Notes
1 The time of the year between
January 21st and February 21st.
85 Libya, Ethiopia (l. 89), and Arabian lands
around the Red Sea were thought to produce mythological reptiles, named here with obvious
relish.
93 The heliotrope here is the bloodstone,
believed to render the wearer invisible.
107 The phoenix is a mythological bird that,
on reaching the age of 500 years, dies and is reborn.
125 Vanni Fucci, bastard son of Fuccio de
Lazzeri, a Black Guelph in Pistoia, robbed the cathedral there in 1293. He predicts that
the Whites shall drive the Blacks from Pistoia (in 1301); they fled to Florence to join
the Black faction there, and the two sides battled at Piceno in 1302.
142 One more prophecy of Florence's upcoming
turmoil that causes the poet's exile. |
|
- When
in that season of the youthful year
- The
sun warms his rays beneath Aquarius,
- And
soon the nights shall meet the days halfway,
-
- When
the hoarfrost paints upon the ground
- 5
The perfect picture of his pure white sister
- (But
pigment from his brush soon vanishes),
-
- The
peasant, short on fodder for his sheep,
- Wakes
up and looks out and sees the fields
- All
blanketed in white: he smacks his thigh,
-
- 10
Turns back indoors and walking up and down,
- Frets
like a wretch not knowing what to do;
- Out
he comes once more, and hope revives
-
- When
he sees the world has changed its face
- In so
brief a time, and he takes up his staff
- 15
To drive his sheep outside to the green pasture:
-
- Just
so I felt such deep dismay to see
- My
master’s brow grown pale with some new trouble
- And
as quickly came the gauze to heal the hurt.
-
- For
as soon as we approached the shattered bridge
- 20
My escort turned to me that same sweet look
- Which
I’d first seen at the foot of the mountain.
-
- He
opened wide his arms — once he had closely
-
Studied the wreckage and come to some resolve
-
Within himself — then he took hold of me.
-
- 25
And just like one who works and thinks things out,
- Who
is always ready for what lies ahead,
- So
he, lifting me toward the dome of one
-
- Huge
boulder, spied another crag above
- And
said, "Now clamber onto that: but first
- 30
Try it out to see if it will hold you."
-
- It
was no path for those clothed in their cloaks!
- For
we could hardly — he, light, and I, with help —
-
Handhold by handhold, scale the jutting rocks.
-
- And
had it not been that, down from that rampart,
- 35
The slope of one bank was lower than the other,
- I
cannot speak for him, but I’d be beaten.
-
- But
because Malebolge all falls away
-
Toward the open mouth of the lowest well,
- The
layout of each valley predetermined
-
- 40
That as one bank rises, the next tapers off.
- And
so we reached, at last, the point on top
- Where
the last stone of the bridge fell broken.
-
- The
breath was so pumped out of my lungs
- When
I climbed aloft, I could not go onward,
- 45
And as soon as I’d come up there I sat down.
-
-
"Now you must shake off all your laziness,"
- My
master said, "for loungers and slugabeds
- Will
never reach the heights of lasting fame:
-
-
"Without fame a man wears away his life,
- 50
Leaving such traces of himself on earth
- As
smoke on air or foam upon the water.
-
-
"Straighten up! Conquer your fatigue
- With
the spirit that wins every battle
-
Unless it sink under the body’s weight.
-
- 55
"Longer stairs than these wait to be climbed!
- It is
not enough to leave these souls behind:
- If
you have understood my words, act on them!"
-
- I
stood up then, showing that I was better
-
Supplied with wind than I had been before,
- 60
And said, "Go on, for I am strong and ready."
-
- We
picked our way along the curving ridge
- Which
was more jagged, narrower and harder,
- And
so much steeper than the ridge before.
-
- Not
to seem weak, I talked as I pushed on;
- 65
Then, from the next ditch there arose a voice
- That
seemed incapable of forming words.
-
- I
don’t know what he said, though now I stood
- On
the crown of the arch that crosses there,
- But
whoever spoke appeared to be running.
-
- 70
I had bent over, yet my living eyes
- Could
not pierce through the darkness to the bottom;
- So I
said, "Master, kindly manage to reach
-
-
"The next ring, and let us climb down the wall:
- From
here I cannot grasp what I am hearing,
- 75
And I see down but I can make out nothing."
-
-
"No other answer," he said, "shall I give you
- Than
doing it, because a fit request
-
Should in silence be followed by the deed."
- We
climbed down where the bridgehead ended
- 80
And where it merged with the eighth embankment,
- And
then its pocket opened up to me:
-
- And
there within I saw a repulsive mass
- Of
serpents in such a horrifying state
- That
still my blood runs cold when I recall them.
-
- 85
No more need Libya boast about the sands
- Where
chelydri, jaculi, phareae,
- And
cenchres with amphisbaena breed:
-
- She
could not show — with all Ethiopia
- Nor
the lands that lie surrounding the Red Sea —
- 90
So rampant and pestiferous a plague.
-
- Among
this cruel and miserable swarm
- Were
people running stripped and terrified,
- With
no hope of hiding-hole or heliotrope.
-
- They
had hands tied behind their backs by snakes
- 95
That thrust out head and tail through their loins
- And
that coiled then in knots around the front.
-
- And
look! A serpent sprang up at one sinner
- Upon
our strand and it transfixed him there
- Where
neck and shoulders knotted at the nape.
-
- 100
No o or i was ever written faster
- Than
that sinner flared up and burst in flames
- And,
falling down, completely turned to ashes.
-
- And
then, as he lay scattered on the ground,
- The
ashy dust collected by itself
- 105
And suddenly returned to its first shape.
-
- Just
so, men of high learning have avowed
- That
the phoenix dies and is then reborn
- When
it approaches its five-hundredth year;
-
- In
life it does not feed on grass or grain,
- 110
But only on the tears of balm and incense,
- And
its last winding-sheet is nard and myrrh.
-
- As
one who falls in a fit, not knowing how —
- By
devilish force that drags him to the ground
- Or by
some other blockage that binds a man —
-
- 115
When he lifts himself up, and looks around,
- All
out of focus with the heavy anguish
- He
has suffered, sighing as he stares:
-
- Such
was this sinner after he arose.
- O
power of God, what great severity
- 120
To have poured down such blows in its vengeance!
-
- My
guide then asked the sinner who he was,
- And
he replied to this, "Not long ago
- I
rained from Tuscany down to this hellmouth.
-
-
"Bestial life and not the human pleased me,
- 125
Like the mule I was; I am Vanni Fucci,
-
Beast, and Pistoia was a fit den for me."
-
- I
said to my guide, "Tell him not to slink
- Away,
and ask him what crime cast him here,
- For I
knew him as a man of blood and tantrums."
-
- 130
The sinner, who understood, made no evasions
- But
turned his mind and face straight toward me
- And
reddened with distressful shame, then said,
-
-
"It grieves me more that you have found me out
- Amid
the wretchedness in which you see me
- 135
Than when I was taken from the other life.
-
-
"I am not able to refuse your asking.
- I am
set down so far because I robbed
- The
sacristy of its splendid treasure,
-
-
"And later someone else was falsely blamed.
- 140
But, that you may not revel in this sight,
- If
ever you escape from these dark regions,
-
-
"Open your ears and listen to my tidings:
-
Pistoia first divests herself of Blacks;
- Then
Florence changes over men and laws.
-
- 145
"From Valdimagra Mars draws a fiery vapor
- Which
is enwrapped in dark and smoky clouds,
- And
with a raging and relentless storm
-
-
"There shall be battling on Campo Piceno
- Until
it will abruptly smash the scud
- 150
And every White will be struck by the lightning.
-
-
"And I have told you this to make you suffer."
|
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to Inferno XXIII