Inferno (English) Analysis

CANTO I

  

ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,

  I wandered from the straight lost path afar.

  Through the great dark was no releasing way;

  Above that dark was no relieving star.

  If yet that terrored night I think or say,

  As death's cold hands its fears resuming are.

  

  Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,

  The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,

  I turn my tale to that which next befell,

  When the dawn opened, and the night was not.

  The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot,

  Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot

  Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,

  And though it kindled from the nether hell,

  Or from the Star that all men leads, alike

  It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike

  The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow.

  

  How first I entered on that path astray,

  Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know.

  When gained my feet the upward, lighted way,

  I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea,

  The deep strong tides, has baffled, and panting lies,

  On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see

  The league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes

  Surveyed that fear, the while my wearied frame

  Rested, and ever my heart's tossed lake became

  More quiet.

  Then from that pass released, which yet

  With living feet had no man left, I set

  My forward steps aslant the steep, that so,

  My right foot still the lower, I climbed.

                           
    Below

  No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand

  Was sterile of all growth on either hand,

  Or moving life, a spotted pard except,

  That yawning rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt

  So closely round my feet, that scarce I kept

  The course I would.

                  That sleek and lovely thing,

  The broadening light, the breath of morn and spring,

  The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay,

  As when Divine Love on Creation's day

  First gave these fair things motion, all at one

  Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none

  When down the slope there came with lifted head

  And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red,

  A lion, roaring, all the air ashake

  That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take

  No heart was mine, for where the further way

  Mine anxious eyes explored, a she-wolf lay,

  That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she

  In aspect ruthless that I quaked to see,

  And where she lay among her bones had brought

  So many to grief before, that all my thought

  Aghast turned backward to the sunless night

  I left. But while I plunged in headlong flight

  To that most feared before, a shade, or man

  (Either he seemed), obstructing where I ran,

  Called to me with a voice that few should know,

  Faint from forgetful silence, "Where ye go,

  Take heed. Why turn ye from the upward way?"

  

  I cried, "Or come ye from warm earth, or they

  The grave hath taken, in my mortal need

  Have mercy thou!"

                  He answered, "Shade am I,

  That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky,

  In the late years of Julius born, and bred

  In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led

  To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man;

  And when the great Augustan age began,

  I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how

  Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow,

  Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou

  To thus return to all the ills ye fled,

  The while the mountain of thy hope ahead

  Lifts into light, the source and cause of all

  Delectable things that may to man befall?"

  

  I answered, "Art thou then that Virgil, he

  From whom all grace of measured speech in me

  Derived? O glorious and far-guiding star!

  Now may the love-led studious hours and long

  In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,

  Master and Author mine of Light and Song,

  Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few

  Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won

  Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee,

  Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun

  No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see

  The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I

  To force that passage if thine aid deny."

  He answered, "Would ye leave this wild and live,

  Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies

  Shall no man pass, except the path he tries

  Her craft entangle. No way fugitive

  Avoids the seeking of her greeds, that give

  Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse

  As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse

  Her craving. And the beasts with which she breed

  The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require,

  Bare all the desirable lands in which she feeds;

  Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings tire

  Until she woos, in evil hour for her,

  The wolfhound that shall rend her. His desire

  Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir

  Of her base heart; but wisdoms, and devoirs

  Of manhood, and love's rule, his thoughts prefer.

  The Italian lowlands he shall reach and save,

  For which Camilla of old, the virgin brave,

  Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase

  He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place

  Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back,

  From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack

  Slain out of life, to find the native hell

  Whence envy loosed her.

                      For thyself were
  well

  To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see

  The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe,

  The unending cries, of those whose only plea

  Is judgment, that the second death to be

  Fall quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go

  To those who burn, but in their pain content

  With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high,

  Holier than opens to such souls as I,

  The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one

  Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none

  Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny

  May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there

  Rules and pervades in every part, and calls

  His chosen ever within the sacred walls.

  O happiest, they!"

                  I answered, "By that Go

  Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,

  And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet

  I safety find, within the Sacred Gate

  That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see

  Who look with longing for their end to be."

  

  Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.

  

  

  

Canto II

  

THE day was falling, and the darkening air

  Released earth's creatures from their toils, while I,

  I only, faced the bitter road and bare

  My Master led. I only, must defy

  The powers of pity, and the night to be.

  So thought I, but the things I came to see,

  Which memory holds, could never thought forecast.

  O Muses high! O Genius, first and last!

  Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine

  To meet this need. For never theme as mine

  Strained vainly, where your loftiest nobleness

  Must fail to be sufficient.

                          First
  I said,

  Fearing, to him who through the darkness led,

  "O poet, ere the arduous path ye press

  Too far, look in me, if the worth there be

  To make this transit. &Aelig;neas once, I know,

  Went down in life, and crossed the infernal sea;

  And if the Lord of All Things Lost Below

  Allowed it, reason seems, to those who see

  The enduring greatness of his destiny,

  Who in the Empyrean Heaven elect was called

  Sire of the Eternal City, that throned and walled

  Made Empire of the world beyond, to be

  The Holy Place at last, by God's decree,

  Where the great Peter's follower rules. For he

  Learned there the causes of his victory.

  

  "And later to the third great Heaven was caught

  The last Apostle, and thence returning brought

  The proofs of our salvation. But, for me,

  I am not &Aelig;neas, nay, nor Paul, to see

  Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show,

  And if this road for no sure end I go

  What folly is mine? But any words are weak.

  Thy wisdom further than the things I speak

  Can search the event that would be."

                          Here I
  stayed

  My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade

  That led me heard and turned, magnanimous,

  And saw me drained of purpose halting thus,

  And answered, "If thy coward-born thoughts be clear,

  And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,

  Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy

  From shadows, surely that they know not why

  Nor wherefore. . . Hearken, to confound thy fear,

  The things which first I heard, and brought me here.

  One came where, in the Outer Place, I dwell,

  Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell,

  Radiant in light that native round her clung,

  And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among

  (Eyes with no earthly like but heaven's own blue),

  And called me to her in such voice as few

  In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear,

  So toned and cadenced from the Utmost Sphere,

  The Unattainable Heaven from which she came.

  'O Mantuan Spirit,' she said, 'whose lasting fame

  Continues on the earth ye left, and still

  With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me,

  - My friend, not fortune's - climbs a path so ill

  That all the night-bred fears he hastes to flee

  Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale

  Moved through the peace of I leaven, and swift I sped

  Downward, to aid my friend in love's avail,

  With scanty time therefor, that half I dread

  Too late I came. But thou shalt haste, and go

  With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so

  For me be consolation. Thou shalt say,

  "I come from Beatricë." Downward far,

  From Heaven to I leaven I sank, from star to star,

  To find thee, and to point his rescuing way.

  Fain would I to my place of light return;

  Love moved me from it, and gave me power to learn

  Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand

  I very oft shall praise thee.'

                          Here
  she ceased,

  And I gave answer to that dear command,

  'Lady, alone through whom the whole race of those

  The smallest Heaven the moon's short orbits hold

  Excels in its creation, not thy least,

  Thy lightest wish in this dark realm were told

  Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose

  To loose thee from them, and thyself content

  Couldst thus continue in such strange descent

  From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn,

  And while ye further left, would fain return.'

  

  " 'That which thou wouldst,' she said, 'I briefly tell.

  There is no fear nor any hurt in Hell,

  Except that it be powerful. God in me

  Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see

  I share not, nor myself can shrink to feel

  The flame of all this burning. One there is

  In height among the Holiest placed, and she

  - Mercy her name - among God's mysteries

  Dwells in the midst, and hath the power to see

  His judgments, and to break them. This sharp

  I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so

  Leaned Lucia toward her while she spake - and said,

  "One that is faithful to thy name is sped,

  Except that now ye aid him." She thereat,

  - Lucia, to all men's wrongs inimical -

  Left her High Place, and crossed to where I sat

  In speech with Rachel (of the first of all

  God saved). "O Beatrice, Praise of God,"

  - So said she to me - "sitt'st thou here so slow

  To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so

  That all he left to serve thee? Hear'st thou not

  The anguish of his plaint? and dost not see,

  By that dark stream that never seeks a sea,

  The death that threats him?"

                      None, as thus she
  said,

  None ever was swift on earth his good to chase,

  None ever on earth was swift to leave his dread,

  As came I downward from that sacred place

  To find thee and invoke thee, confident

  Not vainly for his need the gold were spent

  Of thy word-wisdom.' Here she turned away,

  Her bright eyes clouded with their tears, and I,

  Who saw them, therefore made more haste to reach

  The place she told, and found thee. Canst thou say

  I failed thy rescue? Is the beast anigh

  From which ye quailed? When such dear saints beseech

  - Three from the Highest - that Heaven thy course allow

  Why halt ye fearful? In such guards as thou

  The faintest-hearted might be bold."

                           
    As flowers,

  Close-folded through the cold and lightless hours,

  Their bended stems erect, and opening fair

  Accept the white light and the warmer air

  Of morning, so my fainting heart anew

  Lifted, that heard his comfort. Swift I spake,

  "O courteous thou, and she compassionate!

  Thy haste that saved me, and her warning true,

  Beyond my worth exalt me. Thine I make

  My will. In concord of one mind from now,

  O Master and my Guide, where leadest thou

  I follow."

          And we, with no more words' delay,

  Went forward on that hard and dreadful way.

  

  

  

Canto III

  

THE gateway to the city of Doom. Through me

  The entrance to the Everlasting Pain.

  The Gateway of the Lost. The Eternal Three

  Justice impelled to build me. Here ye see

  Wisdom Supreme at work, and Primal Power,

  And Love Supernal in their dawnless day.

  Ere from their thought creation rose in flower

  Eternal first were all things fixed as they.

  Of Increate Power infinite formed am I

  That deathless as themselves I do not die.

  Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear.

  All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.

  This scroll in gloom above the gate I read,

  And found it fearful. "Master, hard," I said,

  "This saying to me." And he, as one that long

  Was customed, answered, "No distrust must wrong

  Its Maker, nor thy cowarder mood resume

  If here ye enter. This the place of doom

  I told thee, where the lost in darkness dwell.

  Here, by themselves divorced from light, they fell,

  And are as ye shall see them." Here he lent

  A hand to draw me through the gate, and bent

  A glance upon my fear so confident

  That I, too nearly to my former dread

  Returned, through all my heart was comforted,

  And downward to the secret things we went.

  

  Downward to night, but not of moon and cloud,

  Not night with all its stars, as night we know,

  But burdened with an ocean-weight of woe

  The darkness closed us.

                  Sighs, and wailings loud,

  Outcries perpetual of recruited pain,

  Sounds of strange tongues, and angers that remain

  Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd

  Of discords pressed, that needs I wept to hear,

  First hearing. There, with reach of hands anear,

  And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright,

  The tumult of the everlasting night,

  As sand that dances in continual wind,

  Turns on itself for ever.

                      And I, my head

  Begirt with movements, and my ears bedinned

  With outcries round me, to my leader said,

  "Master, what hear I? Who so overborne

  With woes are these?"

                  He answered, "These be they

  That praiseless lived and blameless. Now the scorn

  Of Height and Depth alike, abortions drear;

  Cast with those abject angels whose delay

  To join rebellion, or their Lord defend,

  Waiting their proved advantage, flung them here. -

  Chased forth from Heaven, lest else its beauties end

  The pure perfection of their stainless claim,

  Out-herded from the shining gate they came,

  Where the deep hells refused them, lest the lost

  Boast something baser than themselves."

                           
    And I,

  "Master, what grievance hath their failure cost,

  That through the lamentable dark they cry?"

  

  He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth

  We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death

  They have not. Memory of them on the earth

  Where once they lived remains not. Nor the breath

  Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead,

  But all alike disdain them. That they know

  Themselves so mean beneath aught else constrains

  The envious outcries that too long ye heed.

  Move past, but speak not."

                      Then I looked, and
  lo,

  Were souls in ceaseless and unnumbered trains

  That past me whirled unending, vainly led

  Nowhither, in useless and unpausing haste.

  A fluttering ensign all their guide, they chased

  Themselves for ever. I had not thought the dead,

  The whole world's dead, so many as these. I saw

  The shadow of him elect to Peter's seat

  Who made the great refusal, and the law,

  The unswerving law that left them this retreat

  To seal the abortion of their lives, became

  Illumined to me, and themselves I knew,

  To God and all his foes the futile crew

  How hateful in their everlasting shame.

  

  I saw these victims of continued death

  - For lived they never - were naked all, and loud

  Around them closed a never-ceasing cloud

  Of hornets and great wasps, that buzzed and clung,

  - Weak pain for weaklings meet, - and where they stung,

  Blood from their faces streamed, with sobbing breath,

  And all the ground beneath with tears and blood

  Was drenched, and crawling in that loathsome mud

  There were great worms that drank it.

                          Gladly
  thence

  I gazed far forward. Dark and wide the flood

  That flowed before us. On the nearer shore

  Were people waiting. "Master, show me whence

  These came, and who they be, and passing hence

  Where go they? Wherefore wait they there content,

  - The faint light shows it, - for their transit o'er

  The unbridged abyss?"

                  He answered, "When we stand

  Together, waiting on the joyless strand,

  In all it shall be told thee." If he meant

  Reproof I know not, but with shame I bent

  My downward eyes, and no more spake until

  The bank we reached, and on the stream beheld

  A bark ply toward us.

                      Of exceeding eld,

  And hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill,

  With horrid glee the while he neared us, "Woe

  To ye, depraved! - Is here no Heaven, but ill

  The place where I shall herd ye. Ice and fire

  And darkness are the wages of their hire

  Who serve unceasing here - But thou that there

  Dost wait though live, depart ye. Yea, forbear!

  A different passage and a lighter fare

  Is destined thine."

                  But here my guide replied,

  "Nay, Charon, cease; or to thy grief ye chide.

  It There is willed, where that is willed shall be,

  That ye shall pass him to the further side,

  Nor question more."

                  The fleecy cheeks thereat,

  Blown with fierce speech before, were drawn and flat,

  And his flame-circled eyes subdued, to hear

  That mandate given. But those of whom he spake

  In bitter glee, with naked limbs ashake,

  And chattering teeth received it. Seemed that then

  They first were conscious where they came, and fear

  Abject and frightful shook them; curses burst

  In clamorous discords forth; the race of men,

  Their parents, and their God, the place, the time,

  Of their conceptions and their births, accursed

  Alike they called, blaspheming Heaven. But yet

  Slow steps toward the waiting bark they set,

  With terrible wailing while they moved. And so

  They came reluctant to the shore of woe

  That waits for all who fear not God, and not

  Them only.

              Then the demon Charon rose

  To herd them in, with eyes that furnace-hot

  Glowed at the task, and lifted oar to smite

  Who lingered.

              As the leaves, when autumn shows,

  One after one descending, leave the bough,

  Or doves come downward to the call, so now

  The evil seed of Adam to endless night,

  As Charon signalled, from the shore's bleak height,

  Cast themselves downward to the bark. The brown

  And bitter flood received them, and while they passed

  Were others gathering, patient as the last,

  Not conscious of their nearing doom.

                           
    "My son,"

  - Replied my guide the unspoken thought - "is none

  Beneath God's wrath who dies in field or town,

  Or earth's wide space, or whom the waters drown,

  But here he cometh at last, and that so spurred

  By Justice, that his fear, as those ye heard,

  Impels him forward like desire. Is not

  One spirit of all to reach the fatal spot

  That God's love holdeth, and hence, if Char

  chide,

  Ye well may take it. - Raise thy heart, for now,

  Constrained of Heaven, he must thy course allow."

  

  Yet how I passed I know not. For the ground

  Trembled that heard him, and a fearful sound

  Of issuing wind arose, and blood-red light

  Broke from beneath our feet, and sense and sight

  Left me. The memory with cold sweat once more

  Reminds me of the sudden-crimsoned night,

  As sank I senseless by the dreadful shore.

  

  

  

Canto IV

  

ARISING thunder from the vast Abyss

  First roused me, not as he that rested wakes

  From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury shakes

  Untimely, and around I gazed to know

  The place of my confining.

                      Deep, profound,

  Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound,

  Sheer sank the Valley of the Lost Abyss,

  Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood,

  And like the winds of some unresting wood

  The gathered murmur from those depths of woe

  Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this

  The unceasing sound comes ever. I might not tell

  How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell,

  It was so clouded and so dark no sight

  Could pierce it.

          "Downward through the worlds of night

  We will descend together. I first, and thou

  My footsteps taking," spake my guide, and I

  Gave answer, "Master, when thyself art pale,

  Fear-daunted, shall my weaker heart avail

  That on thy strength was rested?"

                         
  "Nay," said he,

  "Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry

  So pales me. Come ye, for the path we tread

  Is long, and time requires it." Here he led

  Through the first entrance of the ringed abyss,

  Inward, and I went after, and the woe

  Softened behind us, and around I heard

  Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word,

  But round us sighs so many and deep there came

  That all the air was motioned. I beheld

  Concourse of men and women and children there

  Countless. No pain was theirs of cold or flame,

  But sadness only. And my Master said,

  "Art silent here? Before ye further go

  Among them wondering, it is meet ye know

  They are not sinful, nor the depths below

  Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness

  Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed,

  Being born too soon, we did not pass ( for I,

  Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less

  Our doom is weighed, - to feel of Heaven the need,

  To long, and to be hopeless."

                          Grief
  was mine

  That heard him, thinking what great names must be

  In this suspense around me. "Master, tell,"

  I questioned, "from this outer girth of Hell

  Pass any to the blessed spheres exalt,

  Through other's merits or their own the fault.

  Condoned?" And he, my covert speech that read,

  - For surance sought I of my faith, - replied,

  "Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned

  And garmented with conquest. Of the dead,

  He rescued from us him who earliest died,

  Abel, and our first parent. Here He found,

  Abraham, obedient to the Voice he heard;

  And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word;

  Isaac, and Israel and his sons, and she,

  Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king;

  And many beside unnumbered, whom he led

  Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be

  Among the blest for ever. Until this thing

  I witnessed, none, of all the countless dead,

  But hopeless through the somber gate he came."

  

  Now while he spake he paused not, but pursued,

  Through the dense woods of thronging spirits, his aim

  Straight onward, nor was long our path until

  Before us rose a widening light, to fill

  One half of all the darkness, and I knew

  While yet some distance, that such Shades were there

  As nobler moved than others, and questioned, "Who,

  Master, are those that in their aspect bear

  Such difference from the rest?"

                      "All
  these," he said,

  "Were named so glorious in thy earth above

  That Heaven allows their larger claim to be

  Select, as thus ye see them."

                          While
  he spake

  A voice rose near us: "Hail!" it cried, "for he

  Returns, who was departed."

                          Scarce
  it ceased

  When four great spirits approached. They did not show

  Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though

  Content in their dominion moved. My guide

  Before I questioned told, "That first ye see,

  With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he

  Is Homer, sovereign of the craft we tried,

  Leader and lord of even the following three, -

  Horace, and Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard,

  That hailed me, caused them by one impulse stirred

  Approach to do me honour, for these agree

  In that one name we boast, and so do well

  Owning it in me." There was I joyed to meet

  Those shades, who closest to his place belong,

  The eagle course of whose out-soaring song

  Is lonely in height.

                      Some space apart (to
  tell,

  It may be, something of myself ), my guide

  Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet

  Me also, and my Master smiled to see

  They made me sixth and equal. Side by side

  We paced toward the widening light, and spake

  Such things as well were spoken there, and here

  Were something less than silence.

                      Strong and wide

  Before us rose a castled height, beset

  With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable,

  And girdled with a rivulet round, but yet

  We passed thereover, and the water clear

  As dry land bore me; and the walls ahead

  Their seven strong gates made open one by one,

  As each we neared, that where my Master led

  With ease I followed, although without were none

  But deep that stream beyond their wading spread,

  And closed those gates beyond their breach had been,

  Had they sought entry with us.

                          Of
  coolest green

  Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there,

  Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair

  To accord with its containing.

                          Grave,
  austere,

  Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they

  That walked that verdure.

                          To a
  place aside

  Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here

  Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey

  Of such great spirits as are my glory and pride

  That once I saw them.

                      There, direct in
  view,

  Electra passed, among her sons. I knew

  Hector and &Aelig;neas there; and Cæsar too

  Was of them, armed and falcon-eyed; and there

  Camilla and Penthesilea. Near there sate

  Lavinia, with her sire the Latian king;

  Brutus, who drave the Tarquin; and Lucrece

  Julia, Cornelia, Marcia, and their kin;

  And, by himself apart, the Saladin.

  

  Somewhat beyond I looked. A place more high

  Than where these heroes moved I gazed, and knew

  The Master of reasoned thought, whose hand withdrew

  The curtain of the intellect, and bared

  The secret things of nature; while anigh,

  But lowlier, grouped the greatest names that shared

  His searchings. All regard and all revere

  They gave him. Plato there, and Socrates

  I marked, who closeliest reached his height; and near

  Democritus, who dreamed a world of chance

  Born blindly in the whirl of circumstance;

  And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,

  Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles,

  Zeno, were there; and Dioscorides

  Who searched the healing powers of herbs and trees;

  And Orpheus, Tullius, Livius, Seneca,

  Euclid and Ptolemæus; Avicenna,

  Galen, Hippocrates; Averrhoës,

  The Master's great interpreter, - but these

  Are few to those I saw, an endless dream

  Of shades before whom Hell quietened and cowered. My theme,

  With thronging recollections of mighty names

  That there I marked impedes me. All too long

  They chase me, envious that my burdened song

  Forgets. - But onward moves my guide anew:

  The light behind us fades: the six are two:

  Again the shuddering air, the cries of Hell

  Compassed, and where we walked the darkness fell.

  

  

  

Canto V

  

MOST like the spirals of a pointed shell,

  But separate each, go downward, hell from hell,

  The ninefold circles of the damned; but each

  Smaller, concentrate in its greater pain,

  Than that which overhangs it.

                          Those
  who reach

  The second whorl, on entering, learn their bane

  Where Minos, hideous, sits and snarls. He hears,

  Decides, and as he girds himself they go.

  

  Before his seat each ill-born spirit appear,

  And tells its tale of evil, loath or no,

  While he, their judge, of all sins cognizant,

  Hears, and around himself his circling tail

  Twists to the number of the depths below

  To which they doom themselves in telling.

                           
    Alway

  The crowding sinners: their turn they wait: they show

  Their guilt: the circles of his tail convey

  Their doom: and downward they are whirled away.

  

  "O thou who callest at this doleful inn,"

  Cried Minos to me, while the child of sin

  That stood confessing before him, trembling stayed,

  "Heed where thou enterest in thy trust, nor say,

  I walk in safety, for the width of way

  Suffices."

              But my guide the answer took,

  "Why dost thou cry? or leave thine ordered trade

  For that which nought belongs thee? Hinder not

  His destined path. For where he goeth is willed,

  Where that is willed prevaileth."

                          Now
  was filled

  The darker air with wailing. Wailing shook

  My soul to hear it. Where we entered now

  No light attempted. Only sound arose,

  As ocean with the tortured air contends,

  What time intolerable tempest rends

  The darkness; so the shrieking winds oppose

  For ever, and bear they, as they swerve and sweep,

  The doomed disastrous spirits, and whirl aloft,

  Backward, and down, nor any rest allow,

  Nor pause of such contending wraths as oft

  Batter them against the precipitous sides, and there

  The shrieks and moanings quench the screaming air,

  The cries of their blaspheming.

                          These
  are they

  That lust made sinful. As the starlings rise

  At autumn, darkening all the colder skies,

  In crowded troops their wings up-bear, so here

  These evil-doers on each contending blast

  Were lifted upward, whirled, and downward cast,

  And swept around unceasing. Striving airs

  Lift them, and hurl, nor ever hope is theirs

  Of rest or respite or decreasing pains,

  But like the long streaks of the calling cranes

  So came they wailing down the winds, to meet

  Upsweeping blasts that ever backward beat

  Or sideward flung them on their walls. And I -

  "Master who are they next that drive anigh

  So scourged amidst the blackness?"

                         
  "These," he said,

  "So lashed and harried, by that queen are led,

  Empress of alien tongues, Semiramis,

  Who made her laws her lawless lusts to kiss,

  So was she broken by desire; and this

  Who comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus,

  Love's fool, who broke her faith to Sichæus,

  Dido; and bare of all her luxury,

  Nile's queen, who lost her realm for Antony."

  

  And after these, amidst that windy train,

  Helen, who soaked in blood the Trojan plain,

  And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet

  The same net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed;

  And thousand other along the fated road

  Whom love led deathward through disastrous things

  He pointed as they passed, until my mind

  Was wildered in this heavy pass to find

  Ladies so many, and cavaliers and kings

  Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said,

  "Poet, those next that on the wind appear

  So light, and constant as they drive or veer

  Are parted never, I fain would speak."

                           
    And he, -

  "Conjure them by their love, and thou shalt see

  Their flight come hither."

                  And when the swerving blast

  Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed,

  "O wearied souls, come downward, if the Power

  That drives allow ye, for one restful hour."

  As doves, desirous of their nest at night,

  Cleave through the dusk with swift and open flight

  Of level-lifting wings, that love makes light,

  Will-borne, so downward through the murky air

  Came those sad spirits, that not deep Hell's despair

  Could sunder, parting from the faithless band

  That Dido led, and with one voice, as though

  One soul controlled them, spake,

                         
  "O Animate!

  Who comest through the black malignant air,

  Benign among us who this exile bear

  For earth ensanguined, if the King of All

  Heard those who from the outer darkness call

  Entreat him would we for thy peace, that thou

  Hast pitied us condemned, misfortunate. -

  Of that which please thee, if the winds allow,

  Gladly I tell. Ravenna, on that shore

  Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew;

  And there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart

  So quick to take dominion, overthrew

  Him with my own fair body, and overbore

  Me with delight to please him. Love, which gives

  No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me

  Was empired, that its rule, as here ye see,

  Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives

  To part us. Love to one death led us. The mode

  Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The place of Cain

  Awaits our slayer."

                  They ceased, and I my head

  Bowed down, and made no answer, till my guide

  Questioned, "What wouldst thou more?" and replied,

  "Alas my thought I what sweet keen longings led

  These spirits, woeful, to their dark abode!"

  And then to them, - "Francesca, all thy pain

  Is mine. With pity and grief I weep. But say

  How, in the time of sighing, and in what way,

  Love gave you of the dubious deeds to know."

  

  And she to me, "There is no greater woe

  In all Hell's depths than cometh when those who

  Look back to Eden. But if thou wouldst learn

  Our love's first root, I can but weep and tell.

  One day, and for delight in idleness,

  - Alone we were, without suspicion, -

  We read together, and chanced the page to turn

  Where Galahad tells the tale of Lancelot,

  How love constrained him. Oft our meeting eyes,

  Confessed the theme, and conscious cheeks were hot,

  Reading, but only when that instant came

  Where the surrendering lips were kissed, no less

  Desire beat in us, and whom, for all this pain,

  No hell shall sever (so great at least our gain),

  Trembling, he kissed my mouth, and all forgot,

  We read no more."

                  As thus did one confess

  Their happier days, the other wept, and I

  Grew faint with pity, and sank as those who die.

  

  

  

Canto VI

  

THE misery of that sight of souls in Hell

  Condemned, and constant in their loss, prevailed

  So greatly in me, that I may not tell

  How passed I from them, sense and memory failed

  So far.

              But here new torments I discern,

  And new tormented, wheresoe'er I turn.

  For sodden around me was the place of bane,

  The third doomed circle, where the culprits know

  The cold, unceasing, and relentless rain

  Pour down without mutation. Heavy with hail,

  With turbid waters mixed, and cold with snow,

  It streams from out the darkness, and below

  The soil is putrid, where the impious lie

  Grovelling, and howl like dogs, beneath the flail

  That flattens to the foul soaked ground, and try

  Vainly for ease by turning. And the while

  Above them roams and ravens the loathsome hound

  Cerberus, and feeds upon them.

                      The swampy ground

  He ranges; with his long clawed hands he grips

  The sinners, and the fierce and hairy lips

  (Thrice-headed is he) tear, and the red blood drips

  From all his jaws. He clutches, and flays, and rends,

  And treads them, growling: and the flood descends

  Straight downward.

              When he saw us, the loathly worm

  Showed all his fangs, and eager trembling frame

  Nerved for the leap. But undeterred my guide.

  Stooped down, and gathered in full hands the soil,

  And cast it in the gaping gullets, to foil

  Gluttonous blind greed, and those fierce mouths and wide

  Closed on the filth, and as the craving cur

  Quietens, that strained and howled to reach his food,

  Biting the bone, those squalid mouths subdued

  And silenced, wont above the empty dead

  To bark insatiate, while they tore unfed

  The writhing shadows.

                  The straight persistent rain,

  That altered never, had pressed the miry plain

  With flattened shades that in their emptiness

  Still showed as bodies. We might not here progress

  Except we trod them. Of them all, but one

  Made motion as we passed. Against the rain

  Rising, and resting on one hand, he said,

  "O thou, who through the drenching murk art led,

  Recall me if thou canst. Thou wast begun

  Before I ended."

                  I, who looked in vain

  For human semblance in that bestial shade,

  Made answer, "Misery here hath all unmade,

  It may be, that thou wast on earth, for nought

  Recalls thee to me. But thyself shalt tell

  The sins that scourged thee to this foul resort,

  That more displeasing not the scope of Hell

  Can likely yield, though greater pains may lie

  More deep."

              And he to me, "Thy city, so high

  With envious hates that swells, that now the sack

  Bursts, and pours out in ruin, and spreads its wrack

  Far outward, was mine alike, while clearer air

  Still breathed I. Citizens who knew me there

  Called me Ciacco. For the vice I fed

  At rich men's tables, in this filth I lie

  Drenched, beaten, hungered, cold, uncomforted,

  Mauled by that ravening greed; and these, as I,

  With gluttonous lives the like reward have won."

  

  I answered, "Piteous is thy state to one

  Who knew thee in thine old repute, but say,

  If yet persists thy previous mind, which way

  The feuds of our rent city shall end, and why

  These factions vex us, and if still there be

  One just man left among us."

                         
  "Two," said he,

  "Are just, but none regards them. Yet more high

  The strife, till bloodshed from their long contend

  Shall issue at last: the barbarous Cerchi clan

  Cast the Donati exiled out, and they

  Within three years return, and more offend

  Than they were erst offended, helped by him

  So long who palters with both parts. The fire

  Three sparks have lighted - Avarice, Envy, Pride, -

  And there is none may quench it."

                          Here
  he ceased

  His lamentable tale, and I replied,

  "Of one thing more I ask thee. Great desire

  Is mine to learn it. Where are those who sought

  Our welfare earlier? Those whose names at least

  Are fragrant for the public good they wrought,

  Arrigo, Mosca, and the Tegghiaio

  Worthiest, and Farinata, and with these

  Jacopo Rusticucci. I would know

  If soft in Heaven or bitter-hard in Hell

  Their lives continue."

                      "Cast in hells
  more low

  Than yet thou hast invaded, deep they lie,

  For different crimes from ours, and shouldst thou go

  So far, thou well mayst see them. If thou tread

  Again the sweet light land, and overhead

  Converse with those I knew there, then recall,

  I pray, my memory to my friends of yore.

  But ask no further, for I speak no more."

  

  Thereon his eyes, that straight had gazed before

  Squinted and failed, and slowly sank his head,

  And blindly with his sodden mates he lay.

  And spake my guide, "He shall not lift nor stir,

  Until the trumpet shrills that wakens Hell;

  And these, who must inimical Power obey,

  Shall each return to his sad grave, and there

  In carnal form the sinful spirit shall dwell

  Once more, and that time only, from the tomb

  Rising to hear the irrevocable doom

  Which shall reverberate through eternity."

  

  So paced we slowly through the rain that fell

  Unchanging, over that foul ground, and trod

  The dismal spirits it held, and somewhat spake

  Of life beyond us, and the things of God;

  And asked I, "Master, shall these torments cease,

  Continue as they are, or more increase,

  When calls the trumpet, and the graves shall break,

  And the great Sentence sound?"

                          And he
  to me,

  "Recall thy learning, as thou canst. We know

  With more perfection, greater pain or bliss

  Resolves, and though perfection may not be

  To these accurs'd, yet nearer then than this

  It may be they shall reach it."

                          More
  to show

  He sought, as turned we to the fresh descent,

  But speaking all in such strange words as went

  Past me. - But ceased our downward path, and

  Plutus, of human weal the hateful foe.

  

  

  

Canto VII

  

HAH, strange! ho, Satan!" such the sounds half-heard

  The thick voice gobbled, the while the foul, inflamed,

  Distended visage toward us turned, and cast

  Invective from its bestial throat, that slurred

  Articulate speech. But here the gentle sage,

  Who knew beforehand that we faced, to me

  Spake first, "Regard not; for a threat misaimed

  Falls idle. Fear not to continue past.

  His power to us, however else it be,

  Is not to hinder." Then, that bulk inflate

  Confronting, - "Peace, thou greed! thy lusting rage

  Consume thee inward! Not thy word we wait

  The path to open. It is willed on high, -

  There, where the Angel of the Sword ye know

  Took ruin upon the proud adultery

  Of him thou callest as thy prince."

                         
  Thereat

  As sails, wind-rounded, when the mast gives way,

  Sink tangled to the deck, deflated so

  Collapsed that bulk that heard him, shrunk and flat;

  And we went downward till before us lay

  The fourth sad circle. Ah! what woes contain,

  Justice of God! what woes those narrowing deeps

  Contain; for all the universe down-heaps

  In this pressed space its continent of pain,

  So voiding all that mars its peace. But why

  This guilt that so degrades us?

                          As the
  surge

  Above Charybdis meets contending surge,

  Breaks and is broken, and rages and recoils

  For ever, so here the sinners. More numerous

  Than in the circles past are these. They urge

  Huge weights before them. On, with straining breasts,

  They roll them, howling in their ceaseless toils.

  And those that to the further side belong

  l)o likewise, meeting in the midst, and thus

  Crash vainly, and recoil, reverse, and cry,

  "Why dost thou hold?" "Why dost thou loose?"

          No rest

  Their doom permits them. Backward course they bend;

  Continual crescents trace, at either end

  Meeting again in fresh rebound, and high

  Above their travail reproachful howlings rise

  Incessant at those who thwart their round.

                           
        And I,

  Who felt my heart stung through with anguish, said,

  "O Master, show me who these peoples be,

  And if those tonsured shades that left we see

  Held priestly office ere they joined the dead."

  

  He answered, "These, who with such squinting eyes

  Regarded God's providing, that they spent

  In waste immoderate, indicate their guilt

  In those loud barkings that ye hear. They spilt

  Their wealth distemperate; and those they meet

  Who cry 'Why loose ye?' avarice ruled: they bent

  Their minds on earth to seize and hoard. Of these

  Hairless, are priests, and popes, and cardinals,

  For greed makes empire in such hearts complete."

  

  And I, "Among them that these vices eat

  Are none that I have known on earth before?"

  

  He answered, "Vainly wouldst thou seek; a life

  So blind to bounties has obscured too far

  The souls once theirs, for that which once they wore

  Of mortal likeness in their shades to show.

  Waste was their choice, and this abortive strife

  And toil unmeaning is the end they are

  They butt for ever, until the last award

  Shall call them from their graves. Ill-holding those

  Ill-loosing these, alike have doomed to know

  This darkness, and the fairer world forgo.

  Behold what mockery doth their fate afford!

  It needs no fineness of spun words to tell.

  For this they did their subtle wits oppose,

  Contending for the gifts that Fortune straws

  So blindly, - for this blind contending hell.

  

  "Beneath the moon there is not gold so great

  In worth, it could one moment's grief abate,

  Or rest one only of these weary souls."

  

  "Master, this Fortune that ye speak, whose claws

  Grasp all desirable things of earth," I said,

  "What is she?"

                  "O betrayed in foolishness I

  Blindness of creatures born of earth, whose goals

  Are folly and loss!" he answered, "I would make

  Thy mouth an opening for this truth I show.

  

  "Transcendent Wisdom, when the spheres He built

  Gave each a guide to rule it: more nor less

  Their light distributes. For the earth he gave

  Like guide to rule its splendours. As we know

  The heavenly lights move round us, and is spilt

  Light here, and darkness yonder, so doth she

  From man to man, from race and kindred take

  Alternate wealth, or yield it. None may save

  The spoil that she depriveth: none may flee

  The bounty that she wills. No human wits

  May hinder, nor may human lore reject

  Her choice, that like a hidden snake is set

  To reach the feet unheeding. Where she sits

  In judgment, she resolves, and whom she wills

  Is havened, chased by petulant storms, or wreck '

  Remedeless. Races cease, and men forget

  They were. Slaves rise to rule their lords. She

  And empties, godlike in her mood. No pause

  Her changes leave, so many are those who call

  About her gates, so many she dowers, and all

  Revile her after, and would crucify

  If words could reach her, but she heeds nor hears,

  Who dwells beyond the noise of human laws

  In the blest silence of the Primal Spheres.

  

  - But let us to the greater woes descend.

  The stars from their meridian fall, that rose

  When first these hells we entered. Long to stay

  Our right of path allows not."

                          While
  he spake

  We crossed the circle to the bank beyond,

  And found a hot spring boiling, and a way,

  Dark, narrow, and steep, that down beside it goes,

  By which we clambered. Purple-black the pond

  Beneath it, widening to a marsh that spreads

  Far out, and struggling in that slime malign

  Were muddied shades, that not with hands, heads,

  And teeth and feet besides, contending tore,

  And maimed each other in beast-like rage.

                           
    My guide

  Expounded, "Those whom anger overbore

  On earth, behold ye. Mark the further sign

  Of bubbles countless on the slime that show.

  These from the sobs of those immersed arise;

  For buried in the choking filth they cry,

  We once were sullen in the rain-sweet air,

  When waked the light, and all the earth was fair,

  How sullen in the murky swamp we lie

  Forbidden from the blessed light on high.

  This song they gurgle in their throats, that so

  The bubbles rising from the depths below

  Break all the surface of the slime."

                           
    Between

  The high bank and the putrid swamp was seen

  A narrow path, and this, a sweeping arc,

  We traversed; outward o'er the surface dark

  Still gazing, at the choking shades who took

  That diet for their wrath. Till livelier look

  Was forward drawn, for where at last we came

  A great tower fronted, and a beacon's flame.

  

  

  

Canto VIII

  

I SAY, while yet from that tower's base afar,

  We saw two flames of sudden signal rise,

  And further, like a small and distant star,

  A beacon answered.

                  "What before us lies?

  Who signals our approach, and who replies?"

  I asked, and answered he who all things knew,

  "Already, if the swamp's dank fumes permit,

  The outcome of their beacon shows in view,

  Severing the liquid filth."

                      No shaft can slit

  Impalpable air, from any corded bow,

  As came that craft towards us, cleaving so,

  And with incredible speed, the miry wave.

  To where we paused its meteor course it clave,

  A steersman rising in the stern, who cried,

  "Behold thy doom, lost spirit!" To whom my guide,

  "Nay, Phlegyas, Phlegyas, here thy cries are

  We need thine aid the further shore to gain;

  But power thou hast not."

                      One amazed to meet

  With most unlooked and undeserved deceit

  So rages inly; yet no dared reply

  There came, as down my Leader stept, and I

  Deepened the skiff with earthly weight undue,

  Which while we seated swung its bows anew

  Outward, and onward once again it flew,

  Labouring more deep than wont, and slowlier now,

  So burdened.

              While that kennel of filth we clave,

  There rose among the bubbles a mud-soaked head.

  "Who art thou, here before thy time?" it said,

  And answer to the unfeatured mask I gave,

  "I come, but stay not. Who art thou, so blind

  And blackened from the likeness of thy kind?"

  

  "I have no name, but only tears," said he.

  

  I answered, "Nay, however caked thou be,

  I know thee through the muddied drench. For thee

  Be weeping ever, accursed spirit."

                           
    At that,

  He reached his hands to grasp the boat, whereat

  My watchful Master thrust him down, and cried,

  "Away, among the dogs, thy fellows!" and then

  To me with approbation, "Blest art thou,

  Who wouldst not pity in thy heart allow

  For these, in arrogance of empty pride

  Who lived so vainly. In the minds of men

  Is no good thing of this one left to tell,

  And hence his rage. How many above that dwell,

  Now kinglike in their ways, at last shall lie

  Wallowing in these wide marshes, swine in sty,

  With all men's scorn to chase them down."

                           
        And I,

  "Master, it were a seemly thing to see

  This boaster trampled in the putrid sea,

  Who dared approach us, knowing of all we know."

  

  He answered, "Well thy wish, and surely so

  It shall be, e'er the distant shore we view."

  And I looked outward through the gloom, and lo!

  The envious eaters of that dirt combined

  Against him, leapt upon him, before, behind,

  Dragged in their fury, and rent, and tore him through,

  Screaming derisive, "Philip! whose horse-hooves shine

  With silver," and the rageful Florentine

  Turned on himself his gnashing teeth and tore.

  

  But he deserveth, and I speak, no more.

  

  Now, as we neared the further beach, I heard

  The lamentable and unceasing wail

  By which the air of all the hells is stirred

  Increasing ever, which caused mine eyes unveil

  Their keenest vision to search what came, and he

  Who marked, indulgent, told. "Ahead we see

  The city of Dis, with all its dolorous crew,

  Numerous, and burdened with reliefless pain,

  And guilt intolerable to think."

                           
    I said,

  "Master, already through the night I view

  The mosques of that sad city, that fiery red

  As heated metal extend, and crowd the plain."

  He answered, "These the eternal fire contain,

  That pulsing through them sets their domes aglow."

  At this we came those joyless walls below,

  - Of iron I thought them, - with a circling moat;

  But saw no entrance, and the burdened boat

  Traced the deep fosse for half its girth, before

  The steersman warned us. "Get ye forth. The shore

  Is here, - and there the Entrance."

                          There,
  indeed,

  The entrance. On the barred and burning gate

  I gazed; a thousand of the fiends that rained

  From Heaven, to fill that place disconsolate,

  Looked downward, and derided. "Who," they said,

  "Before his time comes hither? As though the dead

  Arrive too slowly for the joys they would,"

  And laughter rocked along their walls. My guide

  Their mockery with an equal mien withstood,

  Signalling their leaders he would speak aside,

  And somewhat closing their contempt they cried,

  "Then come thou hither, and let him backward go,

  Who came so rashly. Let him find his way

  Through the five hells ye traversed, the best he may.

  He can but try it awhile! - But thou shalt stay,

  And learn the welcome of these halls of woe."

  

  Ye well may think how I, discomforted

  By these accursed words, was moved. The dead,

  Nay, nor the living were ever placed as I,

  If this fiends' counsel triumphed. And who should try

  That backward path unaided?

                         
  "Lord," I said,

  "Loved Master, who hast shared my steps so far,

  And rescued ever, if these our path would bar,

  Then lead me backward in most haste, nor let

  Their malice part us."

                      He with cheerful
  mien,

  Gave answer. "Heed not that they boast. Forget

  The fear thou showest, and in good heart abide,

  While I go forward. Not these fiends obscene

  Shall thwart the mandate that the Power supplied

  By which we came, nor any force to do

  The things they threaten is theirs; nor think that I

  Should leave thee helpless here."

                          The
  gentle Sage

  At this went forward. Feared I? Half I knew

  Despair, and half contentment. Yes and no

  Denied each other; and of so great a woe

  Small doubt is anguish.

                      In their orgulous
  rage

  The fiends out-crowded from the gates to meet

  My Master; what he spake I could not hear;

  But nothing his words availed to cool their heat,

  For inward thronged they with a jostling rear

  That clanged the gates before he reached, and he

  Turned backward slowly, muttering, "Who to me

  Denies the woeful houses?" This he said

  Sighing, with downcast aspect and disturbed

  Beyond concealment; yet some length he curbed

  His anxious thought to cheer me. "Doubt ye nought

  Of power to hurt in these fiends insolent;

  For once the wider gate on which ye read

  The words of doom, with greater pride, they sought

  To close against the Highest. Already is bent

  A great One hereward, whose unhindered way

  Descends the steeps unaided. He shall say

  Such words as must the trembling hells obey."

  

  

  

Canto IX

  

I THINK the paleness of the fear I showed

  When he, rejected from that conference,

  Rejoined me, caused him speak more confident

  Than felt he inly. For the glance he sent

  Through the dense darkness of the backward road

  Denied the valour of his words' pretence;

  And pausing there with anxious listening mien,

  While came no sound, nor any help was seen,

  He muttered, "Yet we must this conflict win,

  For else - But whom her aid has pledged herein -

  How long before he cometh!" And plain I knew

  His words turned sideward from the ending due

  They first portended. Faster beat my fear,

  Methinks, than had he framed in words more clear

  The meaning that his care withheld.

                           
        I said,

  "Do others of the hopeless, sinless, dead,

  Who with thee in the outmost circle dwell,

  Come ever downward to the narrowing hell

  That now we traverse?"

                      "Once Erichtho
  fell,"

  He answered, "conjured to such end that I,

  - Who then short time had passed to those who die, -

  Came here, controlled by her discerning spell,

  And entered through these hostile gates, and drew

  A spirit from the darkest, deepest pit,

  The place of Judas named, that centres Hell.

  The path I learnt, and all its dangers well.

  Content thine heart. This foul-stretched marsh surrounds

  The dolorous city to its furthest bounds.

  Without, the dense mirk, and the bubbling mire:

  Within, the white-hot pulse of eating fire,

  Whence this fiend-anger thwarts. . .," and more he said,

  To save me doubtless from my thoughts, but I

  Heeded no more, for by the beacons red

  That on the lofty tower before us glowed,

  Three bloodstained and infernal furies showed,

  Erect, of female form in guise and limb,

  But clothed in coils of hydras green and grim;

  And with cerastes bound was every head,

  And for its crown of hair was serpented;

  And he, who followed my diverted gaze,

  The handmaids of the Queen of Woeful Days

  Well knowing, told me, "These the Furies three.

  Megæra leftward: on the right is she

  Alecto, wailing: and Tisiphone

  Midmost."

          These hateful, in their need of prey,

  Tore their own breasts with bloodied claws, and when

  They saw me, from the living world of men,

  Beneath them standing, with one purpose they

  Cried, and so loudly that I shrank for fear,

  "Medusa! let her from her place appear,

  To change him into stone! Our first default

  That venged no wrath on Theseus' deep assault,

  So brings him."

          "Turn thou from their sight," my guide

  Enjoined, nor wholly on my fear relied,

  But placed his hands across mine eyes the while

  He told me further "Risk no glance. The sight

  Of Gorgon, if she cometh, would bring thee night

  From which were no returning."

                          Ye
  that read

  With wisdom to discern, ye well may heed

  The hidden meaning of the truth that lies

  Beneath the shadow-words of mysteries

  That here I show ye.

                      While I turned away,
  

  Across the blackness of the putrid bay,

  There crashed a thunder of most fearful sound,

  At which the opposing shores, from bound to bound,

  Trembled.

              As when an entering tempest rends

  The brooding heat, and nought its course can stay,

  That through the forest its dividing way

  Tears open, and tramples down, and strips, and bends,

  And levels. The wild things in the woods that be

  Cower down. The herdsmen from its trumpets flee.

  With clouds of dust to trace its course it goes,

  Superb, and leaving ruin. Such sound arose.

  And he that held me loosened mine eyes, and said,

  "Look back, and see what foam the black waves bear."

  

  As frogs, the while the serpent picks his prey,

  In panic scatter through the stream, and there

  Flatten themselves upon its bouldered bed,

  I saw a thousand ruined spirits that fled

  Before the coming of One who held his way

  Dry-shod across the water.

                          His
  left hand

  He waved before him, and the stagnant air

  Retreated. Simple it were to understand

  A Messenger of Heaven he came. My guide

  Signed me to silence, and to reverence due,

  While to one stroke of his indignant wand

  The gate swung open. "Outcast spawn!" he cried,

  His voice heard vibrant through the aperture grim,

  "Why spurn ye at the Will that, once defied,

  Here cast ye grovelling? Have ye felt from Him

  Aught ever for fresh revolt but harder pains?

  Has Cerberus' throat, skinned with the threefold chains,

  No meaning? Why, to fate most impotent,

  Contend ye vainly?"

                  Then he turned and went,

  Nor one glance gave us, but he seemed as one

  Whom larger issue than the instant done

  Engages wholly.

                  By that Power compelled,

  The gates stood open, and our course we held

  Unhindered. As the threshold dread we crossed,

  My eager glances swept the scene to know,

  In those doomed walls imprisoned, how lived the lost.

  

  On either hand a wide plain stretched, to show

  A sight of torment, and most dismal woe.

  

  At Arles, where the stagnant Rhone extends,

  Or Pola, where the gulf Quarnero bends,

  As with old tombs the plains are ridged, so here,

  All sides, did rows of countless tombs appear,

  But in more bitter a guise, for everywhere

  Shone flames, that moved among them.

                           
    Every tomb

  Stood open, white with heat. No craft requires

  More heated metal than the crawling fires

  Made hot the sides of those sad sepulchres;

  And cries of torture and most dire despair

  Came from them, as the spirits wailed their doom.

  

  I said, "Who are they, in these chests that lie

  Confined, and join in this lamenting cry?"

  

  My Master answered, "These in life denied

  The faith that saves, and that resisting pride

  Here brought them. With their followers, like to like,

  Assorted are they, and the keen flames strike

  With differing anguish, to the same degree

  They reached in their rebellion."

                          While
  he spake

  Rightward he turned, a narrow path to take

  Between them and that high-walled boundary.

  

  

  

Canto X

  

FIRST went my Master, for the space was small

  Between the torments and the lofty wall,

  And I behind him.

                  "O controlling Will,"

  I spake, "who leadest through such hates, and still

  Prevailest for me, wilt thou speak, that who

  Within these tombs are held mine eyes may see?

  For lifted are they, and unwatched."

                           
    And he, -

  "The lids stand open till the time arrive

  When to the valley of Jehoshaphat

  They each must wend, and earthly flesh resume,

  And back returning, as the swarming hive,

  From condemnation, each the doleful tomb

  Re-enter wailing, and the lids thereat

  Be bolted. Here in fitting torment lie

  The Epicurean horde, who dared deny

  That soul outlasts its mortal home. Is here

  Their leader, and his followers round him. Soon

  Shall all thy wish be granted, - and the boon

  Ye hold in secret."

                      "Kind my
  guide," I said,

  "I was not silent to conceal, but thou

  Didst teach, when in thy written words I read,

  That in brief speech is wisdom."

                           
    Here a voice

  Behind me, "Tuscan, who canst walk at choice

  Untouched amidst the torments, wilt thou stay?

  For surely native of the noble land

  Where once I held my too-audacious way,

  Discreet of speech, thou comest."

                          The
  sudden cry

  So close behind me from the chests that came,

  First drove me closer to my guide, but he, -

  "What dost thou? Turn thee!" - and a kindly hand

  Impelled me, fearful, where the crawling flame

  Was all around me, - "Lift thine eyes and see,

  For there is Farinata. Be thou short

  In speech, for time is failing."

                          Scorn
  of hell

  Was in the eyes that met me. Hard he wrought

  To raise himself, till girdle-deep I knew

  The greatest of the fierce Uberti crew,

  Who asked me, with contempt near-waiting, "Tell

  Of whom thou art descended?"

                          I
  replied,

  Concealing nothing. With lifted brows he eyed

  My face in silence some brief while, and then, -

  "Foes were they ever to my part, and me.

  It yet must linger in the minds of men

  How twice I broke them."

                  "Twice ye learned them
  flee,"

  - I answered boldly, - "but they twice returned;

  And others fled more late who have not learned

  The mode of that returning."

                          Here a
  shade

  Arose beside him, only to the chin

  Revealed: I think it knelt. Beyond and round

  It rather looked than at me. Nought it found.

  Thereat it wept, and asked me, "Ye that go

  Unhindered through these homes of gateless woe, -

  Is my son with thee? Hast thou nought to tell?"

  

  I answered, "Single through the gates of hell

  I had no power to enter. Near my guide

  Awaits me yonder. - Whom in foolish pride,

  Thy Guido held so lightly."

                      At the word

  He leapt erect from out the tomb, and cried,

  "How saidst thou? Held? Already he hath not died?

  Doth not the sweet light meet him? The clear air

  Breathes he not yet?"

                  The imploring cries I heard

  But checked awhile to answer, and in despair

  He fell flat forward, and was seen no more.

  But he, magnanimous, who first delayed

  My steps, had heeded nought, nor turned his head,

  And now continued that he spake before.

  "If with the coin ye forged they have not paid,

  It more torments me than this flaming bed.

  Yet thou thyself, before the Queen of Night

  Shall fifty times revoke and raise her light,

  Shalt learn the hardship of that art. But tell,

  As thou wouldst feel the cool winds' pinions beat

  Once more upon thee, and the sweet light fall

  Around the feet of morning, for this heat

  And fetid air we writhe in, why were all

  Those exiles pardoned by thy laws, to dwell

  In their dear homes once more, and only mine,

  My kindred, find no mercy?"

                          I to
  him, -

  "The rout and chase that dyed the Arbia red

  To thy descendants dealt this bitter bread;

  The memory of that slaughter doth not dim,

  But leaves thee to our prayers a name of hate

  In all our churches."

                      Here he sighed, and
  said,

  "I was not single in that strife, nor lacked

  Good cause to strike; but when your remnant fled,

  And Florence, naked to her foes elate,

  Cowered, waiting, all with one consent agreed

  To tread her out to dust, and extirpate

  All life within her, I, and only I,

  Stood out against it, and refused the deed,

  And with my swords I saved them. Is this thing

  Less memoried than my wrath?"

                          I
  answered, "Yea:

  But what I can I will, and that thy seed

  Have rest at my returning, solve, I pray,

  A doubt that disconcerts me. Ye that dwell

  In these abodes beneath us, each foretell

  - Or so ye claim - what distant times shall bring,

  Yet plead for knowledge of the passing day, -

  Or mock me, asking that yourselves could say."

  

  He answered, "As in age a man may see

  Far off, while nearer sights are blurred, so we

  See clearly times long passed, and times to be.

  Foresight is ours, and long remembering,

  In each an anguish, while the anxious mind

  Is void to all around it, foiled and blind

  Where most it longs for knowledge. Nought we know

  Thine earthly present, save as here below

  One after one descending bears his tale;

  And therefore, when the wings of Time shall fail,

  And sealed in these accursed tombs we lie,

  All knowledge from our vacant minds shall die,

  As well ye may perceive it."

                          Here I
  said,

  Compunctious for a fault now seen, "Wilt tell

  That other, fallen, that I did not well

  Withholding answer? Guido is not dead.

  My silence from the earlier doubt was bred,

  From which thou hast resolved me."

                          Now my
  guide

  Was calling, and in greater haste I said,

  "Thy comrades in thy grief I charge thee tell,

  Ere I go from thee."

                  Shortly he replied,

  "The second Frederick, and the Cardinal,

  Are with me, and a thousand more beside

  Of whom I speak not."

                      With the word he
  fell;

  And I went onward, turning in my thought

  The hostile presage of his words that taught

  Mine own near exile, till my guide at last

  Questioned, "What cloud thine eyes hath overcast?

  What thought hath wildered all thy mind?" and I

  Answered, and told.

              He said, "The things thou hear'st

  That threat thee, hold them in thy memory well.

  Yet know that soon, beneath a fairer sky,

  When she, whose sight hath no blank space, shall tell

  What cometh, then shalt thou read, ungapped and clear,

  The journey of thy life."

                  The while he spake

  He turned him leftward from the wall, to take

  A path that to the midmost vale declined,

  A fetid rising odour first to find.

  

  

  

Canto XI

  

BUT boldly outward from the wall we went,

  Down sloping, till a sudden steep descent

  Before us yawned. The sides, extending far,

  Of broken rocks, a great pit circular

  Enclosed. Beneath our feet a fouler throng

  Than that we left, upcast a stench so vile

  We might not face, but left our course awhile

  To crouch behind a stone-built monument,

  Whereon I read, "Pope Anastasius

  Is here, who sold his faith for Photinus."

  

  Then spake my Master. "Till the fetid air

  By gradual use we take, we must not dare

  Continue downward."

                  "Show me, while we stay,

  The meanings of this foul and dreadful way."

  

  "I meant it, surely," said my guide. "Behold

  The space beneath us. There three circlets lie,

  Alike to those we left behind, but why

  This deeper fate is theirs, I first will show;

  And when we pass them in the depths below

  Ye need not wait to question what ye see.

  

  "All malice of men's hearts in injury

  Results, and hence to Heaven is odious;

  And all the malice that aggrieveth thus

  Strikes in two ways, by either force or fraud;

  And fraud in man is vice peculiar,

  That from Hell's centre to the utmost star

  Is else unknown, and is to God therefore

  Most hateful Hence the violent-sinful lie

  Outward, and inmost are the fraudulent.

  And as the sinful-violent make their war

  On God, their neighbours, or themselves, so they

  Are portioned in the outer wards.

                           
    I say,

  To them, or to the things they own, the wrong

  May aim. By violence, wounds or death may be,

  Extortions, burnings, wastes; and ye shall see

  That equal in the outmost round belong

  Reivers of life alike, and plunderers.

  And in the second round are those whose sin

  Is violence to themselves; they weep therein,

  Repenting when too late, whose hands destroy

  Their earthly bodies; and condemned alike

  Are those with profligate wasteful hands who strike

  At their own wealth, or having cause for joy

  Reject it, weeping with no need. The third

  And smallest of the outer circlets holds

  All those with violence of blaspheming words,

  Or in their hearts, the Lord of Life deny,

  The wealth of Nature that the world enfolds

  Contemning. Hence by lust or usury,

  Sodom or Cahors, the downward path may be

  That ends in this destruction.

                          Fraud,
  that gnaws

  The universal conscience of mankind,

  Is also different in its guilt, because

  It either at the stranger strikes behind,

  Or makes the sacred bond of confidence

  The means of its prevailing; and the first

  Breaks but the kindly general bond, and hence

  More outward in the final depths are cast

  Deceivers, flatterers, cheats, and sorcerers,

  Thieves, panders, and such filth.

                          The
  last and worst

  And smallest circle holds such souls as break

  Not only in their guilt the natural bond

  That all men own, but in some trust, beyond

  The usual course, are faithless. In this lake,

  The base and centre of Dis, the inmost hell,

  All traitors in relentless torments dwell."

  

  I answered, "Master, clearer words than these

  I could not ask, the ranks of guilt to show,

  That gather in the dreadful gulfs below;

  But tell me, - those that in so great dis-ease

  We earlier passed, wind-beaten, choked with slime,

  Or chilled and flattened with unending rain,

  If God's wrath reach them, why they yet remain

  Outside the hot walls of the Place of Pain?

  Or why they suffer through the night of Time

  So greatly, if they are not judged to Hell?"

  

  He answered, "Surely ye recall not well

  The Ethics that your schools have taught, or wide

  Your thoughts have wandered from their wont, to cause

  A doubt so simple. Are there not three laws

  By which the ways of Hell from Heaven divide -

  Beast-treason, malice, and incontinence,

  And of these three the third the least offence

  To God provoketh, and receives less blame?

  Bethink the faults of those where first ye came

  Through circles loftier than the heated wall

  That now surrounds us, and ye well shall see

  Why with less wrath the strokes of justice fall

  On those left outward by divine decree."

  

  "O Light!" I said, "whose cheering rays dispel

  The mists that blind me, wilt thou further tell

  Why stands the customed toll of usury

  Condemned in thy discourse as direst sin,

  Abhorrent to the bounty of God?"

                           
    He said,

  "The teaching of thine own Philosophy

  Is pregnant with this truth unborn. Therein

  Thou learn'st of God himself, interpreted

  In Nature's ways; and as a child may tread

  Unsurely in its Master's steps, thine art

  Interprets Nature in its turn, and is

  God's grandchild therefore. Through these mysteries

  Look backward. When the Law of Eden came,

  How spake the Eternal Wisdom? Toil; It said,

  And in that labour find thy guerdon-bread:

  Be fruitful, and increase thy kind. His part

  God gave to man, so saying. The usurer

  Seeks not his profit in the path designed,

  But looks the fruit of others' toils to find,

  And pluck where nought he planted.

                           
    More to say

  The time permits not; but the downward way

  We needs must venture. In the outer skies

  The Fishes from the pale horizon rise,

  And the Great Wain its shining course descends

  Where the night-lair of Caurus dark extends."

  

  

  

Canto XII

  

NOW came we to the steep cliff-side. As where

  The Adige at the mountain bored until

  Fell the huge ruin of half its bulk, and there

  Turned the swift stream a further course to fill

  Beneath the scarred precipitous side, so here

  The shattered ominous cliffs descended sheer;

  And sprawled across the verge, Crete's infamy,

  The fruit of that false cow, Pasiphaë,

  Was fearsome, that the boldest heart should flee.

  

  To us he turned his red malignant eyes,

  Gnawing his own side, the while he strove to rise,

  As one made rageful past restraint, but loud

  My leader hailed him, "Think'st thou, overproud,

  That Theseus cometh, who gave thy death

  Not one that Ariadne taught is here,

  Nor destined victim for thy rage to gore,

  But one who walketh through the place of fear

  In safety, to behold the stripes ye bore."

  As some roped bull, whose throat is stretched to feel

  The knife's sharp doom, against the rending steel

  So madly wrenches that he breaks away,

  Already slaughtered, plunging while he may,

  But blindly and vainly, at this word I saw

  Heaving the huge bulk of the Minotaur,

  And cried my careful guide, "Descend with speed,

  The whilst he rages."

                  Down with watchful heed,

  But swiftly, clomb we by the rocks' rough side,

  The jutting stones that lightly held my guide

  Trembling beneath my earthlier weight.

                           
    He said,

  Who watched my silence, "Likely turns thy thought

  To this rent ruin the gross beast guards. Before,

  When downward came I, of this fall was nought,

  But nearly after came that Lord who bore

  Out from the horror of Dis its choicer prey.

  Hell, to its loathliest entrails, felt that day

  Love's coming, and trembled, and this mountain fell.

  The power of Love, that thus discomfits Hell,

  Oft in forgotten times, as sages tell,

  Hath changed our world to chaos. - But heed thy way.

  Before us is the gulf of blood wherein

  Murderers by violence purge their briefer sin.

  O blindness of their greed, or bestial rage!

  So short the war that on their kind they wage;

  So long is their repenting."

                          I
  beheld

  A wide moat, curving either hand, as though

  Its sweep surrounded all the plain. Below

  On the near bank, were Centaurs, each who held

  A spear for casting, or a bended bow,

  The while they raced along the brink, as when

  Their game they hunted in the world of men.

  

  Seeing us, they stayed, and of the nearest, three

  Approached us, with the threats of shaft on string.

  One cried, "What torments do your guilts decree,

  Who cross Hell's gaps in such strange wandering?

  How came ye loosened from your dooming? - Say,

  Lest the cord teach ye."

                      Unperturbed, my
  guide

  Gave answer. "Not for such vain threats we stay.

  To Chiron only will we speak. Thy will

  For rashness cost thee once thy life, and still

  Inciteth folly." And then to me, "Behold

  Nessus, who once for Deianira died;

  Beyond is Chiron, round whose mighty knees

  Played once the infant years of Achilles;

  The rageful Pholus is the last; they go

  With thousand others around the moat, that so

  If any spirits the boiling blood would quit

  Beyond the licence of their dooms, they know

  A different anguish from the shafts that slit

  The parts shown naked."

                      These swift beasts
  and we

  Approached each other the while he spake, and he,

  Great Chiron, with a shaft's notched end put back

  The beard that hindered both his jaws, and said,

  To those his comrades, "Not as walk the dead

  Doth this one coming, but with the weight they lack

  Disturbs the stones he treadeth."

                          My
  guide by now

  Stood where the human and the brute combined,

  Beneath his breast, and answered for me. "Yea,

  He lives indeed, and I, to lead his way,

  I race this dark valley. No sportive choice to find,

  But driven of need, he threads this night of flame;

  And She from singing Alleluias came

  Who bade me do it. No spirit condemned am I,

  Nor he deserving of thy doom. I pray,

  By virtue of the Name I will not say,

  l hat of thy comrades one thy care supply

  To guide us to the ford, and him to bear

  Across, who may not tread the yielding air

  As those discarnate."

                      Chiron's bearded
  head

  Bent round to Nessus at his right, and said,

  "Turn, as they ask, and guide, and bear him through,

  And warn thy comrades that no wrong they do

  To these in passing."

                      In this trusty ward

  We held the margin of the purple flood

  That seethed beneath us. In the boiling blood

  Were spirits to the brows immersed.

                           
    "Ye see,"

  Said Nessus, "tyrants who by weight of sword

  Spread death and rapine in their lands. Is here

  Fierce Dionysius, who the doleful year

  Made long to those he ruled in Sicily;

  And Alexander here repents; and he

  Whose brows o'erhung with night-black hair ye see

  Is Azzolino; and the head beyond

  Where on the stream the trailing mane is blonde,

  Obizzo, whom his stepson choked."

                           
    We came

  Where other spirits in the boiling pond

  Showed from the neck, and in this place beheld

  That Guy who to avenge his father's name

  The English Henry at Viterbo felled,

  Even in the presence of God. The victim's heart

  Yet raised in reverence on the bank of Thame,

  Recalls it, and the assassin boils apart

  Placed separate for the deed's high blasphemy.

  

  And further passed we those whose guilt allowed

  Of freedom to the waist. Among the crowd,

  More numerous now, were more in clearer view,

  That by themselves or by their deeds I knew,

  As shallower yet the seething purple grew,

  Till all except the miscreants' feet was free.

  

  "Here must we cross the fosse," the Centaur said,

  And I, sole living in this world of dead,

  Climbed upward, and my earthly weight he bore,

  And while he waded to the further shore

  Continued, "As the boiling stream ye see

  Diminish, so its bottom sinks anew

  Rounding the circle, till it comes once more

  To those whose ruling choked their world in gore,

  In which they suffer. High Justice here torments

  The pirate Sextus, and fierce Pyrrhus here;

  Attila with eternal tears laments;

  And Rinier Pazzo, once a word of fear,

  With Rinier of Corneto boils, to pay

  For bandit-murders on the State's highway."

  

  

  

Canto XIII

  

WHILE Nessus yet recrossed the purple stream

  A wood we entered where no path appeared,

  No cool wind stirred, nor any sun came through,

  But all the foliage, as by winter seared,

  Was brittle and brown, and gnarled and twisted grew

  The branches, and if any fruit did seem

  They were but poisonous pods to closer view.

  No denser holts the lurking beasts have found

  Beneath Corneto, where the marshy ground,

  Uncoultered, to Cecina's stream declines.

  

  Foul harpies nest amidst the loathly vines,

  Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,

  With their drear wail of some awaiting woe.

  Their wings are wide: and like gross birds below

  Their bellies feathered, and their feet are clawed.

  Strange cries come from them through the sickly trees.

  

  My Master told me, "Through this dismal land,

  The second circlet pass we, till we reach

  The place of that intolerable sand

  Which forms the third, and in its place completes

  The outer round. Recall my earlier speech

  That taught the order of these woes. Look well

  For confirmation of the things I tell "

  

  I looked, but saw not. Every side there rose

  A wailing burdened with unnumbered woes,

  While all the woods were vacant. From ground

  It came not - rather from the boughs around

  It beat upon us, as voiced by those who hid

  Before our coming, the tangled growth amid.

  

  My Master taught me. "If thou break away

  The nearest twig that meets thine hand, wilt see

  How far thy dreaming from the truth astray."

  

  Thereat I reached, and from a twisted thorn

  That rose before us, withered, gaunt, forlorn,

  Broke short a twig, and from the trunk a cry

  Came sharply, "Tear not!" and a blood-gout

  Dark on the wound, the while the trunk anew

  Entreated, "Rend not; does no mercy lie

  In those that still their human forms retain?

  Men were we, till we left on earth self-slain

  The bodies given of God. But had we been

  The souls of serpents, in this hopeless dole

  We had not thought that any mortal soul

  Would wound us, helpless to their hands."

                           
    Hast seen

  Cast on the coals a living branch and green?

  One end already burns, and one projects

  Clear of the heat, but from the fire's effects

  Moisture exudes and hissing wind. So here

  Blood welled and words from out the wound. The fear

  Of this strange voice, and pity, so in me wrought

  I dropt the broken shoot, and fixed in thought

  Stood silent.

              On my side my leader spake,

  "O wounded spirit, had his heart believed

  The truth that earlier in my verse he read,

  He had not with unthinking violence grieved

  The most unhappy of the hapless dead.

  But