| 1 |
Who could ever, even with unbound words, tell in full of the blood and wounds that I now saw, though he should narrate them many times? |
| 4 |
Every tongue would surely fail, because our language and our memory have little capacity to comprehend so much. |
| 7 |
If one gathered together all the people who ever, on the travailed earth of Apulia, groaning poured forth their blood |
| 10 |
on account of the Trojans, and in the long war that took such heaped spoils of rings, as Livy writes, who does not err, |
| 13 |
and the people who suffered wounds when resisting Robert Guiscard, and the others whose bones are still being collected |
| 16 |
at Ceperano, where every Apulian was a liar, and at Tagliacozzo, where old Elard won without arms, |
| 19 |
and this one showed his perforated, this one his truncated member, it would be nothing to equal the wretched mode of the ninth pocket. |
| 22 |
Surely a barrel, losing centerpiece or half-moon, is not so broken as one I saw torn open from the chin to the farting-place. |
| 25 |
Between his legs dangled his intestines; the pluck was visible, and the wretched bag that makes shit of what is swallowed. |
| 28 |
While I was all absorbed in the sight of him, he, gazing back at me, with his hands opened up his breast, saying: “Now see how I spread myself! |
| 31 |
See how Mohammed is torn open! Ahead of me Ali goes weeping, his face cloven from chin to forelock. |
| 34 |
And all the others you see here were sowers of scandal and schism while they were alive, and therefore are they cloven in this way. |
| 37 |
There is a devil back there who carves us so cruelly, putting the edge of his sword to each in this ream |
| 40 |
once we have circled through the suffering road, for the wounds have closed before any confronts him again. |
| 43 |
But who are you sniffing at us from up on the ridge, perhaps to delay going to the punishment decreed on your crimes?” |
| 46 |
“Death has not reached him yet, nor does guilt lead him,” replied my master, “into torment; but so that he may have full experience, |
| 49 |
1, who am dead, must lead him through Hell down here from circle to circle; and this is as true as that I am speaking to you.” |
| 52 |
More than a hundred were they who, hearing him, stopped in the ditch to gaze up at me in amazement, forgetting their suffering. |
| 55 |
“Now then, you who will perhaps shortly see the sun, tell Brother Dolcino, if he does not want to follow me soon down here, |
| 58 |
to provide himself with enough food that the barrier of snow may give not the victory to the Novarese, which otherwise would not be easy to acquire.” |
| 61 |
Holding one foot lifted to walk away, Mohammed spoke this word to me; then, departing, he set it down. |
| 64 |
Another, whose throat was bored through, his nose cut up to his eyebrows, and with only one ear, |
| 67 |
stopping to gaze up at me in amazement with the others, first of the others opened his windpipe, which was all covered with crimson, |
| 70 |
and said: “O you whom guilt does not condemn, and whom I saw in Italy, if too close a resemblance does not deceive me, |
| 73 |
remember Pier of Medicina, if you ever return to see the lovely plain sloping down from Vercelli to Marcabo. |
| 76 |
And tell the two best men of Fano, messer Guido and Angiolello, that, if foresight is not empty here, |
| 79 |
they will be thrown from their vessel in a weighted sack and drowned near Cattolica, thanks to the treachery of a wicked tyrant. |
| 82 |
Between the islands of Cyprus and Maiolica Neptune has never seen so great a sin done, not by pirates, not by Argolians. |
| 85 |
That traitor who sees with only one eye, who holds the city that my fellow wishes he had still to see, |
| 88 |
will have them come to parley; he will bring it about that they need no vows or prayers against the Focara wind.” |
| 91 |
And I to him: “Show me and explain, if you wish me to carry news back up about you, who is the one of the bitter sight?” |
| 94 |
Then he put his hand to the jaw of one of his companions and opened his mouth for him, crying: ”This is he, and he cannot speak. |
| 97 |
He, an exile, drowned Caesar’s doubts, affirming that one prepared always suffers from delay.” |
| 100 |
Oh how dismayed Curio seemed, with the tongue cut out of his throat, he who was so bold to speak! |
| 103 |
And one who had both hands cut off, lifting the stumps in the murky air so that the blood soiled his face, |
| 106 |
cried: “You will remember Mosca, too, who said, alas, ’A thing done is done,’ the seed of evil for the Tuscans.” |
| 109 |
And I added: “And the death of your clan”; so that he, piling grief on grief, walked off like a person mad with sorrow. |
| 112 |
But I remained to gaze at the host, and I saw something that I would fear, without more proof, even to retell, |
| 115 |
except that my conscience makes me confident, the good companion that frees a man, if it wears the hauberk of knowing itself pure. |
| 118 |
I surely saw, and it seems I still see, a torso without a head walking like the others of the sorry flock; |
| 121 |
and his severed head he was holding up by the hair, dangling it from his hand like a lantern; and the head was gazing at us, saying: “Oh me!” |
| 124 |
Of himself he made a lamp for himself, and they were two in one and one in two; how that can be, he knows who so disposes. |
| 127 |
When he was directly at the foot of the bridge, he raised his arm far up, head and all, to bring his words close to us, |
| 130 |
which were: “Now see my wretched punishment, you who go still breathing to view the dead: see if any is great as this. |
| 133 |
And that you may take back news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born, he who gave the young king the bad encouragements. |
| 136 |
I made father and son revolt against each other: Achitophel did no worse to Absalom and David with his evil proddings. |
| 139 |
Because I divided persons so joined, I carry my brain divided, alas, from its origin which is in this trunk. |
| 142 |
Thus you observe in me the counter-suffering.” |
