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

me, if thou knowest, to what shall come

      The citizens of the divided city;

       If any there be just; and the occasion

       Tell me why so much discord has assailed it."

      And he to me: "They, after long contention,

       Will come to bloodshed; and the rustic party

       Will drive the other out with much offence.

      Then afterwards behoves it this one fall

       Within three suns, and rise again the other

       By force of him who now is on the coast.

      High will it hold its forehead a long while,

       Keeping the other under heavy burdens,

       Howe'er it weeps thereat and is indignant.

      The just are two, and are not understood there;

       Envy and Arrogance and Avarice

       Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled."

      Here ended he his tearful utterance;

       And I to him: "I wish thee still to teach me,

       And make a gift to me of further speech.

      Farinata and Tegghiaio, once so worthy,

       Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,

       And others who on good deeds set their thoughts,

      Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;

       For great desire constraineth me to learn

       If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom."

      And he: "They are among the blacker souls;

       A different sin downweighs them to the bottom;

       If thou so far descendest, thou canst see them.

      But when thou art again in the sweet world,

       I pray thee to the mind of others bring me;

       No more I tell thee and no more I answer."

      Then his straightforward eyes he turned askance,

       Eyed me a little, and then bowed his head;

       He fell therewith prone like the other blind.

      And the Guide said to me: "He wakes no more

       This side the sound of the angelic trumpet;

       When shall approach the hostile Potentate,

      Each one shall find again his dismal tomb,

       Shall reassume his flesh and his own figure,

       Shall hear what through eternity re-echoes."

      So we passed onward o'er the filthy mixture

       Of shadows and of rain with footsteps slow,

       Touching a little on the future life.

      Wherefore I said: "Master, these torments here,

       Will they increase after the mighty sentence,

       Or lesser be, or will they be as burning?"

      And he to me: "Return unto thy science,

       Which wills, that as the thing more perfect is,

       The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.

      Albeit that this people maledict

       To true perfection never can attain,

       Hereafter more than now they look to be."

      Round in a circle by that road we went,

       Speaking much more, which I do not repeat;

       We came unto the point where the descent is;

      There we found Plutus the great enemy.

      Canto VII. The Fourth Circle: The Avaricious and the Prodigal. Plutus. Fortune and her Wheel. The Fifth Circle: The Irascible and the Sullen. Styx.

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      "Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!"

       Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;

       And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,

      Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear

       Harm thee; for any power that he may have

       Shall not prevent thy going down this crag."

      Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,

       And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf;

       Consume within thyself with thine own rage.

      Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;

       Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought

       Vengeance upon the proud adultery."

      Even as the sails inflated by the wind

       Involved together fall when snaps the mast,

       So fell the cruel monster to the earth.

      Thus we descended into the fourth chasm,

       Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore

       Which all the woe of the universe insacks.

      Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many

       New toils and sufferings as I beheld?

       And why doth our transgression waste us so?

      As doth the billow there upon Charybdis,

       That breaks itself on that which it encounters,

       So here the folk must dance their roundelay.

      Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,

       On one side and the other, with great howls,

       Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.

      They clashed together, and then at that point

       Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde,

       Crying, "Why keepest?" and, "Why squanderest thou?"

      Thus they returned along the lurid circle

       On either hand unto the opposite point,

       Shouting their shameful metre evermore.

      Then each, when he arrived there, wheeled about

       Through his half-circle to another joust;

       And I, who had my heart pierced as it were,

      Exclaimed: "My Master, now declare to me

       What people these are, and if all were clerks,

       These shaven crowns upon the left of us."

      And he to me: "All of them were asquint

       In intellect in the first life, so much

       That there with measure they no spending made.

      Clearly enough their voices bark it forth,

       Whene'er they reach the two points of the circle,

       Where sunders them the opposite defect.

      Clerks those were who no hairy covering

       Have on the head, and Popes and Cardinals,

       In whom doth Avarice practise its excess."

      And I: "My Master, among such as these

       I ought forsooth to recognise some few,

       Who were infected with these maladies."

      And he to me: "Vain thought thou entertainest;

       The undiscerning life which made them sordid

       Now makes them