42
contrived to make his own the ‘queen of studs, ’ pretending that he was Buoso Donati, making his will and giving it due form. ”
45
Now that the rabid pair had come and gone (from whom I never took my eyes away), I turned to watch the other evil shades.
48
And there I saw a soul shaped like a lute, if only he’d been cut off from his legs below the belly, where they divide in two.
51
The bloating dropsy, disproportioning the body’s parts with unconverted humors, so that the face, matched with the paunch, was puny,
54
forced him to keep his parched lips wide apart, as a man who suffers thirst from raging fever has one lip curling up, the other sagging.
57
“O you who bear no punishment at all (I can’t think why) within this world of sorrow, ” he said to us, “pause here and look upon
60
the misery of one Master Adamo: in life I had all that I could desire, and now, alas, I crave a drop of water.
63
37-41. The other self-falsifier darting about the bolgia with Gianni Schicchi is Myrrha, who, overpowered by an incestuous desire for her father, King Cinyras of Cy- prus, went incognito to his bed where they made love.
The little streams that flow from the green hills of Casentino, descending to the Arno, keeping their banks so cool and soft with moisture,
66
forever flow before me, haunting me; and the image of them leaves me far more parched than the sickness that has dried my shriveled face.
69
Relentless Justice, tantalizing me, exploits the countryside that knew my sin, to draw from me ever new sighs of pain:
72
I still can see Romena, where I learned to falsify the coin stamped with the Baptist, for which I paid with my burned body there;
75
but if I could see down here the wretched souls of Guido or Alexander or their brother, I would not exchange the sight for Branda’s fountain.
78
One is here already, if those maniacs running around this place have told the truth, but what good is it, with my useless legs?
81
If only I were lighter, just enough to move one inch in every hundred years, I would have started on my way by now
84
to find him somewhere in this gruesome lot, although this ditch winds round eleven miles and is at least a half a mile across.
87
It’s their fault I am here with this choice family: they encouraged me to turn out florins whose gold contained three carats’ worth of alloy. ”
90
And I to him: “Who are those two poor souls lying to the right, close to your body’s boundary, steaming like wet hands in wintertime?”
93
90. The florin was supposed to contain twenty-four-carat gold; those of Master Adamo had twenty-one carats.
“When I poured into this ditch, I found them here, ” he answered, “and they haven’t budged since then, and I doubt they’ll move through all eternity.
96
One is the false accuser of young Joseph; the other is false Sinon, the Greek in Troy: it’s their burning fever makes them smell so bad. ”
99
And one of them, perhaps somewhat offended at the kind of introduction he received, with his fist struck out at the distended belly,
102
which responded like a drum reverberating; and Master Adam struck him in the face with an arm as strong as the fist he had received,
105
and he said to him: “Although I am not free to move around, with swollen legs like these, I have a ready arm for such occasions. ”
108
“But it was not as free and ready, was it, ” the other answered, “when you went to the stake? Of course, when you were coining, it was readier!”
111
And he with the dropsy: “Now you tell the truth, but you were not as full of truth that time when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy!”
114
“My words were false—so were the coins you made, ” said Sinon, “and I am here for one false act but you for more than any fiend in hell!”
117
“The horse, recall the horse, you falsifier, ” the bloated paunch was quick to answer back, “may it burn your guts that all the world remembers!”
120
“May your guts burn with thirst that cracks your tongue, ” the Greek said, “may they burn with rotting humors that swell your hedge of a paunch to block your eyes!”
123
97. Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, of trying to seduce her, while in reality it was she who made improper amorous advances.
98. Sinon was left behind by his fellow Greek soldiers in accordance with the master plan for the capture of Troy. Taken prisoner by the Trojans, and misrepresenting his position with the Greeks, he persuaded them to bring the wooden horse into the city.
And then the money-man: “So there you go, your evil mouth pours out its filth as usual; for if I thirst, and humors swell me up,
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you burn more, and your head is fit to split, and it wouldn’t take much coaxing to convince you to lap the mirror of Narcissus dry!”
129
I was listening, all absorbed in this debate, when the master said to me: “Keep right on looking, a little more, and I shall lose my patience. ”
132
I heard the note of anger in his voice and turned to him; I was so full of shame that it still haunts my memory today.
135
Like one asleep who dreams himself in trouble and in his dream he wishes he were dreaming, longing for that which is, as if it were not,
138
just so I found myself: unable to speak, longing to beg for pardon and already begging for pardon, not knowing that I did.
141
“Less shame than yours would wash away a fault greater than yours has been, ” my master said, “and so forget about it, do not be sad.
144
If ever again you should meet up with men engaging in this kind of futile wrangling, remember I am always at your side;
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to have a taste for talk like this is vulgar!”
129. The “mirror” is water. According to the myth, Narcissus, enamored with his own reflection in a pond, continued to gaze at it until he died.
CANTO XXXI
THROUGH THE MURKY AIR they move, up across the bank that separates the Malebolge from the pit of Hell, the Ninth (and last) Circle of the Inferno. From a distance is heard the blast of a mighty horn, which turns out to have been that of the giant Nimrod. He and other giants, including Ephialtes, are fixed eternally in the pit of Hell; all are chained except Antaeus, who, at Virgil’s request, lifts the two poets in his monstrous hand and deposits them below him, on the lake of ice known as Cocytus.
The very tongue that first spoke—stinging me, making the blood rush up to both my cheeks— then gave the remedy to ease the pain,
3
just as, so I have heard, Achilles’ lance, belonging to his father, was the source of pain, and then of balm, to him it struck.
6
Turning our backs on that trench of misery gaining the bank again that walls it in, we cut across, walking in dead silence.
9
Here it was less than night and less than day, so that my eyes could not see far ahead; but then I heard the blast of some high horn
12
which would have made a thunder-clap sound dim; it drew my eyes directly to one place, as they retraced the sound’s path to its source.
15
After the tragic rout when Charlemagne lost all his faithful, holy paladins, the sound of Roland’s horn was not as ominous.
18
16-18. In the medieval French epic La Chanson de Roland, the title character, one of Charlemagne’s ?
??holy paladins” (17), was assigned to the rear guard on the return from an expedition in Spain. At Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees the Saracens attacked, and Roland, proud to the point of foolishness, refused to sound his horn until total extermination was imminent.
Keeping my eyes still turned that way, I soon made out what seemed to be high, clustered towers. “Master, ” I said, “what city lies ahead?”
21
“Because you try to penetrate the shadows, ” he said to me, “from much too far away, you confuse the truth with your imagination.
24
You will see clearly when you reach that place how much the eyes may be deceived by distance, and so, just push ahead a little more. ”
27
Then lovingly he took me by the hand and said: “But now, before we go on farther, to prepare you for the truth that could seem strange,
30
I’ll tell you these aren’t towers, they are giants; they’re standing in the well around the bank— all of them hidden from their navels down. ”
33
As, when the fog begins to thin and clear, the sight can slowly make out more and more what is hidden in the mist that clogs the air,
36
so, as I pierced the thick and murky air, approaching slowly, closer to the well, confusion cleared and my fear took on more shape.
39
For just as Montereggion is crowned with towers soaring high above its curving ramparts, so, on the bank that runs around the well,
42
towering with only half their bodies out, stood the terrible giants, forever threatened by Jupiter in the heavens when he thunders.
45
And now I could make out one of the faces, the shoulders, the chest and a good part of the belly and, down along the sides, the two great arms.
48
40-41. In 1213 the Sienese constructed Montereggioni, a fortress on the crest of a hill eight miles from their city. The specific allusion here is to the fourteen high towers that stood on its perimeter like giant sentries.
Nature, when she cast away the mold for shaping beasts like these, without a doubt did well, depriving Mars of more such agents.
51
And if she never did repent of whales and elephants, we must consider her, on sober thought, all the more just and wary:
54
for when the faculty of intellect is joined with brute force and with evil will, no man can win against such an alliance.
57
His face, it seemed to me, was about as long and just as wide as St. Peter’s cone in Rome, and all his body’s bones were in proportion,
60
so that the bank which served to cover him from his waist down showed so much height above that three tall Frisians on each other’s shoulders
63
could never boast of stretching to his hair, for downward from the place men clasp their cloaks I saw a generous thirty hand-spans of him.
66
“Raphel may amech zabi almi!” He played these sputtering notes with prideful lips for which no sweeter psalm was suitable.
69
My guide called up to him: “Blathering idiot, stick to your horn and take it out on that when you feel a fit of anger coming on;
72
search round your neck and you will find the strap it’s tied to, you poor muddle-headed soul, and there’s the horn so pretty on your chest. ”
75
59. This bronze pine cone measuring over seven feet in height, which now stands in an inner courtyard of the Vatican, was, at Dante’s time, in the courtyard of St. Peter’s.
63. The inhabitants of Friesland, a northern province of the Netherlands, were renowned for their height.
67. These words are gibberish—the perfect representation of Nimrod’s role in the confusion of languages caused by his construction of the Tower of Babel (the “infamous device, ” 77).
And then he turned to me: “His words accuse him. He is Nimrod, through whose infamous device the world no longer speaks a common language.
78
But let’s leave him alone and not waste breath, for he can no more understand our words than anyone can understand his language. ”
81
We had to walk still farther than before, continuing to the left, a full bow’s-shot, to find another giant, huger and more fierce.
84
What engineer it took to bind this brute I cannot say, but there he was, one arm pinned to his back, the other locked in front,
87
with a giant chain winding around him tight, which, starting from his neck, made five great coils— and that was counting only to his waist.
90
“This beast of pride decided he would try to pit his strength against almighty Jove, ” my leader said, “and he has won this prize.
93
He’s Ephialtes, who made his great attempt when the giants arose to fill the Gods with panic; the arms he lifted then, he moves no more. ”
96
And I to him: “If it were possible, I would really like to have the chance to see the fantastic figure of Briareus. ”
99
His answer was: “Not far from here you’ll see Antaeus, who can speak and is not chained; he will set us down in the very pit of sin.
102
The one you want to see is farther off; he too is bound and looks just like this one, except for his expression, which is fiercer. ”
105
78. Before the construction of the Tower of Babel all men spoke a common language.
99. The Titan Briareus, son of Uranus and Gaea (Earth), joined the rebellion against the Olympian deities.
No earthquake of the most outrageous force ever shook a tower with such violence as, suddenly, Ephialtes shook himself.
108
I never feared to die as much as then, and my fear might have been enough to kill me, if I had not already seen those chains.
111
We left him and continued moving on and came to where Antaeus stood, extending from the well a good five ells up to his head.
114
“O you who in the celebrated valley (that saw Scipio become the heir of glory, when Hannibal with all his men retreated)
117
once captured a thousand lions as your quarry (and with whose aid, had you chosen to take part in the great war with your brothers, the sons of earth
120
would, as many still think, have been the victors), do not disdain this modest wish: take us, and put us down where ice locks in Cocytus.
123
Don’t make us go to Tityus or Typhon; this man can give you what all long for here, and so bend down, and do not scowl at us.
126
He still can spread your legend in the world, for he yet lives, and long life lies before him, unless Grace summons him before his time. ”
129
Thus spoke my master, and the giant in haste stretched out the hands whose formidable grip great Hercules once felt, and took my guide.
132
And Virgil, when he felt the grasping hands, called out: “Now come and I’ll take hold of you. ” Clasped together, we made a single burden.
135
124. Tityus and Typhon were members of the race of Titans.
As the Garisenda looks from underneath its leaning side, at the moment when a cloud comes drifting over against the tower’s slant,
138
just so the bending giant Antaeus seemed as I looked up, expecting him to topple. I wished then I had gone another way.
141
But he, most carefully, handed us down to the pit that swallows Lucifer with Judas. And then, the leaning giant immediately
144
drew himself up as tall as a ship’s mast.
CANTO XXXII
THEY DESCEND FARTHER down into the darkness of the immense plain of ice in which shades of Traitors are frozen. In the outer region of the ice-lake, Caï
na, are those who betrayed their kin in murder; among them, locked in a frozen embrace, are Napoleone and Alessandro of Mangona, and others are Mordred, Focaccia, Sassol Mascheroni, and Camicion de’pazzi. Then the two travelers enter the area of ice called Antenora, and suddenly the Pilgrim kicks one of the faces sticking out of the ice. He tries to force the sinner to reveal his name by pulling out his hair, and when another shade identifies him as Bocca degli Abati, the Pilgrim’s fury mounts still higher. Bocca, himself furious, names several other sinners in Antenora, including Buoso da Durea, Tesauro dei Beccheria, Gianni de’ Soldanier, Ganelon, and Tibbald. Going far- ther on, the Pilgrim sees two heads frozen in one hole, the mouth of one gnawing at the brain of the other.
136-138. Of the two leaning towers in Bologna, the Garisenda, built ca. 1110, is the shorter. The passage of a cloud “against the tower’s slant” (138) would make the tower appear to be falling.
If I had words grating and crude enough that really could describe this horrid hole supporting the converging weight of Hell,
3
I could squeeze out the juice of my memories to the last drop. But I don’t have these words, and so I am reluctant to begin.
6
To talk about the bottom of the universe the way it truly is, is no child’s play, no task for tongues that gurgle baby-talk.
9
But may those heavenly ladies aid my verse who aided Amphion to wall-in Thebes, that my words may tell exactly what I saw.
12
O misbegotten rabble of all rabble, who crowd this realm, hard even to describe, it were better you had lived as sheep or goats!
15
When we reached a point of darkness in the well below the giant’s feet, farther down the slope, and I was gazing still at the high wall,
18
I heard somebody say: “Watch where you step! Be careful that you do not kick the heads of this brotherhood of miserable souls. ”
21
At that I turned around and saw before me a lake of ice stretching beneath my feet, more like a sheet of glass than frozen water.
24
In the depths of Austria’s wintertime, the Danube never in all its course showed ice so thick, nor did the Don beneath its frigid sky,
27