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

back to him, who now was hoarse.

      Then came we to the confine, where disparted

       The second round is from the third, and where

       A horrible form of Justice is beheld.

      Clearly to manifest these novel things,

       I say that we arrived upon a plain,

       Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;

      The dolorous forest is a garland to it

       All round about, as the sad moat to that;

       There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.

      The soil was of an arid and thick sand,

       Not of another fashion made than that

       Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.

      Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou

       By each one to be dreaded, who doth read

       That which was manifest unto mine eyes!

      Of naked souls beheld I many herds,

       Who all were weeping very miserably,

       And over them seemed set a law diverse.

      Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;

       And some were sitting all drawn up together,

       And others went about continually.

      Those who were going round were far the more,

       And those were less who lay down to their torment,

       But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.

      O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,

       Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,

       As of the snow on Alp without a wind.

      As Alexander, in those torrid parts

       Of India, beheld upon his host

       Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.

      Whence he provided with his phalanxes

       To trample down the soil, because the vapour

       Better extinguished was while it was single;

      Thus was descending the eternal heat,

       Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder

       Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.

      Without repose forever was the dance

       Of miserable hands, now there, now here,

       Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.

      "Master," began I, "thou who overcomest

       All things except the demons dire, that issued

       Against us at the entrance of the gate,

      Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not

       The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,

       So that the rain seems not to ripen him?"

      And he himself, who had become aware

       That I was questioning my Guide about him,

       Cried: "Such as I was living, am I, dead.

      If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom

       He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,

       Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,

      And if he wearied out by turns the others

       In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,

       Vociferating, 'Help, good Vulcan, help!'

      Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,

       And shot his bolts at me with all his might,

       He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance."

      Then did my Leader speak with such great force,

       That I had never heard him speak so loud:

       "O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished

      Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;

       Not any torment, saving thine own rage,

       Would be unto thy fury pain complete."

      Then he turned round to me with better lip,

       Saying: "One of the Seven Kings was he

       Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold

      God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;

       But, as I said to him, his own despites

       Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.

      Now follow me, and mind thou do not place

       As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,

       But always keep them close unto the wood."

      Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes

       Forth from the wood a little rivulet,

       Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.

      As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,

       The sinful women later share among them,

       So downward through the sand it went its way.

      The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,

       Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;

       Whence I perceived that there the passage was.

      "In all the rest which I have shown to thee

       Since we have entered in within the gate

       Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

      Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes

       So notable as is the present river,

       Which all the little flames above it quenches."

      These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him

       That he would give me largess of the food,

       For which he had given me largess of desire.

      "In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"

       Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,

       Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

      There is a mountain there, that once was glad

       With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;

       Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

      Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle

       Of her own son; and to conceal him better,

       Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made.

      A grand old man stands in the mount erect,

       Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,

       And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

      His head is fashioned of refined gold,

       And of pure silver are the arms and breast;

       Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

      From that point downward all is chosen iron,

       Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,

       And more he stands on that than on the other.

      Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure

       Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,

       Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

      From rock to rock they fall into this valley;

       Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;

       Then downward go along this narrow sluice

      Unto