The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio & Paradiso. Dante Alighieri

whatever soul emerges

       Out of the blood, more than his crime allots."

      Near we approached unto those monsters fleet;

       Chiron an arrow took, and with the notch

       Backward upon his jaws he put his beard.

      After he had uncovered his great mouth,

       He said to his companions: "Are you ware

       That he behind moveth whate'er he touches?

      Thus are not wont to do the feet of dead men."

       And my good Guide, who now was at his breast,

       Where the two natures are together joined,

      Replied: "Indeed he lives, and thus alone

       Me it behoves to show him the dark valley;

       Necessity, and not delight, impels us.

      Some one withdrew from singing Halleluja,

       Who unto me committed this new office;

       No thief is he, nor I a thievish spirit.

      But by that virtue through which I am moving

       My steps along this savage thoroughfare,

       Give us some one of thine, to be with us,

      And who may show us where to pass the ford,

       And who may carry this one on his back;

       For 'tis no spirit that can walk the air."

      Upon his right breast Chiron wheeled about,

       And said to Nessus: "Turn and do thou guide them,

       And warn aside, if other band may meet you."

      We with our faithful escort onward moved

       Along the brink of the vermilion boiling,

       Wherein the boiled were uttering loud laments.

      People I saw within up to the eyebrows,

       And the great Centaur said: "Tyrants are these,

       Who dealt in bloodshed and in pillaging.

      Here they lament their pitiless mischiefs; here

       Is Alexander, and fierce Dionysius

       Who upon Sicily brought dolorous years.

      That forehead there which has the hair so black

       Is Azzolin; and the other who is blond,

       Obizzo is of Esti, who, in truth,

      Up in the world was by his stepson slain."

       Then turned I to the Poet; and he said,

       "Now he be first to thee, and second I."

      A little farther on the Centaur stopped

       Above a folk, who far down as the throat

       Seemed from that boiling stream to issue forth.

      A shade he showed us on one side alone,

       Saying: "He cleft asunder in God's bosom

       The heart that still upon the Thames is honoured."

      Then people saw I, who from out the river

       Lifted their heads and also all the chest;

       And many among these I recognised.

      Thus ever more and more grew shallower

       That blood, so that the feet alone it covered;

       And there across the moat our passage was.

      "Even as thou here upon this side beholdest

       The boiling stream, that aye diminishes,"

       The Centaur said, "I wish thee to believe

      That on this other more and more declines

       Its bed, until it reunites itself

       Where it behoveth tyranny to groan.

      Justice divine, upon this side, is goading

       That Attila, who was a scourge on earth,

       And Pyrrhus, and Sextus; and for ever milks

      The tears which with the boiling it unseals

       In Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo,

       Who made upon the highways so much war."

      Then back he turned, and passed again the ford.

      Canto XIII. The Wood of Thorns. The Harpies. The Violent against themselves. Suicides. Pier della Vigna. Lano and Jacopo da Sant' Andrea.

       Table of Contents

      Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,

       When we had put ourselves within a wood,

       That was not marked by any path whatever.

      Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,

       Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,

       Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.

      Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,

       Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold

       'Twixt Cecina and Corneto the tilled places.

      There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,

       Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,

       With sad announcement of impending doom;

      Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human,

       And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged;

       They make laments upon the wondrous trees.

      And the good Master: "Ere thou enter farther,

       Know that thou art within the second round,"

       Thus he began to say, "and shalt be, till

      Thou comest out upon the horrible sand;

       Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see

       Things that will credence give unto my speech."

      I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,

       And person none beheld I who might make them,

       Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

      I think he thought that I perhaps might think

       So many voices issued through those trunks

       From people who concealed themselves from us;

      Therefore the Master said: "If thou break off

       Some little spray from any of these trees,

       The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain."

      Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,

       And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;

       And the trunk cried, "Why dost thou mangle me?"

      After it had become embrowned with blood,

       It recommenced its cry: "Why dost thou rend me?

       Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

      Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;

       Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,

       Even if the souls of serpents we had been."

      As out of a green brand, that is on fire

       At one of the ends, and from the other drips

       And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

      So from that splinter issued forth together

       Both