Inferno:
Canto XXX
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'Twas at the time when
Juno was enraged,
For
Semele, against the
Theban blood,
As she already more than once had shown,
So
reft of
reason Athamas became,
That, seeing his own wife with children twain
Walking encumbered upon either hand,
He cried: "Spread out the nets, that I may take
The
lioness and her
whelps upon the passage;"
And then extended his
unpitying claws,
Seizing the first, who had the name
Learchus,
And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock;
And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;--
And at the time when fortune downward hurled
The
Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared,
So that the king was with his
kingdom crushed,
Hecuba sad,
disconsolate, and
captive,
When lifeless she beheld
Polyxena,
And of her
Polydorus on the shore
Of ocean was the
dolorous one aware,
Out of her senses like a dog she
barked,
So much the
anguish had her mind
distorted;
But not of
Thebes the furies nor the
Trojan
Were ever seen in any one so cruel
In goading beasts, and much more human members,
As I beheld two shadows pale and naked,
Who, biting, in the manner ran along
That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.
One to
Capocchio came, and by the nape
Seized with its teeth his
neck, so that in dragging
It made his belly grate the solid bottom.
And the
Aretine, who trembling had remained,
Said to me: "That mad sprite is
Gianni Schicchi,
And raving goes thus harrying other people."
"O," said I to him, "so may not the other
Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee
To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence."
And he to me: "That is the ancient ghost
Of the
nefarious Myrrha, who became
Beyond all rightful love
her father's lover.
She came to
sin with him after this manner,
By
counterfeiting of another's form;
As he who goeth yonder undertook,
That he might gain the lady of the herd,
To
counterfeit in himself
Buoso Donati,
Making a will and giving it due form."
And after the two maniacs had passed
On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back
To look upon the other
evil-born.
I saw one made in fashion of a lute,
If he had only had the groin cut off
Just at the point at which a man is forked.
The heavy dropsy, that so
disproportions
The limbs with humours, which it ill
concocts,
That the face corresponds not to the
belly,
Compelled him so to hold his lips apart
As does the hectic, who because of
thirst
One tow'rds the
chin, the other upward turns.
"O ye, who without any
torment are,
And why I know not, in the
world of woe,"
He said to us, "behold, and be attentive
Unto the misery of
Master Adam;
I had while living much of what I wished,
And now, alas! a drop of water crave.
The
rivulets, that from the verdant hills
Of
Cassentin descend down into Arno,
Making their channels to be cold and moist,
Ever before me stand, and not in vain;
For far more doth their image dry me up
Than the
disease which strips my face of
flesh.
The rigid
justice that chastises me
Draweth occasion from the place in which
I sinned, to put the more my sighs in
flight.
There is
Romena, where I
counterfeited
The currency imprinted with the
Baptist,
For which I left my
body burned above.
But if I here could see the tristful
Soul
Of
Guido, or
Alessandro, or their brother,
For
Branda's fount I would not give the sight.
One is within already, if the raving
Shades that are going round about speak truth;
But what avails it me, whose limbs are tied?
If I were only still so
light, that in
A hundred years I could advance one inch,
I had already started on the way,
Seeking him out among this
squalid folk,
Although the circuit be eleven miles,
And be not less than half a mile across.
For them am I in such a family;
They did induce me into
coining florins,
Which had three carats of
impurity."
And I to him: "Who are the two poor wretches
That smoke like unto a wet hand in
winter,
lying there close upon thy right-hand confines?"
"I found them here," replied he, "when I
rained
Into this
chasm, and
since they have not turned,
Nor do I think they will for evermore.
One the false woman is who accused
Joseph,
The other the false
sin on,
Greek of
Troy;
From acute fever they send forth such reek."
And one of them, who felt himself annoyed
At being, peradventure, named so darkly,
Smote with the fist upon his hardened paunch.
It gave a sound, as if it were a drum;
And
Master Adam smote him in the face,
With
arm that did not seem to be less hard,
Saying to him: "Although be taken from me
All motion, for my
limbs that heavy are,
I have an
arm unfettered for such need."
Whereat he answer made: "When thou didst go
Unto the
fire, thou hadst it not so ready:
But hadst it so and more when thou wast coining."
The dropsical: "Thou sayest true in that;
But thou wast not so true a witness there,
Where thou wast questioned of the truth at
Troy."
"If I spake
false, thou
falsifiedst the coin,"
Said
sin on; "and for one fault I am here,
And thou for more than any other
demon."
"Remember,
perjurer, about the
horse,"
He made reply who had the swollen
belly,
"And rueful be it thee the whole
world knows it."
"Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks
Thy tongue," the
Greek said, "and the
putrid water
That hedges so thy
paunch before thine eyes."
Then the false-coiner: "So is gaping wide
Thy mouth for speaking
evil, as 'tis wont;
Because if
I have thirst, and
humour stuff me
Thou hast the burning and the head that aches,
And to lick up
the mirror of Narcissus
Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee."
In listening to them was I wholly fixed,
When said the
Master to me: "Now just look,
For little wants it that I quarrel with thee."
When him I heard in anger speak to me,
I turned me round towards him with such shame
That still it eddies through my memory.
And as he is who dreams of his own harm,
Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream,
So that he craves what is, as if it were not;
Such I became, not having power to speak,
For to excuse myself I wished, and still
Excused myself, and did not think I did it.
"Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,"
The
Master said, "than this of thine has been;
Therefore thyself
disburden of all
sadness,
And make account that I am aye beside thee,
If e'er it come to pass that fortune bring thee
Where there are people in a like
dispute;
For
a base wish it is to wish to hear it."
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