Canto XXIX   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Dante, at the desire of Virgil, proceeds onward to the bridge that crosses the tenth gulf, from whence he hears the cries of the alchemists and forgers, who are tormented therein; but not being able to discern anything on account of the darkness, they descend the rock, that bounds this, the last of the compartments in which the eighth circle is divided, and then behold the spirits who are afflicted by divers plagues and diseases. Two of them, namely, Grifolino of Arezzo, and Capocchio of Siena, are introduced speaking.   
    
    
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.”      
    
Note 1. “Geri of Bello.” A kinsman of the Poet’s, who was murdered by one of the Sacchetti family. His being placed here, may be considered as a proof that Dante was more impartial in the allotment of his punishments than has generally been supposed. [back]   
Note 2. The valley through which passes the river Chiana, bounded by Arezzo, Cortona, Montepulciano, and Chiusi. In the autumn it was formerly rendered unwholesome by the stagnation of the water, but has since been drained by the Emperor Leopold II. The Chiana is mentioned as a remarkably sluggish stream, in the Paradise, Canto xiii. 21. [back]   
Note 3. See note to Canto xxv, v. 18. [back]   
Note 4. “In Ægina.” He alludes to the fable of the ants changed into Myrmidons.—Ovid, Met. lib. vii. [back]   
Note 5. Grifolino of Arezzo, who promised Albero, son of the Bishop of Siena, that he would teach him the art of flying; and, because he did not keep his promise, Albero prevailed on his father to have him burnt for a necromancer. [back]   
Note 6. The same imputation is again cast on the Sienese, Purgatory, Canto xiii, 141. [back]   
Note 7. This is said ironically, Stricca, Niccolo Salimbeni, Caccia of Asciano, and Abbagliato, or Meo de’ Folcacchieri, belonged to a company of prodigal and luxurious youth in Siena, called the “brigata godereccia.” Niccolo was the inventor of a new manner of using cloves in cookery, and which was termed the “costuma ricca.” [back]   
Note 8. “In that garden.” Siena. [back]   
Note 9. Capocchio of Siena who is said to have been a fellow-student of Dante’s, in natural philosophy.

Canto XXX   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—In the same gulf, other kinds of impostors, as those who have counterfeited the persons of others, or debased the current coin, or deceived by speech under false pretences, are described as suffering various diseases. Sinon of Troy and Adamo of Brescia mutually reproach each other with their several impostures.   
    
    
WHAT time resentment burn’d in Juno’s breast      
From Semele against the Theban blood,      
As more than once in dire mischance was rued;      
Such fatal frenzy seized on Athamas,      
That he his spouse beholding with a babe           5   
Laden on either arm, “Spread out,” he cried,      
“The meshes, that I take the lioness      
And the young lions at the pass:” then forth      
Stretch’d he his merciless talons, grasping one,      
One helpless innocent, Learchus named,           10   
Whom swinging down he dash’d upon a rock;      
And with her other burden, self-destroy’d,      
The hapless mother plunged. And when the pride      
Of all presuming Troy fell from its height,      
By fortune overwhelm’d, and the old king           15   
With his realm perish’d; then did Hecuba,      
A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw      
Polyxena first slaughter’d, and her son,      
Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach      
Next met the mourner’s view, then reft of sense           20   
Did she run barking even as a dog;      
Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul.      
But ne’er the Furies, or of Thebes, or Troy,      
With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads      
Infixing in the limbs of man or beast,           25   
As now two pale and naked ghosts I saw,      
That gnarling wildly scamper’d, like the swine      
Excluded from his stye. One reach’d Capocchio,      
And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs,      
Dragg’d him, that, o’er the solid pavement rubb’d           30   
His belly stretch’d out prone. The other shape,      
He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake:      
“That sprite of air is Schicchi; 1 in like mood      
Of random mischief vents he still his spite.”      
  To whom I answering: “Oh! as thou dost hope           35   
The other may not flesh its jaws on thee,      
Be patient to inform us, who it is,      
Ere it speed hence.”—“That is the ancient soul      
Of wretched Myrrha,” he replied, “who burn’d      
With most unholy flame for her own sire,           40   
And a false shape assuming, so perform’d      
The deed of sin; e’en as the other there,      
That onward passes, dared to counterfeit      
Donati’s features, to feign’d testament      
The seal affixing, that himself might gain,           45   
For his own share, the lady of the herd.”      
  When vanish’d the two furious shades, on whom      
Mine eye was held, I turn’d it back to view      
The other cursed spirits. One I saw      
In fashion like a lute, had but the groin           50   
Been sever’d where it meets the forked part.      
Swoln dropsy, disproportioning the limbs      
With ill-converted moisture, that the paunch      
Suits not the visage, open’d wide his lips,      
Gasping as in the hectic man for drought,           55   
One toward the chin, the other upward curl’d.      
  “O ye! who in this world of misery,      
Wherefore I know not, are exempt from pain,”      
Thus he began, “attentively regard      
Adamo’s woe. 2 When living, full supply           60   
Ne’er lack’d me of what most I coveted;      
One drop of water now, alas! I crave.      
The rills, that glitter down the grassy slopes      
Of Casentino,  3 making fresh and soft      
The banks whereby they glide to Arno’s stream,           65   
Stand ever in my view; and not in vain;      
For more the pictured semblance dries me up,      
Much more than the disease, which makes the flesh      
Desert these shrivel’d cheeks. So from the place,      
Where I transgress’d, stern justice urging me,           70   
Takes means to quicken more my laboring sighs.      
There is Romena, where I falsified      
The metal with the Baptist’s form imprest,      
For which on earth I left my body burnt.      
But if I here might see the sorrowing soul           75   
Of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,      
For Branda’s limpid spring 4 I would not change      
The welcome sight. One is e’en now within,      
If truly the mad spirits tell, that round      
Are wandering. But wherein besteads me that?           80   
My limbs are fetter’d. Were I but so light,      
That I each hundred years might move one inch,      
I had set forth already on this path,      
Seeking him out amidst the shapeless crew,      
Although eleven miles it wind, not less           85   
Than half of one across. They brought me down      
Among this tribe; induced by them, I stamp’d      
The florens with three carats of alloy. 5      
  “Who are that abject pair,” I next inquired,      
“That closely bounding thee upon thy right           90   
Lie smoking, like a hand in winter steep’d      
In the chill stream?”—“When to this gulf I dropp’d,”      
He answer’d, “here I found them; since that hour      
They have not turn’d, nor ever shall, I ween,      
Till time hath run his course. One is that dame,           95   
The false accuser 6 of the Hebrew youth;      
Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy.      
Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out,      
In such a cloud upsteam’d.” When that he heard,      
One, gall’d perchance to be so darkly named,           100   
With clench’d hand smote him on the braced paunch,      
That like a drum resounded: but forthwith      
Adamo smote him on the face, the blow      
Returning with his arm, that seem’d as hard.      
  “Though my o’er weighty limbs have ta’en from me           105   
The power to move,” said he, “I have an arm      
At liberty for such employ.” To whom      
Was answer’d: “When thou wentest to the fire,      
Thou hadst it not so ready at command;      
Then readier when it coin’d the impostor gold.”           110   
  And thus the dropsied: “Ay, now speak’st thou true:      
But there thou gavest not such true testimony,      
When thou wast question’d of the truth, at Troy.”      
  “If I spake false, thou falsely stamp’dst the coin,”      
Said Sinon; “I am here for but one fault,           115   
And thou for more than any imp beside.”      
  “Remember,” he replied, “O perjured one!      
The horse remember, that did teem with death;      
And all the world be witness to thy guilt.”      
  “To thine,” return’d the Greek, “witness the thirst           120   
Whence thy tongue cracks, witness the fluid mound      
Rear’d by thy belly up before thine eyes,      
A mass corrupt.” To whom the coiner thus:      
“Thy mouth gapes wide as ever to let pass      
Its evil saying. Me if thirst assails,           125   
Yet I am stuft with moisture. Thou art parch’d:      
Pains rack thy head: no urging wouldst thou need      
To make thee lap Narcissus’ mirror up.”      
  I was all fix’d to listen, when my guide      
Admonish’d: “Now beware. A little more,           130   
And I do quarrel with thee.” I perceived      
How angrily he spake, and toward him turn’d      
With shame so poignant, as remember’d yet      
Confounds me. As a man that dreams of harm      
Befallen him, dreaming wishes it a dream,           135   
And that which is, desires as if it were not;      
Such then was I, who, wanting power to speak,      
Wish’d to excuse myself, and all the while      
Excused me, though unweeting that I did.      
  “More grievous fault than thine has been, less shame,”           140   
My master cried, “might expiate. Therefore cast      
All sorrow from thy soul; and if again      
Chance bring thee, where like conference is held,      
Think I am ever at thy side. To hear      
Such wrangling is a joy for vulgar minds.”           145   
    
Note 1. Gianni Schicchi, of the family of Cavalcanti, possessed such a faculty of molding his features to the resemblance of others, that he was employed by Simon Donati to personate Buoso Donati, then recently deceased, and to make a will, leaving Simon his heir; for which service he was remunerated with a mare of extraordinary value, here called “the lady of the herd.” [back]   
Note 2. Adamo of Brescia, at the instigation of Guido, Alessandro, and their brother Aghiunlfo, lords of Romena, counterfeited the coin of Florence; for which crime he was burnt. [back]   
Note 3. Romena, a part of Casentino. [back]   
Note 4. A fountain at Siena. [back]   
Note 5. The floren was a coin that ought to have had twenty-four carats of pure gold. Villani relates that it was first used at Florence in 1252, an era of great prosperity for the republic; before which time their most valuable coinage was of silver. [back]   
Note 6. Potiphar’s wife.

Canto XXXI   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poets, following the sound of a loud horn, are led by it to the ninth circle, in which there are four rounds, one enclosed within the other, and containing as many sorts of traitors; but the present Canto shows only that the circle is encompassed with Giants, one of whom. Antæus, takes them both in his arms and places them at the bottom of the circle.   
    
    
THE VERY tongue, whose keen reproof before      
Had wounded me, that either cheek was stain’d,      
Now minister’d my cure. So have I heard,      
Achilles’ and his father’s javelin caused      
Pain first, and then the boon of health restored.           5   
  Turning our back upon the vale of woe,      
We cross’d the encircled mound in silence. There      
Was less than day and less than night, that far      
Mine eye advanced not: but I heard a horn      
Sounded so loud, the peal it rang had made           10   
The thunder feeble. Following its course      
The adverse way, my strained eyes were bent      
On that one spot. So terrible a blast      
Orlando 1 blew not, when that dismal rout      
O’er threw the host of Charlemain, and quench’d           15   
His saintly warfare. Thitherward not long      
My head was raised, when many a lofty tower      
Methought I spied. “Master,” said I, “what land      
Is this?” He answer’d straight: “Too long a space      
Of intervening darkness has thine eye           20   
To traverse: thou hast therefore widely err’d      
In thy imagining. Thither arrived      
Thou well shalt see, how distance can delude      
The sense. A little therefore urge thee on.”      
  Then tenderly he caught me by the hand;           25   
“Yet know,” said he, “ere farther we advance,      
That it less strange may seem, these are not towers,      
But giants. In the pit they stand immersed,      
Each from his navel downward, round the bank.”      
  As when a fog disperseth gradually,           30   
Our vision traces what the mist involves      
Condensed in air; so piercing through the gross      
And gloomy atmosphere, as more and more      
We near’d toward the brink, mine error fled      
And fear came o’er me. As with circling round           35   
Of turrets, Montereggion 2 crowns his walls;      
E’en thus the shore, encompassing the abyss,      
Was turreted with giants, half their length      
Uprearing, horrible, whom Jove from Heaven      
Yet threatens, when his muttering thunder rolls.           40   
  Of one already I descried the face,      
Shoulders and breast, and of the belly huge      
Great part, and both arms down along his ribs.      
  All-teeming Nature, when her plastic hand      
Left framing of these monsters, did display           45   
Past doubt her wisdom, taking from mad War      
Such slaves to do his bidding; and if she      
Repent her not of the elephant and whale,      
Who ponders well confesses her therein      
Wiser and more discreet; for when brute force           50   
And evil will are back’d with subtlety,      
Resistance none avails. His visage seem’d      
In length and bulk, as doth the pine 3 that tops      
Saint Peter’s Roman fane; and the other bones      
Of like proportion, so that from above           55   
The bank, which girdled him below, such height      
Arose his stature, that three Friezelanders      
Had striven in vain to reach but to his hair.      
Full thirty ample palms was he exposed      
Downward from whence a man his garment loops.           60   
“Raphel 4 bai ameth, sabi almi:”      
So shouted his fierce lips, which sweeter hymns      
Became not; and my guide address’d him thus:      
“O senseless spirit! let thy horn for thee      
Interpret: therewith vent thy rage, if rage           65   
Or other passion wring thee. Search thy neck,      
There shalt thou find the belt that binds it on.      
Spirit confused! lo, on thy mighty breast      
Where hangs the baldrick!” Then to me he spake:      
“He doth accuse himself. Nimrod is this,           70   
Through whose ill counsel in the world no more      
One tongue prevails. But pass we on, nor waste      
Our words; for so each language is to him,      
As his to others, understood by none.”      
  Then to the leftward turning sped we forth,           75   
And at a sling’s throw found another shade      
Far fiercer and more huge. I cannot say      
What master hand had girt him; but he held      
Behind the right arm fetter’d, and before,      
The other, with a chain, that fasten’d him           80   
From the neck down; and five times round his form      
Apparent met the wreathed links. “This proud one      
Would of his strength against almighty Jove      
Make trial,” said my guide: “whence he is thus      
Requited: Ephialtes his they call.           85   
Great was his prowess, when the giants brought      
Fear on the gods: those arms, which then he plied,      
Now moves he never.” Forthwith I return’d:      
“Fain would I, if ’t were possible, mine eyes,      
Of Briareus immeasurable, gain’d           90   
Experience next.” He answered: “Thou shalt see      
Not far from hence Antæus, who both speaks      
And is unfetter’d, who shall place us there      
Where guilt is at its depth. Far onward stands      
Whom thou wouldst fain behold, in chains, and made           95   
Like to this spirit, save that in his looks      
More fell he seems.” By violent earthquake rock’d      
Ne’er shook a tower, so reeling to its base,      
As Ephialtes. More than ever then      
I dreaded death; nor than the terror more           100   
Had needed, if I had not seen the cords      
That held him fast. We, straightway journeying on,      
Came to Antæus, who, five ells complete      
Without the head, forth issued from the cave.      
  “O thou, who in the fortunate vale, 5 that made           105   
Great Scipio heir of glory, when his sword      
Drove back the troop of Hannibal in flight,      
Who thence of old didst carry for thy spoil      
An hundred lions; and if thou hadst fought      
In the high conflict on thy brethren’s side,           110   
Seems as men yet believed, that through thine arm      
The sons of earth had conquer’d; now vouchsafe      
To place us down beneath, where numbing cold      
Locks up Cocytus. Force not that we crave      
Or Tityus’ help or Typhon’s. Here is one           115   
Can give what in this realm ye covet. Stoop      
Therefore, nor scornfully distort thy lip.      
He in the upper world can yet bestow      
Renown on thee; for he doth live, and looks      
For life yet longer, if before the time           120   
Grace call him not unto herself.” Thus spake      
The teacher. He in haste forth stretch’d his hands,      
And caught my guide. Alcides 6 whilom felt      
That grapple, straiten’d sore. Soon as my guide      
Had felt it, he bespake me thus: “This way,           125   
That I may clasp thee;” then so caught me up,      
That we were both one burden. As appears      
The tower of Carisenda,  7 from beneath      
Where it doth lean, if chance a passing cloud      
So sail across, that opposite it hangs;           130   
Such then Antæus seem’d, as at mine ease      
I mark’d him stooping. I were fain at times      
To have past another way. Yet in the abyss,      
That Lucifer with Judas low ingulfs,      
Lightly he placed us; nor, there leaning, stay’d;           135   
But rose, as in a bark the stately mast.      
    
Note 1.
           When Charlemain with all his peerage fell at Fontarabia.”   
Milton, Paradise Lost, b. i. 586. See Warton’s Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. i. sect. iii. p. 132. “This is the horn which Orlando won from the giant Jatmund, and which, as Turpin and the Islandic bards report, was endued with magical power, and might be heard at the distance of twenty miles.” See the Paradise, Canto xviii. [back]   
Note 2. A castle near Siena. [back]   
Note 3. “The pine.” “The large pine of bronze, which once ornamented the top of the mole of Adrian, afterwards decorated the top of the belfry of St. Peter; and having (according to Buti) been thrown down by lightning, it was transferred to the place where it now is, in the Pope’s garden, by the side of the great corridor of Belvedere. In the time of our Poet, the pine was then either on the belfry or on the steps of St. Peter’s.” [back]   
Note 4. Unmeaning sounds, meant, it is supposed, to express the confusion at the building of Babel. [back]   
Note 5. The country near Carthage. [back]   
Note 6. The combat between Hercules (Alcides) and Antæus is adduced by the poet in his treatise “De Monarchiâ,” lib. ii., as proof of God’s judgment displayed in the duel, according to the singular superstition of those times. [back]   
Note 7. The leaning tower at Bologna.

Canto XXXII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—This Canto treats of the first, and, in part, of the second of those rounds, into which the ninth and last, or frozen circle, is divided. In the former, called Caïna, Dante finds Camiccione de’ Pazzi, who gives him an account of other sinners who are there punished; and in the next, named Antenora, he hears in like manner from Bocca degli Abbati who his fellow-sufferers are.   
    
    
COULD I command rough rhymes and hoarse, to suit      
That hole of sorrow o’er which every rock      
His firm abutment rears, then might the vein      
Of fancy rise full springing: but not mine      
Such measures, and with faltering awe I touch           5   
The mighty theme; for to describe the depth      
Of all the universe, is no emprise      
To jest with, and demands a tongue not used      
To infant babbling. But let them assist      
My song, the tuneful maidens, by whose aid           10   
Amphion wall’d in Thebes; so with the truth      
My speech shall best accord. Oh ill-starr’d folk,      
Beyond all others wretched! who abide      
In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words      
To speak of, better had ye here on earth           15   
Been flocks, or mountain goats. As down we stood      
In the dark pit beneath the giants’ feet,      
But lower far than they, and I did gaze      
Still on the lofty battlement, a voice      
Bespake me thus: “Look how thou walkest. Take           20   
Good heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads      
Of thy poor brethren.” Thereupon I turn’d,      
And saw before and underneath my feet      
A lake, whose frozen surface liker seem’d      
To glass than water. Not so thick a veil           25   
In winter e’er hath Austrian Danube spread      
O’er his still course, nor Tanais far remote      
Under the chilling sky. Roll’d o’er that mass      
Had Tabernich or Pietrapana 1 fallen,      
Not e’en its rim had creak’d. As peeps the frog           30   
Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams      
The village gleaner oft pursues her toil,      
So, to where modest shame appears, thus low      
Blue pinch’d and shrined in ice the spirits stood,      
Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.           35   
His face each downward held; their mouth the cold,      
Their eyes express’d the dolour of their heart.      
  A space I look’d around, then at my feet      
Saw two so strictly join’d, that of their head      
The very hairs were mingled. “Tell me ye,           40   
Whose bosoms thus together press,” said I,      
“Who are ye?” At that sound their necks they bent;      
And when their looks were lifted up to me,      
Straightway their eyes, before all moist within,      
Distill’d upon their lips, and the frost bound           45   
The tears betwixt those orbs, and held them there.      
Plank unto plank hath never cramp closed up      
So stoutly. Whence, like two enraged goats,      
They clash’d together: them such fury seized.      
  And one, from whom the cold both ears had reft,           50   
Exclaim’d, still looking downward: “Why on us      
Dost speculate so long? If thou wouldst know      
Who are these two, 2 the valley, whence his wave      
Bisenzio slopes, did for its master own      
Their sire Alberto, and next him themselves.           55   
They from one body issued: and throughout      
Caïna thou mayst search, nor find a shade      
More worthy in congealment to be fix’d;      
Not him,  3 whose breast and shadow Arthur’s hand      
At that one blow dissever’d; not Focaccia, 4           60   
No, not this spirit, whose o’erjutting head      
Obstructs my onward view; he bore the name      
Of Mascheroni: 5 Tuscan if thou be,      
Well knowest who he was. And to cut short      
All further question, in my form behold           65   
What once was Camiccione. 6 I await      
Carlino 7 here my kinsman, whose deep guilt      
Shall wash out mine.” A thousand visages      
Then mark’d I, which the keen and eager cold      
Had shaped into a doggish grin; whence creeps           70   
A shivering horror o’er me, at the thought      
Of those frore shallows. While we journey’d on      
Toward the middle, at whose point unites      
All heavy substance, and I trembling went      
Through that eternal chillness, I know not           75   
If will it were, or destiny, or chance,      
But, passing ’midst the heads, my foot did strike      
With violent blow against the face of one.      
  “Wherefore dost bruise me?” weeping the exclaim’d;      
“Unless thy errand be some fresh revenge           80   
For Montaperto, 8 wherefore troublest me?”      
  I thus: “Instructor, now await me here,      
That I through him may rid me of my doubt:      
Thenceforth what haste thou wilt.” The teacher paused      
And to that shade I spake, who bitterly           85   
Still cursed me in his wrath. “What art thou, speak,      
That railest thus on others?” He replied:      
“Now who art thou, that smiting others’ cheeks,      
Through Antenora 9 roamest, with such force      
As were past sufferance, wert thou living still?”           90   
  “And I am living, to thy joy perchance,”      
Was my reply, “if fame be dear to thee,      
That with the rest I may thy name enrol.”      
  “The contrary of what I covet most,”      
Said he, “thou tender’st: hence! nor vex me more.           95   
Ill knowest thou to flatter in this vale.”      
  Then seizing on his hinder scalp I cried”      
“Name thee, or not a hair shall tarry here.”      
  “Rend all away,” he answer’d, “yet for that      
I will not tell, nor show thee, who I am,           100   
Though at my head thou pluck a thousand times.”      
  Now I had grasp’d his tresses, and stript off      
More than one tuft, he barking, with his eyes      
Drawn in and downward, when another cried,      
“What ails thee, Bocca? Sound not loud enough           105   
Thy chattering teeth, but thou must bark outright?      
What devil wrings thee?”—“Now,” said I, “be dumb,      
Accursed traitor! To thy shame, of thee      
True tidings will I bear.”—“Off!” he replied;      
“Tell what thou list: but, as thou ’scape from hence,           110   
To speak of him whose tongue hath been so glib,      
Forget not: here he wails the Frenchman’s gold.      
‘Him of Duera,’ 10 Thou canst say, ‘I mark’d,      
Where the starved sinners pine.’ If thou be ask’d      
What other shade was with them, at thy side           115   
Is Beccaria, 11 whose red gorge distain’d      
The biting axe of Florence. Further on,      
If I misdeem not, Soldanieri, 12 bides,      
With Ganellon, 13 and Tribaldello, 14 him      
Who oped Faenza when the people slept.”           120   
  We now had left him, passing on our way,      
When I beheld two spirits by the ice      
Pent in one hollow, that the head of one      
Was cowl unto the other; and as bread      
Is raven’d up through hunger, the uppermost           125   
Did so apply his fangs to the other’s brain,      
Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously      
On Menalippus’ temples Tydeus gnaw’d,      
Than on that skull and on its garbage he.      
  “O thou! who show’st so beastly sign of hate           130   
’Gainst him thou prey’st on, let me hear,” said I,      
“The cause, on such condition, that if right      
Warrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are,      
And what the color of his sinning was,      
I may repay thee in the world above,           135   
If that, wherewith I speak, be moist so long.”      
    
Note 1. Tabernich or Pietrapana.” The one a mountain in Sclavonia, the other in that tract of country called the Garfagnana, not far from Lucca. [back]   
Note 2. Alessandro and Napoleone, sons of Alberto Alberti, who murdered each other. They were proprietors of the valley of Falterona, where the Bisenzio rises, falling into the Arno six miles from Florence. [back]   
Note 3. Mordred, son of King Arthur. In the romance of Lancelot of the Lake, Arthur, having discovered the traitorous intentions of his son, pierces him through with his lance, so that the sunbeam passes through the body. [back]   
Note 4. Focaccia of Cancellieri (the Pistoian family), whose atrocious act of revenge against his uncle is said to have given rise to the parties, Bianchi and Neri, in the year 1300. [back]   
Note 5. Sassol Mascheroni, a Florentine, who murdered his uncle. [back]   
Note 6. Camiccione de’ Pazzi of Valdarno, by whom his kinsman Ubertino was treacherously put to death. [back]   
Note 7. “Carlino.” One of the same family. He betrayed the Castel di Piano Travigne, in Valdarno, to the Florentines, after the refugees of the Bianca and Ghibelline party had defended it against a siege for twenty-nine days, in the summer of 1302. [back]   
Note 8. The defeat of the Guelfi at Montaperto through the treachery of Bocca degli Abbati, who, during the engagement, cut off the hand of Giacopo del Vacca de’ Pazzi, the Florentine standard-bearer. [back]   
Note 9. So called from Antenor, who, according to Dictys Cretensis (de Bello Troj. lib. v.) and Dares Phrygius (De Excidio Trojæ) betrayed Troy his country,” Lombardi. [back]   
Note 10. Buoso of Cremona, of the family of Duera, bribed by Guy de Montfort to leave a pass between Piedmont and Parma, with the defence of which he had been intrusted by the Ghibellines, open to the army of Charles of Anjou, A. D. 1265, at which the people of Cremona were so enraged that they extirpated the whole family. G. Villani. [back]   
Note 11. Abbot of Vallombrosa, Pope’s legate at Florence, beheaded for his intrigues with the Ghibellines. [back]   
Note 12. “Gianni Soldanieri,” says Villani, Hist. lib. vii. c. xiv., “put himself at the head of the people, in the hopes of rising into power, not aware that the result would be mischief to the Ghibelline party, and his own ruin.”—A. D. 1266. [back]   
Note 13. The betrayer of Charlemain, mentioned by Archbishop Turpin. He is a type of treachery with the poets of the Middle Ages. [back]   
Note 14. Tribaldello de’ Manfredi, bribed to betray the city of Faenza, 1282.

Canto XXXIII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poet is told by Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi of the cruel manner in which he and his children were famished in the tower at Pisa, by command of the Archbishop Ruggieri. He next discourses of the third round, called Ptolomea, wherein those are punished who have betrayed others under the semblance of kindness; and among these he finds the Friar Alberigo de’ Manfredi, who tells him of one whose soul was already tormented in that place, though his body appeared still to be alive upon the earth, being yielded up to the governance of a fiend.   
    
    
HIS jaws uplifting form their fell repast,      
That sinner wiped them on the hairs o’ the head,      
Which he behind had mangled, then began:      
“Thy will obeying, I call up afresh      
Sorrow past cure; which, but to think of, wrings           5   
My heart, or ere I tell on ’t. But if words,      
That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear      
Fruit of eternal infamy to him,      
The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once      
Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be           10   
I know not, nor how here below art come:      
But Florentine thou seemest of a truth,      
When I do hear thee. Know, I was on earth      
Count Ugolino, 1 and the Archbishop he      
Ruggieri. Why I neighbor him so close,           15   
Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts      
In him my trust reposing, I was ta’en      
And after murder’d, need is not I tell.      
What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is,      
How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear,           20   
And know if he have wrong’d me. A small grate      
Within that mew, which for my sake the name      
Of Famine bears, where others yet must pine,      
Already through its opening several moons      
Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep           25   
That from the future tore the curtain off.      
This one, methought, as master of the sport,      
Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf, and his whelps,      
Unto the mountain  2 which forbids the sight      
Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs           30   
Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged      
Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.      
After short course the father and the sons      
Seem’d tired and lagging, and methought I saw      
The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke,           35   
Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard      
My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask      
For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang      
Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold;      
And if not now, why use thy tears to flow?           40   
Now had they waken’d; and the hour drew near      
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind      
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I      
Heard, at its outlet underneath, lock’d up      
The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word,           45   
I look’d upon the visage of my sons.      
I wept not: so all stone I felt within.      
They wept: and one, my little Anselmo, cried,      
‘Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee?’ Yet      
I shed no tear, nor answer’d all that day           50   
Nor the next night, until another sun      
Came out upon the world. When a faint beam      
Had to our doleful prison made its way,      
And in four countenances I described      
The image of my own, on either hand           55   
Through agony I bit; and they, who thought      
I did it through desire of feeding, rose      
O’ the sudden, and cried, ‘Father, we should grieve      
Far less if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest      
These weeds of miserable flesh we wear;           60   
And do thou strip them off from us again.’      
Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down      
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next      
We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth!      
Why open’dst not upon us? When we came           65   
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet      
Outstretch’d did fling him, crying, ‘Hast no help      
For me, my father!’ There he died; and e’en      
Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three      
Fall one by one ’twixt the fifth day and sixth:           70   
Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope      
Over them all, and for three days aloud      
Call’d on them who were dead. Then, fasting got      
The mastery of grief.” Thus having spoke,      
Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth           75   
He fasten’d like a mastiff’s ’gainst the bone,      
Firm and unyielding. O thou Pisa! shame      
Of all the people, who their dwelling make      
In that fair region, where the Italian voice      
Is heard; since that thy neighbors are so slack           80   
To punish, from their deep foundations rise      
Capraia and Gorgona,  3 and dam up      
The mouth of Arno; that each soul in thee      
May perish in the waters. What if fame      
Reported that thy castles were betray’d           85   
By Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou      
To stretch his children on the rack. For them,      
Brigata, Uguccione, and the pair      
Of gentle ones, of whom my song hath told,      
Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make           90   
Uncapable of guilt. Onward we pass’d,      
Where others, skarf’d in rugged folds of ice,      
Not on their feet were turn’d, but each reversed.      
  There, very weeping suffers not to weep;      
For, at their eyes, grief, seeking passage, finds           95   
Impediment, and rolling inward turns      
For increase of sharp anguish: the first tears      
Hang cluster’d, and like crystal vizors show,      
Under the socket brimming all the cup.      
  Now though the cold had from my face dislodged           100   
each feeling, as ’t were callous, yet me seem’d      
Some breath of wind I felt. “Whence cometh this,”      
Said I, “my Master? Is not here below      
All vapor quench’d?”—“Thou shalt be speedily,”      
He answer’d, “where thine eyes shall tell thee whence,           105   
The cause descrying of this airy shower.”      
  Then cried out one, in the chill crust who mourn’d:      
“O souls! so cruel, that the farthest post      
Hath been assign’d you, from this face remove      
The harden’d veil; that I may vent the grief           110   
Impregnate at my heart, some little space,      
Ere it congeal again.” I thus replied:      
“Say who thou wast, if thou wouldst have mine aid;      
And if I extricate thee not, far down      
As to the lowest ice may I descend.”           115   
  “The friar Alberigo,”  4 answer’d he,      
“Am I, who from the evil garden pluck’d      
Its fruitage, and am here repaid, the date      
More luscious for my fig.”—“Hah!” I exclaim’d,      
“Art thou, too, dead?” “How in the world aloft           120   
It fareth with my body,” answer’d he,      
“I am right ignorant. Such privilege      
Hath Ptolomea,  5 that oft-times the soul      
Drops hither, ere by Atropos divorced.      
And that thou mayst wipe out more willingly           125   
The glazed tear-drops that o’erlay mine eyes,      
Know that the soul, that moment she betrays,      
As I did, yields her body to a fiend      
Who after moves and governs it at will,      
Till all its time be rounded: headlong she           130   
Falls to this cistern. And perchance above      
Doth yet appear the body of a ghost,      
Who here behind me winters. Him thou know’st,      
If thou but newly art arrived below.      
The years are many that have passed away,           135   
Since to this fastness Branca Doria  66 came.”      
  “Now,” answer’d I, “methinks thou mockest me;      
For Branca Doria never yet hath died,      
But doth all natural functions of a man,      
Eats, drinks, and sleeps, and putteth raiment on.”           140   
  He thus: “Not yet unto that upper foss      
By th’ evil talons guarded, where the pitch      
Tenacious boils, had Michel Zanche reach’d,      
When this one left a demon in his stead      
In his own body, and of one his kin,           145   
Who with him treachery wrought. But now put forth      
Thy hand, and ope mine eyes.” I oped them not.      
Ill manners were best courtesy to him.      
  Ah Genoese! men perverse in every way      
With every foulness stain’d why from the earth           150   
Are ye not cancel’d? Such an one of yours      
I with Romagna’s darkest spirit  7 found,      
As, for his doings, even now in soul      
Is in Cocytus plunged, and yet doth seem      
In body still alive upon the earth.           155   
    
Note 1. “Count Ugolino.”—“In the year 1288, in the month of July, Pisa was much divided by competitors for the sovereignty; one party, composed of certain of the Guelfi, being headed by the Judge Nino di Gallura de’ Visconti; another, consisting of others of the same faction, by the Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi; and a third by the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, with the Lanfranchi, Sismondi, Gualandi, and other Ghibelline houses. The Count Ugolino, to effect his purpose, united with the archbishop and his party, and having betrayed Nino, his sister’s son, they contrived that he and his followers should either be driven out of Pisa, or their persons seized. Nino hearing this, and not seeing any means of defending himself, retired to Calci, his castle, and formed an alliance with the Florentines and the people of Lucca, against the Pisans. The count, before Nino was gone, in order to cover his treachery, when everything was settled for his expulsion, quitted Pisa, and repaired to a manor of his called Settimo; whence, as soon as he was informed of Nino’s departure, he returned to Pisa with great rejoicing and festivity, and was elevated to the supreme power with every demonstration of triumph and honor. But his greatness was not of long continuance. It pleased the Almighty that a total reverse of fortune should ensue, as a punishment for his acts of treachery and guilt; for he was said to have poisoned the Count Anselmo da Capraia, his sister’s son, on account of the envy and fear excited in his mind by the highs’ esteem in which the gracious manners of Anselmo were held by the Pisans. The power of the Guelfi being so much diminished, the archbishop devised means to betray the Count Ugolino, and caused him to be suddenly attacked in his palace by the fury of the people, whom he had exasperated, by telling them that Ugolino had betrayed Pisa, and given up their castles to the citizens of Florence and of Lucca. He was immediately compelled to surrender; his bastard son and his grandson fell in the assault; and two of his sons, with their two sons also, were conveyed to prison…. In the following March, the Pisans, who had imprisoned the Count Ugolino, with two of his sons and two of his grandchildren, the offspring of his son the Count Guelfo, in a tower on the Piazza of the Anziani, caused the tower to be locked, the key thrown into the Arno, and all food to be withheld from them. In a few days they died of hunger; but the Count first with loud cries declared his penitence, and yet neither priest nor friar was allowed to shrive him. All the five, when dead, were dragged out of the prison, and meanly interred; and from thenceforward the tower was called the Tower of Famine, and so shall ever be.” G. Villani, lib. vii. [back]   
Note 2. The mountain S. Giuliano between Pisa and Lucca. [back]   
Note 3. Small islands, near the mouth of the Arno. [back]   
Note 4. The friar Alberigo,” Alberigo de’ Manfredi, of Faenza, one of the Frati Godenti (Joyous Friars), who having quarrelled with some of his brotherhood, under pretence of wishing to be reconciled, invited them to a banquet, at the conclusion of which he called for the fruit, a signal for the assassins to rush in and despatch those whom he had marked for destruction. Hence, adds Landino, it is said proverbially of one who has been stabbed, that he had had some of the friar Alberigo’s fruit. [back]   
Note 5. “Ptolomea.” This circle is named Ptolomea from Ptolemy the son of Abubus, by whom Simon and his sons were murdered, at a great banquet he had made for them. See I Maccabees, ch. xvi. Or from Ptolemy, King of Egypt, the betrayer of Pompey the Great. [back]   
Note 6. “Branca Doria.” The family of Doria was possessed of great influence in Genoa. Branca is said to have murdered his father-in-law, Michel Zanche. See Canto xxii. [back]   
Note 7. The friar Alberigo.

Canto XXXIV   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—In the fourth and last round of the ninth circle, those who have betrayed their benefactors are wholly covered with ice. And in the midst is Lucifer, at whose back Dante and Virgil ascend, till by a secret path they reach the surface of the other hemisphere of the earth, and once more obtain sight of the stars.   
    
    
“THE BANNERS of Hell’s Monarch do come forth      
Toward us; therefore look,” so spake my guide,      
“If thou discern him.” As, when breathes a cloud      
Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night      
Fall on our hemisphere, seems view’d from far           5   
A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round;      
Such was the fabric then methought I saw.      
  To shield me from the wind, forthwith I drew      
Behind my guide: no covert else was there.      
  Now came I (and with fear I bid my strain           10   
Record the marvel) where the souls were all      
Whelm’d underneath, transparent, as through glass      
Pellucid the frail stem. Some prone were laid;      
Others stood upright, this upon the soles,      
That on his head, a third with face to feet           15   
Arch’d like a bow. When to the point we came,      
Whereat my guide was pleased that I should see      
The creature eminent in beauty once,      
He from before me stepp’d and made me pause.      
  “Lo!” he exclaim’d, “lo! Dis; and lo! the place,           20   
Where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength.”      
  How frozen and how faint I then became,      
Ask me not, reader! for I write it not;      
Since words would fail to tell thee of my state.      
I was not dead nor living. Think thyself,           25   
If quick conception work in thee at all,      
How I did feel. That emperor, who sways      
The realm of sorrow, at mid breast from the ice      
Stood forth; and I in stature am more like      
A giant, than the giants are his arms.           30   
Mark now how great that whole must be, which suits      
With such a part. If he were beautiful      
As he is hideous now, and yet did dare      
To scowl upon his Maker, well from him      
May all our misery flow. Oh what a sight!           35   
How passing strange it seem’d, when I did spy      
Upon his head three faces: one in front      
Of hue vermilion, the other two with this      
Midway each shoulder join’d and at the crest;      
The right ’twixt wan and yellow seem’d; the left           40   
To look on, such as come from whence old Nile      
Stoops to the lowlands. Under each shot forth      
Two mighty wings, enormous as became      
A bird so vast. Sails never such I saw      
Outstretch’d on the wide sea. No plumes had they,           45   
But were in texture like a bat; and these      
He flapp’d i’ th’ air, that from him issued still      
Three winds, wherewith Cocytus to its depth      
Was frozen. At six eyes he wept: the tears      
Adown three chins distill’d with bloody foam.           50   
At every mouth his teeth a sinner champ’d,      
Bruised as with ponderous engine; so that three      
Were in this guise tormented. But far more      
Than from that gnawing, was the foremost pang’d      
By the fierce rending, whence oft-times the back           55   
Was stript of all its skin. “That upper spirit,      
Who hath worst punishment,” so spake my guide,      
“Is Judas, he that hath his head within      
And plies the feet without. Of th’ other two,      
Whose heads are under, from the murky jaw           60   
Who hangs, is Brutus: 1 lo! how he doth writhe      
And speaks not. The other, Cassius, that appears      
So large of limb. But night now reascends;      
And it is time for parting. All is seen.”      
  I clipp’d him round the neck; for so he bade:           65   
And noting time and place, he, when the wings      
Enough were oped, caught fast the shaggy sides,      
And down from pile to pile descending stepp’d      
Between the thick fell and the jagged ice.      
  Soon as he reach’d the point, whereat the thigh           70   
Upon the swelling of the haunches turns,      
My leader there, with pain and struggling hard,      
Turn’d round his head where his feet stood before,      
And grappled at the fell as one who mounts;      
That into Hell methought we turn’d again.           75   
  “Expect that by such stairs as these,” thus spake      
The teacher, panting like a man forespent,      
“We must depart from evil so extreme:”      
Then at a rocky opening issued forth,      
And placed me on the brink to sit, next join’d           80   
With wary step my side. I raised mine eyes,      
Believing that I Lucifer should see      
Where he was lately left, but saw him now      
With legs help upward. Let the grosser sort,      
Who see not what the point was I had past,           85   
Bethink them if sore toil oppress’d me then.      
  “Arise,” my master cried, “upon thy feet.      
The way is long, and much uncouth the road;      
And now within one hour and a half of noon 2      
The sun returns.” It was no palace-hall           90   
Lofty and luminous wherein we stood,      
But natural dungeon where ill-footing was      
And scant supply of light. “Ere from the abyss      
I separate,” thus when risen I began:      
“My guide! vouchsafe few words to set me free           95   
From error’s thraldom. Where is now the ice?      
How standeth he in posture thus reversed?      
And how from eve to morn in space so brief      
Hath the sun made his transit?” He in few      
Thus answering spake: “Thou deemest thou art still           100   
On the other side the centre, where I grasp’d      
The abhorred worm that boreth through the world.      
Thou wast on the other side, so long as I      
Descended; when I turn’d, thou didst o’erpass      
That point, to which from every part is dragg’d           105   
All heavy substance. Thou art now arrived      
Under the hemisphere opposed to that,      
Which the great continent doth overspread,      
And underneath whose canopy expired      
The Man, that was born sinless and so lived.           110   
Thy feet are planted on the smallest sphere,      
Whose other aspect is Judecca. Morn      
Here rises, when there evening sets: and he,      
Whose shaggy pile we scaled, yet standeth fix’d,      
As at the first. On this part he fell down           115   
From Heaven; and th’ earth here prominent before,      
Through fear of him did veil her with the sea,      
And to our hemisphere retired. Perchance,      
To shun him, was the vacant space left here,      
By what of firm land on this side appears, 3           120   
That sprang aloof.” There is a place beneath,      
From Belzebub as distant, as extends      
The vaulted tomb; 4 discover’d not by sight,      
But by the sound of brooklet, that descends      
This way along the hollow of a rock,           125   
Which, as it winds with no precipitous course,      
The wave hath eaten. By that hidden way      
My guide and I did enter, to return      
To the fair world: and heedless of repose      
We climb’d, he first, I following his steps,           130   
Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven      
Dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave:      
Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.      
    
Note 1. “Brutus.” Landino struggles to extricate Brutus from the unworthy lot which is here assigned him. He maintains that by Brutus and Cassius are not meant the individuals known by those names, but any who put a lawful monarch to death. Yet if Cæsar was such, the conspirators might be regarded as deserving of their doom. If Dante, however, believed Brutus to have been actuated by evil motives in putting Cæsar to death, the excellence of the patriot’s character in other respects would only have aggravated his guilt in that particular. [back]   
Note 2. The Poet uses the Hebrew manner of computing the day, according to which the third hour answers to our twelve o’clock at noon. [back]   
Note 3. The mountain of Purgatory. [back]   
Note 4. “The vaulted tomb” (“La tomba”). This word is used to express the whole depth of the infernal region.

Purgatory   
    
Canto I   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poet describes the delight he experienced at issuing a little before dawn from the infernal regions, into the pure air that surrounds the isle of Purgatory; and then relates how, turning to the right, he beheld four stars never seen before, but by our first parents, and met on his left the shade of Cato of Utica, who, having warned him and Virgil what is needful to be done before they proceed on their way through Purgatory, disappears; and the two poets go toward the shore, where Virgil cleanses Dante’s face with the dew, and girds him with a reed, as Cato had commanded.   
    
    
O’ER better waves to speed her rapid course      
The light bark of my genius lifts the sail,      
Well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind;      
And of that second region will I sing,      
In which the human spirit from sinful blot           5   
Is purged, and for ascent to Heaven prepares.      
  Here, O ye hallow’d Nine! for in your train      
I follow, here the deaden’d strain revive;      
Nor let Calliope refuse to sound      
A somewhat higher song, of that loud tone           10   
Which when the wretched birds of chattering note 1      
Had heard, they of forgiveness lost all hope.      
  Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, that was spread      
O’er the serene aspect of the pure air,      
High up as the first circle,  2 to mine eyes           15   
Unwonted joy renew’d, soon as I ’scaped      
Forth from the atmosphere of deadly gloom,      
That had mine eyes and bosom fill’d with grief.      
The radiant planet,  3 that to love invites,      
Made all the orient laugh, and veil’d beneath           20   
The Pisces’ light,  4 that in his [her] escort came.      
  To the right hand I turn’d, and fix’d my mind      
On the other pole attentive, where I saw      
Four stars 5 ne’er seen before save by the ken      
Of our first parents.  6 Heaven of their rays           25   
Seem’d joyous. O thou northern site! bereft      
Indeed, and widow’d, since of these deprived.      
  As from this view I had desisted, straight      
Turning a little toward the other pole,      
There from whence now the wain  7 had disappear’d,           30   
I saw an old man  8 standing by my side      
Alone, so worthy of reverence in his look,      
That ne’er from son to father more was owed.      
Low down his beard, and mix’d with hoary white,      
Descended, like his locks, which, parting, fell           35   
Upon his breast in double fold. The beams      
Of those four luminaries on his face      
So brightly shone, and with such radiance clear      
Deck’d it, that I beheld him as the sun.      
  “Say who are ye, that stemming the blind stream,           40   
Forth from the eternal prison-house have fled?”      
He spoke and moved those venerable plumes.      
“Who hath conducted, or with lantern sure      
Lights you emerging from the depth of night,      
That makes the infernal valley ever black?           45   
Are the firm statutes of the dread abyss      
Broken, or in high Heaven new laws ordain’d,      
That thus, condemn’d, ye to my caves approach?”      
  My guide, then laying hold on me, by words      
And intimations given with hand and head,           50   
Made my bent knees and eye submissive pay      
Due reverence; then thus to him replied:      
  “Not of myself I come; a Dame from heaven 9      
Descending, him besought me in my charge      
To bring. But since thy will implies, that more           55   
Our true condition I unfold at large,      
Mine is not to deny thee thy request.      
This mortal ne’er hath seen the farthest gloom;      
But erring by his folly had approach’d      
So near, that little space was left to turn.           60   
Then, as before I told, I was despatch’d      
To work his rescue; and no way remain’d      
Save this which I have ta’en. I have display’d      
Before him all the regions of the bad;      
And purpose now those spirits to display,           65   
That under thy command are purged from sin.      
How I have brought him would be long to say.      
From high descends the virtue, by whose aid      
I to thy sight and hearing him have led.      
Now may our coming please thee. In the search           70   
Of liberty he journeys: that how dear,      
They know who for her sake have life refused.      
Thou knowest, to whom death for her was sweet      
In Utica, where thou didst leave those weeds,      
That in the last great day will shine so bright.           75   
For us the eternal edicts are unmoved;      
He breathes, and I of Minos am not bound,      
Abiding in that circle, where the eyes      
Of thy chaste Marcia beam, who still in look      
Prays thee, O hallow’d spirit! to own her thine.           80   
Then by her love we implore thee, let us pass      
Through thy seven regions; 10 for which, best thanks      
I for thy favour will to her return,      
If mention there below thou not disdain.”      
  “Marcia so pleasing in my sight was found,”           85   
He then to him rejoin’d, “while I was there,      
That all she ask’d me I was fain to grant.      
Now that beyond the accursed stream she dwells,      
She may no longer move me, by that law, 11      
Which was ordain’d me, when I issued thence.           90   
Not so, if Dame from Heaven, as thou sayst,      
Moves and directs thee; then no flattery needs.      
Enough for me that in her name thou ask.      
Go therefore now: and with a slender reed  12      
See that thou duly gird him, and his face           95   
Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence.      
For not with eye, by any cloud obscured,      
Would it be seemly before him to come,      
Who stands the foremost minister in Heaven.      
This islet all around, there far beneath,           100   
Where the wave beats it, on the oozy bed      
Produces store of reeds. No other plant,      
Cover’d with leaves, or harden’d in its stalk,      
There lives, not bending to the water’s sway.      
After, this way return not; but the sun           105   
Will show you, that now rises, where to take      
The mountain in its easiest ascent.”      
  He disappear’d; and I myself upraised      
Speechless, and to my guide retiring close,      
Toward him turn’d mine eyes. He thus began:           110   
“My son! observant thou my steps pursue.      
We must retreat to rereward; for that way      
The champain to its low extreme declines.”      
  The dawn had chased the matin hour of prime,      
Which fled before it, so that from afar           115   
I spied the trembling of the ocean stream.      
  We traversed the deserted plain, as one      
Who, wander’d from his track, thinks every step      
Trodden in vain till he regain the path.      
  When we had come, where yet the tender dew           120   
Strove with the sun, and in a place where fresh      
The wind breathed o’er it, while it slowly dried;      
Both hands extended on the watery grass      
My master placed, in graceful act and kind.      
Whence I of his intent before apprised,           125   
Stretch’d out to him my cheeks suffused with tears.      
There to my visage he anew restored      
That hue which the dun shades of Hell conceal’d.      
  Then on the solitary shore arrived,      
That never sailing on its waters saw           130   
Man that could after measure back his course,      
He girt me in such manner as had pleased      
Him who instructed; and, oh strange to tell!      
As he selected every humble plant,      
Wherever one was pluck’d another there           135   
Resembling, straightway in its place arose.      
    
Note 1. Birds of chattering note.” For the fable of the daughters of Pierus who challenged the muses to sing, and were by them changed into magpies, see Ovid, Met. lib. v. fab. 5. [back]   
Note 2. “The first circle.” Either, as some suppose, the moon; or, as Lombardi (who likes to be as far off the rest of the commentators as possible) will have it, the highest circle of the stars. [back]   
Note 3. “Planet.” Venus. [back]   
Note 4. The constellation of the Fish veiled by the more luminous body of Venus, then a morning star. [back]   
Note 5. Symbolical of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. [back]   
Note 6. “Our first parents.” In the terrestrial paradise, placed on the summit of Purgatory. [back]   
Note 7. Charles’s Wain, or Boötes. [back]   
Note 8. “An old man.” Cato. [back]   
Note 9. Beatrice. See Hell, ii. 54. [back]   
Note 10. “Through thy seven regions.” The seven rounds of Purgatory, in which the seven capital sins are punished. [back]   
Note 11. “By that law.” When he was delivered by Christ from Limbo, a change of affections accompanied his change of place. [back]   
Note 12. A type of simplicity and patience.

Canto II   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—They behold a vessel under conduct of an angel, coming over the waves with spirits to Purgatory, among whom, when the passengers have landed, Dante recognizes his friend Casella; but, while they are entertained by him with a song, they hear Cato exclaiming against their negligent loitering, and at that rebuke hasten forward to the mountain.   
    
    
NOW had the sun  1 to that horizon reach’d,      
That covers, with the most exalted point      
Of its meridian circle, Salem’s walls;      
And night, that opposite to him her orb      
Rounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,           5   
Holding the scales,  2 that from her hands are dropt      
When she reigns highest:  3 so that where I was,      
Aurora’s white and vermeil-tinctured cheek      
To orange turn’d as she in age increased.      
  Meanwhile we linger’d by the water’s brink,           10   
Like men, who, musing on their road, in thought      
Journey, while motionless the body rests.      
When lo! as, near upon the hour of dawn,      
Through the thick vapors Mars with fiery beam      
Glares down in west, over the ocean floor;           15   
So seem’d, what once again I hope to view,      
A light, so swiftly coming through the sea,      
No winged course might equal its career.      
From which when for a space I had withdrawn      
Mine eyes, to make inquiry of my guide,           20   
Again I look’d, and saw it grown in size      
And brightness: then on either side appear’d      
Something, but what I knew not, of bright hue,      
And by degrees from underneath it came      
Another. My preceptor silent yet           25   
Stood, while the brightness, that we first discern’d,      
Open’d the form of wings: then when he knew      
The pilot, cried aloud, “Down, down; bend low      
Thy knees; behold God’s angel: fold thy hands:      
Now shalt thou see true ministers indeed.           30   
Lo! how all human means he sets at naught;      
So that nor oar he needs, nor other sail      
Except his wings, between such distant shores.      
Lo! how straight up to Heaven he holds them rear’d,      
Winnowing the air with these eternal plumes,           35   
That not like mortal hairs fall off or change.”      
  As more and more toward us came, more bright      
Appear’d the bird of God, nor could the eye      
Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down.      
He drove ashore in a small bark so swift           40   
And light, that in its course no wave it drank.      
The heavenly steersman at the prow was seen,      
Visibly written Blessed in his looks.      
Within a hundred spirits and more there sat.      
  “In Exitu  4 Israel de Egypto,”           45   
All with one voice together sang, with what      
In the remainder of that hymn is writ.      
Then soon as with the sign of holy cross      
He bless’d them, they at once leap’d out on land:      
He, swiftly as he came, return’d. The crew,           50   
There left, appear’d astounded with the place,      
Gazing around, as one who sees new sights.      
  From every side the sun darted his beams,      
And with his arrowy radiance from mid heaven      
Had chased the Capricorn, when that strange tribe,           55   
Lifting their eyes toward us: “If ye know,      
Declare what path will lead us to the mount.”      
  Them Virgil answer’d: “Ye suppose, perchance,      
Us well acquainted with this place: but here,      
We, as yourselves, are strangers. Not long erst           60   
We came, before you but a little space,      
By other road so rough and hard, that now      
The ascent will seem to us as play.” The spirits,      
Who from my breathing had perceived I lived,      
Grew pale with wonder. As the multitude           65   
Flock round a herald sent with olive branch,      
To hear what news he brings, and in their haste      
Tread one another down; e’en so at sight      
Of me those happy spirits were fix’d, each one      
Forgetful of its errand to depart           70   
Where, cleansed from sin, it might be made all fair.      
  Then one I saw darting before the rest      
With such fond ardour to embrace me, I      
To do the like was moved. O shadows vain!      
Except in outward semblance: thrice my hands           75   
I clasp’d behind it, they as oft return’d      
Empty into my breast again. Surprise      
I need must think was painted in my looks,      
For that the shadow smiled and backward drew.      
To follow it I hasten’d, but with voice           80   
Of sweetness it enjoin’d me to desist.      
Then who it was I knew, and pray’d of it,      
To talk with me it would a little pause.      
It answer’d: “Thee as in my mortal frame      
I loved, so loosed from it I love thee still,           85   
And therefore pause: but why walkest thou here?”      
  “Not without purpose once more to return,      
Thou find’st me, my Casella,  5 where I am,      
Journeying this way;” I said: “but how of thee      
Hath so much time been lost?” He answer’d straight:           90   
  “No outrage hath been done to me, if he,  6      
Who when and whom he chooses takes, hath oft      
Denied me passage here; since of just will      
His will he makes. These three months past  7 indeed,      
He, who so chose to enter, with free leave           95   
Hath taken; whence I wandering by the shore  8      
Where Tiber’s wave grows salt, of him gain’d kind      
Admittance, at that river’s mouth, toward which      
His wings are pointed; for there always throng      
All such as not to Acheron descend.”           100   
  Then I: “If new law taketh not from thee      
Memory or custom of love-tuned song,      
That whilom all my cares had power to ’swage;      
Please thee therewith a little to console      
My spirit, that encumber’d with its frame,           105   
Travelling so far, of pain is overcome.”      
  “Love, that discourses in my thoughts,” he then      
Began in such soft accents, that within      
The sweetness thrills me yet. My gentle guide,      
And all who came with him, so well were pleased,           110   
That seem’d naught else might in their thoughts have room.      
  Fast fix’d in mute attention to his notes      
We stood, when lo! that old man venerable      
Exclaiming, “How is this, ye tardy spirits?      
What negligence detains you loitering here?           115   
Run to the mountain to cast off those scales,      
That from your eyes the sight of God conceal.”      
  As a wild flock of pigeons, to their food      
Collected, blade or tares, without their pride      
Accustom’d, and in still and quiet sort,           120   
If aught alarm them, suddenly desert      
Their meal, assail’d by more important care;      
So I that new-come troop beheld, the song      
Deserting, hasten to the mountain’s side,      
As one who goes, yet, where he tends, knows not.           125   
  Nor with less hurried step did we depart.      
    
Note 1. “Now had the sun.” Dante was now antipodal to Jerusalem; so that while the sun was setting with respect to that place, which he supposes to be the middle of the inhabited earth, to him it was rising. [back]   
Note 2. The constellation Libra. [back]   
Note 3. “When she reigns highest” is (according to Venturi, whom I have followed) “when the autumnal equinox is passed.” Lombardi supposes it to mean “when the nights begin to increase, that is, after the summer solstice.”] [back]   
Note 4. “In Exitu.” “When Israel came out of Egypt.” Ps. cxiv. [back]   
Note 5. “My Casella.” A Florentine, celebrated for his skill in music, “in whose company, says Landino, “Dante often recreated his spirits, wearied by severer studies,” See Dr. Burney’s History of Music, vol. ii. cap. iv., p. 322. See also Milton’s sonnet to Henry Lawes:
           “Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher   
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,   
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.”   
 [back]   
Note 6. “He.” The conducting angel. [back]   
Note 7. “These three months past.” Since the time of the Jubilee, during which all spirits not condemned to eternal punishment were supposed to pass over to Purgatory as soon as they pleased. [back]   
Note 8. “The shore.” Ostia.

   
Canto III   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Our Poet, perceiving no shadow except that cast by his own body, is fearful that Virgil has deserted him; but he is freed from that error, and both arrive together at the foot of the mountain; on finding it too steep to climb, they inquire the way from a troop of spirits that are coming toward them, and are by them shown which is the easiest ascent. Manfredi, King of Naples, who is one of these spirits, bids Dante inform his daughter Costanza, Queen of Arragon, of the manner in which he had died.   
    
    
THEM sudden flight had scatter’d o’er the plain,      
Turn’d toward the mountain, whither reason’s voice      
Drives us: I, to my faithful company      
Adhering, left it not. For how, of him      
Deprived, might I have sped? or who, beside,           5   
Would o’er the mountainous tract have led my steps?      
He, with the bitter pang of self-remorse,      
Seem’d smitten. O clear conscience, and upright!      
How doth a little failing wound thee sore.      
  Soon as his feet desisted (slackening pace)           10   
From haste, that mars all decency of act,      
My mind, that in itself before was wrapt,      
Its thought expanded, as with joy restored;      
And full against the steep ascent I set      
My face, where highest to Heaven its top o’erflows.           15   
  The sun, that flared behind, with ruddy beam      
Before my form was broken; for in me      
His rays resistance met. I turn’d aside      
With fear of being left, when I beheld      
Only before myself the ground obscured.           20   
When thus my solace, turning him around,      
Bespake me kindly: “Why distrustest thou?      
Believest not I am with thee, thy sure guide?      
It now is evening there, where buried lies      
The body in which I cast a shade, removed           25   
To Naples  1 from Brundusium’s wall. Nor thou      
Marvel, if before me no shadow fall,      
More than that in the skyey element      
One ray obstructs not other. To endure      
Torments of heat and cold extreme, like frames           30   
That virtue hath disposed, which, how it works,      
Wills not to us should be reveal’d. Insane,      
Who hopes our reason may that space explore,      
Which holds three persons in one substance knit.      
Seek not the wherefore, race of human kind;           35   
  Could ye have seen the whole, no need had been      
For Mary to bring forth. Moreover, ye      
Have seen such men desiring fruitlessly;      
To whose desires, repose would have been given,      
That now but serve them for eternal grief.           40   
I speak of Plato, and the Stagirite,      
And others many more.” And then he bent      
Downward his forehead, and in troubled mood      
Broke off his speech. Meanwhile we had arrived      
Far as the mountain’s foot, and there the rock           45   
Found of so steep ascent, that nimblest steps      
To climb it had been vain. The most remote,      
Most wild, untrodden path, in all the tract      
’Twixt Lerice and Turbia,  2 were to this      
A ladder easy and open of access.           50   
  “Who knows on which hand now the steep declines?”      
My master said, and paused; “so that he may      
Ascend, who journeys without aid of wing?”      
And while, with looks directed to the ground,      
The meaning of the pathway he explored,           55   
And I gazed upward round the stony height;      
On the left hand appear’d to us a troop      
Of spirits, that toward us moved their steps;      
Yet moving seem’d not, they so slow approach’d.      
  I thus my guide address’d: “Upraise thine eyes:           60   
Lo! that way some, of whom thou mayst obtain      
Counsel, if of thyself thou find’st it not.”      
  Straightway he look’d, and with free speech replied:      
“Let us tend thither: they but softly come.      
And thou be firm in hope, my son beloved.”           65   
  Now was that crowd from us distant as far,      
(When we some thousand steps, I say, had past,)      
As at a throw the nervous arm could fling;      
When all drew backward on the massy crags      
Of the steep bank, and firmly stood unmoved,           70   
As one, who walks in doubt, might stand to look.      
  “O spirits perfect! O already chosen!”      
Virgil to them began: “by that blest peace,      
Which, as I deem, is for you all prepared,      
Instruct us where the mountain low declines,           75   
So that attempt to mount it be not vain.      
For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves.”      
  As sheep, that step from forth their fold, by one,      
Or pairs, or three at once; meanwhile the rest      
Stand fearfully, bending the eye and nose           80   
To ground, and what the foremost does, that do      
The others, gathering round her if she stops,      
Simple and quiet, nor the cause discern;      
So saw I moving to advance the first,      
Who of that fortunate crew were at the head,           85   
Of modest mien, and graceful in their gait.      
When they before me had beheld the light      
From my right side fall broken on the ground,      
So that the shadow reach’d the cave; they stopp’d,      
And somewhat back retired: the same did all           90   
Who follow’d though unweeting of the cause.      
  “Unask’d of you, yet freely I confess,      
This is a human body which ye see.      
That the sun’s light is broken on the ground,      
Marvel not; but believe, that not without           95   
Virtue derived from Heaven, we to climb      
Over this wall aspire.” So them bespake      
My master; and that virtuous tribe rejoin’d:      
“Turn, and before you there the entrance lies;”      
Making a signal to us with bent hands.           100   
  Then of them one began. “Whoe’er thou art,      
Who journey’st thus this way, thy visage turn;      
Think if me elsewhere thou hast ever seen.”      
  I toward him turn’d, and with fix’d eye beheld.      
Comely and fair, and gentle of aspect           105   
He seem’d, but on one brow a gash was mark’d.      
  When humbly I disclaim’d to have beheld      
Him ever: “Now behold!” he said, and show’d      
High on his breast a wound: then smiling spake.      
  “I am Manfredi,  3 grandson to the Queen           110   
Costanza:  4 whence I pray thee, when return’d,      
To my fair daughter  5 go, the parent glad      
Of Aragonia and Sicilia’s pride;      
And of the truth inform her, if of me      
Aught else be told. When by two mortal blows           115   
My frame was shatter’d, I betook myself      
Weeping to Him, who of free will forgives.      
My sins were horrible: but so wide arms      
Hath goodness infinite, that it receives      
All who turn to it. Had this text divine           120   
Been of Cosenza’s shepherd better scann’d,      
Who then by Clement  6 on my hunt was set,      
Yet at the bridge’s head my bones had lain,      
Near Benevento, by the heavy mole      
Protected; but the rain now drenches them,           125   
And the wind drives, out of the kingdom’s bounds,      
Far as the stream of Verde,  7 where, with lights      
Extinguish’d, he removed them from their bed.      
Yet by their curse we are not so destroy’d,      
But that the eternal love may turn, while hope           130   
Retains her verdant blossom. True it is,      
That such one as in contumacy dies      
Against the holy Church, though he repent,      
Must wander thirty-fold for all the time      
In his presumption past: if such decree           135   
Be not by prayers of good men shorter made.      
Look therefore if thou canst advance my bliss;      
Revealing to my good Costanza, how      
Thou hast beheld me, and beside, the terms      
Laid on me of that interdict; for here           140   
By means of those below much profit comes.”      
    
Note 1. “To Naples.” Virgil died at Brundusium, from whence his body is said to have been removed to Naples. [back]   
Note 2. “Twixt Lerice and Turbia.” At that time the two extremities of the Genoese republic; the former on the east, the latter on the west. [back]   
Note 3. “Manfredi.” King of Naples and Sicily, and the natural son of Frederick II. He was lively and agreeable in his manners, delighted in poetry, music, and dancing. But he was luxurious and ambitious, void of religion, and in his philosophy an Epicurean. He fell in the battle with Charles of Anjou in 1265, alluded to in Canto xxviii of Hell, ver. 13, or rather in that of Benevento. The successes of Charles were so rapidly followed up, that our author, exact as he generally is, might not have thought it necessary to distinguish them in point of time. “Dying excommunicated, King Charles did not allow of his being buried in sacred ground, but he was interred near the bridge of Benevento; and on his grave there was cast a stone by every one of the army, whence there was formed a great mound of stones. But some have said, that afterward, by command of the Pope, the Bishop of Cosenza took up his body and sent it out of the kingdom, because it was the land of the Church; and that it was buried by the river Verde, on the borders of the kingdom and of Campagna.” [back]   
Note 4. See Paradise, Canto iii. 121. [back]   
Note 5. Costanza, the daughter of Manfredi, and wife of Peter III, King of Arragon, by whom she was mother to Frederick, King of Sicily, and James, King of Arragon. With the latter of these she was at Rome, 1296. [back]   
Note 6. “Clement.” Pope Clement IV. [back]   
Note 7. “The stream of Verde.” A river near Ascoli, that falls into the Tronto. The “extinguished lights” formed part of the ceremony at the interment of one excommunicated.

Canto IV   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Dante and Virgil ascend the mountain of Purgatory, by a steep and narrow path pent in on each side by rock, till they reach a part of it that opens into a ledge or cornice. There seating themselves, and turning to the east, Dante wonders at seeing the sun on their left, the cause of which is explained to him by Virgil; and while they continue their discourse, a voice addresses them, at which they turn, and find several spirits behind the rock, and among the rest one named Belacqua, who had been known to our Poet on earth, and who tells that he is doomed to linger there on account of his having delayed his repentance to the last.   
    
    
WHEN by sensations of delight or pain,      
That any of our faculties hath seized,      
Entire the soul collects herself, it seems      
She is intent upon that power alone;      
And thus the error is disproved, which holds           5   
The soul not singly lighted in the breast.      
And therefore whenas aught is heard or seen,      
That firmly keeps the soul toward it turn’d,      
Time passes, and a man perceives it not.      
For that, whereby we hearken, is one power;           10   
Another that, which the whole spirit hath:      
This is as it were bound, while that is free.      
  This found I true by proof, hearing that spirit      
And wondering; for full fifty steps 1 aloft      
The sun had measured, unobserved of me,           15   
When we arrived where all with one accord      
The spirits shouted, “Here is what ye ask.”      
  A larger aperture oft-times is stopt,      
With forked stake of thorn by villager,      
When the ripe grape imbrowns, than was the path,           20   
By which my guide, and I behind him close,      
Ascended solitary, when that troop      
Departing left us. On Sanleo’s 2 road      
Who journeys, or to Noli 3 low descends,      
Or mounts Bismantua’s 4 height, must use his feet;           25   
Bat here a man had need to fly, I mean      
With the swift wing and plumes of high desire,      
Conducted by his aid, who gave me hope,      
And with light furnish’d to direct my way.      
  We through the broken rock ascended, close           30   
Pent on each side, while underneath the ground      
Ask’d help of hands and feet. When we arrived      
Near on the highest ridge of the steep bank,      
Where the plain level open’d, I exclaim’d,      
“O Master! say, which way can we proceed.”           35   
  He answer’d, “Let no step of thine recede.      
Behind me gain the mountain, till to us      
Some practised guide appear.” That eminence      
Was lofty, that no eye might reach its point;      
And the side proudly rising, more than line           40   
From the mid quadrant to the centre drawn.      
I, wearied, thus began: “Parent beloved!      
Turn and behold how I remain alone,      
If thou stay not.”—“My son!” he straight replied,      
“Thus far put forth thy strength;” and to a track           45   
Pointed, that, on this side projecting, round      
Circles the hill. His words so spurr’d me on,      
That I, behind him, clambering, forced myself,      
Till my feet press’d the circuit plain beneath.      
There both together seated, turn’d we round           50   
To eastward, whence was our ascent: and oft      
Many beside have with delight look’d back.      
  First on the nether shores I turn’d mine eyes,      
Then raised them to the sun, and wondering mark’d      
That from the left it smote us. Soon perceived           55   
That poet sage, how at the car of light      
Amazed 5 I stood, where ’twixt us and the north      
Its course it enter’d. Whence he thus to me:      
“Were Leda’s offspring 6 now in company      
Of that broad mirror, that high up and low           60   
Imparts his light beneath, thou mightst behold      
The ruddy Zodiac nearer to the Bears      
Wheel, if its ancient course it not forsook.      
How that may be, if thou wouldst think; within      
Pondering, imagine Sion with this mount           65   
Placed on the earth, so that to both be one      
Horizon, and two hemispheres apart,      
Where lies the path 7 that Phaëton ill knew      
To guide his erring chariot: thou wilt see 8      
How of necessity by this, on one,           70   
He passes, while by that on the other side;      
If with clear view thine intellect attend.”      
  “Of truth, kind teacher! I exclaim’d, “so clear      
Aught saw I never, as I now discern,      
Where seem’d my ken to fail, that the mid orb 9           75   
Of the supernal motion (which in terms      
Of art is call’d the Equator, and remains      
Still ’twixt the sun and winter) for the cause      
Thou hast assign’d, from hence toward the north      
Departs, when those, who in the Hebrew land           80   
Were dwellers, saw it towards the warmer part.      
But if it please thee, I would gladly know,      
How far we have to journey: for the hill      
Mounts higher, than this sight of mine can mount.”      
  He thus to me: “Such is this steep ascent,           85   
That it is ever difficult at first,      
But more a man proceeds, less evil grows. 10      
When pleasant it shall seem to thee, so much      
That upward going shall be easy to thee      
As in a vessel to go down the tide,           90   
Then of this path thou wilt have reach’d the end.      
There hope to rest thee from thy toil. No more      
I answer, and thus far from certain know.”      
As he his words had spoken, near to us      
A voice there sounded: “Yet ye first perchance           95   
May to repose you by constraint be led.”      
At sound thereof each turn’d; and on the left      
A huge stone we beheld, of which nor I      
Nor he before was ware. Thither we drew;      
And there were some, who in the shady place           100   
Behind the rock were standing, as a man      
Through idleness might stand. Among them one,      
Who seem’d to be much wearied, sat him down,      
And with his arms did fold his knees about,      
Holding his face between them downward bent.           105   
  “Sweet Sir!” I cried, “behold that man who shows      
Himself more idle than if laziness      
Were sister to him.” Straight he turn’d to us,      
And, o’er the thigh lifting his face, observed,      
Then in these accents spake: “Up then, proceed,           110   
Thou valiant one.” Straight who it was I knew;      
Nor could the pain I felt (for want of breath      
Still somewhat urged me) hinder my approach.      
And when I came to him, he scarce his head      
Uplifted, saying, “Well has thou discern’d,           115   
How from the left the sun his chariot leads?”      
  His lazy acts and broken words my lips      
To laughter somewhat moved; when I began:      
“Belacqua, 11 now for thee I grieve no more.      
But tell, why thou art seated upright there.           120   
Waitest thou escort to conduct thee hence?      
Or blame I only thine accustom’d ways?”      
Then he: “My brother! of what use to mount,      
When, to my suffering, would not let me pass      
The bird of God, who at the portal sits?           125   
Behoves so long that Heaven first bear me round      
Without its limits, as in life it bore;      
Because I, to the end, repentant sighs      
Delay’d; if prayer do not aid me first,      
That riseth up from heart which lives in grace.           130   
What other kind avails, not heard in Heaven?”      
  Before me now the poet, up the mount      
Ascending, cried: “Haste thee: for see the sun      
Has touch’d the point meridian; and the night      
Now covers with her foot Marocco’s shore.”           135   
    
Note 1. Three hours twenty minutes; fifteen degrees being reckoned to an hour. [back]   
Note 2. “Sanleo.” A fortress on the summit of Montefeltro. The situation is described by Troya, Veltro Allegorico, p. 11. It is a conspicuous object to travellers along the cornice on the Riviera di Genoa. [back]   
Note 3. “Noli.” In the Genoese territory, between Finale and Savona. [back]   
Note 4. “Bismantua.” A steep mountain in the territory of Reggio. [back]   
Note 5. “Amazed.” He wonders that being turned to the east he should see the sun on his left, since in all the regions on this side of the tropic of Cancer it is seen on the right of one who turns his face toward the east; not recollecting that he was now antipodal to Europe, from whence he had seen the sun taking an opposite course. [back]   
Note 6. “As the constellation of the Gemini is nearer the Bears than Aries is, it is certain that if the sun, instead of being in Aries, had been in Gemini, both the sun and that portion of the Zodiac made ‘ruddy’ by the sun, would have been seen to ‘wheel nearer to the Bears,’ By the ‘ruddy Zodiac’ must necessarily be understood that portion of the Zodiac affected or made red by the sun; for the whole of the Zodiac never changes, nor appears to change, with respect to the remainder of the heavens.”—Lombardi. [back]   
Note 7. “The path.” The ecliptic. [back]   
Note 8. “Thou, wilt see.” “If you consider that this mountain of Purgatory, and that of Sion, are antipodal to each other, you will perceive that the sun must rise on opposite sides of the respective eminences.”] [back]   
Note 9. “That the mid orb.” “That the equator (which is always situated between that part where, when the sun is, he causes summer, and the other where his absence produces winter) recedes from this mountain toward the north, at the time when the Jews inhabiting Mount Sion saw it depart toward the south.”—Lombardi. [back]   
Note 10. Because in ascending he gets rid of the weight of his sins. [back]   
Note 11. In the margin of the Monte Casino Ms. there is found this brief notice: “This Belacqua was an excellent master of the harp and lute, but very negligent in his affairs both spiritual and temporal.”