| 1 |
One and the same tongue first stung me so that both my cheeks were stained, and then held out the medicine to me: |
| 4 |
so I hear that the spear of Achilles and his father was the cause first of ill and then of good reward. |
| 7 |
We turned our backs on the wretched valley, up along the bank that girds it round, crossing over without further speech. |
| 10 |
Here it was less than night and less than day, so that my sight did not pierce far ahead; but I heard the sound of a horn so loud |
| 13 |
that it would make any thunder feeble, which drew my eyes straight to one place, following its path backward. |
| 16 |
After the dolorous rout, when Charlemagne lost the holy company, Roland did not sound his horn so terribly. |
| 19 |
I had not long held my head turned there, when I seemed to see many high towers; therefore I: “Master, say, what city is this?” |
| 22 |
And he to me: “Because your sight traverses the shadows from too far away, your imagining is blurred. |
| 25 |
You will see clearly, when you reach it, how sense is deceived by distance; therefore drive yourself a little further.” |
| 28 |
Then he took me affectionately by the hand and said: “Before we are any closer, so that the fact may seem less frightening to you, |
| 31 |
know that they are not towers, but giants, and they are in the pit, around its rim, from the navel downward, all of them.” |
| 34 |
As, when mist dissolves, the gaze little by little makes out the shape of what the vapor-thickened air had hidden, |
| 37 |
so, boring through the thick dark atmosphere, drawing closer and closer to the edge, my error fled and my fear grew; |
| 40 |
for, as above its circling walls Montereggione is crowned by towers, so there above the bank that circles the pit |
| 43 |
towered with half their persons the horrible giants, whom Jove still threatens from the sky when he thunders. |
| 46 |
And I already discerned the face of one, his shoulders and breast, and a large part of his belly,and down his sides both his arms. |
| 49 |
Nature surely, when she left off the crafting of animals like those, did well to deprive Mars of such instruments. |
| 52 |
And if she has not repented of elephants and whales, whoever considers subtly will hold her more just and more discreet; |
| 55 |
for where sharpness of mind is joined to evil will and power, there is no defence people can make against them. |
| 58 |
His face seemed as long and broad as the pine cone of Saint Peter in Rome, and to that proportion were his other bones; |
| 61 |
so that the bank, which was his apron from the waist down, left so much of him exposed above it that to reach his mane |
| 64 |
three Frisians would have boasted idly, for I saw thirty great spans down from the place where the mantle is clasped. |
| 67 |
“Raphel mat amecche zabt almi,” the fierce mouth began to shout, for no gentler psalms befitted it. |
| 70 |
And my leader toward him: “Foolish soul, be content with your horn, give vent with that, when anger or some other passion touches you! |
| 73 |
Feel at your neck, and you will find the thong that holds it, o befuddled soul, and there it is, curving across your breast like a bow.” |
| 76 |
Then he said to me: “Himself accuses himself; that is Nimrod, because of whose evil thought the world no longer speaks one language. |
| 79 |
Let us leave him alone and not waste speech, for to him every language is like his to others,unknown.” |
| 82 |
Therefore we took a longer path, turning to the left; at the distance of a cross-bow shot we found the next, much fiercer and larger. |
| 85 |
Who was the master to bind him I cannot say, but one arm was held in front and the right arm behind him, |
| 88 |
by a chain wrapped about him from the neck down, so that on what we saw of him it made five full turns. |
| 91 |
“This proud one wished to prove his power against highest Jove,” said my leader, “and thus is he rewarded. |
| 94 |
His name is Ephialtes, and he performed great deeds when the giants made the gods afraid; the arm he struck with then, he never moves.” |
| 97 |
And I to him: “If it can be, I would wish my eyes to have experience of the immense Briareus.” |
| 100 |
And he replied: “You will see Antaeus near here,who speaks and is unbound; he will place us at the bottom of all wickedness. |
| 103 |
He whom you wish to see is much further over there, and he is bound and shaped like this one,except that his face seems fiercer.” |
| 106 |
Never could rough earthquake so violently shake a tower as Ephialtes suddenly shook himself. |
| 109 |
Then more than ever I feared death, and the fright alone would have sufficed, had I not seen his bonds. |
| 112 |
We walked further then, and we came to Antaeus, who rose a good five ells, not counting his head, out of the pit. |
| 115 |
“O you who once—in the fortunate valley that made Scipio the heir of glory when Hannibal and his men turned tail— |
| 118 |
brought in a thousand lions as your catch, and, if you had been present at your brothers’ great war, it seems some still believe |
| 121 |
the sons of earth would have been victorious: set us down, and do not disdain to do so, where the cold locks in Cocytus. |
| 124 |
Do not make us go to Tityos or to Typhon: this man can give what here is desired; therefore bend down and do not twist your snout. |
| 127 |
He can still repay you with fame in the world, for he is alive and expects long life still, if grace does not call him before his time.” |
| 130 |
So spoke my master; and he in haste stretched out his hands, whose powerful grip Hercules once felt, and grasped my leader. |
| 133 |
Virgil, when he felt himself gripped, said to me: “Come here, that I may hold you.” Then he made one bundle of himself and me. |
| 136 |
As Garisenda appears from below the leaning side when a cloud passes above it so that it seems to fall: |
| 139 |
so Antaeus appeared as I stood waiting to see him bend over, and that was a time when I would have wished to go by another road. |
| 142 |
But lightly he set us down on the bottom that devours Lucifer with Judas; nor did he remain bent over, |
| 145 |
but like the mast of a ship he raised himself. |
