| |
| SO were mine eyes inebriate with the view | |
| Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds | |
| Disfigured, that they long’d to stay and weep. | |
| But Virgil roused me: “What yet gazest on? | |
| Wherefore doth fasten yet thy sight below | 5 |
| Among the maim’d and miserable shades? | |
| Thou hast not shown in any chasm beside | |
| This weakness. Know, if thou wouldst number them, | |
| That two and twenty miles the valley winds | |
| Its circuit, and already is the moon | 10 |
| Beneath our feet: the time permitted now | |
| Is short; and more, not seen, remains to see.” | |
| “If thou,” I straight replied, “hadst weigh’d the cause, | |
| For which I look’d, thou hadst perchance excused | |
| The tarrying still.” My leader part pursued | 15 |
| His way, the while I follow’d, answering him, | |
| And adding thus: “Within that cave I deem, | |
| Whereon so fixedly I held my ken, | |
| There is a spirit dwells, one of my blood, | |
| Wailing the crime that costs him now so dear.” | 20 |
| Then spake my master: “Let thy soul no more | |
| Afflict itself for him. Direct elsewhere | |
| Its thought, and leave him. At the bridge’s foot | |
| I mark’d how he did point with menacing look | |
| At thee, and heard him by the others named | 25 |
| Geri of Bello. 1 Thou so wholly then | |
| Wert busied with his spirit, who once ruled | |
| The towers of Hautefort, that thou lookedst not | |
| That way, ere he was gone.” “O guide beloved! | |
| His violent death yet unavenged,” said I, | 30 |
| “By any, who are partners in his shame, | |
| Made him contemptuous; therefore, as I think, | |
| He pass’d me speechless by; and, doing so, | |
| Hath made me more compassionate his fate.” | |
| So we discoursed to where the rock first show’d | 35 |
| The other valley, had more light been there, | |
| E’en to the lowest depth. Soon as we came | |
| O’er the last cloister in the dismal rounds | |
| Of Malebolge, and the brotherhood | |
| Were to our view exposed, then many a dart | 40 |
| Of sore lament assail’d me, headed all | |
| With points of thrilling pity, that I closed | |
| Both ears against the volley with mine hands. | |
| As were the torment, if each lazar-house | |
| Of Valdichiana, 2 in the sultry time | 45 |
| ’Twixt July and September, with the isle | |
| Sardinia and Maremma’s pestilent fen, 3 | |
| Had heap’d their maladies all in one foss | |
| Together; such was here the torment: dire | |
| The stench, as issuing streams from fester’d limbs. | 50 |
| We on the utmost shore of the long rock | |
| Descended still to leftward. Then my sight | |
| Was livelier to explore the depth, wherein | |
| The minister of the most mighty Lord, | |
| All-searching Justice, dooms to punishment | 55 |
| The forgers noted on her dread record. | |
| More rueful was it not methinks to see | |
| The nation in Ægina 4 droop, what time | |
| Each living thing, e’en to the little worm, | |
| All fell, so full of malice was the air | 60 |
| (And afterward, as bards of yore have told, | |
| The ancient people were restored anew | |
| From seed of emmets), than was here to see | |
| The spirits, that languish’d through the murky vale, | |
| Up-piled on many a stack. Confused they lay, | 65 |
| One o’er the belly, o’er the shoulders one | |
| Roll’d of another; sideling crawl’d a third | |
| Along the dismal pathway. Step by step | |
| We journey’d on, in silence looking round, | |
| And listening those diseased, who strove in vain | 70 |
| To lift their forms. Then two I mark’d, that sat | |
| Propt ’gainst each other, as two brazen pans | |
| Set to retain the heat. From head to foot, | |
| A tetter bark’d them round. Nor saw I e’er | |
| Groom currying so fast, for whom his lord | 75 |
| Impatient waited, or himself perchance | |
| Tired with long watching, as of these each one | |
| Plied quickly his keen nails, through furiousness | |
| Of ne’er abated pruriency. The crust | |
| Came down from underneath, in flakes, like scales | 80 |
| Scraped from the bream, or fish of broader mail. | |
| “O thou! who with thy fingers rendest off | |
| Thy coat of proof,” thus spake my guide to one, | |
| “And sometimes makest tearing pincers of them, | |
| Tell me if any born of Latian land | 85 |
| Be among these within: so may thy nails | |
| Serve thee for everlasting to this toil.” | |
| “Both are of Latium,” weeping he replied, | |
| “Whom tortured thus thou seest: but who art thou | |
| That hast inquired of us?” To whom my guide: | 90 |
| “One that descend with this man, who yet lives, | |
| From rock to rock, and show him Hell’s abyss.” | |
| Then started they asunder, and each turn’d | |
| Trembling toward us, with the rest, whose ear | |
| Those words redounding struck. To me my liege | 95 |
| Address’d him: “Speak to them whate’er thou list.” | |
| And I therewith began: “So may no time | |
| Filch your remembrance from the thoughts of men | |
| In the upper world, but after many suns | |
| Survive it, as ye tell me, who ye are, | 100 |
| And of what race ye come. Your punishment, | |
| Unseemly and disgustful in its kind, | |
| Deter you not from opening thus much to me.” | |
| “Arezzo was my dwelling,” 5 answer’d one, | |
| “And me Albero of Siena brought | 105 |
| To die by fire: but that, for which I died, | |
| Leads me not here. True is, in sport I told him, | |
| That I had learn’d to wing my flight in air; | |
| And he, admiring much, as he was void | |
| Of wisdom, will’d me to declare to him | 110 |
| The secret of mine art: and only hence, | |
| Because I made him not a Dædalus, | |
| Prevail’d on one supposed his sire to burn me. | |
| But Minos to this chasm, last of the ten, | |
| For that I practised alchemy on earth, | 115 |
| Has doom’d me. Him no subterfuge eludes.” | |
| Then to the bard I spake: “Was ever race | |
| Light as Siena’s? 6 Sure not France herself | |
| Can show a tribe so frivolous and vain.” | |
| The other leprous spirit heard my words, | 120 |
| And thus return’d: “Be Stricca 7 from this charge | |
| Exempted, he who knew so temperately | |
| To lay out fortune’s gifts; and Niccolo, | |
| Who first the spice’s costly luxury | |
| Discover’d in that garden, 8 where such seed | 125 |
| Roots deepest in the soil; and be that troop | |
| Exempted, with whom Caccia of Asciano | |
| Lavish’d his vineyards and wide-spreading woods, | |
| And his rare wisdom Abbagliato show’d | |
| A spectacle for all. That thou mayst know | 130 |
| Who seconds thee against the Sienese | |
| Thus gladly, bend this way thy sharpen’d sight, | |
| That well my face may answer to thy ken; | |
| So shalt thou see I am Capocchio’s ghost, 9 | |
| Who forged transmuted metals by the power | 135 |
| Of alchemy; and if I scan thee right, | |
| Thou needs must well remember how I aped | |
| Creative nature by my subtle art.” | |
