Classic Poem

CANTO XXXII

I F I had rhymes to rasp and words to grate
Congenial with the grimness of the Pit
Whereon all the other scarps collect their weight,
I should crush out the juice of my conceit
More fully; but not having them, I fall
Into fear, being constrained to tell of it.
For to portray the bottom and core of all
The world is not feat to essay in sport,
No, nor for tongues that Mamma, Pappa , call.
But may those Ladies now my verse support
Through whom Thebes rose up to Amphion's note
So that my words may not the truth distort.
O rabble above all others misbegot,
Who are in the place to speak of which is hard,
Better on earth ye had been born sheep or goat!
When we were down within the well's dark ward
Under the Giant's feet, and yet more low,
And still on the high wall was my regard,
I heard a voice say: " Look how thou dost go!
Beware that thy feet spurn not as they pass
The heads of the sad brethren worn with woe. "
Whereat I turned and saw a great morass
Before me and beneath, whose icy flood
Had likeness not of water but of glass.
Never in Austria did Danube broad
Darken his wintry stream with veil so thick,
Nor Don afar beneath the freezing cloud,
As there was here: for even were Tambernic
Or Pietrapana down upon it shot,
It would not, ev'n at the edge, have given a creak.
Like, when the peasant-woman dreams of what
She gleans afield, the frogs that, every one
With muzzle out of water, croaking squat,
So livid, up to where men's shame is shown,
The desolate shades were in the ice confined,
Setting their teeth to the stork's chattering tune.
Each of them downward held his face inclined.
And by the mouth their bitter cold was seen
And by the eyes the torment of their mind.
When I had looked awhile upon that scene
I turned, and at my feet saw two close-prest
So that their hair commingled in between.
" Tell me, ye who are crushed so, breast to breast, "
Said I, " who are ye? " And back their necks they bent,
And when to me their gaze they had addressed,
Their eyes, before moist but with tears unspent,
Brimmed at the lids, and what between them welled
The frost bound fast, and stopt again their vent.
Log to log clamping-iron never held
So firmly; wherefore with their heads they sparred
Butting like goats, such rage within them swelled.
And one who had both ears by the cold quite marred,
With brow still downward bent, averse from me,
Said: " Wherefore dost thou look on us so hard?
If thou desire to learn who these two be,
The vale wherefrom Bisenzo's waters flow
They and their father Albert held in fee.
They issued from one body: Caina through
Thou well may'st search and never find a shade
More worthy to be stuck in the icy glue;
Not him whose breast and shadow by the blade
In Arthur's hand were cloven at one blow;
Not Focaccia; nor him who with his head
Obstructs my sight that can no further go,
And Sassol Mascheroni had for name:
If thou be Tuscan, him wilt thou well know.
And lest thou tease me further speech to frame,
Know that Camicion de' Pazzi I was
And wait for Carlin to excuse my shame. "
Then saw I countless visages, alas!
Dog-like with cold, that made me shudder, and still
The shudder comes when frozen pools I pass.
As we were going toward the middle still
Where the universe concentres all its weight
And I was trembling in the eternal chill,
Whether it was by will or chance or fate
I know not, but as 'mid the heads I went
Hard against one my stumbling foot I set.
" Why dost thou trample me? " it made lament;
" If thou com'st not the vengeance to increase
For Montaperti, wherefore art thou sent? "
And I: " Wait, Master, here, that he may ease
My mind of a certain doubt that I have had.
Then will I haste as much as thou dost please. "
The Leader stood: then spoke I to that shade
Who still kept bitterly blaspheming there,
" What art thou, who dost others so upbraid? "
" Who art thou, who dost through Antenora dare
Come smiting others, " said he, " on the cheek?
Wert thou alive, it were too much to bear. "
" Alive I am, " replied I, " and if thou seek
Fame, it may profit that thy name be writ
Among the other names whereof I speak. "
And he: " My craving is quite opposite.
Take thyself off; vex me no more; be sped.
To flatter on this cold floor thou hast little wit. "
Then seizing him by the hair behind, I said:
" Needs must I have thy name from thine own lip
Or not a hair remains upon thy head. "
Whence he to me: " Though all my scalp thou strip,
I'll tell not who I am; I will resist,
Though over me a thousand times thou trip. "
Already I had his hair twined in my fist,
And more than one tuft had I plucked away,
The while he howled, nor would his face up-twist,
When another cried: " What ails thee, Bocca, say!
Is it not enough to chatter with thy jaws?
Must thou howl too? What fiend has thee for prey? "
" Speak not now, " said I, " there's no longer cause;
For to thy shame, accursed traitor thou!
I'll tell the truth of what thy treachery was. "
" Away! " he answered. " Blab, I care not how.
But if thou get hence, let the tale be told
Of him who had his tongue so prompt but now.
Here in his place he rues the Frenchman's gold.
Thou canst say: " Him of Duera I espied,
There where the sinners ache amid the cold."Shouldst thou be questioned who was there beside,
Thou hast at hand the Beccheria here
Who, with his gorget slit by Florence, died.
Farther on, I think, is Gianni de' Soldanier,
Ganelon, and Tebaldello, who made the trap,
Opening Faenza when all slept in her. "
We had left him now behind, when in one gap
Frozen together two so close I saw
That the one head to the other was a cap.
And as upon a crust a famished jaw,
So the uppermost, there where the brain joins with
The nape, did eagerly the other gnaw.
Not otherwise did Tydeus' frenzied teeth
Upon the temple of Menalippus feed
Than he upon the skull and parts beneath.
" O thou who showest by such bestial deed
Thy hatred upon him thou dost devour,
Tell me why, " said I, — " be but this agreed,
That, if good reason thy complaint empower,
I, knowing who ye are and what his crime,
May yet on earth above repay thy score,
So my tongue be not withered ere the time. "