Inferno. Данте Алигьери

the master;

      So that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.

      From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind

      Genesis at the beginning, it behoves

      Mankind to gain their life and to advance;

      And since the usurer takes another way,

      Nature herself and in her follower

      Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.

      But follow, now, as I would fain go on,

      For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,

      And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,

      And far beyond there we descend the crag.”

CANTO XII

      The place where to descend the bank we came

      Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover,

      Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.

      Such as that ruin is which in the flank

      Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,

      Either by earthquake or by failing stay,

      For from the mountain’s top, from which it moved,

      Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,

      Some path ’twould give to him who was above;

      Even such was the descent of that ravine,

      And on the border of the broken chasm

      The infamy of Crete was stretched along,

      Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;

      And when he us beheld, he bit himself,

      Even as one whom anger racks within.

      My Sage towards him shouted: “Peradventure

      Thou think’st that here may be the Duke of Athens,

      Who in the world above brought death to thee?

      Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not

      Instructed by thy sister, but he comes

      In order to behold your punishments.”

      As is that bull who breaks loose at the moment

      In which he has received the mortal blow,

      Who cannot walk, but staggers here and there,

      The Minotaur beheld I do the like;

      And he, the wary, cried: “Run to the passage;

      While he wroth, ’tis well thou shouldst descend.”

      Thus down we took our way o’er that discharge

      Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves

      Beneath my feet, from the unwonted burden.

      Thoughtful I went; and he said: “Thou art thinking

      Perhaps upon this ruin, which is guarded

      By that brute anger which just now I quenched.

      Now will I have thee know, the other time

      I here descended to the nether Hell,

      This precipice had not yet fallen down.

      But truly, if I well discern, a little

      Before His coming who the mighty spoil

      Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle,

      Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley

      Trembled so, that I thought the Universe

      Was thrilled with love, by which there are who think

      The world ofttimes converted into chaos;

      And at that moment this primeval crag

      Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.

      But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near

      The river of blood, within which boiling is

      Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.”

      O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,

      That spurs us onward so in our short life,

      And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!

      I saw an ample moat bent like a bow,

      As one which all the plain encompasses,

      Conformable to what my Guide had said.

      And between this and the embankment’s foot

      Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows,

      As in the world they used the chase to follow.

      Beholding us descend, each one stood still,

      And from the squadron three detached themselves,

      With bows and arrows in advance selected;