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

And lived, and left her empty body there.

      The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,

       Collected in that place, which was made strong

       By the lagoon it had on every side;

      They built their city over those dead bones,

       And, after her who first the place selected,

       Mantua named it, without other omen.

      Its people once within more crowded were,

       Ere the stupidity of Casalodi

       From Pinamonte had received deceit.

      Therefore I caution thee, if e'er thou hearest

       Originate my city otherwise,

       No falsehood may the verity defraud."

      And I: "My Master, thy discourses are

       To me so certain, and so take my faith,

       That unto me the rest would be spent coals.

      But tell me of the people who are passing,

       If any one note-worthy thou beholdest,

       For only unto that my mind reverts."

      Then said he to me: "He who from the cheek

       Thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders

       Was, at the time when Greece was void of males,

      So that there scarce remained one in the cradle,

       An augur, and with Calchas gave the moment,

       In Aulis, when to sever the first cable.

      Eryphylus his name was, and so sings

       My lofty Tragedy in some part or other;

       That knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.

      The next, who is so slender in the flanks,

       Was Michael Scott, who of a verity

       Of magical illusions knew the game.

      Behold Guido Bonatti, behold Asdente,

       Who now unto his leather and his thread

       Would fain have stuck, but he too late repents.

      Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle,

       The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;

       They wrought their magic spells with herb and image.

      But come now, for already holds the confines

       Of both the hemispheres, and under Seville

       Touches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns,

      And yesternight the moon was round already;

       Thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee

       From time to time within the forest deep."

      Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.

      Canto XXI. The Fifth Bolgia: Peculators. The Elder of Santa Zita. Malacoda and other Devils.

       Table of Contents

      From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things

       Of which my Comedy cares not to sing,

       We came along, and held the summit, when

      We halted to behold another fissure

       Of Malebolge and other vain laments;

       And I beheld it marvellously dark.

      As in the Arsenal of the Venetians

       Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch

       To smear their unsound vessels o'er again,

      For sail they cannot; and instead thereof

       One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks

       The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

      One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,

       This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,

       Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen;

      Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine,

       Was boiling down below there a dense pitch

       Which upon every side the bank belimed.

      I saw it, but I did not see within it

       Aught but the bubbles that the boiling raised,

       And all swell up and resubside compressed.

      The while below there fixedly I gazed,

       My Leader, crying out: "Beware, beware!"

       Drew me unto himself from where I stood.

      Then I turned round, as one who is impatient

       To see what it behoves him to escape,

       And whom a sudden terror doth unman,

      Who, while he looks, delays not his departure;

       And I beheld behind us a black devil,

       Running along upon the crag, approach.

      Ah, how ferocious was he in his aspect!

       And how he seemed to me in action ruthless,

       With open wings and light upon his feet!

      His shoulders, which sharp-pointed were and high,

       A sinner did encumber with both haunches,

       And he held clutched the sinews of the feet.

      From off our bridge, he said: "O Malebranche,

       Behold one of the elders of Saint Zita;

       Plunge him beneath, for I return for others

      Unto that town, which is well furnished with them.

       All there are barrators, except Bonturo;

       No into Yes for money there is changed."

      He hurled him down, and over the hard crag

       Turned round, and never was a mastiff loosened

       In so much hurry to pursue a thief.

      The other sank, and rose again face downward;

       But the demons, under cover of the bridge,

       Cried: "Here the Santo Volto has no place!

      Here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio;

       Therefore, if for our gaffs thou wishest not,

       Do not uplift thyself above the pitch."

      They seized him then with more than a hundred rakes;

       They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered,

       That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer."

      Not otherwise the cooks their scullions make

       Immerse into the middle of the caldron

       The meat with hooks, so that it may not float.

      Said the good Master to me: "That it be not

       Apparent thou art here, crouch thyself down

       Behind a jag, that thou mayest have some screen;

      And for no outrage that is done to me

       Be thou afraid, because these things I know,

       For once before was I in such a scuffle."

      Then he passed on beyond the bridge's head,

       And as upon the sixth bank he arrived,

       Need was for him to have a steadfast front.

      With