Classic Poem

CANTO X

Now journeying along a secret track
Between the ramparts and the sufferers
My Master goes, and I behind his back.
" O sovran Virtue, who down the circling tiers
Of the impious leadest me where thou dost bid,
Satisfy, " I said, " the wish that in me stirs.
The people who in these sepulchres are hid,
May they be seen? None watches; none keeps guard.
And see! already raised is every lid. "
And he to me: " All shall be fast and barred
When from Jehosophat they shall hither hie
Each with the body he left under the sward.
This is the quarter wherein buried lie
Epicurus and all those his doctrine swayed,
Who with the body make the soul to die.
Therefore unto the question thou hast made
Here within soon shalt thou an answer find
And also to the wish thou hast not betrayed. "
And I: " I keep not from thee, Escort kind,
My thought, save that, as thou too didst require
Ere now, I speak but in few words my mind. "
" Tuscan, who goest through the city of fire
Alive, with honest speech upon thy tongue,
Halt here, if thou wilt tarry at my desire.
The speech thou usest manifests thee sprung
From that country of old renown and pride
Which I perhaps with too much trouble wrung. "
Suddenly in my ear this sound was cried
From out one of those coffers; and I drew,
In fear, a little closer to my Guide.
And he to me spoke: " Turn! What dost thou do?
See Farinata, raising himself amain!
From the waist all of him shall rise in view. "
My gaze from him I could not now have ta'en:
And he rose up to front me, face and breast,
As if of Hell he had a great disdain.
With prompt, inspiriting hands my Guide then prest
Me towards him, past the other sepulchres,
The while he warned me: " To spare words were best. "
When I was at that tomb of the evil-doers,
He looked at me a little, and with a kind
Of scorn he questioned: " Who were thy forbears? "
I, who had it to obey him in my mind,
Concealed nothing from him, but told all out,
At which his brows upward a little inclined:
Then he said: " Fiercely did they use to flout
Me and my forefathers; and fiercely spurned
My party. Twice I scattered them in rout. "
" If they were chased, on all sides they returned,
Both times, " I answered, " from adversities.
But yours that art have not so rightly learned. "
Beside him then a shadow by degrees
Emerged, and was discovered to the chin:
I think he had raised himself upon his knees.
He looked around as if he had thought to win
Sight of some other who might be with me;
And when that hope was dimmed and quenched within,
Cried weeping: " If through this blind prison, free,
Thou goest by virtue of thy nature's height,
Where is my son? Why is he not here with thee? "
And I to him then: " Not by my own right
I come; he that waits yonder leads me here,
Of whom perhaps thy Guido had despite. "
His words, and manner of penance, made appear
His name, as if I had read it on his brow,
Therefore my answer had I made thus clear.
Suddenly erect, he cried: " What saidest thou?
He had ? Lives he not, then, in the sweet air?
Does the sun's light not strike upon him now? "
When of a certain pause he was aware
Ere I replied, where he had risen to stand
Down he fell backward, and so vanished there.
But, haughty of spirit, that other, at whose demand
I had halted, changed not aspect, nor his head
Moved, nor his side bent, no, nor stirred a hand.
" And if, " continuing his own words, he said,
" To learn that art they have so little wit,
It tortureth me more than doth this bed.
But fifty times shall not afresh be lit
The countenance of the Lady who reigns here
Ere thou shalt know the cost of learning it.
And, so thou would'st return back to the dear
Earth, tell me why against my blood and folk
That people in all its laws is so severe? "
Then I: " The havoc of the slaughterous stroke
That filled the reddened Arbia with the slain
Causeth our prayers a judgement to invoke. "
He sighed, shaking his head; then spoke again:
" In that I was not single; nor, I swear,
Would I have stirred in an ill cause or vain.
But single I was in that place yonder, where
All on the ruin of Florence had agreed.
I only with open face defended her. "
" Ah, so may peace come also to thy seed,
Resolve me, " I prayed him, " this hard knot that ties
My judgement in it, and the riddle read.
It seemeth, if I hear aright, your eyes
Perceive beforehand what Time brings with him,
But with the present ye use otherwise. "
" We see like those for whom the light is dim, "
He answered me, " the things that are remote;
So much still shines for us the Lord Supreme.
When they come near, or are, then avails not
Our understanding, and we know no more,
Save what is told us, of your human lot.
Easily may'st thou understand, therefore,
That all we have of knowledge shall be dead
From that time when the Future shuts its door. "
Then pricked in conscience for my fault, I said,
" Will you not now acquaint that fallen one
His child is not yet from the living fled?
And if before to his answer I made none
Tell him it was my thought that was not free,
Being in that knot which now you have undone. "
And now my Master was recalling me.
Therefore more earnestly the spirit I prest
To tell me who were those with him. And he:
" With more than a thousand I lie here opprest.
Yonder the Second Frederic is inurned,
The Cardinal also: I speak not of the rest. "
With that he hid himself. My steps I turned
Back toward the ancient Poet, pondering
That saying wherein some menace I discerned.
He moved, and as we went: " What is this thing, "
He said to me, " which teases so thy mind? "
I satisfied him in his questioning.
" Keep in thy memory what thine ears divined
To be against thee, " warned the Sage. " Attend
Now, " and with finger lifted he enjoined:
" When thou before the radiance shalt bend
Of that Lady, whose beauteous eyes see all,
Thou shalt learn thy life's journey unto its end. "
Then to the left he turned his steps; the wall
We quitted, toward the middle advancing by
A path that strikes into a valley's fall,
Wherefrom the fume rose noisome even thus high.