Then I, as if compunctious for my fault, Said: “Now, then, you will tell that fallen one, That still his son is with the living joined.
And if just now, in answering, I was dumb, Tell him I did it because I was thinking Already of the error you have solved me.”
And now my Master was recalling me, Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit That he would tell me who was with him there.
He said: “With more than a thousand here I lie; Within here is the second Frederick, And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not.”
Thereon he hid himself; and I towards The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.
He moved along; and afterward thus going, He said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?” And I in his inquiry satisfied him.
“Let memory preserve what thou hast heard Against thyself,” that Sage commanded me, “And now attend here;” and he raised his finger.
“When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold, From her thou’lt know the journey of thy life.”
Unto the left hand then he turned his feet; We left the wall, and went towards the middle, Along a path that strikes into a valley,
Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.
Inferno: Canto XI
Upon the margin of a lofty bank Which great rocks broken in a circle made, We came upon a still more cruel throng;
And there, by reason of the horrible Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out, We drew ourselves aside behind the cover
Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing, Which said: “Pope Anastasius I hold, Whom out of the right way Photinus drew.”
“Slow it behoveth our descent to be, So that the sense be first a little used To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it.”
The Master thus; and unto him I said, “Some compensation find, that the time pass not Idly;” and he: “Thou seest I think of that.
My son, upon the inside of these rocks,” Began he then to say, “are three small circles, From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.
They all are full of spirits maledict; But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee, Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint.
Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven, Injury is the end; and all such end Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.
But because fraud is man’s peculiar vice, More it displeases God; and so stand lowest The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.
All the first circle of the Violent is; But since force may be used against three persons, In three rounds ’tis divided and constructed.
To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we Use force; I say on them and on their things, As thou shalt hear with reason manifest.
A death by violence, and painful wounds, Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;
Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly, Marauders, and freebooters, the first round Tormenteth all in companies diverse.
Man may lay violent hands upon himself And his own goods; and therefore in the second Round must perforce without avail repent
Whoever of your world deprives himself, Who games, and dissipates his property, And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.
Violence can be done the Deity, In heart denying and blaspheming Him, And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.
And for this reason doth the smallest round Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors, And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.
Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung, A man may practise upon him who trusts, And him who doth no confidence imburse.
This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers Only the bond of love which Nature makes; Wherefore within the second circle nestle
Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic, Falsification, theft, and simony, Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.
By the other mode, forgotten is that love Which Nature makes, and what is after added, From which there is a special faith engendered.
Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated, Whoe’er betrays for ever is consumed.”
And I: “My Master, clear enough proceeds Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes This cavern and the people who possess it.
But tell me, those within the fat lagoon, Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat, And who encounter with such bitter tongues,
Wherefore are they inside of the red city Not punished, if God has them in his wrath, And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?”
And unto me he said: “Why wanders so Thine intellect from that which it is wont? Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?
Hast thou no recollection of those words With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,—
Incontinence, and Malice, and insane Bestiality? and how Incontinence Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?
If thou regardest this conclusion well, And to thy mind recallest who they are That up outside are undergoing penance,
Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons They separated are, and why less wroth Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.”
“O Sun, that healest all distempered vision, Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest, That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!
Once more a little backward turn thee,” said I, “There where thou sayest that usury offends Goodness divine, and disengage the knot.”
“Philosophy,” he said, “to him who heeds it, Noteth, not only in one place alone, After what manner Nature takes her course
From Intellect Divine, and from its art; And if thy Physics carefully thou notest, After not many pages shalt thou find,
That this your art as far as possible Follows, as the disciple doth the master; So that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.
From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind Genesis at the beginning, it behoves Mankind to gain their life and to advance;
And since the usurer takes another way, Nature herself and in her follower Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.
But follow, now, as I would fain go on, For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon, And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,
And far beyond there we descend the crag.”
Inferno: Canto XII
The place where to descend the bank we came Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover, Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.
Such as that ruin is which in the flank Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige, Either by earthquake or by failing stay,
For from the mountain’s top, from which it moved, Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so, Some path ’twould give to him who was above;
Even such was the descent of that ravine, And on the border of the broken chasm The infamy of Crete was stretched along,
Who was conceived in the fictitious cow; And when he us beheld, he bit himself, Even as one whom anger racks within.
My Sage towards him shouted: “Peradventure Thou think’st that here may be the Duke of Athens, Who in the world above brought death to thee?
Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not Instructed by thy sister, but he comes In order to behold your punishments.”
As is that bull who breaks loose at the moment In which he has received the mortal blow, Who cannot walk, but staggers here and there,
The Minotaur beheld I do the like; And he, the wary, cried: “Run to the passage; While he wroth, ’tis well thou shouldst descend.”
Thus down we took our way o’er that discharge Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves Beneath my feet, from the unwonted burden.
Thoughtful I went; and he said: “Thou art thinking Perhaps upon this ruin, which is guarded By that brute anger which just now I quenched.
Now will I have thee know, the other time I here descended to the nether Hell, This precipice had not yet fallen down.
But truly, if I well discern, a little Before His coming who the mighty spoil Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle,
Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley Trembled so, that I thought the Universe Was thrilled with love, by which there are who think
The world ofttimes converted into chaos; And at that moment this primeval crag Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.
But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near The river of blood, within which boiling is Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.”
O blind cupidity, O wrath insane, That spurs us onward so in our short life, And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!
I saw an ample moat bent like a bow, As one which all the plain encompasses, Conformable to what my Guide had said.
And between this and the embankment’s foot Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows, As in the world they used the chase to follow.