| 1 |
“Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni toward us; therefore look ahead,” said my master, “to see if you discern him.” |
| 4 |
As, when a thick mist breathes, or, when our hemisphere is all night, a mill appears from afar that the wind is turning: |
| 7 |
so I seemed to see such an edifice there; then, because of the wind, I shrank behind my leader, for there was no other shelter. |
| 10 |
I was already—and fearfully I set it in meter—where the shades were all covered, and they appeared like straws in glass. |
| 13 |
Some are lying; others are vertical, this with head above, that with feet; some, like bows, turn their faces toward their feet. |
| 16 |
When we had moved so far ahead that it pleased my master to show me the creature who had once been beautiful, |
| 19 |
he removed himself from in front of me and made me stop, saying: “Behold Dis, and behold the place where you must arm yourself with courage.” |
| 22 |
How then I became frozen and feeble, do not ask, reader, for I do not write it, and all speech would be insufficient. |
| 25 |
I did not die and I did not remain alive: think now for yourself, if you have wit at all, what I became, deprived of both. |
| 28 |
The emperor of the dolorous kingdom issued from the ice at the mid-point of his breast; and I am more to be compared with a giant |
31 |
than the giants with his arms: see now how great must be the whole that fits with such a part. |
| 34 |
If he was as beautiful then as now he is ugly, when he lifted his brow against his Maker, well must all grieving proceed from him. |
| 37 |
Oh how great a marvel did it seem to me, when I saw three faces on his head! One was in front, and that was crimson; |
| 40 |
the others were two, and they were joined to the first above the midpoint of each shoulder, and came together at the crest: |
| 43 |
and the right one seemed between white and yellow; the left was such to see as those who come from beyond the cataracts of the Nile. |
| 46 |
Beneath each one came out two great wings, such as befitted so great a bird: sea-going sails I never saw so large. |
| 49 |
They did not have feathers; their mode was like a bat’s; and he was fanning them, so that three winds went out from him: |
| 52 |
by them Cocytus was frozen. With six eyes he was weeping, and down three chins dripped the tears and the bloody slobber. |
| 55 |
In each of his mouths he was breaking a sinner with his teeth in the manner of a scutch, so that he made three suffer at once. |
| 58 |
To the one in front the biting was nothing next to the clawing, for at times the spine remained all naked of skin. |
| 61 |
“That soul up there who has the greatest punishment,” said my master, “is Judas Iscariot, with his head inside, waving his legs outside. |
| 64 |
Of the other two whose heads are below, he who hangs from the black muzzle is Brutus—see how he is convulsed, but does not say a word— |
| 67 |
and the other is Cassius, who seems so powerfully built. But the night is rising again, and now we must depart, for we have seen everything.” |
| 70 |
As it pleased him, I clung to his neck; and he watched for time and place, and when the wings were fully open |
| 73 |
he took hold of the furry sides; from tuft to tuft then he descended between the thick hair and the frozen crust. |
| 76 |
When we came to where the thigh is hinged, exactly at the widest of the hips, my leader, with labor and difficulty, |
| 79 |
turned his head to where he had his shanks, and clung to the pelt like one who climbs, so that I supposed we were returning into Hell again. |
| 82 |
“Hold fast, for by such stairs,” said my master, panting like one weary, “must we depart from so much evil.” |
| 85 |
Next he went forth through the hole in the rock, and placed me sitting on the rim; then he extended his careful step to me. |
| 88 |
I raised my eyes, thinking to see Lucifer as I had left him, and I saw that he extended his legs upward; |
| 91 |
and if I labored in thought then, let the gross people ponder it who do not see what point it was that I had passed. |
| 94 |
“Rise up,” said my master, “on your feet; the way is long and the path is difficult, and already the sun has reached mid-tierce.” |
| 97 |
That was no walk through a palace where we were, but a natural cavern that had uneven ground and lacked light. |
| 100 |
“Before I am uprooted from the abyss, my master,” said I, when I was erect, “speak to me a little to help me out of error. |
| 103 |
Where is the ice? and he, how is he fixed so upside down? and how, in so little time, has the sun made the passage from evening to morning?” |
| 106 |
And he to me: “You imagine that you are still on the other side of the center, where I laid hold on the fur of this evil worm that gnaws the world. |
| 109 |
You were on that side while I descended; when I turned, you passed the point toward which the weights all move from every direction. |
| 112 |
And now you are beneath the hemisphere opposite the one covered by the dry land, and under whose high point died |
| 115 |
the man who was born and lived without sin; you have your feet on a little sphere that makes the other face of the Judecca. |
| 118 |
Here it is morning, when there it is evening; and this one, who gave us a ladder with his fur, is still fixed as he was earlier. |
| 121 |
On this side he fell down from Heaven; and the dry land, which previously extended over here, for fear of him took the sea as a veil, |
| 124 |
and came to our hemisphere; and perhaps what does appear on this side left this empty space in order to escape from him, and fled upward.” |
| 127 |
There is a place down there, removed from Beelzebub as far as the width of his tomb, known not by sight, but by the sound |
| 130 |
of a little stream that descends through a hole in a rock eroded by its winding course, and it is not steep. |
| 133 |
My leader and I entered on that hidden path to return to the bright world; and, without taking care for rest at all, |
| 136 |
up we climbed, he first and I second, until I saw the beautiful things the heavens carry, through a round opening. |
| 139 |
And thence we came forth to look again at the stars. |
