Classic Poem

CANTO XIX

O S IMON Magus , O lost wretches led,
By thee, who prostitute the things that need,
Being things of God, with goodness to be wed;
Who gape for gold and silver, mouths of greed!
For you now must the trumpet blow the doom,
For in the third chasm is your place decreed.
To the next hollow we had already come
And, mounted on the baulk, were in that part
Which hangs plumb over the middle of the tomb.
Wisdom supreme! how dost thou show thine art
In heaven and earth and in the pit profound,
And of thy justice make exact the chart!
The livid stone upon the bottom I found
Was full of holes, and also on each side,
All of one breadth, and each of them was round.
They seemed to me not greater and not less wide
Than those made in my beautiful St. John
Wherein stand the baptizers to preside,
One of which I, not many years agone,
Broke, to save one who else had stifled been.
This truth I seal, to enlighten every one.
A sinner's feet from each mouth could be seen
Protruding up, and legs that rose upright
Far as the calf: the rest remained within.
The soles of either foot were all alight,
Wherefore the joints were quivering in such throes
They would have sundered withy or hempen bight.
As on things oiled the flame flickers and flows
Moving only along their outer face,
So was it there from the heels unto the toes.
" Who is this, Master, who most in all this place
Twists himself raging upward from the knees
And o'er whose feet the flames more redly chase? "
And he to me: " If down the bank it please
That I should carry thee, which lies the lowest,
Thou'lt learn of him and of his trespasses. "
And I: " It pleaseth me where'er thou goest.
Thou art my lord; thou knowest I will to do
Only thy will; and the unsaid words thou knowest. "
Then on the fourth bulwark we came, and so
Turned and descended down by the left bank
And reached the narrow, pitted floor below.
Nor did the master set me from his flank
Until he had brought me to the hollow crack
Where he was who lamented with his shank.
" Whoe'er thou be who art planted like a stake
With the head downward thrust, O spirit undone, "
I was now saying, " If thou art able, speak! "
I stood still like the friar confessing one
Fixt in the earth for treacherous homicide
Who calls him back, his death so to postpone;
And " Dost thou stand already there, " he cried,
" Boniface, dost thou stand already there?
By several years the writ to me hath lied.
Art thou so quickly gorged with all the gear
For which thou didst not shrink by guile to seize
The beauteous Lady and then to havock her? "
I became like to those who, ill at ease,
Not comprehending the answer to them made,
Stand as if mocked, and words within them freeze.
" Make haste and say to him, " then Virgil said,
" I am not he thou thinkest, I am not he. "
And I replied to him as my master bade.
Whereat in every fibre from the knee
The spirit shuddered, and sighing in lament
He spoke: " What is it, then, thou wouldst ask of me?
If to learn who I am thou art so intent
That for this cause thou hast crost the embankment, know
That I in the Great Mantle apparelled went,
And of the She-Bear was true son and so
Persistent to advance the cubs, that I,
Who pouched above, myself am pouched below.
Beneath my head are those who in simony
Preceded me, dragged even deeper down
Within the stony crannies where they cry.
Thither I also, when arrives that one
For whom I took thee when I was moved to make
But now the sudden question, shall be thrown.
But longer already is the time I bake
My soles and stand with legs above the chest
Than he shall stand planted with feet that quake.
For after him shall come out of the West
A shepherd without law, of uglier deed,
Above us both fit covering to be prest.
'Twill be another Jason, of whom we read
In Maccabees; and as to him of old
His king was soft, so France, by this one fee'd. "
I know not if at this I was too bold,
For in this strain his discourse I repaid.
" Ah, tell me truth now, tell me how much gold
Our Lord of Peter requisition made
Before he put the keys into his hand.
" Follow me!" Surely nought but this he bade.
Nor Peter, no, nor the others did demand
Gold from Mathias when he for that part
Was chosen, from which the guilty soul was banned.
Stay thou then here; justly chastised thou art,
And keep thou well the monies gotten ill
Which gave thee against Charles so bold a heart.
And were it not that reverence rules me still
For the supreme keys which when life was glad
Thou heldest, and restraineth tongue and will,
I'd have for thee words heavier than I had,
Such woe your avarice for the world doth spell,
Trampling the good and raising up the bad.
Such pastors did the Evangelist foretell
When to whoring with the kings before his sight
She who sitteth upon the waters fell;
She who was born with seven heads of might,
And ten horns for her sign of warrant bore,
While still her spouse in virtue found delight.
A god of silver and gold ye have made to adore.
And how do ye differ from the idolater
Save that he worships one, and ye five-score?
Ah, Constantine, what evil fruit did bear
Not thy conversion, but that dowry broad
Thou on the first rich Father didst confer! "
And whether rage or conscience in him gnawed,
The while to him in such a strain I sung,
With both his feet fiercely he kicked abroad.
Of a truth I think it pleased my Guide, he hung
Upon my face with so content an eye,
Hearing the sound of truth upon my tongue.
Therefore he took me in both his arms to lie,
And when he had gathered me all upon his breast
Mounted the path he had descended by.
Nor did he weary in holding me close-prest
Until, where the steep arch the chasm bestrode
From fourth to fifth ridge, he had climbed its crest.
Here softly he the burden of his load
Soft on the rough and craggy cliff deposed
Where to goats even it were a painful road.
Therefrom another valley was disclosed.