Classic Poem

CANTO XIV

The dearness of my native place perforce
Constraining me, those lost leaves back I brought
With full hands to him, now grown faint and hoarse.
Then came we where is the division wrought
Between the first ring and the second: here
Heaven's justice hath conceived a fearful thought.
To make the strangeness of the new things clear,
I say we reached a waste, which from its bed
Rejects all plants, and none permitteth near.
By the drear wood it is engarlanded
Round, as the wood is by the dismal fosse.
Here, at the very edge, our steps we stayed.
The ground was of a sand both dry and gross,
Not different in its quality, I trow,
From that the feet of Cato trod across.
O chastisement of God, how oughtest thou
To be of each one feared who reads with awe
What to my eyes was manifested now.
Many herds there of naked souls I saw,
Who all bewept the misery on them come,
And seemed to suffer under diverse law.
Supine lay some upon the ground; and some
Were sitting in a huddle all compressed:
Others were stirred continually to roam.
Those that moved much outnumbered all the rest,
Those lying in torment fewer, but wailed their woe
More loudly, seeing their pain was bitterest.
Over them all the big sand falling slow
Rained its dilated drops and flakes of fire,
As without wind falls in the hills the snow.
Like to the flames which in the regions dire
Of India's heat on Alexander smote
And on his men, falling to earth entire,
WhereaThe with his host took careful thought
The soil to trample and crush beneath their feet
(Those single fires being readier to put out),
So was the falling of the eternal heat,
By which, like tinder under steel, the sand's
Keen scorch with an intenser torment beat.
Now here, now there, the miserable hands
Were shaking off the blisterings without rest,
As they were still renewed, in helpless dance.
I began: " Master, thou who conquerest
All things, except only those demons hard
That at the gate our entry did molest,
Who is that giant who seems not to regard
The fire, and scowls disdainful on his bed,
So that the rain tames him not, even so charred? "
And he himself, alert to what I said,
Having perceived whom my concern was with,
Cried: " What I was alive, that am I dead.
Though Jupiter should weary out his smith
From whom, incensed, he took the bolt whereby
On my last day he blasted through my pith,
And though he weary out all the rest who ply
The black forge under Mongibello's vault,
One after one, and " Help, good Vulcan," cry,
As at the fight at Phlegra, when his bolt
At me with all his fury of hate he flung, —
Yet in his vengeance shall he not exult! "
Then my Guide spoke with such a force of tongue
As never had I heard him use before:
" O Capaneus, in that thou still hast clung
To thine unquenched pride, thou art punished more.
No torture save what thine own frenzies hold
Would be a pain proportioned to thy score. "
Then to me turning lips of milder mould,
He began: " This was one of those Seven Kings
Who besieged Thebes, and held, and seems to hold,
God in despite, and scorn upon him flings.
But, as I have told him, his revilings black
For such a breast are fittest garnishings.
Now go behind me, and see that in my track
Thy feet not on the burning sand be set,
But by the wood's edge keep them always back. "
Silent we came to where a rivulet
From the wood's shadow gushing outward shows,
Whereof the redness makes me shudder yet.
As from the Bulicame a streamlet goes
Which 'mid themselves the sinful women share,
So down across the sand this water flows.
Both its banks sloping to the bottom bare,
And margins either side, were become stone.
Here then, I knew, should be our thoroughfare.
" 'Mid all the rest that I to thee have shown,
Since by the gate we entered thou know'st well,
Of which the threshold is denied to none,
Thine eyes have seen nothing so notable
As is the present stream, which has the might
Within it all the flames above to quell. "
These words my Guide spoke; and I, seeking light,
Solicited thaThe vouchsafe me taste
Of that whereof he had vouchsafed appetite.
" In the mid sea a country lies, all waste, "
He therefore now continued, " Crete by name,
Under whose king the world of old was chaste.
There stands a mountain, Ida called, the same
Which once with green leaf and glad water shone,
Now desert, like a thing of mouldered fame.
This for the trusty cradle of her son
Did Rhea choose of yore; and to protect
His infant cries, had clamour made thereon.
Within the mount a great old man erect
Looks out to Rome as if it were his glass;
His back doth Damietta's coast reject.
A head shapen of perfect gold he has;
Of pure silver his arms are, and his breast:
But to the fork he is of molten brass.
Thence down he is all of iron manifest,
Except that the right foot is baked of clay,
And on this, more than the other, doth he rest.
All portions of him save the gold betray
Fissures that drop tears, oozing without end,
Which through the cave, collecting, force their way.
Their streams cascading in this valley spend:
Acheron they make, and Styx and Phlegethon;
Then by this narrow conduit they descend
To where is no descending more; whereon
They form Cocytus; and what manner of pool
It is, thou'lt see: words for it now I have none. "
And I to him: " If from our own world full
It flows thus down, why doth it only appear
To us upon this selvage visible? "
And he: " Thou knowest the place is circular;
And though, going ever leftward, so much space
Thou hast travelled, and hast now descended far,
Thou hast not yet achieved the entire compass.
Wherefore if sight of aught new we obtain,
This ought not to bring wonder to thy face. "
" O Master, where are found, " I asked again,
" Phlegethon and Lethe? of one thou speakest naught,
And the other is formed, thou sayest, by this rain. "
" In all thy questions thou dost please my thought, "
He answered; " but the red stream's boiling hiss
The answer of one might well to thee have taught.
Thou shalt see Lethe; but beyond the abyss,
There where the spirits go, themselves to cleanse,
When by their penitence guilt assoiled is. "
Then he said: " It is time that we go hence,
And quit the wood. See that thou follow me:
The unscorched marge makes for our feet defence,
And over it no fire hath power to be. "