Classic Poem

CANTO XXIV

I N that part of the young year when the Sun
Beneath Aquarius warms his beaming locks
And toward the South the nights begin to run,
And when upon the ground the hoar-frost mocks
With likeness her white sister's effigy,
But soon are blurred that limner's pencilled strokes,
The peasant, who hath nothing now laid by,
Rises and looks and sees the fields and lanes
All whitened; and thereat he beats his thigh,
Returns to his house and to and fro complains,
Like a starved wretch who knows not what to do,
Then again comes out and his hope regains,
Seeing what the world has changed its face into
So briefly, and takes his crook and out of door
Goes driving forth his lambs to pastures new;
Thus at my Guide's brow was mine clouded o'er
When I beheld him in such trouble put,
And ev'n so soon the salve came to the sore;
For at the ruined bridge, when we came to it,
My Master turned him on me with the old
Sweet look I had seen first at the mountain's foot.
When with himself he had taken counsel bold,
Opening his arms, and fixing first his eyes
Upon the ruin, he of me took hold.
As one who works, and measures all he tries,
And always seems his next step to foresee,
So, hoisting me over one boulder's rise,
He picked another rock out from the scree
With his eye, saying, " Now grip on that, but tread
To prove first, if it well will carry thee. "
No passage was it for one stoled in lead;
For hardly we, he light and I pushed on,
Could scale the crag from spur to spur ahead.
And were it not that in that close of stone
The ascent was shorter than on the other wall,
If not he, I most surely had been fordone.
But because Malebolge slanteth all
Down toward the nethermost pit's opening, so
Conformed is every valley, it must befall
That the one side is high and the other low.
We came in the end where at the ledge we hung
Whence the last stone was rent by the overthrow.
The breath was so milked out of my spent lung,
When I was up, I could no further heave
My body, and sat me down where I had clung.
" Now it behoveth lassitude to leave, "
The Master said, " for softly on down reclined
Or under coverlet none can fame achieve,
Without which he who dallieth leaves behind
Such vestige of himself on earth imprest
As foam in water or smoke upon the wind.
And therefore rise! Quell now thy panting breast
With the soul's strength that winneth every fight,
So it be not by the body's weight deprest.
We have yet to climb a stair of longer flight.
'Tis not enough to have escaped yon crew.
Do as it boots thee, if thou hast read me right. "
I rose, and feigned me better than was true
Furnished with breath, so that I spoke serene:
" Go on, I am bold and strong to bear it through. "
We climbed now on the bridge of the ravine,
Rugged and narrow and arduous to the tread
And by far steeper than the last had been.
I, not to appear faint, talked as on we went;
Whereat a voice, ill-fitted to define
Its words, came from the other fosse's bed.
I knew not what it said, though on the chine
Of the arch I was which crosses here the moat;
But anger in the voice one could divine.
I had bent down, but my live eyes could not
Penetrate to the bottom the air's dim pall.
Wherefore I: " Master, see that we be got
To the other circle and soon dismount this wall,
For hence I hear sounds of no meaning made
And see down but distinguish nought at all. "
" No other answer I give to thee, " he said,
" Than to act only: honourable request
By silence and performance should be paid. "
The bridge we now descended from its crest
Where to the eighth embankment it is knit
And there the chasm to me was manifest.
A fearful swarm I saw within that pit
Of serpents, and of breeds so strange beside,
That my blood thins yet at the thought of it.
Let Libya's sand no longer be her pride,
Though jacule and chelidre and cenchris there
With amphisbaena and parea glide.
So many and so fell plagues its burning air
Could not, with all the land of the Ethiop
And all the Red Sea's desert border, bear.
Amid this cruel, drear, thick-swarming crop
Were people running naked and aghast,
Hopeless of hiding-place or heliotrope.
The snakes knotted their hands behind them fast,
And with the head and tail piercing them through
The loins, in front were clustered and enlaced.
And lo, to a sinner who near to our bank drew
Shot up a serpent which transfixed him, just
Where from the shoulder-bones the neck out-grew.
Never " O " nor " I " was written in such a gust
Of speed as he took fire with, all allumed,
And then must needs drop into ash and dust.
When down to the very ground he was consumed,
Of its own motion re-combining there
The dust straightway its former shape resumed.
So the most famous sages do aver
The Phoenix dies and then is born again
When she approaches her five-hundredth year.
In her life eats she neither herb nor grain
But only amomum and incense-tears; and nard
And myrrh for her last shrouding hath she ta'en.
And as one falls, but how he knows not, jarred
And dragged to earth by a demon's energies
Or dark obstruction by which men are marred,
Who stares about him as he makes to rise,
All put to a deep amazement by the throes
Of anguish he hath borne, and gazing sighs,
Such aspect had the sinner when he rose.
O power how stern proceeding from God's throne,
That for its vindication heaps such blows!
The Guide then asked him who he was; whereon
" From Tuscany, " he answered, " did I rain
Into this fell maw but a brief while gone.
Bestial life pleased me, not life of men,
Mule that I was. For Vanni Fucci I am,
Beast! and Pistoia was my fitting den. "
And I to the Guide: " Bid him not shirk or sham,
And what offence drags him down hither, ask.
I have seen him when in blood and rage he swam. "
The felon, who had heard me, assumed no mask
But turned intent on me his face and thought,
Sad, as if shame had taken his soul to task.
" It hurts me, " he said then, " more that I am caught
In the miserable plight which thou dost see
Than when from life to this world I was brought.
Refuse I cannot what thou hast asked of me.
I am thrust down so far because I stole
The fair adornments of the Sacristy.
Falsely the sin was laid on other's soul.
But that this sight may not rejoice thine eyes,
If ever thou be enlarged from this hell-hole,
Open thine ears and hear my prophecies.
Pistoia first of all the Blacks is thinned.
Then Florence changes laws and families.
Mars brings a mist from Valdimagra blind
In murk of cloud and rolled in turbid rain,
And with tempestuous burst and fury of wind
There shall be battle on the Piceno plain;
Whence the fire suddenly the mist shall cleave
So that no White shall not be stricken or slain.
Know this, that thou may'st have wherewith to grieve. "