| 1 |
In the time when, because of Semele, Juno was angry against the blood of Thebes, as she showed once and again, |
| 4 |
Athamas became so insane, that, seeing his wife walking with his two sons on either hand, |
| 7 |
he cried: “Spread the nets, so that I may catch the lioness and her cubs at the crossing!” And then he stretched out his pitiless claws, |
| 10 |
taking the one whose name was Learchus, and whirled him and struck his head against a rock; and she drowned herself with her other burden. |
| 13 |
And when Fortune leveled to the ground the pride of the Trojans, all aflame, so that along with his kingdom the king was broken, |
| 16 |
Hecuba, sorrowing, wretched, and a captive, after she saw Polyxena dead, and, grieving, had perceived her Polydorus on the shore |
| 19 |
of the sea, going mad, she barked like a dog, her grief had so twisted her mind. |
| 22 |
But neither Theban furies nor Trojan ever made anyone so cruel, not to wound beasts, let alone human limbs, |
| 25 |
as two pallid, naked shades I saw, who ran biting in the manner of the pig when the sty is opened. |
| 28 |
One reached Capocchio and set his tusk into the knot of his neck so that, dragging, he made him scratch his belly on the solid floor.
|
| 31 |
And the Aretine, who remained, trembling told me: “That goblin is Gianni Schicchi, and in his rage he goes treating others so.” |
| 34 |
“Oh,” I said to him, “so may the other not set his teeth in you, let it not be a labor to tell me who he is, before he disappears.” |
| 37 |
And he to me: “That is the ancient soul of wicked Myrrha, who became, beyond right love, her father’s lover. |
| 40 |
She came to sin with him by counterfeiting herself in another’s shape, just as the other who goes off there, |
| 43 |
to gain the queen of the herd dared to counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati, making a will and giving it legal form.” |
| 46 |
And when the two rabid shades, on whom I had kept my eyes, had passed, I turned to gaze at the other ill-born ones. |
| 49 |
I saw one made in the shape of a lute, if he had had his groin cut from the other forked part. |
| 52 |
The heavy dropsy that so unpairs the members, with the liquid that it ill converts, that the face does not answer to the belly, |
| 55 |
made him hold his lips open, as a fevered person does, who in his thirst turns one of them down toward his chin and the other upward. |
| 58 |
“O you who are without any punishment, and I know not why, in this grim world,” he said to us, “gaze and attend |
| 61 |
to the wretchedness of Master Adam; alive, I had much of whatever I wished, and now, alas, I crave a drop of water. |
| 64 |
The little streams that from the green hills of the Casentino come down into Arno, making their channels cool and moist, |
| 67 |
always stand before me, and not in vain, for their image dries me far more than the disease that robs my face of flesh.
|
| 70 |
The rigid justice that probes me takes occasion from the place where I sinned, to put my sighs the more to flight. |
| 73 |
There is Romena, where I falsified the alloy sealed with the Baptist, for which I left my body burned up there. |
| 76 |
But if I might see here the wicked soul of Guido or Alessandro or their brother, for Fonte Branda I would not trade the sight. |
| 79 |
One of them has already come, if the raging shades who run about here tell the truth; but what does it help me, since my members are bound? |
| 82 |
If I were just so light that in a hundred years I could go one inch, I would have already set out on the path, |
| 85 |
searching through all this filthy people, although it turns for eleven miles and is no less than half a mile across. |
| 88 |
Because of them I am among such a household: they induced me to mint the florins that had three carats of dross.” |
| 91 |
And I to him: “Who are the two wretches smoking like wet hands in winter, lying close on your right-hand boundary?” |
| 94 |
“Here I found them—and since then they have not even turned over—” he replied, “when I rained down into this pit, and I do not believe they will for eternity. |
| 97 |
One is the false woman who accused Joseph; the other is false Greek, Sinon of Troy: because of acute fever they throw out such a stench.” |
| 100 |
And one of them, who perhaps resented being named so darkly, with his fist struck him on his taut belly. |
| 103 |
That resounded as if it were a drum; and Master Adam struck the other’s face with his arm, which seemed no less hard, |
| 106 |
saying to him: “Although I am deprived of movement by my heavy limbs, I have an arm loose for such business.”
|
| 109 |
And he replied: “When you were going to the fire, you didn’t have it so ready; but that much and more you had it when you were coining.” |
| 112 |
And the hydroptic: “You say true there, but you were not such a true witness where you were asked for the truth at Troy.” |
| 115 |
“If I spoke falsely, you falsified the coinage,” said Sinon, “and I am here for one fault, but you for more than any other demon!” |
| 118 |
“Remember, perjurer, the Horse,” replied he of the swollen liver; “and let it be bitter to you that the whole world knows of it!” |
| 121 |
“And to you bitter be the thirst that cracks,” said the Greek, “your tongue, and the stagnant water that makes of your belly a hedge before your eyes!” |
| 124 |
Then the coiner: “Your mouth gapes because of your disease, as usual; for, if I am thirsty and liquid swells me, |
| 127 |
you have burning fever and a head that aches, and to lick the mirror of Narcissus you would not need to be invited with many words!” |
| 130 |
I was all intent to listen to them, when my master said to me: “Now keep looking, for I am not far from quarreling with you!” |
| 133 |
When I heard him speak to me angrily, I turned toward him with such shame that it still dizzies me in memory. |
| 136 |
Like one who dreams of harm, and, dreaming, wishes he were dreaming, so that he yearns for what is as if it were not, |
| 139 |
so I became, unable to speak, wishing to excuse myself, and I was excusing myself all along, though I did not think so. |
| 142 |
“Less shame washes away a greater fault,” said my master, “than yours has been; therefore cast off all sorrow. |
| 145 |
And mind that I be always at your side, if it happen again that Fortune find you where people are in such a squabble: |
| 148 |
for to wish to hear that is a base desire.”
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