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| IN the year’s early nonage, 1 when the sun | |
| Tempers his tresses in Aquarius’ urn, | |
| And now toward equal day the nights recede; | |
| Whenas the rime upon the earth puts on | |
| Her dazzling sister’s image, but not long | 5 |
| Her milder sway endures; then riseth up | |
| The village hind, whom fails his wintry store, | |
| And looking out beholds the plain around | |
| All whiten’d; whence impatiently he smites | |
| His thighs, and to his hut returning in, | 10 |
| There paces to and fro, wailing his lot, | |
| As a discomfited and helpless man; | |
| Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope | |
| Spring in his bosom, finding e’en thus soon | |
| The world hath changed its countenance, grasps his crook, | 15 |
| And forth to pasture drives his little flock: | |
| So me my guide dishearten’d, when I saw | |
| His troubled forehead; and so speedily | |
| That ill was cured; for at the fallen bridge | |
| Arriving, toward me with a look as sweet, | 20 |
| He turn’d him back, as that I first beheld | |
| At the steep mountain’s foot. Regarding well | |
| The ruin, and some counsel first maintain’d | |
| With his own thought, he opened wide his arm | |
| And took me up. As one, who, while he works, | 25 |
| Computes his labor’s issue, that he seems | |
| Still to foresee the effect; so lifting me | |
| Up to the summit of one peak, he fix’d | |
| His eye upon another. “Grapple that,” | |
| Said he, “but first make proof, if it be such | 30 |
| As will sustain thee.” For one capt with lead | |
| This were no journey. Scarcely he, though light, | |
| And I, though onward push’d from crag to crag, | |
| Could mount. And if the precinct of this coast | |
| Were not less ample than the last, for him | 35 |
| I know not, but my strength had surely fail’d. | |
| But Malebolge all toward the mouth | |
| Inclining of the nethermost abyss, | |
| The site of every valley hence requires, | |
| That one side upward slope, the other fall. | 40 |
| At length the point from whence the utmost stone | |
| Juts down, we reach’d; soon as to that arrived, | |
| So was the breath exhausted from my lungs | |
| I could no further, but did seat me there. | |
| “Now needs thy best of man;” so spake my guide: | 45 |
| “For not on downy plumes, nor under shade | |
| Of canopy reposing, fame is won; | |
| Without which whosoe’r consumes his days, | |
| Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth, | |
| As smoke in air or foam upon the wave. | 50 |
| Thou therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness | |
| By the mind’s effort, in each struggle form’d | |
| To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight | |
| Of her corporeal frame to crush her down. | |
| A longer ladder yet remains to scale. | 55 |
| From these to have escaped sufficeth not, | |
| If well thou note me, profit by my words.” | |
| I straightway rose, and show’d myself less spent | |
| That I in truth did feel me. “On,” I cried, | |
| “For I am stout and fearless.” Up the rock | 60 |
| Our way we held, more rugged than before, | |
| Narrower, and steeper far to climb. From talk | |
| I ceased not, as we journey’d, so to seem | |
| Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss | |
| Did issue forth, for utterance suited ill. | 65 |
| Though on the arch that crosses there I stood, | |
| What were the words I knew not, but who spake | |
| Seem’d moved in anger. Down I stoop’d to look; | |
| But my quick eye might reach not to the depth | |
| For shrouding darkness; wherefore thus I spake: | 70 |
| “To the next circle, teacher, bend thy steps, | |
| And from the wall dismount we; for as hence | |
| I hear and understand not, so I see | |
| Beneath, and naught discern.” “I answer not,” | |
| Said he, “but by the deed. To fair request | 75 |
| Silent performance maketh best return.” | |
| We from the bridge’s head descended, where | |
| To the eighth mound it joins; and then, the chasm | |
| Opening to view, I saw a crowd within | |
| Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape | 80 |
| And hideous, that remembrance in my veins | |
| Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands | |
| Let Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus, | |
| Pareas and Chelyder be her brood, | |
| Cenchris and Amphisbæna, plagues so dire | 85 |
| Or in such numbers swarming ne’er she show’d, | |
| Not with all Ethiopia, and whate’er | |
| Above the Erythræan sea is spawn’d. | |
| Amid this dread exuberance of woe | |
| Ran naked spirits wing’d with horrid fear, | 90 |
| Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide, | |
| Or heliotrope to charm them out of view. | |
| With serpents were their hands behind them bound, | |
| Which through their reins infix’d the tail and head, | |
| Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one | 95 |
| Near to our side, darted an adder up, | |
| And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied, | |
| Transpierced him. Far more quickly than e’er pen | |
| Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn’d, and changed | |
| To ashes all, pour’d out upon the earth. | 100 |
| When there dissolved he lay, the dust again | |
| Uproll’d spontaneous, and the self-same form | |
| Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell, | |
| The Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years | |
| Have well-nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith | 105 |
| Renascent: blade nor herb throughout his life | |
| He tastes, but tears of frankincense alone | |
| And odorous amomum: swaths of nard | |
| And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls, | |
| He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg’d | 110 |
| To earth, or through obstruction fettering up | |
| In chains invisible the powers of man, | |
| Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around, | |
| Bewilder’d with the monstrous agony | |
| He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs; | 115 |
| So stood aghast the sinner when he rose. | |
| Oh! how severe God’s judgment, that deals out | |
| Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was, | |
| My teacher next inquired; and thus in few | |
| He answer’d: “Vanni Fucci 2 am I call’d, | 120 |
| Not long since rained down from Tuscany | |
| To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life | |
| And not the human pleased, mule that I was, | |
| Who in Pistoia found my worthy den.” | |
| I then to Virgil: “Bid him stir not hence; | 125 |
| And ask what crime did thrust him thither: once | |
| A man I knew him, choleric and bloody.” | |
| The sinner heard and feign’d not, but toward me | |
| His mind directing and his face, wherein | |
| Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake: | 130 |
| “It grieves me more to have been caught by thee | |
| In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than | |
| When I was taken from the other life. | |
| I have no power permitted to deny | |
| What thou inquirest. I am doom’d thus low | 135 |
| To dwell, for that the sacristy by me | |
| Was rifled of its goodly ornaments, | |
| And with the guilt another falsely charged. | |
| But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus, | |
| So as thou e’er shalt ’scape this darksome realm, | 140 |
| Open thine ears and hear what I forebode. | |
| Reft of the Neri first Pistoia 3 pines; | |
| Then Florence 4 changeth citizens and laws; | |
| From Valdimagra, 5 drawn by wrathful Mars, | |
| A vapor rises, wrapt in turbid mists, | 145 |
| And sharp and eager driveth on the storm | |
| With Arrowy hurtling o’er Piceno’s field, | |
| Whence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike | |
| Each helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground. | |
| This have I told, that grief may rend thy heart.” | 150 |
