, as the chanters go 
In earthly process of the Litanies. 
But other cause for shortened steps have these, 
For when my distant glance I dropped more low 
On those beneath, an unfamiliar woe 
They showed, neck-twisted where the body joins, 
Till each his own and not his neighbour's loins 
Could gaze on while he walked, and for this cause 
They needs went backwards. Some by Nature's laws 
Distorting palsies so may wrench, but I 
Have seen nought like it, nor believe the sky 
Looks down on such contortion. 
		Ye who read 
- God give ye vintage of the words ye heed - 
Reflect how I, who watched our human seed 
So altered and debased, with visage dry 
Could watch them. They of heavenly form bereft 
So far, that where the hinder parts are cleft 
The tears rolled down them as they wept, and I, 
Whose eyes thereat with kindred tears were wet, 
Bowed down upon the cold stone parapet, 
And wept beyond controlling. 
		But my guide 
Spake sharply. "Art thou of those fools," he said, 
"Whose pity liveth where it best were dead? 
For what more impious than the thought that dares 
Beyond man's province, and in fancy shares 
The mind of the Creator? Raise thine head. 
Look up! For near us is AmyhiaraØs 
For whom Hell gaped. The wondering Thebans cried, 
'Why dost thou leave the war? Why hasten thus 
Thy chariot horses down the steep?' But he 
Nor paused, nor turned, till Minos' seat before 
He stayed and trembled. Not this guise he wore 
In that proud kinghood of his fame. Dost see 
How loth his shoulders form his breast? He thought 
To see far forward. Now his limbs are taught 
To bear him backward. Next Tiresias, 
Who smote too boldly with his sorcerous rod 
The entangled snakes, and found his limbs transform 
To woman's comelier contours, soft and warm; 
Which aspect lasted till he smote again 
The twisted dealers of the earlier bane. 
The next is Aruns who, in Luni's hills, 
Whereunder toil the Carrarese for bread, 
Cave-couched amidst the marble; all the ills 
That lay fore-fated in the thought of God, 
He sought to read from unobstructed seas, 
Or where the night her starry legions led. 
Now walks he backward for his wage. With these 
Observe that body with the wry-necked head 
That onward shuffles, while her hair is spread 
Upon the breasts we see not. Bear with me 
A little while I tell. For here is she, 
Manto, who after her long wandering 
Found roothold in my native place. Her sire 
Died, and the city of the Bacchic rites 
Groaned to the scourging of an alien king, 
And she went forth. In northern Italy 
Where the wild Tyrol bars the German mire, 
The hills are hollowed. Like an inland sea 
The lake of Garda lies. A thousand streams 
Flash foaming downward from the Alpine heights 
From Garda to the Val Camonica 
To feed it, till the basin brims, and then 
Flows over at a point where all the sees, 
Trentine and Brescian and Veronese, 
Unite, that all their passing priests it seems 
Might bless the men that dwell there. Builded strong, 
To tame the Brescian and the Bergamese, 

A fortress on the lower shore is seen, 
And pouring outward through the pastures green, 
The Garda's waters, now the Mincio, 
Flow downward to Governo. First they flow 
Clear, rapid, till, the level reached, they spread 
In marshes stagnant, where are fevers bred 
When summer heats them. 
		Here that virgin came, 
And saw bare land amidst the reedy fen 
Where no man lived. The arts we may not name 
To practice, secret, with her acolytes, 
This barren place she chose, and dwelt, and here 
Left her vacated corse. The changing year 
Saw others, guiltless of her dreadful rites, 
Ingathering for the strength the marshes gave 
In troublous times. On those dead bones they built 
A city, and for that remembered grave 
They called it Mantua. Once a race it held 
More numerous, and of nobler race than now, 
Before the infatuate Casalodi spilt 
(Blindly by Pinamonte's craft impelled), 
The lives of those who served him. This believe; 
Nor other tales defrauding truth receive 
Of how my city from the marsh arose." 

I answered, "Master, other tale would be 
Quenched coal and lifeless, since thy grace allow 
That truth I hear. But wilt thou bear with me 
That backward turns my mind to these that move 
In that sad process underneath?" 
		He said: 
"Regard thou him whose dusky shoulders spread 
His weight of beard. A Grecian augur he 
When Greece so empty of its males became 
That scarce the cradles held them. Aulis heard 
Eurypilus and Calchas speak the word 
That loosed the cables of their ships. The tale 
I told before in my great tragedy, 
As well thou knowest. And here Eurypilus 
Beneath thee moves. The next is Michael Scot, 
Lean-flanked, who could by magic artistry 
Against the demons' subtlest wiles prevail. 
Guido Bonatti comes behind, and next 
Asdente weeps that his vain mind forgot 
His bench and leather. Mark those crones unsexed 
That follow. Witchcraft with their waxen dolls 
And mystic herbs they wrought, and left therefor 
The seemly ordered life which Heaven extols, 
The loom and needle. But the time permits 
No more to tarry. Come! The western wave 
At Seville yields the moon her watery grave. 
Full was she two days since, that late ye saw 
So thinly crescent in the pathless wood." 
We left them, twisted in their sorcerous pits, 
Conversing as we onward walked, until 
We reached the shadow of a darker ill, 
When gazing down the fifth black chasm we stood. 


Canto XXI 

NOW looked we downward on a darker ditch 
Than those preceding. As the bubbling pitch 
Boils in the great Venetian arsenal, 
To caulk the wave-beat ships, when winter's call 
In-herds them from repulsing seas; and there 
One builds anew, and one with hard repair 
Plugs the cracked ribs that heat and cold have strained, 
And many friendless winds have buffeted 
In many wanderings on the ocean ways. 
One mends the injured stern, and one the head, 
One fashions oars, one joins the broken stays, 
One sews the jib, one lends his aid to spread 
New mainsail for the rotten sheet and stained 
That drew them inward. So they toil beside 
The pitchy cauldron - so the boiling here 
Filled, like a cauldron, all the trench entire, 
That art Divine, and never earthly fire, 
So heated. Breaking on the surface wide 
Were bubbles only. Nought beside I saw, 
Save that the blackness heaved, and then compressed, 
Unceasing. 
		Sight of that retentive maw 
Drew my fixed gaze, until my leader's cry 
Alarmed me sharply, "Guard thee! Guard!" and I 
Stayed not to look, but toward him leapt, nor guessed 
Why called he, till within that safety pressed 
Of his sure arm I turned me round, and there, 
Across the bridge, a coal-black demon ran. 
How closer shrank I from that fierce aspect I 
How near the menace of the wings outspread 
And lightfoot speed! His shoulders sharp and high 
Sustained the haunches of a hanging man, 
Whose ankles in his claws were fast. 
		He said: 
"Ho, Taloned of the Fifth Damnation! Here 
Is Santa Zita's Elder! Thrust him down! 
While I for others of the sinful town 
Go backward. Plenty there this goal shall win, 
For all men there contrive the barterer's sin, 
- Except, of course, Bonturo!" 
		From the bridge 
He cast him, twirling. From that weight's relief 
Straightening, he mounted up the stony ridge 
So swift I thought that never hound on thief 
Was loosed so gladly. 
		Plunging headlong in 
The sinner sank, and rose convulsed, and writhed, 
Arching his back as one who prays. There came 
A cackling laughter from beneath the bridge, 
And flying demons rose. "This Holy Place," 
They mocked, "befits a sanctimonious face, 
But nought it saves thee from thy bathing. Ho! 
Ye swim not here as in the Serchio. 
It is not willed a naked part to show, 
Except the knives shall slice it." 
		As the cooks 
Around the boiler group with waiting prongs, 
To thrust the carcase if it rise too far 
Above the broth that stews it, so did they 
The twisting sinner with a score of hooks, 
Clamoring derisive. "Find thy place below, 
Where mayst thou pilfer in thy private way 
If aught attract thee there." 
		My Master said, 
"Wait here, and fear not. Where the buttress swells 
Crouch down, and hide, and whatsoe'er to me 
Of outrage or repulse you hear or see 
You need not tremble. Through the deeper 
An earlier time I came, and proved their dread." 

I crouched - and trembled. Down the central bridge 
He went and left me. Ere he gained the ridge 
That barred it from the next succeeding woe 
The demons marked him. As the dogs outfly, 
White-fanged and deafening, if a varlet show 
A mood to linger at the gate, they came, 
A rush of wings and drags outreached. Stout heart 
He needed surely. But his voice outrang 
Steadfast. "No victim for your rage am I. 
Stand back! Ye know the heavy stripes that tame 
Revolt. What! Would ye drag me? Stand apart. 
Let one come forward. When he learns my name 
Then choose ye freely." 
		Croaked the grisly crew, 
"Let Foultail test him," and the fiend advanced 
Malignly confident. "What power," he said, 
"Delays we bathe thee? Leap, or fork and fang 
Shall teach it!" Backward at the troop he glanced, 
That stirred impatient. But my leader knew 
The Power that cloaked him. 
		"Thinkest thou thus, misled, 
I blundered downward for thy sport? I come 
Divinely messaged, where propitious fate 
Hath willed another through these depths to show. 
The greater demons at the outer gate 
Have learnt it. Scatheless past thy ward we go. 
To me the outrage of thy cries is dumb. 
Thy hooks are pointless." 
		At these words the fiend, 
Sore daunted, drooped his ghastly tool, and cried, 
"We must not strike him," to the rest, and I, 
Who till this time the friending buttress screened, 
My guide called forward. At the word I ran 
Across the fearful space to reach his side, 
The demons crowding as I came. (I saw 
The footmen at Caprona once, who shrank 
As I did, when they looked, and rank on rank 
Their weaponed foes were round them, and they stood 
Protected only by the rules of war 
Against the crowd that yelled their deaths.) They would 
The thing they dared not, but their lust began 
To conquer prudence. Each the next would egg 
To nick me. "Score him on the rump." - "Do thou." - 
"Do thou then." - "Hook him, Hellbat, by the leg." 

But Foultail railed against them, "Cease thee now, 
Scarmiglione, lest the price we pay." 
And then to us, - "Ye seek a broken way. 
A thousand and two hundred years ago 
And sixty-six, it was but yesterday, 
And five hours later, Hell's foundations so 
Were wrenched and shaken, that the bridge beyond 
Was flung in fragments to the chasm below. 
Along the margin of the boiling pond 
Ye needs must go some distance. There I send 
A swift patrol, lest any crawling wretch 
Beyond the pitch his blackened limbs extend. 
Ye may go safely in their guard. They know 
Too well to trick ye. Alichino here, 
And Calcabrina, and Cagnazzo thou, 
With Ciriatto of the tusks, and those 
Who form the ten that Barbariccia leads, 
Fanged Draghignazzo, Graffiacane, 
Hellbat, and Libicocco next, and he 
That deepest-hued in peculation glows, 
Fierce Rubicante. Oft the boiling breeds 
Such boldness that the sinners seek relief 
Along the margin, to their greater grief. 
Search well. But guide these twain in safety through, 
Along the crags that edge the boiling glue, 
Until ye reach the nearest cliff that stands 
Unbroken, and bisects the trench." 
		I said, 
"O Master, let us seek the path unled 
Than in such escort I Mark them glance and grin. 
They nudge, expectant that their sport begin 
When once from Foultail's sight we pass. For me, 
I would not further, on a path I see 
More dreadful hourly." 
		"Fear thou nought for that," 
My Master answered; "thee they grin not at, 
But in the malice of their hope to fetch 
Clear of the pond and flay some crawling wretch 
That leaves the boiling." 
		By the leftward bank 
We then went forward in that grisly rank. 


Canto XXII 

MUCH have I seen of camps and moving men, 
But not that escort of the demons ten 
My mind compares. Not Campaldino saw 
Such sight uncouth; nor any rout of war, 
Pageant or masque, grotesque or carnival, 
Mummery or tilt, can aught their like recall. 
Nought in Italian lands, or lands afar, 
Nor barque by landfall steered, or leading star, 
Nought moves, on earth or wave or heavens of air, 
Like those swart fiends, our chosen escort, were. 
"Who wills to church must there with saints consort: 
Who seeks the tavern must with guzzlers sport." 
So runs the proverb. With these demons we 
Paced the black verge that ringed the dreadful sea. 
Yet little heed my mind allowed to know 
Their various aspects vile. For seethed below 
That lake of pitch the where in burning heat 
The unclean of hand received their payment meet. 
Most was I bent to learn the dole they knew 
Whose sins their souls within that cauldron threw. 
As dolphins, restless of the storm to be, 
Arch their swift backs above the heaving sea, 
Whereby the seamen, peril-warned, prepare 
To meet fierce winds with decks and spars stripped bare, 
So seemed, one instant's snatched release to gain, 
Some sinner twisting in that boiling pain, 
A shorter moment than the lightnings take, 
Would arch his back from out the burning lake. 
As wary frogs that round the stagnant ditch 
Show noses only, so the bubbling pitch 
Showed eyes of sinners, wide in watchful fright, 
That instant as the taloned imps they sight 
Sank in the slime. And as one frog may stay, 
While all beside have dived and slipped away, 
I saw (and shudder still in thought to see), 
How one delayed, and Graffiacani 
Bared his great claws, and clutched the diving head 
By pitchy locks, and from that burning bed 
Forth hauled him. So perchance yourselves have seen 
A fresh-speared otter from the water green 
Dragged, writhing. 
 		Closing round their piteous prey, 
"O rend him, Rubicante, rend and flay!" 
Cried the obscene crew. But I to Virgil then, 
"O Master, couldst thou of the souls of men 
Learn whom they seize, ere yet, their work complete, 
They backward fling him to the liquid heat?" 

Close stepped my guide, at which the fiends controlled 
Parted and stilled, and half reluctant hold 
They loosed, the while he asked what sinful name 
Men spake on earth that there to torture came. 
And while the fiends their horrid trade delayed, 
The wretch, ere yet his quivering pelt was flayed, 
Gave answer. "Fathered by a waster wild, 
Born in Navarre, my mother sold her child, 
Constrained by hunger, to a lord's employ; 
Then to King Thibault (yet himself a boy), 
My fawning service passed. By bribe and cheat 
I bought the lease of this unending heat." 

As thus constrained his trembling lips allowed 
The sin that cast him to that grisly crowd, 
Side-thrust beneath his belly's rounded cup 
The tusk of Ciriatto ripped him up. 

As some caught mouse by wicked cats at play 
Is tossed and toyed, he fared; but "Stand away!" 
Snarled Barbariccia