Inferno:
Canto XXIV
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In that part of the youthful year wherein
The
Sun his locks beneath
Aquarius tempers,
And now the nights draw near to half the day,
What time the
hoar-frost copies on the ground
The outward
semblance of her sister
white,
But little lasts the temper of her pen,
The
husbandman, whose
forage faileth him,
Rises, and looks, and seeth the
champaign
All gleaming
white, whereat
he beats his flank,
Returns in doors, and up and down laments,
Like a poor wretch, who knows not what to do;
Then he returns and hope revives again,
Seeing the
world has changed its
countenance
In little time, and takes his
shepherd's crook,
And forth the little lambs to pasture drives.
Thus did the
Master fill me with alarm,
When I beheld his forehead so
disturbed,
And to the ailment came as soon the
plaster.
For as we came unto the ruined bridge,
The Leader turned to me with that sweet look
Which at the mountain's
foot I first beheld.
His arms he opened, after some advisement
Within himself elected, looking first
Well at the
ruin, and laid hold of me.
And even as he who acts and meditates,
For aye it seems that he provides beforehand,
So upward lifting me towards the summit
Of a huge rock, he scanned another crag,
Saying: "To that one
grapple afterwards,
But try first if 'tis such that it will hold thee."
This was no way for one
clothed with a
cloak;
For hardly we, he
light, and I pushed upward,
Were able to ascend from
jag to
jag.
And had it not been, that upon that
precinct
Shorter was the ascent than on the other,
He I know not, but I had been dead beat.
But because
Malebolge tow'rds the mouth
Of the
profoundest well is all inclining,
The structure of each valley doth import
That one bank rises and the other
sinks.
Still we arrived at length upon the point
Wherefrom the last
stone breaks itself
asunder.
The breath was from my lungs so milked away,
When I was up, that I could go no farther,
Nay, I sat down upon my first arrival.
"Now it behoves thee thus to put off
sloth,"
My
Master said; "for sitting upon down,
Or under quilt, one cometh not to
fame,
Withouten which whoso his life consumes
Such
vestige leaveth of himself on
earth,
As smoke in air or in the water foam.
And therefore raise thee up, o'ercome the
anguish
With
Spirit that o'ercometh every battle,
If with its heavy
body it
sin k not.
A longer
stairway it behoves thee mount;
'Tis not enough from these to have departed;
Let it avail thee, if thou understand me."
Then I
uprose, showing myself provided
Better with
breath than I did feel myself,
And said: "Go on, for I am
strong and
bold."
Upward we took our way along the crag,
Which jagged was, and
narrow, and difficult,
And more
precipitous far than that before.
Speaking I went, not to appear
exhausted;
Whereat a
voice from the next
moat came forth,
Not well adapted to
articulate words.
I know not what it said, though o'er the back
I now was of the arch that passes there;
But he seemed moved to anger who was speaking.
I was
bent downward, but my living eyes
Could not
attain the
bottom, for the dark;
Wherefore I: "
Master, see that thou arrive
At the next round, and let us descend the wall;
For as from hence I hear and understand not,
So I look down and nothing I
distinguish."
"Other response," he said, "I make thee not,
Except the doing; for the modest asking
Ought to be followed by the deed in silence."
We from the bridge descended at its head,
Where it connects itself with the eighth bank,
And then was manifest to me the
Bolgia;
And I beheld therein a terrible throng
Of
serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,
That the remembrance still
congeals my
Blood
Let Libya boast no longer with her sand;
For if
Chelydri,
Jaculi, and
Phareae
She breeds, with
Cenchri and with
Amphisbaena,
Neither so many plagues nor so
malignant
E'er showed she with all
Ethiopia,
Nor with whatever on the
Red Sea is!
Among this cruel and most
dismal throng
People were running naked and affrighted.
Without the hope of hole or
heliotrope.
They had their hands with serpents bound behind them;
These riveted upon their reins the tail
And head, and were in front of them entwined.
And lo! at one who was upon our side
There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him
There where the
neck is knotted to the shoulders.
Nor 'O' so quickly e'er, nor 'I' was written,
As he took
fire, and burned; and ashes wholly
Behoved it that in falling he became.
And when he on the ground was thus destroyed,
The ashes drew together, and of themselves
Into himself they instantly returned.
Even thus by the great sages 'tis confessed
The
phoenix dies, and then is
born again,
When it approaches its
five-hundredth year;
On herb or
grain it feeds not in its life,
But only on tears of
incense and
amomum,
And nard and myrrh are its last winding-sheet.
And as he is who falls, and knows not how,
By force of
demons who to
earth down drag him,
Or other
oppilation that
binds
man,
When he arises and around him looks,
Wholly bewildered by the mighty
anguish
Which he has suffered, and in looking sighs;
Such was that
sin ner after he had risen.
Justice of
God! O how severe it is,
That blows like these in vengeance poureth down!
The
Guide thereafter asked him who he was;
Whence he replied: "I
rained from
Tuscany
A short time
sinceinto this cruel gorge.
A bestial life, and not a human, pleased me,
Even as the mule I was; I'm
Vanni Fucci,
Beast, and
Pistoia was my worthy den."
And I unto the
Guide: "Tell him to stir not,
And ask what
crime has thrust him here below,
For once a man of
Blood and wrath I saw him."
And the
sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,
But unto me directed mind and face,
And with a
melancholy shame was painted.
Then said: "It pains me more that thou hast caught me
Amid this
misery where thou seest me,
Than when I from the other life was taken.
What thou demandest I cannot deny;
So low am I put down because I robbed
The sacristy of the
fair ornaments,
And falsely once 'twas laid upon another;
But that thou mayst not such a sight enjoy,
If thou
shalt e'er be out of the dark places,
Thine ears to my announcement
ope and
hear:
Pistoia first of
Neri groweth meagre;
Then
Florence doth renew her men and manners;
Mars draws a
vapour up from
Val di Magra,
Which is with turbid clouds enveloped round,
And with impetuous and bitter tempest
Over
Campo Picen shall be the
battle;
When it shall suddenly rend the mist
asunder,
So that each
Bianco shall thereby be smitten.
And this I've said that it may give thee pain."
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