Classic Poem

CANTO XIII

N ESSUS had not regained the bank beyond
When we betook us onward from the shore
To a wood, wherein no path was to be found.
No green leaves there, but all of dim colour:
Smooth branches none, but wry with knot and gnarl;
No apples, but lean twigs with poison sore.
Not scrub or thicket rougher hides the snarl
'Twixt Cecina and Corneto of the beasts
That roaming them abhor the well-tilled marl.
Here have the savage Harpies made their nests
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades
With prophecy of pains and coming pests.
Wide wings, and human necks and visages,
Clawed feet, and a gross belly plumed below,
They make lament above on the strange trees.
" Before thou further dost adventure, know
That thou art in the second ring, from which, "
The gracious Master said, " thou canst not go
Until the horror of the sand thou reach.
Thou shalt see here — therefore look well around —
Things which may take the credence from my speech. "
Even then I heard on all sides wailing sound,
But of those making it saw no one nigh,
Wherefore I stood still, in amazement bound.
I think he thought that I thought that the cry
Of those so many voices came from folk
Who mid those trees hid, at our coming shy.
So now the Master said: " If thy hand broke
A shoot from any branch, the thought that went
With thy conjecture soon wouldst thou revoke. "
Then I stretched forth my hand a little, and bent
And plucked a puny branch from a great thorn.
And the trunk cried out: " Why hast thou me rent? "
And when it grew embrowned with blood, so torn,
It cried again: " Why hast thou wounded me?
Wast thou without one breath of pity born?
Men were we, and are now turned each to a tree.
If souls of serpents were within us penned,
Still should compassion have been found in thee. "
As a green brand that burneth at one end,
At the other drips and hisses from the wood
Where the escaping wind and fire contend,
So from that broken splinter words and blood
Together came: whereat, like one afraid,
I let the tip fall and all silent stood.
" If he, O wounded spirit, " my sage then said,
" Could have believed before in the event
Of what he has seen but in my verse portrayed,
He would not with rude hand thy spirit have shent.
But the incredible thing prompted me prove
To him what now I do myself repent.
But tell him who thou wast; so that thereof
To make amends, he may thy fame renew
Where grace permits him to return, above. "
Then the trunk: " Thy sweet words so melt me through,
My lips cannot keep silence; if to impart
My tale I linger, may it not burden you.
I am he who held both keys of Frederic's heart
And to their wards so softly did apply,
Locking and then unlocking with such art,
None had such privacy of him as I.
So loyal was I to the great office,
That sleep and pulses both were lost thereby.
The whore that at the house where Caesar is
Doth ever her adulterous glances aim,
Bane of mankind, of courts the mortal vice,
The minds of all against me did inflame,
And these, inflamed, inflamed my lord august
That my glad honours withered to sad shame.
My soul into disdainful temper thrust,
Thinking by death to escape the world's disdain,
Made me, the just, unto myself unjust.
But by the fresh roots that this tree sustain
I swear that never troth unto my lord,
So worthy of honour, did I take in vain.
If either of you be to the world restored,
Comfort my memory which still lies so low
From the stroke dealt to it by Envy's sword. "
The poet listened still; then, " Be not slow,
Since he is silent, now that the hour thou hast got,
But speak and ask, if more thou wouldest know. "
Then I to him: " Do thou demand him what
Thou think'st will most my mind's desire appease.
Such pity is in my heart, that I could not. "
He resumed therefore: " So may this man ease,
By doing of what thou dost entreat, thy pain,
May it thee now, O imprisoned spirit, please
To tell us how the soul becomes the grain
Of this gnarled wood; tell us also, if thou may'st,
Whether any from such limbs deliverance gain. "
Then the trunk sighed out strongly until the blast
Of breath became voice into language knit:
" The answer shall be brief and without waste.
When the mad spirit doth the body quit
From which it hath with violence broken out,
Minos condemns it to the seventh pit.
It falls into the wood, and there, without
Place chosen for it but as fortune dole,
Like any grain of spelt it comes to sprout,
Shoots up to a sapling and a forest bole.
Then the harpies feeding on its leaves, their nest,
Make for it both pain and the pain's loop-hole.
We shall go seek our spoils out, like the rest,
But not to be again in them arrayed;
He earns not that who himself hath dispossessed.
Hither shall we drag them through the grievous glade
And on the boughs our bodies shall be strung,
Each on the thorn-tree of its guilty shade. "
We still upon the voice attentive hung,
Supposing it desired to tell us more,
When suddenly we heard a noise upsprung,
Like one who hears the coming of the boar
And hunt behind it on his place intrude,
And hears the branches crash and beasts' uproar.
And on the left hand lo! two spirits pursued,
Naked and torn, who fled at speed so sick
That all the ground with broken boughs they strewed.
The foremost: " O come now, Death, O come quick! "
And the other, finding feet too slow to escape:
" Thy heels made no such answer to the prick,
Lano, at Toppo jousts. " And then, mayhap,
Because the breath was failing in him, he
Made of himself and of a bush one shape.
Behind, the wood was full, from tree to tree,
Of great black mastiffs, running with such gust
As greyhounds from their leashes slipping free.
Into him, as he crouched, their teeth they thrust
And tore him all asunder, shred by shred,
To carry his woeful limbs off as they lust.
My Guide now took me by the hand and led
My steps up to the bush, that vainly sighed
Lamenting through its fractures as they bled.
" O Giacomo da Sant' Andrea, " it cried,
" What blame have I of thy sins, or what good
Get'st thou by coming in my screen to hide? "
The Master spoke, when by it now he stood:
" Who wast thou who through all these wounds dost blow
Thy sorrowful speech forth, mingled with blood? "
And he to me: " Ye spirits that witness how
I have been with so great ignominy torn
That these my leaves are severed from the bough,
Gather them close about the bush forlorn!
My city is that which changed its first patron
To choose the Baptist; for which act of scorn
He by his arts will ever make it groan;
And were it not that Arno doth retain
Upon her bridge some shadow of him in stone,
Those citizens who the city built again
On the ashes left by Attila's decree,
Would have expended all their toil in vain.
I made my gibbet of my own roof-tree. "